About composite applications

Composite applications incorporate components from multiple applications into a single, role-based work environment. A composite application has one or more pages, each of which contains one or more components. Components can support communication interaction, where one or more components are programmed to respond to user-initiated action in another component.

A Notes® component is a link to a specific view, frameset, document, or other design component contained in a Notes database. The same Notes database can contain multiple components, and those components can be used in multiple composite applications.

Composite applications can be hosted on Domino® servers running Domino 8 or greater, or IBM® WebSphere® Portal servers running WebSphere Portal 6.0 or greater. Composite applications can also be run locally.

Composite applications can be used by the Notes standard configuration, but not the Notes basic configuration.

To work with composite applications in Notes, use the Composite Applications Editor, which is optionally installed during Notes client installation and upgrade.

Composite applications can be used online or offline, and bookmarked like any Notes application or Web site.

Note: NSF-based composite application support is available only for Notes applications, accessed from a Notes client, and not for Domino Web applications that are accessed from a Web browser.

To be used in a composite application, Domino Web applications must be rendered by DAP (Domino Application Portlet) and embedded in a composite application on WebSphere Portal.

NSF-based composite applications are stored on the Domino server in .nsf databases. The database contains the definition of a composite application, and access rights to the composite application database itself are managed through a Notes database access control list (ACL). Security for each component is managed using the same Domino Designer security controls that are applied to views, framesets, and other design components used in a Notes database.

Notes applications can be extended by adding either custom or packaged functions developed on IBM Lotus® Expeditor, combined with other technologies, for a composite application. Components are assembled into composite applications using the Composite Application Editor.