Notes 7.0.2 introduced a change to the design of the personal address book template (pernames.ntf). In the location form, on the Mail tab, there is now a field called ‘MailAddressing’, with three values: Local Only; Local then Server; and Server then Local. However, it would appear that ‘Server then Local’ is only honoured if the mail file location is set to local.
Why doesn’t it work for server based mail? I’d bet that every administrator has, at one time or another, wanted to force Notes clients to look up addresses from the Domino Directory before a local PNAB, yet Lotus still persists with using local addresses before server addresses.
Why, why, why? What is the purpose of PREVENTING Server before Local addressing?
Subject: why can’t we enforce server address book before local?
Hi Peter,
I’m pretty sure that feature has been around WAY before 7.02. Could be wrong about that… but anything before 6.0 pre-dates me. =)
I’m not the designer, but here’s the logic behind it. (Take with a grain of salt, since this is simply conjecture…)
Notice that the “Mail addressing:” field ONLY appears when you have “Mail file location:” = Local. A situation in which you would use that location value would be if you were travelling and/or have a low (or no) bandwith connection. An old-fashioned dial-up connection perhaps.
Now, if you’re a user on the road and your admin forces you to contact the Domino server every time you need to look up a name for mail addressing… I’m sure you’d be pretty peeved. If there are a whole lot of names to be resolved and you’re connected at 1024baud, you might be REALLY peeved. =)
I’m assuming that, at the time, the designers thought it was a good solution for that particular use-case of the low/no bandwith end-user. He/she would probably WANT all their addresses looked up in their Personal NAB, or if the user or Domino admin were particularly clever, they might have created a Condensed Directory Catalog of the entire corporate directory and made a local replica on the end-user’s machine.
So after that long-windedness, I guess my only point is that you should consider your end users and think about if my scenario applies. Maybe that use-case from (probably) the mid-90s might not be relevant anymore in the US or other countries with fantastic telecommunications and Internet infrastructure. In that case, you should put in a feature request. Customers in places like Africa may disagree with you however. =)
+Josh Burchard
Subject: RE: why can’t we enforce server address book before local?
Hi Josh,You’ve missed the point of my original post (or more likely, I didn’t make my point very well).
I have no problem whatsoever with this feature being available for local mail users. I’ve been in that situation myself - at the end of a slow dial up connection, doing an address lookup. It’s not fun.
What I DON’T understand is why this feature is not available to server mail users as well.
If your mail file is on the server, the behaviour of the Notes client is ALWAYS to resolve addresses from your PNAB first. Why can’t you set a preference to resolve the addresses against the server directories first, before the PNAB?
Examples of why this is a problem:
1 - User A puts an entry in his PNAB for a colleague’s home e-mail address, and uses the same first and last names (as you do). When he sends an e-mail to that person, it goes to their home address instead of their Notes address.
2 - User B copies a group that she often uses for e-mail from the NAB into her PNAB . Six months later, two people who were in that group have left, and two new people have been added. The NAB group has been updated by adminp and the group owner. However, User B’s PNAB, is now out of synch, and when she sends mail to the group, the two new people don’t receive it.
Subject: RE: why can’t we enforce server address book before local?
I agree 100%. Another point is scheduling meetings. Ideally the lookup occurs from the office’s mail server and directory first and then the local book - or just the server. These options should exist. Running 6.5 and keep getting local names and use a manual workaround (pull up server directory and populate names using that pop up).
Steve