• 1865 is the area code for Oxford in the UK.

• 383112 is the server's local number. Actually this is my desk number, not my server. I'm not telling you that number, but for this discussion, it doesn't matter.

I need to know all of this, because of the different parts of the number that are dialed depending on where I am. And then I put the correct bits that don't change for where I am into a connection document for that server. So let's see what I dial for different places:

• At my office desk, I dial 9 383112. For an outside line, I dial 9, and then 383112 because I'm in the Oxford area code.

• At home, I dial 01865 383112. Home is in the 1844 area code, so I need to dial the Oxford area code, 1865, prefixed with 0 for UK long distance.

• At a customer in Holland, I dial 00 44 1865 383112. The 00 is the Dutch international access code, 44 for the UK, and 1865 383112 is the UK number.

• In a hotel in Paris, I dial 9 00 44 1865 383112. The Paris hotel requires 9 for an outside line.

• At Lotusphere Orlando, from a Disney hotel, I dial 8 011 44 1865 383112. The 8 is for the outside line, 011 for international, and so on.

From this we can see that the connection to the server always needs the local part of the number, 383112, and requires the area code 1865 from anywhere outside Oxford. Everything else is location-dependant, and so it will go in the location document. My Notes Direct Dial connection record for that server is shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Here are the phone settings details for my Notes home server. Click picture for a larger image.

There are four fields I completed. You can see how I have filled in the Country code, Area code, and Phone Number. Because the UK phone system doesn't need the area code to be dialed on calls that originate in the local area, I also set, "Always Use Area Code," to No.

The location document, as we will see later, contains the variable bits for the location that I'm at. The key parts of that are the country code and area code that the location represents. Notes compares these with the country code and area code of the connection document, and any differences tells it how to set up the call. For instance, if the country code for the location is not the same as that for the server, it knows that an international call is required. If the country matches and the area code doesn't, then it knows it will have to dial a long distance call in the same country.

For a Notes direct dial connection, that's basically it. There are fields that can be entered on the Advanced tab, but the defaults are safe.

Before we move on to Locations, let's quickly review the other connection document types and where you might use them.

The Network connection is as it says; it's for LAN connectivity. We'll say no more here.

Passthru connections are used when you need to have access to multiple passthru servers. Each location document allows you to name just one passthru server. When you need to have routes to more than one passthru server, you use passthru connections to define the different access paths. If you use one of these, and the passthru server named is not available via a LAN connection, you're going to need another connection document to define the route to the passthru server. This will be one of a Direct Dial, Network Dial up, or Hunt Group connections.