Welcome to IBM Notes
Welcome to the latest release of IBM® Notes®. Notes is a powerful, multifaceted software for Microsoft® Windows®, Macintosh, and Linux® computers that gives you instant access to all the information that is important to you. You can use Notes to send and receive email and Internet mail, schedule appointments, browse the Web, and use powerful social and business applications in your daily work.
What's New in IBM® Notes® 9.0.1 Social Edition?
The following table lists features new to the IBM® Notes® 9.0.1 code stream, and tells you how to get started using those features.
Getting Help
You can get help that is specific to many of the tasks you are performing, or you can open complete Help on all areas of IBM® Notes®.
Elements of Notes®
The IBM® Notes® user interface is comprised of views menus, toolbars, navigation panes, and a sidebar that you can use for easy access to some frequently used applications.
Accessibility features for Notes®
Accessibility features help users who have a physical disability, such as restricted mobility or limited vision, to use information technology products.
Using the Discover page
IBM® Notes® opens to the Discover page by default, unless you set up Notes to open to an application, such as Mail or Calendar, or to a customized home page. The default Discover page is a central location from which you can find targeted Notes client information more quickly and easily, including new features in the release, introductory material for new users, and helpful hints and tips. There is also a Quick Links tab that allows you to launch your workspace, Mail, Calendar, and other Notes applications you have recently used.
Using the Notes workspace
The IBM® Notes® workspace, the legacy user interface for Notes, displays pages containing Notes application icons.
Using bookmarks - linking to documents and applications
Bookmarks are links that point to IBM® Notes® applications, views, documents, or Internet elements, such as Web pages and news groups. Bookmark folders organize your bookmarks. They can contain bookmarks or more folders.
Notes views and folders
Views display specific documents with similar criteria. For example, your Mail has an All Documents view that displays every document contained in the mail application, and a Sent view that displays only documents that you sent.
Printing
You print a single document or multiple documents at the same time. You can also print views (lists of documents in an IBM® Notes® application) and the framesets found in both Notes and the Web.
Advanced Getting Started topics
The topics in this section have been written for more advanced Notes users.
Embedded experiences
Embedded experiences allows you to leverage the social-interactivity and collaboration capabilities of IBM Connections-based applications directly in your mail.
Getting started with embedded experiences
Learn about embedded experiences in mail.
Embedded experiences quick reference
This quick reference includes a screen image, which shows an example of embedded experiences, along with actions that can be taken.
Working with embedded experiences
Take action on content directly from your mail messages.
Advanced OpenSocial topics
These more advanced topics describe the support for OpenSocial gadget-based widgets.
Mail
You can send and answer email, create signatures, and customize the look of your Inbox. You can also do things, like cancel an email sent by mistake or set up out of office notifications.
Getting started with Mail
You can send, receive, and organize emails, and more.
Mail quick reference
This quick reference includes a screen image, which explains the basics in Mail, as well as tables that list other commonly-used tasks and shortcuts.
Personalizing your Mail settings
You can change mail preferences to personalize your mail experience.
Keeping your Inbox clean
You can manage junk mail, mail quotas, and meeting notices, to keep your Inbox cleaner.
Mail access and delegation
You can let others view or edit your mail, or open other people's mail if they have given you access.
Other things you can do with Mail
You can do more things with Mail, such as color-code messages in your Inbox or set up Out-of-Office notifications.
Troubleshooting Mail
You can get help solving problems in mail.
Advanced Mail topics
You can learn more about what you can do with Mail.
Calendar
You can schedule meetings, manage your schedule, add other calendars, and more.
Getting started with Calendar
You can schedule and keep track of meetings, appointments, anniversaries, and more.
Calendar quick reference
This quick reference includes a screen image explaining the basics in Calendar, as well as tables listing other commonly-used tasks and shortcuts.
Working with meetings
You can schedule meetings, reserve rooms and resources, add online meetings and conference call information. You can also check to see when people are available for meetings, and show others when you are available.
Personalizing your Calendar settings
You can change the look of your calendar, choose which meeting notices to receive in your Inbox, and more.
Calendar access and delegation
You can let others view or edit your calendar and open other people's calendars if they have given you access.
Other things you can do with Calendar
You can do other things with your calendar, like set preferred rooms and conference call information, to make meetings and scheduling easier.
Troubleshooting Calendar
You can get help solving problems in Calendar.
Advanced Calendar topics
You can learn more about what you can do with Calendar.
To Do
You can keep track of what you need to do, and assign tasks to others.
Getting started with To Do
You can create, assign, and organize to do items.
To Do Quick Reference
This quick reference includes a screen image explaining the basics in To Do, as well as tables listing other commonly-used tasks and shortcuts.
Personalizing your To Do settings
You can set alarms for to do items, view to do items for today only, and more.
To Do access and delegation
You can give someone access to manage your To Do items for you. You can also open and manage another person's To Do items if they give you access.
Contacts
You can save information about people, such as title, addresses, birthdays, and more. You can also do things such as create groups to use as mailing lists, or print contacts as labels.
Getting started with Contacts
You can save important information about people, such as mailing addresses, birthdays, and companies. You can import contacts from other programs, and more.
Contacts quick reference
This quick reference includes a screen image explaining the basics in Contacts, as well as tables listing other commonly-used tasks and shortcuts.
Personalizing your Contacts settings
You can change the look of your contacts.
Contacts access and delegation
You can give someone access to view or edit your Contacts, or you can open other people's Contacts if they have given you access.
Other things you can do with Contacts
You can do many things with contacts, such as print them as labels or synchronize with iNotes and mobile devices.
Troubleshooting Contacts
You can get help solving problems in Contacts.
Notes applications
An IBM® Notes® application contains information about a particular area of interest, such as the forms and policy documents for a department, or it might contain documents of a similar type, such as email messages. In addition, some companies create "discussion applications," where employees can post responses to particular topics.
Getting started with Notes applications
An IBM® Notes® application contains information about a particular area of interest, such as the forms and policy documents for a department, or it might contain documents of a similar type, such as email messages. In addition, some companies create discussion applications, where employees can post responses to particular topics.
Notes applications quick reference
This quick reference card is a list of instructions for common tasks and shortcuts for Notes applications, which you can print and keep at your desk for easy reference.
Advanced Notes applications topics
More advanced Notes applications tasks include determining which applications to back up, how to use XPages applications with Notes, and creating a subscription to an application.
Blogs (web logs)
You can create your own personal Web logs (blogs) using the IBM® Notes® blog template (dominoblog.ntf). After you create a blog application, you can then open it as you would any other Notes® application (NSF) file. From your blog application, you can create and manage content and blog discussions.
Getting started with Blogs
View, post, and comment on blogs created with the Notes blog template.
Blog quick reference
Quickly find some of the most common and more advanced tasks for Web logs (blogs) and how to get started doing them.
Advanced Blog topics
In addition to the initial setup and configuration, there are advanced views, forms, and tasks that you can use to manage your blog.
Locations and accounts
This topic describes connections to servers, ways to connect to servers, and things you should know before setting up a server connection.
Getting started with Locations and Accounts
When connecting to servers, Notes® uses Location documents and Account documents to configure those connections. A Location document contains information that Notes needs, in order to manage your connections whenever you change the way you're connecting to servers; for example, your Home location may use remote access software in your operating system to dial your Internet server, while your Online location assumes that you're connected to a LAN. An Account document contains information, such as user name and password, for an Internet connection such as Internet mail.
Locations and Accounts quick reference
This quick reference card is a list of instructions for common tasks and shortcuts for Notes locations and accounts , which you can print and keep at your desk for easy reference.
Working with Locations, Accounts, and Connections
You set preferences for your Location, Account, and Connection documents that provide the information needed by components to connect to servers. Preferences enable you to create, edit, or delete certain Location, Account, or Connection documents.
Advanced Locations and Accounts topics
Learn to do additional tasks with Location, Account, and Connection documents, such as customizing Location settings, enabling Java applets in Notes, and using iNotes to access your Notes mail from the internet.
Automating tasks using simple agents
You can program IBM® Notes® to perform tasks automatically using agents (also known as macros). Agents can help you perform repetitive tasks, such as managing documents and sending memos.
Working with agents
You can program IBM® Notes® to perform tasks automatically using agents (also known as macros). Agents can help you perform repetitive tasks, such as managing documents and sending memos.
Sample agents
These topics contain sample agents that you can use to better understand how to create your own agents.
Advanced agents topics
These topics contain additional information about agent conditions and triggers, for more advanced users.
You can share files and graphics between IBM® Notes® and other applications using a number of different techniques.
Notes roaming user
As a Notes® roaming user, you can log in to and use Notes from any computer in your organization on which Notes is installed, and use your personal data while doing so. Your personal data includes many of your Notes preferences and personal information such as your contacts, bookmarks, notebook, feeds subscriptions, and optionally your Notes workspace. Notes widgets also participate in roaming.
Getting started as a Notes roaming user
Your IBM® Domino® administrator assigns your roaming user capabilities. The data that your administrator configures to be roaming-enabled replicates or syncs between your roaming server and the Notes® computer that you log into. The roaming server keeps roaming-enabled files and application synchronized for any Notes client on which you log into and work as a roaming user.
Configuring your environment
Your administrator can configure you to work as a roaming user, enabling your personal IBM® Notes®applications and settings to be roamed between any Notes client on which you work. When you log in to Notes on each computer on which you work, you will be initially prompted to convert to Notes roaming user status.
Advanced Roaming User topics
The following Roaming User topics are for more advanced Notes® users.
Replication
You can create an offline (local) duplicate of any IBM® Notes® application you use. Such a duplicate is called a replica.
Getting started with Replication
Replication allows you to keep a local version of a Notes® application on your hard drive. The local version is identical to the application on a server, so you can make changes to one version, and those changes will appear in both the local and server versions of the application. Replication is a great tool to have when working with large documents or applications, since the local version, or replica, of an application can open documents and views much faster than the server version, which has to open documents and views over a network.
Replication quick reference
This quick reference card is a list of instructions for common tasks and shortcuts for Notes® replication, which you can print and keep at your desk for easy reference.
Managing replicas
The Replication and Sync page lets you synchronize your replicas of IBM® Notes® applications with those applications on one or more servers, and lets you continue other work while Notes copies changes from one application to the other. This allows users on different networks, in a variety of places, to share the same information.
Advanced Replication topics
The following Replication topics are for more advanced Notes® users.
Search
You can use search to find documents, text in a document, applications, and people. You can also set search preferences for type of search query syntax and scope of search.
Getting started with Search
You can search from Notes to find documents, document text, applications, and people.
Search quick reference
This quick reference card is a list of instructions for common tasks and shortcuts for Notes search, which you can print and keep at your desk for easy reference.
Working with Search
Learn to use correct search syntax, and perform searches of your calendar, contacts, other applications, and the internet, all from within Notes.
Advanced Search topics
Learn more about the Search capabilities of Notes.
Securing your data
IBM® Notes® security enables you to protect your workspace and data at all times, so only you and the people you designate have access to your data.
Changing passwords
Passwords prevent others from using your User ID. When your administrator creates your User ID, he or she decides whether it needs a password, and what type of password is required. Once you access IBM® Notes® for the first time, you should change your password to something that you can remember but is hard for others to guess.
Using Notes shared login to eliminate Notes password prompts
Notes® shared login (hereafter shared login) allows you to start IBM® Notes and use your User ID without having to provide a Notes password. You only need to log in to Microsoft® Windows® using your Windows password. Your administrator controls whether you can use shared login.
Locking the Notes ID
Locking your IBM® Notes® ID prevents others from using Notes when you are away from your computer. Locking your ID clears your Notes credentials and drops all connections to Notes servers. You must log in again in order to take any new action using Notes.
Enabling Smartcards for Notes® login
Smartcards resemble credit cards, but instead of containing a magnetic strip they contain a microprocessor and memory. You can use a Smartcard with your User ID to login to IBM® Notes®, provided you have a Smartcard reader installed on your computer. Once your User ID is enabled for Smartcard login, you are prompted for your Smartcard Personal Identification Number (PIN) in place of your Notes password.
Requesting a new user name
If you want to request a new User Name - for example, if you got married and you want to change your name - you must contact your administrator.
Your Notes® and Internet names
You can view all the names that identify you in Notes®.
Accessing servers using certificates
A certificate is an electronic stamp, like a stamp on a passport, which verifies to a server that you are who you say you are. Certificates are stored in your User ID. When you first receive your User ID from your administrator, it contains a Notes® certificate. You may decide to use Internet certificates as well. (You may see Internet certificates being referred to as X.509 certificates.)
The Access Control List
Every database includes an access control list (ACL), which IBM® Notes® uses to determine the level of access users and servers have to a database. Levels assigned to users determine the tasks that users can perform on a database. Levels assigned to servers determine what information within the database the servers can replicate.
Restricting access to local databases
When you enable encryption for a local database, IBM® Notes® encrypts the database using your public key from your User ID. You are the only one who can then decrypt the database because you have the corresponding private key in your User ID. Nobody else's User ID can open the database.
Notes data
You can restrict access to applications you have stored locally or encrypt a document in an application.
Preventing others from reading or viewing specific documents
You can protect your documents, so that only you and the people you designate can read them, even if others have access to the database your documents are in.
Encrypting documents using secret keys
Using a secret encryption key that is stored in your User ID, you can encrypt a document that you are posting in a public database, provided the document contains fields that are encryptable.
How Notes® uses public and private keys for encrypting and signing mail
IBM® Notes® uses a public and private key set to encrypt and decrypt data, as well as to validate digital signatures. The public and private key in a set are mathematically related to each other and are unique to your User ID. Your public key is stored in your Notes certificate. Your certificate is stored in your User ID and the IBM Domino® Directory. Your private key is stored only in your User ID.
Restricting execution access with the Execution Control List
You can protect your workstation by specifying different types of execution access for different people or organizational certifiers who run IBM® Notes® scripts and formulas. For example, you may give all types of execution access to your IBM Domino® administrator, but allow no execution access to unsigned scripts or formulas.
Securing your POP3, IMAP, or LDAP accounts
IBM® Notes® supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which makes communication secure for your POP3, IMAP, or LDAP accounts. SSL encrypts the data that is sent between your Notes client and the server you specify for your account. Notes supports SSL versions 2.0 and 3.0. By default, Notes negotiates the best SSL version to use with a particular server.
Signed plug-ins
Your administrator may have selected plug-ins to be installed automatically with your client software. These plug-ins are signed with a certificate that is trusted by your client, and verified that the data they contain is not corrupted. Plug-ins signed in this way can then be installed without having to prompt you to accept them.
Widgets and Live Text
Widgets and Live Text enables end users to see and act on Live Text in a document, including mail, using widgets (.XML files) created for their use. Power users and administrators can create and edit widgets, and deploy them to users to engage a Notes® form, view, XPage, document or Composite Application, or third party services such as Web page, feed, or Google Gadget™, or automatically install or update a client plug-in for specific Notes users.
Getting started with Widgets and Live Text
Widgets and Live Text is designed for three main user types -- end user, power user and application developer, and administrator. Policy and preferences control various access levels. Roles often overlap. For example, a power user may create and deploy widgets to end users while end users may use widgets that have been created for them, rather than create their own.
Working with Widgets and Live Text - End users
If you are a Widgets and Live Text end user who does not have widget creation or catalog access rights, you can act on Live Text in your active document or double-click an installed widget to start an action. Depending on your policy or preference settings, you may also be able to do other tasks, such as add a new widget to your client sidebar or My Widgets sidebar panel.
Advanced Widgets and Live Text topics - Power users or application developers
You can create and edit Notes® and Web-based XML extensions (widgets) and make those widgets available from a central catalog.
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