iNotes Policies 

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Lotus iNotes retrieves settings from several different places for its specific behavior. The following summarizes these related settings.

User preferences

Users have the ability to set their own calendar and mail settings with Lotus iNotes Preferences user interface and majority of settings can be administrated by policy. Many of these settings are shared with the Lotus Notes client, but others are specific to Lotus iNotes.

Most of these settings are stored in the following profile documents:

• Calendar profile. To store calendar and mail settings , which are shared with the Lotus Notes client.
• Color profile. To store certain preference settings, such as attention indicator settings, where changes can result in the need to rebuild key mail views. The settings are shared with the Lotus Notes client.
• iNotes profile. To store settings that are only used by Lotus iNotes. These are settings that are either unique to iNotes or duplicated by iNotes, because the comparable Lotus Notes client setting is stored on a Lotus Notes client workstation and is not accessible by Lotus iNotes .
• DOLS profile. To store Lotus iNotes DOLS specific settings, which are only used by Lotus iNotes.
• Domino Server configuration document. Server configuration settings specific to Lotus iNotes can be found in the Lotus iNotes tab (Lotus Domino Web Access tab in earlier releases). The server configuration document settings apply to all Lotus iNotes users on a particular server. They cannot be used to configure a subset of users in a particular way.
• NOTES.INI settings on Lotus Domino server. Many NOTES.INI settings are available to customize Lotus iNotes. Similar to server configuration document settings, these settings apply to all users on a server.

If the same Domino server iNotes configuration settings and notes.ini settings are not duplicated on the other servers (for example, cluster server), that are housing mail file replicas, users might experience different behavior based on the server being accessed. Lotus iNotes Policies provide a way for administrator to make a consistent user experience across all servers, that host user replica databases.

Domino Administration Policies for iNotes

With Lotus Domino 8.5, administrative policies can be used to set or to enforce mail, security and desktop settings for IBM Lotus iNotes users. You use a Policy document to assign the policy settings to one or more groups of users. In a policy settings document, you determine a set of defaults that you want to assign to users. These settings can either lock down certain preferences or enforce administrative settings. In addition, any existing policies that were assigned to Lotus iNotes users prior to this release will be enforced. Both policy settings documents and a policy document are required to create and assign policy to Lotus iNotes users. For a full explanation about using policies, and the relationship between Policy documents and policy settings documents, see the User and Server Configuration - Policies section of Domino administrator help.

The policies and settings are now properly supported by Lotus iNotes and are no longer only applicable for Lotus Notes users. For organizations that have deployed both Lotus Notes and Lotus iNotes, this availability gives a more consistent experience for both Lotus Notes and Lotus iNotes users, as users are properly restricted from updating various locked preference settings. Administrators can now also provide a different set of capabilities for two different users that are on the same Lotus Domino server. For example, an administrator can now easily remove major functional areas (such as Notebook or To Dos) from all users or a subset of users of both groups.

Important notice regarding Lotus iNotes policy and settings

1. Adminp process need at least one mail policy settings document with at least one option selected for a particular user in order for other policy settings to work. Because Lotus iNotes is primarily a mail application, these mail policy settings are expected to be satisfied condition for all applied policies.
2. If a policy is assigned to a Lotus iNotes user, the policy settings take precedence over the respective server configuration document settings.
3. Lotus iNotes users need to log out and log in again for applied policies and settings to take effect, because Lotus iNotes only detects new policy settings when a user first logs in and starts the Lotus iNotes session or when there is a specific need to reload session information such as when preferences are saved.
4. Wait for the Adminp cycle (see the following explanation) to be completed or manually issue a Domino adminp related tell process command. Because assigned policies and settings apply to the user right away and they will be effective after Adminp processes the policy change requests.

Wait for Adminp cycle or force update

After policy and settings are created and assigned to users, they need to be applied to the user’s profile documents. This application is made through the Adminp process. The Adminp process applies policies once every 12 hours by default, or you can manually issue the following Domino server console command to force the immediate processing of any relevant policy changes:

   < tell adminp process mail policy 

When Adminp runs, it determines the assigned user effective policy and applies it to that user relevant configuration profile documents. After the process is completed successfully, the desired policy settings for the users are in effect. This application is true for Lotus iNotes only; the Lotus Notes client itself needs to run a separate process to finish the policy update.

Location of Lotus iNotes policy related settings

Lotus iNotes specific settings are grouped together under a new tab "Lotus iNotes" in the mail policy settings document. In the basic tab, it is to set Lotus iNotes user startup view. For example, as to forces a particular user to use only the lite mode; to select what to enable or disable iNotes user functional areas (mail, calendar, contacts, and so on). Other Lotus iNotes related configurations are in the Configuration tab and Offline tab is for Lotus iNotes offline related settings. After assignment, all the settings under the Lotus iNotes tab will modify the assigned user Lotus iNotes profile document by Adminp. Refer to section "Extending policy settings to Lotus iNotes profile documents" below for more detail.

When implementing support for policies in Lotus iNotes, we decided to leverage the applicable existing settings that were already used by the Lotus Notes client. In this manner, policies already in effect for Lotus Notes client deployments can be honored for Lotus iNotes as well. This approach minimizes the effect on Lotus Domino administrators who are already familiar with the existing policies. We honor the existing mail, desktop, and security settings documents that pertain to Lotus iNotes. For example, we allow the user to change mail file ownership, forcing messages to be encrypted or signed and setting the default duration for meetings and appointments.

Figure 1 Lotus iNotes in mail policy settings


A summary listing of Lotus iNotes supported settings can be found in :
New features in IBM Lotus iNotes 8.5: Administration polcies and lite mode

Related topics in Administrator help include:
Using Policies with Lotus iNotes
Creating security policy settings for Lotus iNotes users
Creating mail policy settings for Lotus iNotes users
Desktop policy settings supported in Lotus iNotes

Extending policy settings to Lotus iNotes profile document

Prior to Lotus Domino 8.5 release, Adminp can only update user’s calendar profile document. In version 8.5, adminp has extended to update other profile documents and can be used in a general-purpose way. You can customize the mail policy settings document and push the new or customized settings to the profile documents, which are specified in its $Profiles field.

A new field $Profiles is added to the mail policy settings document in Domino directory. The field $Profiles contains a list of pairs: a prefix and a profile name delimited by a colon. For example, $DWA:inotesprofile, any item that starts with $DWA (all prefix must start with a '$') in user mail file is pushed over to the inotesprofile document for any user to whom that mail policy setting document applies.

$FieldsSetByPolicy filed in the user mail profile document reports which fields have been modified by applying the policy, rather than by a user action (for example, by changing the preference and clicking OK). $FieldsSetByPolicy filed will be created only after applying policy and it will not exist in user mail profile document if no policy apply.

The easy to view the setting is thorough Notes Peek utility (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24005686).

Example 1, View $Profiles field in a created mail policy settings document.
Steps Open Domino directory, Documents, Mail Settings:

Figure 1 $Profiles field in a mail policy settings document



Example 1, View $FieldsSetByPolicy filed in an policy applied user mail file

Steps Open User mail file , Profiles, inotesprofile

Figure 2 View $FieldsSetByPolicy filed in an policy applied user mail file

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