HCL Domino V12.0.1 Gives You Free Choice and Security

Today saw the release of HCL Domino and Notes V12.0.1. The world’s safest and best application platform keeps on giving. Read on!

HCL keeps on releasing new versions of Domino with new functionality. Today saw the release of 12.0.1, six months after 12.0 came out.

Mythbusting

It was during a webinar that HCL did the launch today, and they started with debunking some of the myths that competitors see fit to come up with:

• Domino Applications are old fashioned
• Domino Applications and can’t be used in the cloud
• Domino Applications can’t be used on mobile devices
• Domino Applications can’t have nice looking user interface
• Domino is not a strategic platform
• “Our solution is more secure”

The last two are especially untrue. Domino is a core product in many companies portfolio. It’s just that the Domino based solutions just keep on running, so nobody gives them much thought. And one day someone wants a new system, without really contemplating the consequences in the organisations infrastructure. As a consultant I’ve seen this myself, many times. A company wants to move away from Domino, and spends hundreds of thousands, even millions, on something that they didn’t need to. They could have just spent a few hours or a couple of days on upgrading their Domino applications for a modern world. Read on to see what I mean.

Security

Because here is the truth:

• It’s not named Lotus anymore and haven’t been for almost 20 years (despite this, competitors will say “Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino”)
• V12 can be used in any cloud of your choosing
• You can extend your apps, very easily, on both mobile and on the web via HCL Nomad
• Domino apps are modern
• Migrating away from Domino is incredibly expensive and time consuming. Some give up after wasting years and money
• Competitors solutions are complex and designed to get more expensive as you become more and more dependant on them
• The Domino platform has never ever been hacked!

Consider the last point, and then think about the fact that 85% of organisations using Microsoft 365 have suffered email data breaches.

Nice Weather with Clouds

Your Domino servers can run on prem on your own servers locally at your organisation’s locations.

But these days it’s fashionable to throw everything into the cloud. And contrary to what some people want you to believe, Domino servers can run in any cloud service you want to use!

You can even run a hybrid environment if you want.

In fact, V12 is cloud native and gives you options for very flexible deployment.

Mobile Domino Apps

HCL Nomad is a product that comes with Domino. It’s a client that makes it possible for you to run your existing Notes application on your cell phone or other mobile devices, without any changes to the code.

I would recommend that you tweak the user interface a bit, so that it works in the best possible way on a small screen. Luckily Domino V12 comes with functionality that checks whether you are on a mobile device or in Notes, and then chooses the correct design for you.

You can also build mobile solutions from scratch. Just think about what this means:

There is no need for your Domino developer or consultant to spend time learning everything about frameworks for development on mobile devices. She just needs to code a Notes application in Domino designer, and then it can run inside the Nomad client.

The application seen to the right is just such an application. It’s running in the iPhone, and you can type text into it, upload photos taken with your phone, use Google maps (or other map services) for finding locations and you can of course save all this to the Domino server. It also works if your offline, just like your Notes client would.

So, how long do you think it took to develop that application? It took 4 hours from idea to finished product! It contains 3 forms, 1 view and 1 frameset. And it utilises GPS, Google Maps, mobile camera, biometric security, Access Control List, offline access and local encryption.

So there’s no need to move away from Domino because you want mobile applications.

HCL Nomad for web is a client that makes it possible to run your Notes client inside your web browser. There is even a guide on how to get that up and running in your organisation. You can run any basic Notes application (meaning: there can be no Eclipse or Java in the application) as if you were running an ordinary Notes client.

Create Microsoft Teams meetings

Domino V12.0.1 also makes it possible for you to create Microsoft Teams meetings from your Notes calendar. This is done via DOMI (Domino Online Meeting Integration) and supports Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WebEx, Goto Meeting and of course HCL Sametime.

We premiered the demo for this in our webinar this summer, and now it’s out.

Other news

In Notes you can at any time right click on a document or an application, to see it’s properties. This properties window has been very small and not easy to use. Thankfully it now comes in a much improved form:

 

Here are the improvements:

• You can resize the window
• You can actually search for field names and values!
• All columns can be sorted
• You can copy all data, or selected rows, into the clipboard
• You can export all the data to a csv file

This should have been done years ago, but it’s nice that it’s finally here.

• Here is a complete list of what’s new in Domino V12
• Here is a complete list of everything new with Domino V12.0.1
• Here is a complete list of everything new in Notes V12
• Here is a complete list of everything new with Notes V12.0.1

Phew! How is that for an early Christmas present? So there’s no reason not to upgrade. It doesn’t matter what version of Domino you are on. You could be on version 3 for all HCL care. You will still be able to upgrade directly to 12.0.1.

Go download Domino and Notes V12.01. here: