Configure Outlook for Lotus Notes

Continued from earlier Post: MS-Access and Emails

We have seen that sending EMails from MS-Access is easy enough like any other method you are familiar with. With few clicks we can send an email with MS-Access Objects as attachment to the mail. Depending on the object selected for attachment the output format options available may be different. The attachment format for VB Code module is Text format only and will be converted into this format before attaching it to the mail.


As I have pointed out in the earlier post that we can send Mail Alerts automatically on important matters, within the Local Area Network (LAN) through Email Transport Services like Lotus Notes, from our Access Application.


But before we look into the mail sending procedure and Programs, we must configure MS-Outlook on one of the PCs for Lotus Notes and to use its Contact List.


Your Application may be shared by several Users on different PCs but the mails should go from only Machine, let us call it Access Mail Client. We need to configure the Access Mail Client Machine for Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes has its own Mail Server and Client installations on each PC. The Access Mail Client machine also must be installed with Lotus Notes Client and you must be using it for sending emails directly from Lotus Notes. You will have a Unique Lotus Notes ID File on your PC besides your own contact Lotus Notes Mail ID.


NB: If you don’t want a personal User Id to appear as the Sender of the Mail Alerts from your Access Application then a special Lotus Notes Mail ID must be created and Lotus Notes Client must be installed with this ID on the Access Mail Client machine. You may seek the help of Lotus Notes Administrator for this purpose.


We will look into the MS-Outlook configuration steps now with few images and what it does.

1. Your Lotus Notes ID File reference must be inserted into a control within Lotus Notes itself to be visible to the external Programs like MS-Outlook to use the facilities provided by Lotus Notes. To do this, open Lotus Notes and Log in with your User Id and password. Select Edit Current Location… from Mobile group menu of File Menu. The Location: Office (Network) control will be displayed.





2. Click on the Advanced Tab and select Basics from the displayed 2nd set of Tabs. See Image below.





3. Click on the Text control to the right of the label User ID to switch to: and click on the Search Light icon underneath the User ID label to browse to the location of your User ID file. The Path will be X:\Lotus\Notes\Data\filename.id, where X stands for the Lotus Notes installed Drive and the file name may have some similarity to your name depending on what name your Administrator has given with the file extension .id. Find this file and insert it into the Text control. Your Lotus Notes email Id, password are stored in this file. MS-Outlook needs this information to access the Contact List as well as to send and download the emails from Lotus Notes.



4. Close the Control after inserting the Location reference and minimize Lotus Notes.



5. Open Control Panel from Start Menu -- > Settings… and double click on the Mail Icon to display the Control with Services, Delivery & Addressing Tabs. See the image below. If your MS-Outlook installed version is not Corporate or Workgroup then the Options may look different. The images are from MS-Office 2000 installation.





6. Click on the Services Tab. The Profiles window will be empty if you have not configured for any other services earlier.


7. Click on the Add… Button to open up the Add Services to Profile list with several options. Select Lotus Notes Mail from the list and click to add it to the Profile window.



8. Click on the Delivery Tab and select Lotus Notes Message Store in the control below. At this point you may be prompted for Lotus Notes password to complete this option. The information Service Lotus Notes Transport will appear in the next window.





9. Select Addressing Tab on the Control. You may Select the Lotus Notes Main Address Book or your personal Lotus Notes Address Book with selected Addresses from the Main one and insert it in the appropriate controls. See the image below:





10. Click Apply to update the settings. Click OK to close the window. You can configure the same settings from Options… of Tools Menu of MS-Outlook too.
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12. We have to define one more setting as how to store the Contact’s Name in the Address Book, which we will do it from Outlook.



13. Open Microsoft Outlook. Select Preferences from Options… of Tools menu.



14. Click on the Contact Options… button.



15. Select the Options in both controls as shown below and click OK.





The first control settings says that while sending mails insert the Names in this order but while storing the values in the Address Book use the format in the second control.


When you look for the Email addresses manually in the Address Book it will be displayed in the second format and you can search for the names by typing the first few characters of the first name in the lookup control.


But when we attempt to send mails from MS-Access we must present the email ID to Lotus Notes in the first format.


Image of the Lotus Notes Mail ID look up control is given below for reference. I have edited the image to insert those names more familiar to you. Check the name displayed at the left window and how the name format changed when it is inserted in the To line.





16. You may now try to send an e-mail through Lotus Notes Mail manually from MS-Access, as we did in earlier session, using some of your friends Lotus Notes ID. During the mail transmitting point Lotus Notes will prompt for password.

Next we will see how to send the Mail Alerts automatically from Microsoft Access through Lotus Notes at scheduled intervals.

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