Part 1 of this post was about setting the scene on using Notes Data Link with Outlook 2007. Part 2 is about possible solution.

There are several solutions available to convert NDL to mail attachment, Notes url or Web url. These solutions range from keeping and configuring some Lotus Notes Domino servers to route mail to Exchange 2007, using ISV tool such as Genii Software CoexLinks or Binary Tree Zapp to custom development.

The Table below: Pros and Cons of Notes Data Link remediation solutions highlights the various solutions available, their capability in terms of NDL conversion, the cases they can address and their pros and cons.

	Solution 1	Genii Software CoexLinks™1
Cases to address	Notes workflow applications that send mails with NDL	Convert NDL to a mail attachment Convert NDL to a Notes url Convert NDL to a web url
	Notes mail users sending mail with NDL to Outlook users	Convert NDL to a mail attachment Convert NDL to a Notes url Convert NDL to a web url
	Outlook users sending mail with NDL	N/A
	Pros (+)  and Cons (-)	(+) No need to modify application design (+) No change management required (-) Requires additional licenses

	Solution 2	Configure Domino mail servers to route mails to Exchange 2007 using SMTP2
Cases to address	Notes workflow applications that send mails with NDL	Convert NDL to a Notes url
	Notes mail users sending mail with NDL to Outlook users	Convert NDL to a Notes url
	Outlook users sending mail with NDL	N/A
	Pros (+)  and Cons (-)	(+) OOB conversion of NDL to Notes URL

	Solution 3	Application redesign
Cases to address	Notes workflow applications that send mails with NDL	Convert NDL to a mail attachment Convert NDL to a Notes url Convert NDL to a web url
	Notes mail users sending mail with NDL to Outlook users	N/A
	Outlook users sending mail with NDL	N/A
	Pros (+)  and Cons (-)	(+) No need for third party software (-) Development effort

	Solution 4	Develop an Outlook add-in3
Cases to address	Notes workflow applications that send mails with NDL	N/A
	Notes mail users sending mail with NDL to Outlook users	N/A
	Outlook users sending mail with NDL	Convert NDL to a mail attachment Convert NDL to a Notes url
	Pros (+)  and Cons (-)	(+) Enable Outlook users to embed NDL in Outlook mail (-) Development effort required

¹CoexLinks is a specialized software extension that runs on Lotus Domino server using IBM’s “extension manager” technology to allow interception and modification of mail whether it is added to the mail system on that server or simply routed through the server. No scripts or agents are required.

CoexLinks works by intercepting mail routed through the Domino server and converting any doclinks in the body of the mail to either URL links or NDL file attachments.  No scripts or agents are required. Mail recipients are then able to access the targeted Notes resource as easily as if they had received the mail in Lotus Notes by either clicking on the URL link or launching the attached NDL file.  URL links may be Notes URLs, which will access the targeted document in the Notes client, or Web URLs, which will access the targeted document in a Web browser. CoexLinks supports all Lotus Notes doclink types (e.g., document links, view links and database links, as well as link hotspots, which are doclinks that appear as underlined text).

²When you send a message in Notes format to an Internet user, Lotus Domino 6 converts the message to MIME for that user. It is possible to specify how Domino structures the MIME content of messages when converting Notes rich-text messages before sending them over SMTP (Specifying inbound and outbound MIME conversion options). By choosing  “Convert from Notes to Plain Text and HTML”, Lotus Notes converts document links to Notes URLs.

³The primary way to add functionality to Outlook is to develop a COM add-in that can be installed on each user's machine. COM add-ins are the best way to distribute code that you may have originally created or prototyped in Outlook VBA . They are typically used to:

¾  Add toolbar buttons to Outlook Explorer and Inspector windows and procedures to go with them

¾  Respond to events from the Outlook Application object, etc.

Notes Data Links exist for documents, views, folders, and databases and make it possible to directly jump to the destination.

To activate a link, a user must have access to the database the link leads to, which must be available locally or on a Notes/Domino server, as illustrated in Figure below:

Handling NDL correctly in Outlook 2007 is mainly relevant in three cases:

1.     Notes workflow applications that send mails with NDL: in this case, mail with NDL are generated programmatically mainly using the Notes formula language

or LotusScript

2.     Notes mail users sending mail with NDL to Outlook users: a Notes mail user selects a Notes resources, copy it as a Notes data link within a mail using the Notes client. This will happen during the coexistence phase for users that has not been upgraded to Outlook yet.

3.     Outlook users sending mail with NDL: since some applications will still be on the Lotus Notes platform, some users may want to send mails with links pointing to Notes resources and they will not be able to do it as described in case two.

Since Notes Data Links are proprietary to Lotus Notes, they are not supported as is in Outlook and a conversion is required at some point. Possible conversion option is as follow:

¾  Convert NDL to a mail attachment (.NDL extension file): A Lotus Notes Data Link contains all the information needed to find the Notes resources across the network. The .NDL file can be attached to a Notes mail message to be sent to a non-Notes user. You can also open Windows Explorer and then double-click the file, which will launch the Notes client and open the View link.

For instance, the following is an example of a Lotus Notes doclink NDL file:

¾  Convert NDL to a Notes url (notes://): The Notes URL is a type of URL with the notes prefix (notes://servername/replica-id/view-id/notes-id) that allows to add links to Notes documents, views, and databases into a web page or an HTML mail. This functionality[1] allows a web browser user to launch a Notes URL like it was a Notes doclink, view link, or database link. When a browser user clicks on a Notes URL link, it will launch the Notes client (if it wasn't already running) and will open the appropriate document, view, or database. Outlook supporting HTML mail, can display such kind of link.

¾  Convert NDL to a web url (https://): Lotus Domino uses URLs to access servers, databases, and other components of a Domino Web site. Domino URL commands have the following syntax: https://Host/Database/DominoObject?Action&Arguments You can use the URL commands to open databases and views, open framesets, open forms, navigators, and agents, open, edit, create, save, and delete documents, etc.