Lotus Notes to Exchange Online - Best Practices

Everything has its time. For your Lotus Notes deployment, sadly, the glory days are long past.
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When it comes to migrations and understanding specific organizations environments needs and goals – we are the experts and have many best practices in place.

Technology is constantly evolving. Years ago, Lotus Notes met and exceed organizational needs, both as a groupware mail system and as an app platform. However, increased demands and innovations in the industry have made this software no longer enough to help organizations stay productive and work optimally.

Migrate to Exchange Online

It’s time to migrate to a modern email system and app platform like Office 365’s Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. There is a lot of organizational knowledge trapped in your Lotus Notes system. Don’t let it stay trapped in an antiquated platform that is well past its prime. Interlink can help you retain your information and guide you to a better place for it.

Interlink has the expertise you need to get your data out of Notes and into Exchange Online - we can:

• Build a plan for the mailbox migration, including how to deal with Notes features that don’t translate well to Exchange Online, such as encrypted items, hotspots, doc links, and other Notes proprietary data.
• Plan for co-existence during a prolonged migration period so users in Notes can still collaborate with users on Exchange Server and vice versa.
• Ensure your end-users have the best experience through the migration! We seek to minimize hassles and watch out for any road bumps that may come along.

Office 365 – Untether yourself from Domino and stop maintaining multiple directories

• You have many choices to view your mailbox, and it’s accessible from anywhere. You can use the full Outlook client, Outlook Web App, Outlook Mobile, or any number of third-party apps.
• Migrating your apps from Domino to SharePoint lets you work where you want—all you need is a web browser and an Internet connection. We will not only migrate your email, but we'll also rebuild the functionality in your Notes server. This is done through the power of Office 365 – primarily through SharePoint, Teams, Power Apps, and automation from Power Automate.
• Secure access to your Office 365 data couldn’t be easier. You are no longer dependent on maintaining your Domino directory AND your Active Directory—everything is tied back to AD. No more managing multiple systems. Additionally, you can take advantage of Multi-Factor Authentication to protect all of your apps!

How Interlink Can Help

Interlink wants your organization to get the most out of your technology investments. If you are tired of simply getting by with your technology, it’s probably time to migrate. Migrations can be tricky, but we can help and are experts at:

• Coexistence – Depending on your organization's size and need for interoperability, tools usage can be a friend or foe.  We help organizations determine their need for third-party tools (or not), recommendations, and when appropriate design and staging.

• Directory Sync – As you many know, Notes maintains its own directory. We use scripts and/or tools to get entities moved or replicated, setup foreign directory settings, and prepare attributes such as UserPrincipalName and DisplayName.  We accommodate the need for hidden objects and determine a suitable schedule for the Offline Address Book (OAB).

• Mail Flow – We establish forwarding, DNS records, and forward mail to and from Exchange or Office 365 as part of message flow. Internally, we typically set up SMTP relays with associated DNS changes. We also work on spam including high-confidence and blacklisting as well as allowing internal.

• Performance – We work through scale and forecasted bottlenecks with throttle settings, performance testing, and mock uploads. We put historical mail (Archives) on separate passes and inserted quality checks to make sure processes went smoothly.

• Scheduling – If desired, we can populate or push/pull schedule availability for coexistence during migration. We also have experience replicating Personal Address Book (PAB) information and take caution to move over often-desired Distribution Group functionality as well as moderators/approvers.

Interlink is here to guide and assist you! Please reach out to us for more information on what migration looks like with your specific environment and needs! Your migration plan is crucial to current and future success in your organization. We work hard to make sure our clients know exactly what they are getting and how to get the most from their investments.

Interested in learning more? View our similar blog: Play Your Emails in Outlook for iOS.