I have two users that need to share the same address book. They also need to be able to:- insert addresses from it when creating a new memo using the address button
see updates and changes immediately when one or the other adds or removes a contact
I’ve got a personal address book sitting on the server in the data directory, but neither user can do type-ahead or access it when they click the “address” button in a new memo. I also tried adding “Servername!!pab.nsf” to Preferences>User Preferences>Mail>Local Address books, but notes kept complaining that the "File name must be relative to the data directory. Thanks to anyone who can help
The way I solved this problem (and there may by other better ways) was to create a replica of the server copy of the address book on each client and schedule replication. Then go into user preferences and add the replica (and you can’t name it names) to the local address books after names, the local address books are searched in the order of this list.Then all you have to worry about is teaching the users about the lag between when one user adds an entry and the other sees it.
Creating copies of the server address book and replicating them is currently my backup plan. I know how to implement that solution. The problem, though, is the lag time. The users don’t want lag. They want instant results. Otherwise, I’m answering a phone call everytime they think something should be there that hasn’t replicated yet. Therefore, I want to avoid replication as much as possible, but thanks for the suggestion
Disclaimer - the rest of this post is a rant
This is where lotus notes tends to frustrate me. Being able to share an address book between two or more people should be a basic feature of notes, but it’s not. These little issues (and they are little compared to the big picture) are what drive me crazy and drive me toward outlook. If IBM wants to grab this market back, which I would love for them to do, then they’ve got to work on these details. At the end of the day, the end users are the decision makers and unfortunately, they focus on the little things rather than the big picture
IN the mail settings have you tried entering the following in the local address book entry :-c:\notes\names.nsf, CN=SERVERNAME/OU=OU1/OU=OU2/O=O!![filepath to shared address book on server]
I believe it is called netsed address books and works quite well for our users. If an icon for the second address book is added to the bookmark bar, then your 2 users can easily access the shared address book.
Disclaimer the rest is a rant
In the past I have dealt with large number of users who complain that Notes doesn’t look or feel like Outlook. Usually get the comments Outlook does this and Notes doesn’t. Most of what they were ranting on was a poor realisation of what the product can and can’t do. Lets not go down the road of Outlook is better because of 1 small thing. Notes usually has a solution which is easily applied. It just takes a few questions in the appropriate place to get the solution
The best solution I found was to close notes and add the line in the notes.ini ala:
names=names.nsf, servername!!path/addybook.nsf
As an interesting point, after I did this I checked the user preferences and discovered the entry was in there exactly as I had tried to enter when I got the error!