Rambling on...
04/20/2008 9:50 PM By Keith Strickland
I was speaking with one of my co-workers Friday that has kept me thinking this weekend. Ever since I've got started with Lotus Notes/Domino development/administration I've worked for very large companies (i.e. Coca-Cola, U.S. Govt, Sprint, Etc..) and somehow I've always been a lone developer/administrator with no one to run my work by, no mentor. Now while the things I do seem to get the job done and I like to think that the job is done elegantly, but I really have no way of knowing.
But this conversation got me wondering how many other developers/administrators are in this position?
Comments
Date: 04/20/2008 10:38:11 PM
Name: Matt
Website: http://
I feel the same way working for a small company. Our IT staff went from 5 people to 11 in the past 2 years, and I still have no help for Notes/Domino development. I have too many responsibilities now, so it was decided to turn over all the admin duties to the other guys. The first question, I kid you not, was asked why we're using Notes and not Sharepoint. They would rather "admin" stuff from just Microsoft, so their jobs are easier. It was never asked why we have Notes, only that it appears to be a great unknown box.
There may be an observation here. Let's say you're an auto mechanic. Every Honda that rolls in to your garage only needs an oil change. Really boring stuff. Yeah, that car works great for the driver, but as a mechanic you're really bored. You'd much rather see a high maintenance car, like a BMW roll in. Then at least you'd be challenged and have something to learn. I think that's the problem with Notes, to some degree. Junior admins don't care for it. It just works, and that's super boring to them.
Date: 04/21/2008 04:12:41 PM
Name: Keith Strickland
Website: http://www.keithstric.com
I can understand being trapped in a bubble when working for a small company, they usually don't have the $$$ to have a big development shop nor the need for one. But I've worked for very large corporations where it was the same scenario which I really don't understand.
As for the dependability of the Lotus Domino server, I agree. I've seen Domino Servers work for more than a year with no issues until a MS patch is installed and breaks something
Date: 04/23/2008 03:26:08 PM
Name: Gabe Amorim
Website: http://www.tractebelenergia.com.br
Me too. I feel the same. No mentor, no one to share my Notes feelings or to say the parameters of the best pratices, except, of course, for the internet!
By the way, I was looking for your 'User Administration Utility' which is a very good job of development. When will you release newer versions?
Date: 04/23/2008 03:29:11 PM
Name: Gabe Amorim
Website: http://www.tractebelenergia.com.br
In fact I am looking for a way to track User Activity in the last months but my server was not configured to track it down in 'activity.nsf'. I was about to get some Tivoli stuff, but it costs a bunch of bucks!
And also, I am still not sure whether it would work. I think that activity information got lost... :'(
Date: 04/23/2008 04:58:25 PM
Name: Keith Strickland
Website: http://www.keithstric.com
@3 Thanks! You can find the latest version of the "User Administration Utilility" over on OpenNTF ({ Link } I had started working on version 1.5 but during testing on Lotus Notes 8, the app just didn't work very well at all, many errors concerning the ID version. So, I don't know if any more releases will be forthcoming, but maybe they will, not sure yet
@5 You can see user activity in log.nsf, it's kinda rudimentary but the information is there
Date: 04/24/2008 02:21:03 PM
Name: Gabe Amorim
Website: http://www.tractebelenergia.com.br
Thank you for your response.
I tried the 'user activity' in log.nsf but its very rudimental and very short. I needed information for, at least, the last year or the last six months. The only information I do need is when the user last accessed the server.
Do you have any tip?
[...]
That was a sad new to know that you will discontinue the "User Administration Utility". I took a look at the tool and it is fruit of a very well done job!
Date: 04/24/2008 02:36:41 PM
Name: Keith Strickland
Website: http://www.keithstric.com
Yeah I agree, that project has provided so much insight and learning opportunities for Lotus Notes development and administration, which is something most Notes apps can say. I may continue it, I'm just not sure.
Other than enabling activity tracking in the configuration document and maintaining activity.nsf I don't know where else you could get activity type information. If you collected the info from log.nsf every day, that may be satisfactory to determine when a user hit a server. To keep it all in one place you could always enable replication of the logs, but the problem with that is they would get REALLY BIG.
But do a search of the blogosphere and see if anyone might have done something like this before. You might also take a look at how I did that in the "User Administration Utility" and see if you can replicate that functionality. Heck, that might be a good candidate for another OpenSource app
Date: 05/19/2008 07:54:51 AM
Name: Gabe Amorim
Website: http://www.tractebelenergia.com.br
Hey Keith! Just for you to know, I solved that issue of tracking activity backwards and I develop some code based on the 'Class User Activity' I found at Sandbox. I coded an agent to open only mail db's and find the last 1400 entries tracking whether was an user access or not. It was a little bit tricky but helped me a lot.
Of course I needed to be sure that 'Record Activing' other tick of the 'User Details' tab of the 'Database Information' was ticked. Gladly most of my thousand users had this field activated and I could gather the information needed.
Perharps you could add that feature to 'User Administration Utility'. In that case, just let me know so I can send you code.
See ya!