Installation
Installation was a snap. Extensions for Notes includes an install database (Setup.nsf) that easily guides you step-by-step through the process. The installation uses a wizard-driven interface and can run from any Notes Client. You have the option of installing the product locally or on a server, depending on your needs. During the course of setting up Extenstions for Notes, several databases are installed, but the final result has the look and feel of just one database.

Getting started
After you have completed the installation, simply opening any of the databases can launch the application. A logical place to start is the portal database, pictured in Figure A.

FIGURE A

The portal database is a logical place to start. Click picture for a larger image.

The portal is similar to a Notes welcome page. Extensions for Notes gives you the option of setting the portal as your welcome page. The portal gives your organization a central entry point into the application. By simply clicking on the Options button, I was able to manipulate the content on the page to display just what I wanted to see. I was particularly impressed with the user-friendly interface. Tabs at the top of the page of every database allowed me to easily navigate throughout the application. The tabs can be set up for an entire organization, or they can be customized by user.

Contacts
From the portal, click on Contacts to view the Contacts tab. Contacts is a fully compliant Domino address book that can be used in a directory catalog or for LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), as well as for all the other things Domino address books can do. Contacts serves as the central repository for contacts and organizations that your company deals with. A security feature allows you to restrict who can see and/or edit the documents. Security can be enabled so that an administrator can restrict who can see or edit the documents. For instance, a manager could have access to all his subordinates' contacts, but the lower-level employee would only see the contacts that personally relate to him or her.

I found that the views on the left side of the Contacts tab were very intuitive and fairly easy to navigate, as seen in Figure B.

FIGURE B

The views were very intuitive. Click picture for a larger image.

I particularly liked the My Contacts view. You can choose to access a customer by last name, first name, organization, or even by a user-defined field that you set. This is great if you have only limited knowledge of a customer. It also cuts down on the clutter of seeing everybody's information and allows you to work with only the data that you need.

Once you have chosen a particular customer to view, a string of tabs across the middle of the Contacts page guides you to a wealth of information about that particular organization or customer. The Basic and Address tabs allow you to enter standard information, such as mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. The Extensions for Notes address book even come with extra fields that you can leverage to enhance your personal relationship with your customers (i.e., the spouse and kids' names and birthdays of your client). The Details tab, pictured in Figure C, and the Profile tab allow you to get even more specific.