Lots of exciting stuff going on in the HCL Technologies user and business partner community. Don’t believe me? Well, read this then!
That’s what my, and I guess most of your customers’ end users say as well. They only care about the apps and solutions they have to work with. What’s under the hood is of no interest to them. So allow me to present two Domino based solutions that does just that.
Using IBM Verse (and Notes) to Keep Track of My Traveling Plans
February 6th, 2017 | Posted by in IBM | Verse - (6 Comments)Don’t let the headline fool you. I also show you how you can do this in Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo and other email and calendar clients as well!
I’m a pretty disorganized person who had to force myself to become organized. And I have succeeded pretty well with it, even if I do have a few relapses now and then.
In the past keeping track of my traveling plans, tickets and hotel reservations was pure hell. Especially in the days with printed tickets. For the past 5 years I’ve been using my cell phone to keep track of everything while travelling. And I do not use one app for the hotel reservations, one app for the airline tickets and so on. I import everything into my calendar on my Android cell phone. I used to do the same on my good old Nokia N8, and you can of course do this on your Iphone as well.
First of all: You need an email and calendar application on your cell phone. Personally I’m using IBM Verse, but there are also several other apps for this, including Gmail and Outlook. The application will make it possible for you to read and send email directly from your phone, as well as read and update your calendar. I will show you two ways of updating your cell phone calendar with all of your travelling plans, tickets and reservations.
From the confirmation page
When you you’ve booked a hotel or flight online, you will get to a confirmation page after the order has been completed. Very often you will find a link, icon or button like this on the confirmation page:
Sometimes you will have to click on it to get suggestions for the various types of calendars and sometimes they will all be listed. In this example I’m using hotels.com. When I click on the button link pictured above I get this:
If your email client is not listed, click on ical Calendar. Since I’m using IBM Verse that’s what I have to do. A screen pops up where I have to put in my email adress:
Now hit Send.
No matter what method you chose above, you will now receive an email that looks just like a meeting invitation. Simply click Accept or Add to Calendar (or whatever it’s called in the email client you are using) in that email, and the reservation will be added to your calendar, with all the most important details (like reference number, addresses, times, dates and so on).
From the confirmation email
What I describe here will only work if you are sitting on a computer. As far as I know, this is not possible on a cell phone application.
Often when you get a travelling confirmation by email from an airline, or a reservation confirmation from an hotel, the email will sometimes contain a link or button that will look very similar to this:
Choose your email client. If you are using Google or Yahoo, it will open up your calendar and you will see a web form where you can add details and then confirm that you want to add this to your calendar.
If you choose Outlook or iCal (sometimes this will be called ics) you will be asked to save the ics file to your computer:
Open your email client. In my case I’m using IBM Notes since, as far as I know, this can’t be done in IBM Verse (which is the web version of my email) yet. Go to the calendar and find the import function. In IBM Notes it’s under File -> Import A file dialog will pop up. Choose .ics as the file type:
Navigate to the file, click on it and then click Import. You will be asked to confirm that you want to add it to your calendar. Do this and now it will be imported, with all the details you need.
In Outlook you import ics.files under File -> Open & Export -> Open Calendar:
A file dialog will pop up:
Navigate to the file, click on it and then click Open. A window for creating a new calendar entry will open. Here you can add additional details if you want. Click Save & Close to create the calendar entry.
Synchronisation
The beauty of all this is that you don’t even have to think about whether you add these entries in the calendar on your cell phone or in the calendar of your email client. The entries are synchronised, both ways, between your phone and the client.
Here’s how my travelling plans look in IBM Verse on my phone:
I can open one of these entries by clicking on it. If I click on my hotel reservation I will get the confirmation number, time and date for check in and check out, the address and contact information for the hotel and even details on how to cancel:
Pretty neat, eh? All your travelling arrangements on your cell phone.
PS! Most email providers also gives you the option to use an online web version of your email. This means that even if you have imported this in your local Outlook or IBM Notes client (or other calendar and email client) this will also be visible in the online web version! This means if you lose your cell phone, you can simply use a computer and log on to your email via web, get the details from your calendar there and then print them out or write them down.
Any ideas for even better ways to do this? Did you find any errors? Did you like this? Hate it? Please leave some feedback in the comments field below!
The IBM Notes client is an important tool for a lot of IBM customers. It’s a powerful client (albeit a bit cranky at times), which has a lot of features that people don’t know about. So here are 7 quick tips to make your work day even more efficient.
1) Find a Notes application/database quickly
There’s no need to spend time looking for a Notes application or database on your workspace or in the bookmark menu. Simply use the search field under the Open-button (or the binoculars if you have docked the Open list). Just start typing the name of the application and Notes will list all the applications containing the letters you are typing. Then you can simply just click on the correct one:
No more time spent looking for applications!
2) Create a new email at any time
To create a new email, simply hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard and then hit the M key. A new email will open up. You don’t even need to have your mail application open!
3) Create a meeting out of an email
Sometimes an email discussion has gone on long enough. If you feel the time has come to have a meeting you can create a meeting out of an email by right clicking on the email and choose Copy into New -> Calendar Entry:
You will now be asked what kind of calendar entry:
Choose Meeting and click OK. A new meeting form is prepared. All people in the To-field will be in the Reuired field and all the people in the Cc field will be in the Optional field. All contents of the email, including attachments will be included (remove the attachments!). Now you can continue scheduling the meeting.
4) Paste as plain text
When pasting text from another document into a rich text field in Notes, all formatting from the original source is kept (colors, fonts, tabs and so on). If you want to paste the text into a rich text field, but remove the formatting from the source, simply hold down the CTRL and SHIFT keys on the keyboard while hitting the V key. Now the text is pasted as plain text, and it will be in the same format as the rest of the text in the rich text field. Easy peasy!
5) How is your day?
When you start your working day you want to know what’s on the agenda today. No need to open your calendar for this. Simply open the right sidebar panel called Day-at-a-Glance:
You can even look at other dates in the past and future as well.
6) Trace your history
Did you know that Notes keeps complete track of every single Notes application and document you’ve opened in the seven past days? It’s true! No more brain twisting trying to remember what you did yesterday! Simply click on History in the bookmark menu (under the Open button or under the binoculars if you have docked the Open list), then the date you want to check and finally the name of the application. Now Notes will list all documents you worked with in that application on that date:
7) Don’t develop a mouse elbow
We all use the mouse too much. But did you know that you can access any action button in a Notes document or view without having to click on them? Simply hold down the ALT key on the keyboard. You will then see a number in the upper left corner of all the action buttons. Simply click on the corresponding number on your keyboard (while still holding down ALT) to trigger the action button.
Example: If you want to send an email, you don’t need to move the mouse button up to the action button Send and on click on it. Simply hold down ALT and hit the 1 key on the keyboard. Neat, eh?
Hope you liked these tips. If you did, or want to add something, leave a comment!
Notes tip #1: Import Holidays
March 30th, 2013 | Posted by in IBM | Notes | Uncategorized - (2 Comments)Aren’t there times when you are looking through your Notes calendar and you wish that public holidays could be marked, so that you don’t accidentally book meetings on days that no one is at work? At least here in Europe that’s a problem, what with all our public holidays. And if you work at a company that have branches all over the world, or as in the case of my company, employees are travelling all over the world to meet people, it’s often useful to see when other countries have their holidays.
This is how you import holidays into your Notes calendar:
- Open your personal calendar inside Notes
- Above your calendar, next to the New button, you have a More button. Click it and choose Import Holidays…
- This screen will pop up:
You can choose to import the holiday of any country in the list by checking the check box to the left of the name of the country. In this example I’ve chosen Norway:
- Now all the Norwegian holidays will be imported. To check this I go to December to see if the public Xmas holidays have been set
The Norwegian constitutional day is also in place:
Also holidays that occur on different dates each year is in place. Here’s Easter:
This is how easy it is to have full control over holidays, both in your own country, and other countries. This is of
course also replicated over to your cell phone if you wish.
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