Lotus Notes Migration to SharePoint - A Simpler Alternative

Many companies are considering a migration from Lotus Notes to SharePoint for faster, easier access to data and applications via the Web. TrackerSuite.Net offers the same advantages and a far simpler implementation, as well as additional benefits.

While the migration of basic Lotus Notes content such as email and standard libraries is relatively straightforward, the migration of complex notes applications, with customized forms, functions, workflow agents, security and access protocols is a difficult undertaking.

SharePoint Migration Issues

Lotus Notes is a robust platform, and many organizations have developed their own in-house solutions with it, for business processes including project management, help desk services, time reporting, personnel management and CRM. Months of development and then years of customization and fine tuning went into these applications, and the prospect of forfeiting this investment is a bitter one for many organizations. However, in migrating them to SharePoint, they face the following issues:

• While SharePoint offers tools and functions that simplify code-light application development, organizations are still essentially committing time and resources towards "recreating the wheel", rebuilding workflow technologies they have already developed.
• Organizations are faced with two choices for development. They can train resources for SharePoint development, or rely on professional services. The more complicated the Lotus Notes application to be migrated, the greater the training required or the more costly the outside development team will be.
• For very complex Lotus Notes applications, SharePoint may not have the tools necessary to replicate is functions, and will require the development of customized SharePoint extensions using different technologies including .NET, .ASPX pages and Web services, all of which bring to the table concerns of security, debugging and deployment.

Lotus Notes Migration, Simplified

As well as Microsoft SharePoint, organizations have another choice for migrating their workflow and data from Lotus Notes to the Web, TrackerSuite.Net.

For organizations seeking to migrate from Lotus Notes to the Web, TrackerSuite.Net offers organizations the opportunity to simply re-map their processes to existing applications, instead of rebuilding them from scratch in SharePoint.

TrackerSuite.Net also offers the following advantages over SharePoint:

• TrackerSuite.Net duplicates the approval workflow, agents ("Jobs" in TrackerSuite.Net), and security system provided by Lotus Notes (TrackerSuite.Net offers role based access, as well as project, team and document level security), simplifying administration for IT.
• TrackerSuite.Net applications themselves are highly flexible and configurable.
• TrackerSuite.Net integrates with email systems, including Lotus Notes, combining the speed and flexibility of Web applications with the collaborative power of Notes. Users within your organization can even surface TrackerSuite.Net within their Notes client, simplifying their work experience.

TrackerSuite.Net and SharePoint

TrackerSuite.Net integrates with SharePoint workspaces. For organizations that already have an investment in SharePoint and are looking to transition from Lotus Notes to the Web in order to consolidate operations, TrackerSuite.Net provides a far simpler, faster migration path with the ability to integrate with their existing SharePoint applications, allowing users to link to SharePoint sites directly from project workspaces in TrackerSuite.Net.