AweSync.Mail opens full-scale ability to work with IBM Lotus Notes corporate mail through Google Mail

If IBM Lotus Notes/Domino is a corporate email platform in your company and for some reason there is no ability to work with email from virtually any place, at any time, using any device, then our new product AweSync.Mail is right for you.

 
It’s a well-known fact that IBM Lotus Notes/Domino includes iNotes – a Web interface enabling work with Lotus Notes email through Web browser, IMAP and POP3 servers, and Lotus Traveler, which allows Lotus Notes iPhone and Lotus Notes Android sync capabilities for email, calendar and contacts. But the majority of companies don’t provide such services for their employees due to various reasons, for example, because of security restrictions or older IBM Lotus Domino versions. In such circumstances, AweSync.Mail is the best solution. 
 
3 years ago, when publishing AweSync, we purposely didn’t include email messages synchronization into this product, thinking that any IBM Lotus Notes user can setup automatic mail forwarding to some external email account. We’ve received numerous requests from our users, which forced us to change our opinion. And here are the main reasons mentioned by our users:
 
 – Not all Lotus Notes users can setup automatic mail forwarding to the external accounts. This ability is not supported by all Lotus Notes versions, and moreover can be prohibited on the server level;
 – Even if mail forwarding can be set, one will face a necessity to do their work on sorting out the mailbox twice. After one reads or removes unneeded emails in Google, they won’t be changed in Lotus Notes, and once back to the office, one needs to review the same emails again in Lotus Notes, or delete them again, even though it was already done in Google. And vice-versa, emails already read in Lotus Notes would be shown as unread in Google, and it will be hard to tell, which of the emails are really new.
 
As you can imagine, AweSync.Mail not only synchronizes email from Lotus Notes to Google, applying filters and putting mail into designated folders. By enabling reverse synchronization of deletions and unread marks, you open full scale capability to work with Lotus Notes corporate email at any time from any device through Google Web interface, or using iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, etc.
 
Using AweSync.Mail you can create a mirror of your corporate mail in Google, view your Lotus Notes messages in Google, and delete unneeded ones, being assured that all performed actions will be populated back to your Lotus Notes email messages.
 
Responding from your Lotus Notes email account
And that’s not all! You may not only view your email, you can actually respond and your recepients will think that you’re responding from your Lotus Notes email account. Instructions on how to setup Gmail to change your ‘From’ address are given in Google’s article Sending mail from a different address. For sure, if all emails sent from your Gmail account will have ‘From’ address set to your corporate email address, you’ll likely won’t be able to use it as a regular personal Gmail account, so it’s better to create a new Gmail account specifically for mirroring your Lotus Notes mailbox.
 
Below are details on some particular setup aspects. If you specify your corporate SMTP server when setting up your From address, then no one will be even able to tell that the email was sent from GMail. All outgoing mail will be sent through your corporate mail server, and there will be no Gmail address trace at all. However, to achieve this you’d need to contact your organization’s system administrator to check if this is at all possible.
 
By changing your ‘From’ address to your business one you’ll be able to respond to your business emails via Web interface or from mobile devices connected to Google.
 
Here is brief explanation on setting up mobile devices, using iPhone as the example. Other devices types can be setup similarly.
 
As you know, there is a Gmail app from Google in the App Store. There are no specific settings to be done there, just specify your GMail username and password to start viewing and responding to emails. ‘From’ address will be the same as defined in GMail Web interface. If you prefer use built-in iPhone email client, then you need to add email account in your device, but instead of GMail type, select type Other and specify the following settings:
 
Name: First Last
Address: your Lotus Notes email address
Password: your Gmail password
 
Under Incoming Mail Server, switch to IMAP tab and enter the following:
 
Host Name: imap.gmail.com
User Name: your gmail address
Password: your gmail password
 
When setting up outgoing mail server:
 
Host Name: your Lotus Domino server address
User Name: your Lotus Notes username (for web access)
Password: your Lotus Notes Internet password
 
In the latter case all email messages will be sent through your corporate mail server, and there will be no even trace that they were composed in Gmail, like SentBy field.

How to Start a Fresh Sync to a Googe calendar

There can be many reasons for starting Lotus Google Calendar sync from scratch – you just may decide to create a separate calendar for your work events or recreate calendar with corrupted data, or remove duplicates which appeared after you played with AweSync settings, etc.

The procedure itself is quite easy, but to make sure you don’t loose any data and get it certainly pushed to your Google calendar, please keep in mind several things. First, please check if you have all needed events in your Notes calendar. Second, make sure the synchronization goes in the right direction – one-way, from Notes to Google. And, finally, don’t forget to remove AweSync index – otherwise, all existing events won’t be sync’ed to Google and sync will affect only the new ones. AweSync index stores information about all processed events, that’s why, if you don’t delete the index, your older events will be treated by AweSync as already sync’ed and the program will do nothing with them. Note, though, that you got to remove AweSync index at the right moment, because otherwise you may get duplicate events in your calendar.

To sum up, below is the whole procedure step-by-step:

  1. Disable automatic sync in AweSync if it’s enabled and make sure the sync is set from Lotus to Google one-way (again, this can be done if you have all needed events in Lotus Notes).
  2. Open your Google calendar settings in Web browser and click Delete next to the name of the calendar with which you were synchronizing. If it’s a primary one, the events in it will be removed, if it’s a secondary one, the calendar will be completely erased. If it is a secondary calendar, you’ll need to create a new one after deletion.
  3. Delete AweSync index from the tray icon menu: Debug->Remove Calendar Index, but do not sync yet!
  4. Open AweSync settings and click Retrieve to get your Google calendars list and make sure the right calendar is selected for synchronization and as the default one.
  5. Save the settings and run full sync – SyncALL -> Events from the tray icon menu.

Please ensure you follow the sequence of actions carefully to maintain data consistency and safety. You might vary this plan a bit depending on your particular situation, but always think twice to ensure it’s planned accurately as it’s all about safety of your valuable data! You can always contact our support team if you need help with resolving your particular situation.

Now we’re Inexika!

Our team known as eQuality Solutions since 2002 is now called Inexika!  eQuality Solutions was a good name meaning that our company provides high quality services and solutions in the e-business area. So why do we change the name now? There are a few reasons:

  • We needed a shorter, more memorizable and easy-to-spell name, so that our clients, regardless of where they’re from, have no issues remembering it or writing down our electronic address.
  • We needed our place in .com space, as our business is targeted towards clients around the world, and having just .ru website wasn’t sufficient.
  • We plan to focus more on producing our own products, including mobile apps and enterprise applications for Google Apps migration, therefore having easily memory stamping name is important!
  • We simply seek for something new and modern. So, even though quite good but more formal and lengthy and hence a bit outdated name should yield to a modern and well recognizable one.

 You can also have a look at our new website: https://www.inexika.com/

Does AweSync Support Google 2-Step Verification?

Yes, you can set 2-Step verification and run Awesync in the same way as you did before setting it. You just need to take several easy steps to enable Awesync to work with 2-Step verification.

After your mobile phone was tied to your Google account, you should create a special password for Awesync in Google 2-Step verification settings page. Then copy the password, open Awesync Settings/General/Google account tab and paste the password into the Password field. Press Check credentials button to make sure the password is copied correctly. Now Awesync should work with 2-Step verification without any problems.

Starting from AweSync 4.25.0 release the following new setting appeared to support Google 2-Step verification for Tasks synchronization. Open AweSync Settings/Tasks/Google tab and enter your original Google password. Press Retrieve Tasks Groups button and enter Google verification code which should be sent to you via SMS.

AweSync Welcomes Lotus to Google Apps Migration Users

Many companies are looking for a convenient and reliable synchronization tool to support migration from Lotus Notes to Google Apps platform. For pilot migrations, where proof of concept is needed, it is important to support heterogeneous coexistent environments for some time. Users should be able to work in either of the platforms, while having updates coming in both directions, without fear of information loss or outdating. Transparent Android Lotus Notes or iPhone Lotus Notes environment will also be supported through Google Apps in this case.

This is the right place where AweSync can help. With full functional two-way synchronization of calendar, contacts, tasks & notebook AweSync is ideal for coexistence support in migration projects. With AweSync users can maintain their contiguous planning and naming space between Lotus Notes and Google Apps, while already working in new platform, and also have an opportunity to perform a roll-back switch to their legacy platform if needed.

Now these migration capabilities can be acquired for a more attractive price, as users can purchase a 1-year license for AweSync, rather than a life-time license as before.

Custom pricing for 1-year AweSync subscription is available for purchases of more than 50 licenses. Please contact our support team regarding your migration opportunities, and we’ll be glad to assist you with all technical questions, as well as discuss special custom pricing.

Should I buy a new license if my Lotus username changes?

No, you should not buy a new license. We’re receiving some inquiries on whether one should buy another license if a username is changed, for example if there is some IT re-organization, or if person simply finds another job. This subject is even touched in some independent reviews (like this one), which we see on the Internet.

Dear customers, you have the right to transfer your license for free, if your username is changed for some reasons. Just email us at [email protected] with your inquiry, and we’ll inactivate your product license key, allowing you to activate it again with the new username. For sure, a change should be reasonable, i.e. we should see that this is a transfer of your activation to a different username, and not a transfer of license to another person.

AweSync Solution Articles (English, Français, Español, Deutsch, 日本語)

We’ll appreciate any comments from native speakers sent to [email protected]

Quick Tip: How to avoid “spam” to invitees

Sometimes we get complains from our users that “spam” has been sent to their invitees, while doing some manipulations with events synchronized by AweSync. The main “firewall” for preventing emailing is simply blocking invitees field from being synchronized.

However, if you’re synchronizing invitees for some reason, you should keep in mind certain scenarios when mailing to invitees may occur, and how to avoid it.

Remember, that whenever you got invitees from Lotus Notes synchronized to Google, everything is under your control. If you do any manipulations with this event in Google – either deleting the whole event, or removing an invitee, or rescheduling event (via editing event or by drag and drop), you’ll always be prompted whether you want to notify invitees about the changes in the event, or not. So, please read the prompt buttons from Google carefully to make sure you’re clicking the correct button.

Read more

How to send your data to development team

If some specific events were not sync’ed to Google, and you are ready to prepare and send us your data, please do the following:

1. Save this file dxlexport.exe to your Lotus Notes folder (for example, it may be something like C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\, but you need to select your own folder). This is compiled file dxlexport.exe from Lotus Notes C API package, it doesn’t contain any malware or viruses.

2. Open the document in Lotus Notes and press Alt-Enter keys. On a small window that appears make sure that the top select shows “Document”, then select the last tab and find the bottom line. It should contain NTxxxxxxx – in my example NT000051BA.

Document Properties

3. Open command line (for example, by using Win-R keys, then enter “cmd” there and press Enter, or by using Windows menu Start – Accessories – Command Line)

4. In command line, change the current directory to your Lotus Notes folder using command (don’t forget to enclose path in ” ” if you have spaces in LN path)

cd “C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus Notes”

5. Run export with the following command:

If your mail database is on local workstation

dxlexport -o %TEMP%\out.xml mail\mymailfile.nsf NT000051BA

If your mail database is on Domino server

dxlexport -s Server/Company -o %TEMP%\out.xml mail\mymailfile.nsf NT000051BA

where

Server/Company is full name of your Domino server

%TEMP%\out.xml is the name of output file with data,

mail\mymailfile.nsf is real path to your mail file (don’t forget “” if needed)

NT000051BA is number from step 2

Then you can use Internet Explorer to preview the data (it renders XML quite good), and use any text editor, like Notepad, to remove anything you need to exclude.

Thank you for your help

How to report problems to AweSync support

If you faced any problem, please send us email with details as described below.
First of all, Awesync creates log, where all actions and bugs are saved. Log files are regular text files which are placed in folder “%APPDATA%\Awesync\Log”. To browse this folder you can just paste this string to Explorer’s path textbox. Usually this path is

  • In Windows XP: “C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\Application Data\Awesync”
  • in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and above: “C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Awesync”

Only part of log is displayed in main window. For detailed log you can click “View Full Log” button in right bottom corner of expanded main window.

View Full Log

 

In “Log Viewer” you can see all existing logs, copy log text, and also copy full file name and open containing folder (in context menu on file name).

Log Viewer

 

Then attach this file to email and send it to support team – [email protected].