Using both preventive and detective strategies can help reduce the threats to an organization's data integrity. To help prevent data integrity problems from occurring, teams working in Lotus Notes and Domino environments must first take a look at their production environment and replication strategies to determine where in the process the data is being compromised. Is there a replication strategy, or are users allowed to overwrite each other's work at will?

Ensuring data integrity
Lotus Notes and Domino teams need to take a hard look at their production environments and determine where along the line data integrity is being compromised. Introducing automated Notes-specific tools into the database administration function will help detect data integrity issues prior to application deployment. Automation reduces human error and maximizes the detection rate of weak data in the time available.

In today's competitive business climate, dismissing the importance of data integrity is clearly unacceptable. The business risks are material and regulators will simply not accept it anymore. Managers need to ensure that team resources are focused on the tasks of maintaining quality data in Notes and Domino applications.

To do this effectively, managers must educate their team on the importance of data integrity while providing their teams with the necessary tools and processes. By establishing a controlled environment that incorporates both preventive and detective mechanisms, organizations will have created the means to improve user confidence and mitigate potential risks.

Ian Smith, COO of Teamstudio, runs the day-to-day operations of Teamstudio Inc, using his experience gained over the last 25 years building both private and public corporations mainly in the IT sector. Over the last 5 years Smith has broadened Teamstudio's technology beyond its core tools expertise into advisory and configured software work generating record sales in 2005. He has a track record of innovation and has worked throughout the US and Europe assisting businesses execute their corporate and IT strategy. Prior to joining Teamstudio in 2001, Smith was a divisional board director of Capita Plc, one of the leading European outsourcing groups. Educated in Scotland, he holds degrees and professional qualifications in economics, marketing and finance.