Lotus Rock Star :: The Top 10 Things to do Right After Installing Quickr

Category Collaboration University Quickr
I've mentioned before that we're creating pre-conference video sessions for Collaboration University in order to "level the playing field" on day one - that is, to deliver the most basic sessions before the conference starts so we can provide a more advanced learning experience even for those new to the products. It also lets us conduct the conference in 3 days while still offering almost 40 sessions. With seven or eight of these video sessions already assigned, I hadn't planned on doing one myself. But then the guilt got hold of me for being Mr Delegation Guy, and I decided to summarize nine years of experience deploying and developing for Quickr (and it's previous names) and do one myself with the above title.

While the full session is for CU attendees, it'd be mean of me not to share the list. So I'll be nice. My decision in choosing this topic came out of the experience I've had with the majority of Quickr customers who have deployed on their own, or even with assistance, and at some point faced tough decisions, ran into brick walls, or seen their deployments run amok. In some cases, my recommendations are just common sense responses to IBM's packaging or deployment choices that cause problems down the road (in other words, product problems). And while not every suggestion is for every operation, I'm confident that most of them will apply in any given company.

So without further ado:

10. If you just installed Quickr using an administrator's name from the directory, STOP. UNINSTALL. READ THE DOC AND START OVER. This is perhaps the most common initial mistake and it causes numerous difficult-to-diagnose problems until the question is asked, answered, and the admin is trying to reverse engineer ten years of underlying authentication code to get themselves out of the jam.

9. Clean up notes.ini, and move qptool server task lines to program documents. If your Quickr server isn't the administration server (it shouldn't be, unless it's all by its lonesome), you don't need to run, say, the Design task at 1 AM. And three qptool activities at 4 AM...three java programs on a Domino server kicking off at the same time. Bad idea, my friends. Bad idea.

8. Set up Multi Server Single Sign On (MSSO, yes I know it's missing an S, don't ask). Do not use single server, and basic is kinda...amateur.

7. Hunt and forage for all the REAL proper field settings for your desired upload and download file restrictions. Hint, they're not in the doc.

6. Set up poor man's backup, right away, for rapid recovery of places, rooms or documents. Rotate it nightly. Hint, it uses qptool archive and a USB or SATA drive. Then let the admin folks (or you, I suppose) deal with transaction logging, backup APIs, tapes, offsite storage, and all their regulatory mumbo-jumbo on their own time. In the meantime, I can set up a recoverable system in about 20 minutes.

5. Remove the old themes from the "Select a Theme" UI. Really. Now. They are UGLY, sometimes broken, and inappropriate for the product. Bad idea again. Worse than the first one.

4. Set up a custom invitation script. Control your own text in invitations to places, and free yourself from IBM branding. The example from Lotus Devcon 2000 in Las Vegas still works. What? Don't have the backpack? Search my blog for "invitations", I posted the whole thing three years ago. Still works.

3. Take the Standard Template for Teams. Make a place. Change Basics. Make choices appropriate for your company. Make it a placetype. Hide the Standard Template for Teams. Now it's yours.

2. Make a custom login form. Unless, of course, you like advertising for IBM and pointing out capabilities you might not want to expose yet, like connectors to Microsoft Office.

1. And the number one recommendation for Quickr deployments....drumrolll...

You didn't seriously think I'd let a top ten list go by without this did you?

A picture named M2

QuickrTemplates.com

11 applications, free, with source code. And starting real soon, support.

These applications and their source code just hit 60,000 downloads. This stuff works - IBM sells Quickr based on templates, and it is succeeding in companies based on templates. We get it, and we've committed to updating them as long as the demand is there. Go get em.

Hope you enjoyed my Top 10 List. In the video presentation, I show how to do all of these things in more detail. If you're coming to CU, you will get your login to see this and the other presentations in the next 48 hours.

Thanks!

Comments

1 - Good stuff. Better than Letterman's Top 10 of late! Emoticon

Posted by Tim Lorge At 09:16:43 AM On 09/03/2008 | - Website - |

2 - Thanks Rob....your top 10 is about to land in my Quickr Deployment Place. Great stuff....CU next week!

Yes, I'm using Quickr to track my deployment of Quickr. How cool is that?

Posted by Pete At 04:02:04 PM On 09/03/2008 | - Website - |

3 -

Posted by null At 11:07:09 PM On 09/09/2008 | - Website - |

4 - Hi Rob,

are you sure that the custom invites are still working with Quickr 8.1? I tried it on two different servers but it seems to ignore it (maybe I am doing something wrong?).

During server startup it says on the console that it has recognized the INI parameter but the invitations are always the standard ones.

Thanks,
Michael

Posted by Michael Urspringer At 06:34:28 AM On 09/30/2008 | - Website - |

5 - Interesting article.

A Newbie and amateur question:

When I installed Quickr 8.1 in Lotus Domino I typed as the Quicker administrator an username that does not exist in my domino directory (I read in docs so). Now I can't login with this username. Now I can get the Quickr admin links just because I gave access to a notes user in the admin.nsf ACL. This does not seems natural. Now I can't get the "Work with templates" link.

Should I create the Quicker admin user in my Lotus directory? or what did I wrong?

I installed quicker in two different servers and the same happens.

Thank you in advance if you can Answer me.

editorlapagina@gmail.com

Posted by Johann At 04:49:19 PM On 10/15/2008 | - Website - |