Lotus Rock Star | Lotus Quickr FAQ

Thursday, 8. February 2007

Lotus Quickr FAQ02/08/2007 04:47 PM

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As the official IBM Design partner for Lotus QuickPlace and Quickr, I wanted to take a few moments to give you some information about what I believe is one of the most significant market moves made by IBM in quite some time. This post will be updated on a regular basis, and I will also give it a dedicated page as soon as it scrolls.

So feel free to comment and ask questions here - I'll update the post with answers.

What is Lotus Quickr?
Lotus Quickr, announced at Lotusphere 2007, is an evolution of Lotus QuickPlace (which for the uninitiated is a web-based team collaboration product), expanded to include options for a new platform, and enhanced with connectors to end user tools and products like Windows Explorer, Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes and Sametime Connect. In addition, under the Quickr banner is a completely new set of capabilities that deliver robust document management on a standards-based platform. So in a nutshell, it's team collaboration and document management. One brand name, several ways to deploy, but one license instead of five or six to achieve the same capabilities.

What's happening to QuickPlace? Is it dead?
No! And if anyone says this to you, send them my way for a good kicking. What used to be called QuickPlace 8.0 is alive and well and part of Quickr 8.0. That's why it's starting its brand life with "8.0". Get it? It's just more than what IBM promised in 2006. Plus, for the QuickPlace customer on maintenance, you get to upgrade to Quickr 8.0 and get not only the NSF-based QuickPlace capabilities you know and love, you get the connectors, an option to deploy team spaces on J2EE, and robust document management reminiscent of Portal Document Management or Workplace Documents - if you want to. You're entitled, not forced.

OK so part of Quickr is QuickPlace. What's better about it?
You can visit this post to see all of the features that were intended for QuickPlace 8.0 and simply translate them to Quickr 8.0 - the NSF version. Quickr's NSF implementation of what used to be QuickPlace still is as customizable, has drastically enhanced the user experience, is accessible to external programs with a Web Services interface, and drastically enhanced handling of documents. Save a file to a Quickr library from Word or Explorer? Easy. Check it out, approve it, revise it? Easy. You can then go even further and add robust document management capabilities with Quickr's Portal-based document management options, if you need them. One more thing - you do NOT need to upgrade Domino to 8.0 in order to run Quickr 8.0! You can deploy it on Domino 7.0.2, so you don't have to upgrade your infrastructure if you're not ready. Another good reason not to hesitate.

I have QuickPlace but no J2EE or Portal Skills. What should I do?
Upgrade to Quickr 8.0 as soon as possible when it's released - it is a user-focused release with almost 10 years of engineering behind it. Do not be afraid of "dot-zero" this time, they could have just as easily called it 7.9. Upgrade, then deploy the Quickr Connectors (which, in the product as of now, are called "Desktop Plugins") to give users maximum flexibility in how they access and contribute content. The connectors, combined with Quickr 8.0's enhanced management of documents, really moves it out of QuickPlace's "document management light" into a more mature set of capabilities, on par with and competitive with Sharepoint. But Quickr trumps Sharepoint easily with the addition of email and IM connectors, something Microsoft hasn't even envisioned let alone engineered.

I have WebSphere Portal and never once deployed QuickPlace. What should I do?
You can use Quickr's J2EE option to deploy team spaces with near parity of functionality as the NSF version out of the box. As well, you can easily deploy the J2EE-based document management options, giving you both capabilities with minimal hardware investment. If you really want a customized experience, or want to enable a business process with external or disconnected participation, have a look at Quickr's NSF deployment. It's not too hard to manage and is quite scalable.

I see some duplication here. NSF and J2EE options for the same thing?
While combining what used to be QuickPlace, Team Spaces from WSE and WCS, Portal Document Management and Workplace Documents, it's inevitable that some features would become available on both platforms. Fortunately, what IBM has done here is to give us choices without pegging us into one platform or the other. And in some instances, you'll end up using both. Say you have an extranet and an intranet. On the extranet, you need maximum flexibility, more UI customization, and user-managed membership. Great, deploy Quickr 8.0's NSF-based (formerly QuickPlace) offering. Then perhaps you have departmental task forces for a specific goal, fairly uniform, with similar needs (such as a Six Sigma initiative)? You can easily deploy Quickr 8.0/s J2EE-based Team Spaces to meet this need. The key is that you have options and already have the licenses to do it.

What about Domino Document Manager (Domino.Doc)?
While it's in IBM's plans to integrate the final piece of the "team collaboration and document management" puzzle into Quickr in the future, there just wasn't enough time to do the engineering work for Quickr 8.0. But don't worry, it's been publicly stated that they'll merge in the future. Hang onto it, and wait a while for IBM. They have proven that they can do quite a bit of engineering work in a short period - and it will benefit users to hang in there.

Why the Name Change?
It's really a melding of what used to be five or six products into one entitlement and license. So, calling it QuickPlace would have been confusing. Besides, dropping vowels is cool these days. Using "Quick" in the name was important to preserve some of the heritage of the original name - it's an easy mental leap from one to the other.

Jeez that's a lot. What else is coming?
OK so while (insert IBM disclaimer here) a lot is still on the drawing board, you can expect the future to (insert second IBM disclaimer here) include new connectors, integration with Lotus Connections, Forms, more lifecycle management, a rich client experience with lotus Expeditor, and back-end integration with other content stores like FileNet, DB2 Content Manager, and even...maybe...Sharepoint. Although, if you have it...oh never mind.

Last but not least, we (SNAPPS) will have some interesting news and developments around Quickr as it comes closer to shipping. Keep coming back, or subscribe to my newsletter!

Technorati: Lotusphere2007 QuickPlace Quickr

Comments :

1. Bob Brodsky02/08/2007 05:17:08 PM

Rob,

I am a QP newbie.
What is a good reference for what makes it go?
Like, is there a server task, what are the templates, ...
Is Quickr the same

Bob:-

2. Ian Connor02/08/2007 09:51:18 PM
Homepage: http://ianconnor.blogspot.com

Thanks for the summary and keep up the good design work!

3. Stuart McIntyre02/09/2007 03:25:00 AM
Homepage: http://quickrblog.com

Great post Rob, with a lot of very relevant info, particular for those that are coming to Quickr anew.

In particular I liked your suggestion that customers will see benefit in running both NSF and J2EE based respositories for different business needs. We have seen a lot of customers with tens of internal-focused Quickplaces, but have never seen it as an Extra- or Internet focused product. This bundling of the different functionality from Workplace, Portal Documents and Quickplace will at first be confusing, but will give real flexibility for deployment for so many customers.

4. Jelan Heidelberg02/09/2007 07:36:29 AM
Homepage: http://www.ibm.com/lotus/quickr

Nice summary, Rob! I couldn't have said it better myself...

5. Jeff Berg02/11/2007 08:57:50 AM

Rob,

I'm looking for more clarification on the 'near parity' of the NSF and J2EE versions. You state that only NSF will allow offline and is more customizable. What other components/templates make them different? What does 'more customizable' mean?

Also, how do the connectors do authentication and authorization? We have two different security models for Notes and Portal.

Thanks!
-Jeff

6. Bidallo02/11/2007 09:21:41 AM

Thanks for you post.

When will Quickr be in beta?
How can I ask to partecipate to the beta?
Will Quickr be multi-language for the web user? I mean, interface should modify according to the user web browser language setting.

Thanks

7. Julian Woodward02/12/2007 08:09:14 AM
Homepage: http://www.axiot.com

Nice summary Rob, thanks.

8. Rob Novak02/12/2007 11:39:15 AM
Homepage: http://www.LotusRockStar.com

@1: Bob - There are a lot of references on QuickPlace, but I'll try to answer. I won't do it justice. QuickPlace today is an add-on to a Domino server that leverages Domino services and provides functionality that would be very difficult to program in pure Domino. It architecture consists of several pieces including an add-on to the HTTP engine, templates, placetypes (business templates), an XML Java API, a C API, and a late-binding model for presentation. Quickr is all that plus a series of components to be deliverd on the J2EE platform.

@5 Jeff - My comment about "near parity" applies to the plain vanilla out-of-the-box functionality of both platforms. The J2EE platform version of Quickr team spaces is a revamped (don't know how much) version of Team Spaces that were present in both Workplace Services Express and WCS's Workplace Team Collaboration. The J2EE version will ship with standard collab templates, but require a different set of skills and tools to customize - namely Lotus Component Designer and Javascript. When I say "more customizable" for the NSF version, it's a statement that I have to prove on a use case basis. But, given the history of both products and the nature of Domino vs. WAS, I will just categorically state that it is true. For instance, there is no such thing as an agent on the other side...

@6 Bidallo - About betas, you need to contact someone at IBM, try your sales contact. I don't know when it will go to managed or public beta. About multilingual capabilities, no it will not be multilingual on one server (yet). Keep asking.

9. Matt02/14/2007 02:18:51 PM

Thanks for the FAQ, Rob, very useful. Do you know if there are going to be Quickr connecters (or indeed some kind of tighter integration) with the OpenOffice based document editors in Notes 8?

10. Neil02/22/2007 10:28:56 AM
Homepage: http://www.dominoconsultants.com

Thanks for that info, when you say Domino.Doc will be integrated, will this be as a back end content repository for Quickr documents, or subsumed into Quickr.

Many of the companies I deal with like DomDoc because it gives a relatively scalable, and robust document store, and there is very little that can compete on features at that price point. Many of the companies have considered SharePoint, but dont want Blogs/Wiki's etc and just need document management.

One question that comes to mind if they do merge, is, Document Manager scales by creating multiple document databases, does Quickr or will it do this?

Ideally I would like to see Document Manager continue on as a seperate product (with an updated UI) and allow it to be used as a content repository for Quickr.

11. Rob Novak02/23/2007 03:48:24 PM
Homepage: http://www.LotusRockStar.com

@Matt: No I don't know - I'm pretty sure they won't be in the initial release though if there are. However, connectors depend on a new Quickr web services layer on the Domino server....so it could be up for grabs.

@Neil - I decided to go ahead and dedicate a new post to your question...

12. Andrew03/13/2007 04:29:57 PM

What are the platform and system requirements for Quickr? Is a beta out yet?

13. Mark06/23/2007 01:43:14 PM

Will Quickr compatible with Lotus Domino, and Lotus Notes 6.5

14. Rob Novak06/23/2007 05:57:28 PM
Homepage: http://www.LotusRockStar.com

@Mark - Quickr services for Domino runs on Domino 7.02. Notes 6.5 support for the Notes connector is currently listed as planned, it will ship with compatibility with 7. When they add 8 (after it ships) possibly they will add 6.5. Check the IBM Announcements for compatibility updates from time to time.

15. sheetal09/12/2007 06:00:05 AM

Is there any one place where teh enhancements of QuickPlace to Quickr are clearly logged?

16. Jagdish11/26/2007 04:58:12 AM

Hi,

I know this sounds really dumb, but how do I get the Quickr home page i.e., the UI. I just wanted to explore this tool for my team and isntalled Lotus Domino 7.0.2 with FP 1 and then quickr 8.0.0.2 on my windows machine. I double click the Domino server icon on my desktop and it shows quickr services are loaded correctly. But how do I get the UI from which I can create places and basically start off. I ve been googling and clicking on every exe icon in the domino installation directory for hours now.

Sorry if I wasted your time .. would really appreciate it if someone said how its done. Thanks !

17. Vinaya 12/12/2007 05:07:38 AM

Jagdish,

To get the Quickr admin page, u need to open
{ Link }

Or the best would be to got to Start->Program Files->IBM Lotus Quickr->First Steps->Launch Lotus Quickr.

18. Jim Gettman03/24/2008 01:45:34 PM
Homepage: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgettman

Hi all; My team compared ST / QP to Twiki in 2005 and found issues that forced to the open-source product. (A difficult decision for a large company that already owned QP.) Since then we chose MediaWiki over SharePoint at another company over a similar issue set. Now I have a third company that is looking for a collaboration environment considering Quickr. Does Quickr address these concerns -
- Can it allow unregistered users to read all content?
- Does it support immediate registration for updates?
- Do all features work in Firefox?
- Does it track all changes and attachments by user, date and diff?
- Does it support rollback for all updates and attachments?
- Are there stable, readable URLs for all content?
- Can users do Boolean text search on contents and attachments?
- Does it have user watch controls with email and RSS?
- Does it have a WYSIWYG editor?
- Does it produce watch and usage reports?
- Are contents and attachments available as files?
- Are contents and attachments available as files?

Thanks, - Jim Gettman

"Sometimes wrong, but never anonymous"

19. Jim Gettman03/24/2008 01:51:54 PM
Homepage: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgettman

WIMW - Are contents and attachments available through [b[ODBC / Database connectivity? Thanks again, - Jim Gettman "Sometimes wrong, but never anonymous"

20. Rob Novak03/24/2008 03:11:05 PM
Homepage: http://www.LotusRockStar.com

@Jim:
Yes, don't understand, most, some, most, no (gtr-34), don't understand, yes, no, half, and no.

Documentation, features, etc. can be found here: { Link }

-Rob

21. sushant04/02/2008 09:46:55 AM

I want to know if we can use quirkr in lotus client . I know that it is web enable product. If we can use quirkr as lotus client is there any documentation to customize it in to document management system