We currently have a user community using Notes Client to view correspondence that is merged with DB2 data using DECs. We have images of members scanned documents (tiff files) that the users can view by switching to IWPM (another application) Everyone’s PC has a drive mapped to where the images are stored.
We also have a member community that we would like to give access to view their own correspondence and scanned document images.
So it would seem we would need to convert our Notes client forms for use on the web and use the AS400 as a server to give members access to the images? Does this sound feasible?
Definately, from my view the long term trend has been, is, and will be also in future to convert all existing Notes application to Web based Domino applications, it’s always of benefit.Developing in Notes can be very difficult, when certain features are needed, which Notes does not support natively. You’ll have to grab deep into your pocket to implement OS based API programs (often also multi-OS) which provide a solution for the requested feature. On the web, you rarely need any OS level API’s, as it’s much more flexible, and virtually anything can be done on the web, even without higher expected development time and costs.
What if I were to say that in addition the correspondence viewed via web would need to be printer-friendly. Our operations department prints these correpsondence daily for mailing currently from the Notes Client. Can you do that via web?
Your description really isn’t very clear. Do you want to display the member image from the shared drive location as part of the form?
If you just want to convert this application to a web app, give the Domino server access to the location where the images are stored and let it serve them up. It’s just an image tag. You just need an OS redirector and a file resource definition.
Of course, they’re TIFF files, which is a terrible way to serve them over the web – so you might want to rethink that.
Feasible, yes. Practical, I’m not certain. It sounds to me like a security nightmare waiting to happen.
Get the images out of Domino (and even out of DB2 specifically) and into a binary storage system like Content Manager. (Yes, I know it sits on top of DB2 but the indexing and management makes for lots of end-product stability and simplicity.)
Set a web application to access a Notes database as “index” into the binaries stored.
Then access them through the database via browser or a Notes client requester agent.
Thanks for the input guys, sorry for my ignorance but Collin can you expand on this:Set a web application to access a Notes database as “index” into the binaries stored.
Then access them through the database via browser or a Notes client requester agent.
A system meant to store binaries would require some sort of indexing for access. This index is generally in that solution and could also exist in a Notes/Domino database. This will provide a layer of security so that users aren’t directly accessing your back-office data. Instead they are accessing the front end. You can then execute an agent (a different one for each client type) to feed the information back to the client by way of an appropriate agent which access the back end data and feeds it out to the client.