Message fidelity between Outlook and Notes

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Often, companies are in a scenario where they need to concurrently support both Domino and Exchange servers (and Notes and Outlook clients). The Exchange Connector for Lotus Notes tool that was released last December has been updated to improve the fidelity for mail routed over the connector between these two environments. Outlook mail and iNotes (Domino Web Access) mail (now supported) both send messages in MIME format, which is fully supported. This means that mail sent from either of these clients will look the same when viewed by Notes or Outlook recipients, including colors, fonts and tables. Mail routing from the Outlook or iNotes clients to Lotus Notes maintains fidelity.

By default, Lotus Notes clients send mail in IBM’s proprietary CD-MIME format. This means that some items sent by Lotus Notes clients look different when viewed by Outlook clients. Lotus Notes clients can be configured (via a Location document) to send mail to internet recipients via MIME. The Notes clients do not consider the Outlook clients to be internet recipients as the Exchange connector is configured as a Domino Foreign Domain.

When messages are sent from Lotus Notes clients to Outlook clients via the Exchange Connector, text formatting is converted correctly, but some tables, such as tabbed tables are converted to standard tables. Formatting within tables is lost.

Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) allows a user to embed a file within a mail message and then click on the item to launch the associated application to modify the file. OLE information sent from a Lotus Notes client properly routes through the Exchange Connector but Outlook 2003 disables OLE by default as a security measure; no executable files can be launched from within the mail client.

For a complete list of what does and does not translate from CD-MIME, see the Exchange Server 2003 Coexistence and Migration for Lotus Domino Mail document, which can be downloaded from the Resources for Moving to the Microsoft Collaboration Platform website.

- Amy