Network file systems store files but don't do anything else for me in organizing the data apart from the rudimentary hierarchy of directories. Keeping these files as Notes attachments again keeps it all together in one place, and I can use Notes to organize and annotate them. It also means that you can easily back it up by making a replica of the database on a friendly Notes server somewhere. If you really need to satisfy people with the stuff on a file server's file system, then make the database available with DNFS (Domino Network File Store).

In this same category comes other customer and project information. I tend to keep, where I have approval, copies of customer databases that I work with, documentation, address books, phone books, and so on. Remember, this is your customer's information. Protect it appropriately. Notes local encryption is a good idea here--even better with the Notes 6 client because it will encrypt local databases by default now. That does mean that if you're silly enough or unfortunate enough to lose your laptop or have it stolen, the customer information is protected behind a Notes ID's password.

Hints, tips, and other information
In the same way, just about anything else I want to keep gets stored and organized in the same way, the best of Dan Velasco's tips being just one example, along with all those other snippets of information that would otherwise be scattered about the back pages of your filofax, somewhere on your PDA, or wherever.

Your colleagues free-time schedules
As I discussed in the March issue of DominoPower, you can set your local free-time info setup to replicate free-time for your team members, assuming of course that you need to set up meetings with colleagues while you're offline.

Your team or company news database
Keep in touch with your team when you are away by keeping your team or company news database.

Email archive
And, quite importantly, keep your email archive. If your Notes administrators have set up a quota on your Notes mail database, you may well be using archiving to keep your mail database down to a manageable size. You should consider whether you need to carry this archive around with you. If it's on a server (now why would the administrators do that?), you might be able to get away with a truncated replica on your laptop.

What about your dealings with your team?
I guess it's possible that you don't really want to be bothered by your colleagues or want to bother them while you're working away from the office, but many of us nomadic types need to keep in contact with the team while we're away. Even though we're all using the best software there is for enabling us to do that, not all of us are that good at making the best of it. I'm not going to go into the whole virtual team mechanics here because that would take a whole series of articles to expound. All I'm going to do is present a few ideas to help make a spread out team able to operate together.

The first thing is to get all the team to use their Notes calendars properly, and that includes you. Make sure you keep your travel arrangements in there and try to keep it up to date. Also ensure that you replicate your mail file back to the office occasionally so that any changes you make while on the road get back to your colleagues. Think about delegating management of your calendar back to one of your colleagues so that they can add and manage entries for events while you're away. Also, ensure that your Domino directory or corporate phonebook contains your cell phone number, just in case they need to get in contact with you faster than email.