Integrating With Lotus Notes Email and Calendar

This section provides overviews of the Lotus Notes email and calendar integration and prerequisites, and discusses how to integrate with a Lotus Domino server to retrieve email and calendar information.

Note: PeopleSoft Interaction Hub Revision 3 and higher releases will not certify any newer version of Lotus Notes. It will only support Lotus Notes 8.0 or prior versions.

The Email pagelet on the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub homepage can display email from Lotus Domino server when Lotus is designated as the primary mail system. Integration requires a specific configuration of the portal application server and a hub Domino server.

How the Integration Works

PeopleSoft Interaction Hub integrates with Lotus Notes mail files to retrieve an individual’s email and calendar appointment lists. To retrieve this information from each user’s mail file, PeopleSoft Interaction Hub uses the Notes Client Side Objects (NCSO) to interact with the Domino server. The NCSO uses Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) to exchange data and communicate internally. A server task needs to be set up on the Lotus Domino server to work with the Domino Object Request Broker DIIOP (Domino Internet Inter-ORD Protocol) to allow the internal communication.

Enabling iNotes

iNotes is the web-enabled solution for Lotus Notes. To enable users to launch iNotes from the Email pagelet, you must specify the iNotes URL on the Email and Calendar Defaults page.

The following prerequisites must be in place:

  • All mail files at an organization must refresh from a single mail file template, or there must be some other easy way for a Lotus Notes administrator to add two hidden custom views to each user's mail file.

  • There is a single Domino server that can run both the HTTP and DIIOP tasks for access by the portal.

    This server should use Java security and have the corporate name and address book on it.

  • All users at the organization have an internet password stored in their Person document in the Lotus Name and Address Book on the Domino hub server.

  • A custom view that is added to the address book provides the location and file name of each user's mailbox.

Complete the steps outlined in this section to configure the Lotus Notes email and calendar functions.

Placing the NCSO.Jar file on the Application Server Machine

To place the NCSO.Jar file on the application server machine:

  1. Copy the Lotus Domino NCSO.jar file from LOTUS_HOME\Domino\data\domino\java\NCSO.jar.

  2. Place the NCSO.jar file on the PeopleSoft application server in the appropriate directory.

    For Windows-based application servers place the file in PS_CFG_HOME\class\.

    For UNIX-based application servers place the file in PS_CFG_HOME/appserv/classes/.

  3. Add the NCSO.jar and com.peoplesoft.pa.pp.jar files to the environment variable CLASSPATH.

After setting up your Lotus Notes client application servers, complete the following Lotus Notes setup steps.

This section discusses how to:

  • Configure the Lotus Domino server.

  • Place custom views in Lotus templates.

To configure the Lotus Domino Server:

  1. Configure Java/COM Restrictions on the Lotus Domino Server.

  2. Enable IIOP.

  3. Set up Session Based Authentication.

  4. Verifying Web settings.

Configuring Java/COM Restrictions on the Lotus Domino Server

To configure Java/COM restrictions on the Lotus Domino server:

  1. Access the Lotus Domino Administrator.

  2. Select Configuration tab from the navigation bar.

  3. Select Server.

  4. Double click your server name from the list (or on current server document if you have only one server).

  5. Select Edit Server.

  6. Select the Security tab.

  7. Scroll to the section labeled Run restricted Java/Javascript/COM and enter an asterisk character (*) in the text area provided.

  8. Scroll to the section labeled Run unrestricted Java/Javascript/COM and enter an asterisk character (*) in the text area provided.

  9. Click the Save and Close link.

Enabling IIOP

The Lotus Notes Pagelets implementation uses the Notes Client Side Objects to communicate with the Lotus Domino server. The Notes Client Side Objects internally use IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) to communicate and exchange object data. To allow this communication, a server task that runs on the Lotus Domino Server and works with the Domino Object Request Broker DIIOP (Domino Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) needs to be enabled.

To enable IIOP:

  1. Access the Lotus Domino Administrator.

  2. Select the Configuration tab.

  3. Double click your server name from the list (or on current server document if you have only one server).

  4. Select the Ports: Internet Ports tab.

  5. Click on the DIIOP tab to go to the IIOP Server screen.

  6. Verify that TCP/IP Port number is 63148 (default port).

  7. Verify that TCP/IP Port status is Enabled.

    If not, then select Enabled and click Save and Close to save the changes.

  8. Now, if it is not already started, start the DIIOP server task on the Lotus Domino Server.

    To start the DIIOP server task, enter this command on Lotus Domino Server console: load diiop.

Setting Up Session Based Authentication

Before publishing the Lotus Notes Pagelets, you need to set up Session Based Authentication for Web clients who have access to a Domino Web server.

To set up session based authentication:

  1. Access the Lotus Domino Administrator.

  2. Select Configuration tab from the navigation bar.

  3. Select Server.

  4. Double click your server name from the list (or on current server document if you have only one server).

  5. Select Edit Server.

  6. Select Internet Protocols: Domino Web Engine.

  7. In the HTTP Sessions section, for Session Authentication, select Single Server.

  8. Click the Save and Close link.

Verifying Web settings

To verify web settings:

  1. Access the Lotus Domino Administrator.

  2. Select the Configuration tab from the navigation bar.

  3. Select Server.

  4. Double click your server name from the list (or on current server document if you have only one server).

  5. Select Edit Server.

  6. Select the Ports: Internet Ports: Web tab.

  7. Under Authentication Options select Yes for the Anonymous option.

Placing Custom Views in Lotus Templates

To place custom views in Lotus templates:

  1. The portal administrator sends the Portal_Lotus_Views.nsf file to the Lotus Notes administrator.

    This file is provided on the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub CD and can be found in PS_APP_HOME/scripts folder.

    Note: If the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub files were not installed in a separate PS_APP_HOME location, then this file will be found in PS_HOME instead.

    The Lotus Notes Administrator performs the following steps.

  2. Open the Portal_Lotus_Views.nsf file in the Lotus Domino Designer.

  3. Copy the two views, PS_PORTAL_MAIL and PS_PORTAL_CALENDAR, into the mail file template that is used for all mail files in the organization.

  4. Copy the view PS_PORTAL_MAIL_LOCATION either into the Name and Address Book template in the organization (if one is used) or into the Name and Address Book of the hub Domino server that the portal application server accesses to retrieve user mail file information.

    1. If the organization uses customized Domino user names that are not any of the entries listed in the User Name field of the Person document in the Name and Address Book, then customize the PS_PORTAL_MAIL_LOCATION view that you just copied.

    2. To customize this view, open it in Lotus Domino Designer and change the first column of the view to reflect the customized Domino user names used in the organization.

      For example, if the entries in the User Name field are John Smith/ACME Corp and John Smith, but a custom Domino user name of jsmith is used, the column formula is @Left(FirstName;1)+LastName.

    3. Change the first column of the PS_PORTAL_MAIL_LOCATION view only if the system uses custom Domino user names that are not any of the entries in the User Name field.