lotus to sharepoint migration - whitepaper

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Lotus to SharePoint Migration Understanding the Lotus Notes Application Landscape and the Transition to Microsoft SharePoint Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited Web: www.ecotechservices.com Authored by Sujit Karpe Ecotech IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Last edited: 13-Jun-2012 Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited. All rights reserved. The Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited name and Ecotech logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Page 1: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Lotus to SharePoint Migration

Understanding the Lotus Notes Application Landscape and the Transition to Microsoft SharePoint

Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited Web: www.ecotechservices.com

Authored by

Sujit Karpe

Ecotech IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Last edited: 13-Jun-2012

Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited. All rights reserved.

The Ecotech IT Solutions Private Limited name and Ecotech logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ecotech IT Solutions

Private Limited.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Page 2: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 1

Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

2. Lotus Notes: Trends ............................................................................................................................. 3

3. Ecotech’ Services ................................................................................................................................. 4

4. Decision Point-Check Your Requirements ....................................................................................... 5

5. Ecotech’s Migration Process .............................................................................................................. 6

6. Identify Migration Requirements ........................................................................................................ 7

7. Data Migration ....................................................................................................................................... 9

8. Data Migration: Notes Elements migrated to SharePoint ............................................................ 10

9. Migrating Application Designs .......................................................................................................... 12

10. Security Mapping ................................................................................................................................ 14

11. Migration Tools ................................................................................................................................... 15

12. Development Tools ............................................................................................................................ 15

13. Migration Project Screens ................................................................................................................. 16

14. Summary ............................................................................................................................................. 18

15. References .......................................................................................................................................... 19

Page 3: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 2

1. Introduction

Part of the widespread success of Lotus Notes was due to the fact that it encapsulates a broad

range of components necessary in most IT environments. They include:

1. Email, Calendaring

2. Directory services

3. Database and Security

4. Rapid application development

5. Web server

6. Replication

7. Offline capability

So, as the move away from Lotus Notes continues to gain momentum, many organizations will

experience the challenges associated with the transitioning of these services to other platforms

such as Microsoft.

Broadly speaking the three major areas involved in transitioning from Notes to Microsoft

technologies are:

1. Notes Mail to Exchange migration

2. Domino Directory to Active Directory synchronization

3. Notes/Domino to SharePoint/ASP.NET application migration

Definitely the Mail and Directory components pose their own unique challenges; the area which

by far presents the biggest challenge in transitioning from Lotus Notes is in the area of

application migration.

Page 4: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 3

2. Lotus Notes: Trends

Lotus Notes has been an idle technology for a number of years.

No new features have been added until very recently.

-Market’s response was, “too little, too late”.

While very few new customers have purchased Lotus products, there are still

approximately 70 million users worldwide.

-Many Lotus customers are considering moving to another technology, for their e-mail,

enterprise work flows, and collaborative applications.

This activity has created a need for professional services to assist with SharePoint

migration projects. Planning and executing migrations can be difficult and time

consuming.

-Companies need a professional and accurate method to migrate the large amount of

information within their Lotus data environment.

Page 5: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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3. Ecotech’ Services

Lotus Notes to SharePoint migration

Lotus Notes to Office-365 migration (SharePoint Online)

Lotus Notes to .NET migration

Page 6: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 5

4. Decision Point-Check Your Requirements

SharePoint 2010 SharePoint Online .NET

Security Secured - Active Directory, FBA authentication can be used

Secured - Active Directory can be used

Secured - Active Directory, FBA authentication can be used

Development Time

Less, by using Out Of the Box features

Less, by using Out Of the Box features

More, comparing to SP2010 and Office 365

Customization Control

Limited

Limited

Full

Migration

Data To - Lists, MS SQL Server

Data To – Lists Data To - MS SQL Server

MIS Reports

Out Of the Box, SSRS, Third Party Components like Telerik, DevExpress, Dundas Dashboard etc.

Out Of the Box

SSRS, Third Party Components like Telerik, DevExpress, Dundas Dashboard etc.

Infrastructure

- Hosting

On Premise, Cloud

Cloud

On Premise, Cloud

- Software Licensing

On Premise - Licensing Cloud - Licensing

Subscription

On Premise - Licensing Cloud - Licensing

Page 7: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 6

5. Ecotech’s Migration Process

Identify migration requirements

Synchronize Active Directory and Lotus Domino Directory - Exchange Connector

Route mail between Exchange and Lotus Domino - Exchange Connector

Perform free/busy lookups between Exchange and Lotus Domino - Exchange Calendar

Connector

Migrate users' data from Lotus Domino mail databases to Exchange mailboxes -

Exchange Migration Wizard

Retire Domino mail servers

Analyze Domino applications:

Identify which applications are active and which applications should be archived.

Eliminate admin and mail applications from the migration or integration list.

Determine which applications to migrate and which to integrate with MS technologies.

Build Proof-of-concept to test migration to new or existing applications.

Migrate or integrate applications, or move to existing applications or off-the-shelf

applications - Microsoft Application Transporter for Lotus Domino, .NET or third-party

tools.

Page 8: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 7

6. Identify Migration Requirements

Lotus Environment Analysis

Sr. No.

Questions Details

1 Number of Domino servers

2 Server type and versions

e.g. Lotus Notes/Domino 8, Lotus Domino.Doc, Lotus Quickr?

3 Server locations

4 3rd party software integration with Lotus

e.g. LEI, Domdoc, WPS, ILM, IDM etc.

5 Are you using iNotes or Domino Web Access (DWA)

6 Number of Lotus Notes users

7 How many Lotus Domino / Notes databases will be migrated?

8 How many custom Lotus application are in use?

9 Is the Corporate Fax server integrated with Lotus Domino server?

e.g. RightFax, Extrafax

SharePoint Environment Analysis

Sr. No.

Questions Details

1 Is SharePoint Environment ready?

2 What is the primary business objective of the SharePoint environment?

3 Version and Type of SharePoint Server –

Foundation/ Standard/ Enterprise

4 SharePoint services configured

5 Other Microsoft product details

6 Other line of Application integration

7 Company standard – User Interface designing (CSS,JS)

8 Any 3rd party tool installed? –

Telerik, Nintex, Dundas etc.

Page 9: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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Lotus Database Information

Sr. No.

Questions Details

1 Application Name

2 Is this a custom application? (Yes/ No)

3 Database Template names and version

4 Size and distribution on disk

5 Number of documents

6 Complex Forms (more than 25 fields)

7 Simple Forms (up to 25 fields)

8 Number of Agent’s

9 Serial Workflow

10 Parallel Workflow

11 Company standard – User Interface designing (CSS,JS)

12 3rd party software dependency?

e.g. SAP, AS400, Oracle etc.

13 Reporting Tool

14 Is migration required? Or can the database be archived?

Application Migration: Sample List of Lotus Database Information

Page 10: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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7. Data Migration

Correct content migration is often considered the most business critical aspect of the migration

process, as failing to preserve the legacy content with adequate fidelity and completeness will

result in unhappy end users and potential disruption to the business.

Lotus Notes QuickPlace, Domino.Doc

Comprehensive Migration Batch or ad-hoc, user-driven migration

SharePoint Target

Rich text documents

Images, attachment, OLE Objects

Document Links

Dynamic Formulas

ACLS and Document Security

List Item

Document

Libraries

InfoPath Forms

Page 11: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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8. Data Migration: Notes Elements migrated to SharePoint

Following notes elements can be successfully migrated to SharePoint

Document items and display column values

Attachments

Embedded images

Embedded OLE objects

Rich text

DocLinks

Multi-valued items

Unread marks

Dynamically computed values

Lotus Notes source document

Page 12: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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Migrated (SharePoint) Lotus Notes document

Page 13: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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9. Migrating Application Designs

Good tools are available today for migrating the content of your Notes applications to

SharePoint, but what about migrating the design? What about all the forms, views, agents,

workflows, and so on? One of the biggest barriers to moving large numbers of Notes

applications to SharePoint is the cost of rebuilding complex applications.

Unfortunately no migration tool allows you to press a button and magically reproduce the entire

design of a custom Notes application in SharePoint. As we will see in this section, there are

certain aspects of design migration where it makes sense to use a migration tool and others

where it does not.

Migrating Schema from Notes Applications

A custom Notes application may have dozens or even hundreds of fields, it is fortunate that

high-end migration tools contain features that help you automate this task. This is typically a

two-part process of “deducing” the schema being used in a Notes application and then

provisioning a similar schema for SharePoint.

Mapping the Notes schema to a SharePoint schema may be as simple as doing a one-to-one

field mapping; in more complex cases, you may need to significantly transform the data

between the two systems. A sophisticated migration tool will allow you to write formulas, perform

lookups and apply other data transformation techniques.

Migrating Form Designs to InfoPath

Structure your solution as a SharePoint List and customize the default web pages used

to add, view, and modify documents in SharePoint. This form of development usually

occurs in SharePoint Designer and requires a good understanding of web parts, web

parts pages, and SharePoint internals.

Structure your solution as a SharePoint library and use custom Microsoft Word

templates to create complex documents. Your Word templates can contain content

controls and be very structured and form-like. Word integrates with SharePoint very

nicely, and portions of your Word documents can be synchronized with SharePoint

properties for viewing and searching.

Structure your solution as an InfoPath form library (as described above) and design a

custom InfoPath form template to edit and view them. This is a popular solution if you

have complex, multi-level Notes documents.

Structure your solution as a SharePoint lists, but use InfoPath forms to edit them. This is

an exciting new capability that was introduced with SharePoint 2010. It is in many ways

the best of both worlds: the data is stored as a simple flat SharePoint list and developers

can use InfoPath Designer to create nice looking form layouts.

Page 14: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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Migrating Approval Process and Workflow State

Organizations trying to migrate complex applications often consider workflow migration to be

their biggest hurdle. The basic problem is that in the Notes world, “workflow” consists of buttons,

forms, agents and scripts. In other words, all the workflow logic is buried in bits of code

scattered throughout the application and implemented differently by each developer.

This is quite different than SharePoint’s modern declarative workflow environment. With

declarative workflow you have a structured set of human-readable conditions and actions that is

interpreted by a central workflow engine. No migration tool is going to be able to automatically

convert code-based workflow to declarative workflow, so human intervention is definitely

required here.

The good news is that implementing workflow logic is generally much easier in SharePoint

than it ever was in Notes. Don’t be dismayed when you find a Notes application with hundreds

of lines of code; depending on what that old code actually did, you may not have to write any

new code at all.

Of course, plenty of existing Notes applications cannot be rebuilt using just code-free

declarative workflow “as is,” but many migration teams are looking at how they can simplify the

application requirements so they can. The result is an application that is easier to understand,

maintain, and upgrade later.

Page 15: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

Page 14

10. Security Mapping

An extensive set of options are available for mapping various access control properties

of the source Notes database and individual Notes documents to the equivalent security

constructs in SharePoint. The following diagram summarizes the possible security

mapping options available. Document items and display column values.

Security mapping options allow translation of Notes access control rules to SharePoint

Page 16: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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11. Migration Tools

Migration tools from Microsoft and third party are available

Select appropriate tool based on requirement and availability

12. Development Tools

Development tools from Microsoft and third party are available.

Select appropriate tool based on requirement and availability.

SharePoint Designer

Page 17: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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13. Migration Project Screens

SharePoint landing page representing list of 20 migrated application.

Lotus Application

SharePoint Application

Page 18: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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“Duty Travel Application”, application form developed in SharePoint.

Page 19: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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14. Summary

Migrating Lotus Notes applications to Microsoft SharePoint is a two-step process. First, you

must move the application content, and then work to migrate the application design. You should

begin your migration in one of these ways:

Correct content migration is often considered the most business critical aspect of the

migration process. You can always tweak the design of an application later, but if you fail

to preserve the legacy content with adequate fidelity and completeness, your users may

be very unhappy.

Some legacy content is very sensitive for compliance reasons or other business

reasons, so the stakes are very high to get both the content and access permissions

right.

In many cases, there is no need for design migration. You simply migrate the old content

into one of the new SharePoint site or list templates and you’re done.

In some cases, you will want to take the time to rethink the application design to take

advantage of all the great new features of SharePoint and SharePoint Online. This would

also eliminate the need for a design migration.

Page 20: Lotus to SharePoint Migration - Whitepaper

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15. References

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31685/Migrating-Lotus-Notes-Domino-data-to-Microsoft-Off

http://www.quest.com/notes-migrator-for-sharepoint/

Ecotech IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Website: www.ecotechservices.com

Email: [email protected]