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Migrating from IBM Lotus Notes to Outlook 2016 or Office 365 for Business

IBM Notes, which is also known as IBM Lotus Notes is the IBM’s Enterprise email client which integrates the social collaboration, messaging, and business applications. The standard files used by IBM Lotus Notes have “.nsf” as their extension and thus they are popularly known as NSF Files.

Microsoft recently introduced Office 365 and Microsoft Outlook 2016 and these have gained immense popularity worldwide. A large number of organizations across the globe are using Office 365 and    many Enterprises leverage MS Outlook 365 for carrying out internal email based communication, setting calendars for events, making and sharing notes, etc.

Owing to the rising popularity and usage of Office 365, several organizations, whether small startups, or large enterprises want to migrate to Office 365 from the other platforms which they have been using for Enterprise emails.

Lotus Notes To Office 365 Migration

While all migrations are complicated in one or the other, but one of the most difficult migrations to carry out is Lotus Notes to Outlook 2016 or MS Office 365. This is because the management of the Lotus Notes is difficult and migrating them to Office 365 can cause many issues.

When you are trying to transfer the data stored in the Lotus Notes which is in the NSF file, you need to be to possess thorough technical understanding of Lotus Notes as well as Office 365, and how both these tools function, because the data might get lost while performing the manual transactions and that’s why, one needs to be technically sound to ensure that no data loss happens, and even if it happens its minimal.

The manual migration of LotusNotes NSF to Office 365 can be carried out using IMAP connector. Here the steps which you need to follow:

  • Backup the Lotus Notes NSF Files
    The manual migration process is  not completely accurate, and has the risk of data loss. Therefore, before beginning the migration, one needs to back up all the Lotus Notes NSF files, so that if some data is lost during the migration, it can be recovered from the backup. Start with backing up all the user mailboxes stored on Lotus Notes as NSF Files.
  • Create New Mailboxes
    Once the backup has been taken, the next step involves the creation of the new mailboxes for all the users who possesses a  profile in the Lotus Notes desktop email client.
  • Enable IMAP TCP/IP Ports
    The next step involves enabling IMAP for all the users. To accomplish this task, follow the below given steps:
  1. Open the “Domino Administrator” in the IBM Notes
  2. Now, Click “Configuration Tab”
  3. On the server, open the “Server Document” which runs the IMAP service
  4. Now click “Ports”, then click “Internet Ports”, and then click “Mail Tab”
  5. Change the “TCP/IP port value status” to “Enabled” in the column named “Mail (IMAP)”By default, the port number 143 is used by the IMAP clients to connect to TCP/IP on the Lotus Domino Server
  6. Click “Save” before clicking “Exit”
  • Connect With The IMAP Connector
    Now, use the IMAP Connector for synchronizing the emails in the Office 365. All your users would be able to access their emails on the Office 365 platform.

Problems Which One May Encounter With IMAP Connector Oriented Migration

The manual migration which you are carrying out using the IMAP Connector is not completely safe and you may have to face some troubles during the migration process. These include:

  • IMAP Connector doesn’t allow the  transfer of the calendar entries, that’s why, one may have to perform it manually. Furthermore, the manual creation of the Calendar entries is a time consuming process.
  • If the current state of the Lotus Notes client is disabled, it will not support IMAP connection.
  • If the Lotus Notes client is protected by some proxy or firewall, it will not get connected to the internet.
  • The IMAP connector has a limitation that it cannot move the emails more than 1 GB in one go.
  • When you use the IMAP protocol for the migration of data, it can only move the online data to the Office 365.
  • Many filters are required to be applied, which can be complex to execute and are expensive too.
  • Also, there are many chances of data loss.

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