Migrating from Microsoft Outlook to IBM Lotus Notes

Lotus Notes: When Lotus Notes was initially released by IBM; it was not expected to be anything special, as it was just a common looking email application with To-Do list feature, calendar function, and a built-in web browser. However, gradually with time, IBM Lotus Notes email application came out to be much more than just an email client.

Lotus Notes – One of the Top Alternatives to Outlook: Following aspects make IBM Lotus Notes to be one of the top alternatives against Microsoft Outlook:
• Complete applications (like CRM or customer relationship management packages) are built on IBM Lotus Notes.
• In Lotus Notes, everything is tightly integrated into a single application (instead of an application suite).
• IBM Lotus Notes has a module called Sametime. It supports instant messaging, voice and video calls just like Skype. The basic form of Sametime is a free add-on and its more advanced form with additional features can be bought.
• Integration and flexibility remain the most useful assets of IBM Lotus Notes email application. Users can complete almost all their communication tasks (using email, IM and video calls etc) and can even do web browsing.
• Full Office suite (Symphony), which is a plug-in for Lotus Notes, can be installed for creating presentations, spreadsheets and other Office documents. Symphony is a set of applications used for creating/editing/sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Lotus Symphony tools support Open Document Format (ODF). Symphony can be used to handle majority of tasks that enable your organization to access, use, and maintain documents over long term. ODF also provides flexibility.
• IBM provides 24x7 support to users for their mission-critical problems and support in the business hours for less important problems.
• Lotus Notes can operate under Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac Operating Systems.
• Emails and calendar items can be stored locally to be accessed while offline. They are synchronized with the Server as soon as a connection is present. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) packages benefit a lot from this tightly integrated email and calendar systems.

MS Outlook to Lotus Notes: The aforementioned features and benefits of using IBM Lotus Notes make it one of the topmost alternatives against Microsoft Outlook email client. Migrating to Lotus Notes from Outlook has become a common occurrence these days on account of such vast benefit package provided by IBM Lotus Notes.

3 Quick Steps for How to Import PST to Lotus Notes: Below mentioned are the 3 quick steps to export Outlook emails to Lotus Notes and to transfer all other PST mailbox items to Notes NSF.

1. Purchase a third-party software (SysTools Outlook to Notes software is a recommended tool for migrating to Lotus Notes from Outlook
2. When purchased, run SysTools Outlook to Notes software on your system. In the initial screen, click "Browse" to select the PST file to be converted to NSF and then click "OK"
3. Select a saving location for saving the converted NSF file (converted from Outlook PST file). Click "Export" for MS Outlook to Lotus Notes conversion.

Notes Better Than Outlook in Mail Routing Aspect (How to Convert MS Outlook Emails to Notes?)

Lotus Notes email application is much more useful and powerful in certain aspects when it is compared to MS Outlook email client. One of these aspects is the Mail Routing aspect.

Mail Routing in Lotus Notes and MS Outlook: Lotus Notes users, who have adequate access rights, are able to remotely manage their emails stored in the Notes mailbox in any domain. Whereas, in Microsoft Outlook, users do not have this facility to remotely manage their emails.

Steps of Mail Routing in Lotus Notes: The fundamental steps involved in the routing of emails in the Lotus Notes emailing system are as follows:
1. Creating a mail message
2. Attaching the address of a recipient
3. Sending the message
4. The mail router finds the mail message in MAIL.BOX, confirms its routing table, and establishes the apt protocol for transferring it.
5. The router of the recipient's Server finds that message in MAIL.BOX and delivers it to the recipient's mail file.
6. Using Lotus Notes, the recipient retrieves the message from his mail file.

Using Lotus Notes Also Gives an Easily Routed Workflow: Using Lotus Notes email management tool will help you to have a very well-routed work flow in your organization.

For example:
1. An employee fills a purchase order and submits it online
2. The router will automatically send a mail to the manager
3. The manager can digitally sign the purchase order and can easily send it to the whole purchasing team.
4. The purchase unit can update the records and place an order with the vendor.

This efficient email routing and excellently routed work flow can be obtained only by using Lotus Notes emailing application. This is why Lotus Notes is rightly called An Enterprise Email Management Application. Today, many enterprises prefer Lotus Notes over Microsoft Outlook.

How to Convert MS Outlook Emails to Notes? If you are an Outlook user but now want to switch to Lotus Notes email client, then MS Outlook emails conversion is a viable solution for you if you want to keep accessing your old MS Outlook emails. An apt way to convert Microsoft Outlook emails to Notes NSF format is by using an efficient third-party tool to convert MS PST emails to Notes NSF format. One such software solution is SysTools Outlook to Notes tool, which is a simple and intuitive product to convert MS Outlook emails to Notes.