Enhance Your Lotus Intranet with Open Source Solutions
John Roling
5/9/2006
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We've already looked at what Lotus Notes and Domino are capable of in an intranet context, and we've given you some insight on what is included "out-of-the-box" when you purchase Notes.
Intranet functionality within Notes doesn't end there, however. In addition to creating custom applications yourself (which you can always do) you can easily leverage the work that has gone on in the Notes and Domino open-source community.
OpenNTF.org is an online community of open-source Lotus Notes and Domino programmers. Their projects cover almost every aspect of Notes and Domino-based intranet functionality you may be looking for. I'll introduce you to a few of the projects here today, and in the coming months I'll go into more detail on what some of the individual applications can do for you and your company.
For the sake of journalistic integrity, I do need to disclose that OpenNTF.org founder Bruce Elgort is a friend of mine, and I am the announcer "voice" behind an "OpenNTF Update" segment on the Taking Notes podcast. But, seeing as OpenNTF.org is the only Notes and Domino open-source site, and it's nonprofit, there's nothing for me to gain other than helping you to strengthen your Notes-based intranet.
OK, now that the disclaimers are out of the way I'd like to tell you about three different applications that can help you beef up your intranet functionality immediately. They are:
- DominoWiki - wiki solution
- domBulletin - bulletin-board solution
- Blogsphere - blogging template
DominoWiki
DominoWiki is as the name implies, a Domino-based wiki template. According to wiki.org, a wiki is:
"… a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly."
So, in simplest terms, a wiki is a Web site of content that is quickly editable by anyone you choose to allow access. Wiki's are great for collaborative documentation and project management roles within your organization.
domBulletin
domBulletin is similar to traditional Web bulletin boards. It allows you have several topic areas, user profiles, threaded discussions, and RSS feeds. It's an alternative to the Discussion template that is included in Notes and was discussed in the last article, Building an Intranet with Lotus Database Templates.
This template is definitely much more user-friendly through a browser than its counterpart, and IBM programmers themselves seem to agree as domBulletin has been used as part of the annual Lotusphere conference's online system for the past several years.
Blogsphere
Blogsphere is a Domino-based blogging template. Blogs are short for "Web logs" and are traditionally a form of online diary. In the past several years however, they've become a very important business tool, both internally and externally to an organization.
Internally, a blog is a simple way for you to disseminate information throughout your organization. It could be as simple as a project manager posting updates on a project, to teams of programmers chronicling their development efforts.
Externally, blogging helps companies connect with their end users. Having your employees blog about your business can help create a level of transparency with the public. Bloggers like Ed Brill from IBM and Robert Scoble from Microsoft have shown that blogging can help your business by creating quality and near real-time interaction with your customers.
IBM has really gotten the value of a business blog, and recently obtained the services of Steve Castledine. Steve created one of the first and most popular Domino blogging templates, dominoblog. With Steve's hiring, dominoblog "will be integrated into the IBM product set."
At this point we're not sure what that means, but there have been several rumors over the last year about IBM providing a blogging template natively in Domino. An IBM-branded version of dominoblog could be just the thing.
Open-Source positives and negatives
Open-source software can be very helpful. It provides you with code and full-blown applications that you can use immediately without a huge budget expenditure. With an out-of-the-box Domino server and several open-source templates, you can have a fully functional intranet up and running in a very small amount of time.
The downside to all of this is that you are generally on your own when it comes to support. If you encounter problems, you can ask on forums or email the author, but there's no guarantee of a response. That said, the community is generally pretty good about helping you out. The best way to get support is to join in and help give support as well.
That's the great thing about any open-source community. If you contribute, whether it be your own code, donations to the project chefs, or simply providing support to other users in the forums, you can get a lot in return.
In the next couple of months I'll detail how to set up these templates and plug them into your Notes intranet environment. I look forward to helping you make the most of your Domino investment.
About this Series
This series of articles on intranet solutions with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino is intended to help readers understand the fundamental methodology and capabilities of the product and how to utilize it to deliver a feature-rich, secure, and functional corporate intranet solution. It will include implementation strategies, case studies, industry-tested tips and tricks, and, with your input, true value to the administrator or developer who wants to utilize IBM Lotus Notes/Domino technologies to deliver winning intranet solutions.
If you have questions on the series, Lotus Notes/Domino, or if there's something you'd like to see addressed, visit the Intranet Journal Discussion Forum.
About the Author
John Roling is the Senior Groupware Administrator for a North American trade-show exhibit company and a certified Lotus Notes administrator, developer and all-around geek. You can keep up with him at his blog or drop him an email at jroling@gmail.com.
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