MX Volt: How to Open Up a New World on Domino

HCL Volt MX Request a Free Trial

HCL premiered a brand new low-code solution called Volt MX today. Did you think Domino could give you an Augmented Reality Experience? Now it can!

Jason Gary from HCL demoed the brand new Volt MX low-code solution from HCL today. The person in the photo above is looking for new shoes and pulls out her cell phone. Via |n app created with Volt MX, she finds a mall  since the Volt MX app can use the maps app on her phone:

She enters the mall and using a wayfinder in the app she finds the shoe store:

Wayfinding the shoe store

 

She enters the store, but because of Covid-19 restrictions, she can’t try the shoes on. Instead she uses the Augmented Reality part of the app, and can try the shoes on, virtually:

Trying on shoes with AR

After choosing the correct color and size, she checks out and pays, without having to use the checkout desk:

Virtual checkout

After arriving at her home office, she decides that she wants to be reimbursed by her employer for a purchase she has done.

Expense form in the Notes client

Andrew, her manager, then gets an Expense Approval Request on his phone:

Expense reimbursement on phone

However, this purchase was over $1000, so it has to be approved by the Vice President. So after Andrew has approved it, the VP gets a message on his Apple Watch:

Expense approval on Apple Watch

All this is made through the use of HVL Volt MX. The MX part means “multi user experience.”

Let’s say you have an old Notes/Domino application with a lot of business logic in the back end. With the help of Volt MX, you will have the ability to build one front end user interface for that will work on Android, iOS and the web. But you will have to build it only once, not once for each platform. It will also make it easy for you to integrate your Domino application with other platforms, systems and solutions. And you can also use AI frameworks to create smart apps and really utilize your data in a new way:

  • Augmented Reality
  • Virtual Reality
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Machine Learning
  • Geolocation and Wayfinding
  • Wearables
  • Chatbots
  • Blockchain
  • Biometrics

And it’s just using one single code base! And there’s hardly need for any code to up such an app. There’s a part of MX called the “Foundry” which is used for connecting backend systems, like SAP for example, to your applications developed with HCL Volt MX. You can map apps and systems with drag and drop in an editor:

Integrations Without Limits

So how do you get started? Well, there’s more good news: HCL will have an online repository with code snippets and examples. All open sourced and free to use! In addition to videos, manuals and teaching material. And: There is already a Volt MX Lotusscript library ready for you to use!

And here are som other highlights from HCL about MX:

Volt MX highlights

Why Volt MX matters

And finally, you can request a free trial for MX and get started ASAP:

HCL Volt MX Request a Free Trial

 

Phew! What do you guys think? Are you as excited about Domino as a low code platform as we, and HCL, are? Let us know in the comments.

 

5 thoughts on “MX Volt: How to Open Up a New World on Domino”

  1. I would like to know more about how it connects with external databases.
    When I was young there was a thing called DECS (Domino Enterprise Connection Services), it was free, there was a better thing, LEI (IBM Lotus Enterprise Integrator) but you had to pay for this product, there was also something called “Lotus Connector for SAP “but I never used that.
    I will investigate this topic.
    Best regards again

    Reply
    • It connects via the Volt MX Foundry middleware. That has various options for connecting to database systems, this one was JSON-based REST service calls. To showcase the flexibility, retrieving the expense claims is done via standard Project Keep endpoints. But for approval, a payload is passed to a standard LotusScript agent. Volt MX LotusScript toolkit, on GitHub is used to parse that payload and in a single API call retrieve the document to act upon. Approve/reject is passed as well as approved name. The agent uses API calls to parse that data from the payload and, if not available, use another API call to return a 400 Bad Request error. We’ll cover more in an OpenNTF webinar on December 17th.
      Of course all this could be done in an XAgent or manually in LotusScript if you know what you’re looking for. Or, if you trust any REST-based access, DAS could be used. Or if you are willing to code outside Domino Designer the App Dev Pack could be used. Yes, t requires coding changes. But to be honest, I don’t see how you could reliably re-use existing Notes Client business logic without changes – it’s just not designed for that, and that’s based on 20 years’ worth of LotusScript I’ve written and supported.

      Reply

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