Notes on Productivity Home Page

I routinely use two tools for knowledge management: Lotus Notes and Mind Manager. I have long wished for a single integrated solution to search desktop documents, Notes databases, and MindManager maps. Well, it looks like at least one of these wishes will be granted soon.

The makers of the X1 Desktop search tool are preparing to add support for Lotus Notes databases. For the past week, I have been evaluating a beta release (I'm using ver. 5.1 Beta Rel 2, Build 1616zq) of the next generation of the X1 desktop search tool.  I'm really excited about the ability to use a single search tool to search Lotus Notes databases in addition to the documents on my local disk drive.  Right now, the search functionality is limited to mail databases, but I'm told that there are plans to add support for any Notes database. When that happens, it will represent a significant productivity boost for users of Lotus Notes.



One of the strong features of X1 is their support for a variety of document types; they have extended this functionality to searching text information stored within Notes as well.  So far, my testing has gone reasonably well; well enough to continue working with the product. Currently, there is no indication in the returned search results display which database the result came from, however, the basic mail folders are shown.

I would really like to see support for multiple databases -- at least email, discussion, and doclib. I've worked out a way that this could be done. Hopefully, they have, too.

All in all, it's been a good experience so far and I plan to continue working with the product as it matures.

And my other wishes?  I've spoken with one of the representatives from X1 who assured me that he would post a link to my wishes on the X1 forum.

We'll see what happens.

If you are unfamiliar with X1, I recommend that you check out Marc Orchant's reviews of the product. Posted with permission from the folks at X1.