Domino Blog

News, views and directions on IBM Lotus Domino

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? Yes

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy? 1 big org policy, then 2 policies that i apply on a user by user basis (pain in the ***)

3. What do you leverage policies for?

standard settings, sametime settings (the crappy one in 703)

4. What would you like to see done with policies?

Archiving policies fixed! (IBM SPR# CJMS6XTPP6

titled "Archive policy on server prohibits local archiving even though local archiving has not been disabled." )

A policy for the Sametime Sidebar in 8

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work?

I use policies quite a bit. One of my favorite uses of policies is to push replicas to a user's local. I look forward to the day that I can push connection documents to the local via policy as well.

Do you use policies in your organization today? In many clients

If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy?

We of course have the whole OU, but then needed exception policies for the Admins and others.

What do you leverage policies for?

Some group policies and some db pushing out to clients. ECL is a HUGE one. Traveler is just starting to get used more.

What would you like to see done with policies?

BES actions better integrated, yeah, I know, never going to happen, but would be really nice.

Admins should be exempt or the groups for exemption should be part of every policy so we only create 1 policy per item/target/option.

What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work?

Make it easier for admins to use. I remember my first, 2nd and 3rd time trying to get them to work and I have been working on Notes since R2. Newbies don't get the whole setup procedure, and we usually go in to clean up their mistakes.

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? - Yes, and have done at many clietns through the years

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy? Most of the time by OU, but with explicit policies based on client type, location, function etc

3. What do you leverage policies for? Registration, Setup, Security, Mail and Archive

4. What would you like to see done with policies? Control all client configuration options (contact synchronization for example)

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work?

The application of hierarchical policies based on the name is kind of messed up. I don't think you should be able to change the name of a Child policy once it has been created. Changing the name can break the hierarchy (as I found recently at a client. . . )

Can Policy Synopsis give a report for parent/child policies for OUs rather than against an individual?

1. Yes, we use policies. I would also say more than a third of the companies with whom I work also use them to some degree.

2. Internally, at MW, we have them organizationally set by "O". Most of our clients that use them also have a 1st level "OU" (which is far as we see most go). Just about everywhere there are "special" cases for folks who have an explicity policy giving them more rights.

3. Internally at MW, we use the security settings, the registration settings, setup settings (which are now "obsolyte" w/ND8) and now desktop settings, we use the archive settings. We use them for everything from pushing down local replicas (the first thing we did) and registration defaults, to such small things as force print in the background on and pushing down ini settings by adding custom fields. Which brings us to #4...

4. We would like a way to send down INI settings in a normal field rather than "hack" of way we are currently told to do it by Lotus. Second, if a archive policy is removed, it would be great to have it back to "nothing" instead of stuck where it was last enforced. That still seems to be "broken" in Domino8. Like another user, we need to be able to force down and update connection documents and other fields currently not accessible in the Personal Address Book/Contacts application/db.

5. No questions. Thanks for asking.

Bonus:

I forgot to mention roaming. We use it for a couple of users. However, most companies with whom we work still do the personal "u" drive technique since before Roaming was an option. They have business processes & other packages around doing it this way which is pragmatically hard to change -- "if it isn't broke, don't fix it."

Most customer have not implemented policies when we walk in. When we walk out the are :)

1) Yes

2) Both

3) Most things

4) Ability to control DWA/iNotes with policies. This is a royal pain in the arse for iNotes only users and not being able to force an archive on them via a policy. Please fix. Please. If you need a few PMR numbers let me know.

4.1) Ability to push connection docs out

4.2) Ability to push sync address book (new r8 way) via policy

5) Why don't IBM provide an enabled default set of policies (web password sync, spell check, etc) like in BES and AD?

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? Yes

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? One big policy further modified by department (groups)

3. What do you leverage policies for? Sametime (turning it on or off), custom password policy, custom homepage, a number of other things.

4. What would you like to see done with policies? More control of the local address book.

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work? No specific questions but I would definitely like to see more documentation, applying policies often feels like guesswork.

We use policies for both organizations and groups. We use them to enforce email disclaimers, password policies, user registration to name a few.

Whenever I need to make a change to someone's desktop I look to see if I can use a policy as I have found it an easy way to get things done.

More in the way of documentation would be nice.

One of the biggest options I found lacking today in policy documents is the ability to set a default dictionary for spell check. I have users who switch between locations (with two separate user IDs) several times a day for working with two different sets of applications. One set of applications need spell checking based on UK English and the other set of applications need US English. The only way this can be achieved in R8 is by manually changing the default dictionary in the preferences dialog. Wish I could tie each user ID or location to a specific dictionary using a policy doc!

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? - Most companies I deal with don't use policies. They may have some explicit ones assigned to a few people, but in general they are highly underused.

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy? - I think a lot of admins have been a little shy to embrace Organizational Policies for fear that something odd might happen with their users. Generally we see that companies have tested policies with IT departments but haven't really moved out to using them for other groups of people.

3. What do you leverage policies for? When ND6 first came out we implemented policies at the place I worked at the time. I believe we used a combination of all available settings documents at both workgroup and organizational levels. Registration and Desktop settings were very key to our implementation. Some of the things I always use for Desktop include compression of TCPIP (really wish you could allow us to DISABLE certain ports!!), image compression, dircat, local replica creation, etc...

4. What would you like to see done with policies? More dynamic - I like what I've seen so far in the 8.5 public beta. Again, allow us to disable client ports (have I said that yet?) :)

It would be beneficial to have policies that more granularly control replication to allow administrators to be certain, that local data and server based data is always identical. Although in my experience most users do not bother with changing replication settings that facilitiate keeping asyncronous email data in local replicas vs the server copies, but in the context of ediscovery, having unique data on local replicas is a challenge requiring interrogation of local replicas to look for differences. Policies that do not allow users to change replication settings and therefore avoid users keeping unique data in local replicas would be very helpful in this regard.

We have one big policy that gets pushed out to everyone and are currently thinking over creating a seperate one for the VIP's. I would like to see more detailed help on the policies. When you hover over the text of the setting you are about to change, it would be very nice to have the help text actually help you!

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? Yes

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy?

We have a org. policy and a so called "security policy" which I can apply to each user, depending in which location he/she works.

3. What do you leverage policies for?

standard settings, sametime settings, security settings, registration, (setting notes.ini values), ...

4. What would you like to see done with policies?

this here:

(Registration Policy lockdown)

{ Link }

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work?

none at the moment

The main thing I'd like to see with policies is some form of multiple inheritance.

We tend to use policies in our clients to enforce things like mail disclaimers, local replicas etc. using OUs. If we can we reflect the policy differences in the OU structure to maximise the leverage of policies. The issue comes with managing the exceptions. e.g. have an OU1 based on country so that the mail disclaimer is in the local language; having an OU2 based on brand so that the mail disclaimer is appropriate.

The difficulty comes with the orthoganal axis of "client type": e.g, workstation, iNotes, laptop etc. Currently we have to set the policies for the majority and then add explicit policies for "laptop users". However, there may be another axis of "seniority" or "expertise". It would be nice to have multiple policy trees that are combined for an individual based on their position in each tree. You would also need some prioritisation to deal with conflicts.

1. Do you use policies in your organization today?

- Yes

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy?

- By OU.

3. What do you leverage policies for?

- For every setting which we want to have some change aside from standard.

4. What would you like to see done with policies?

- Some kind of Admin view where you could easily see which policy/setting is applied to a specific user which is simpler then the Policy Synopsis and a way to see which Settings that are not applied to anyone.

Maybe you could check the MS AD (sorry) and get some ideas on how to visually simplify the Policy/Setting tree?

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work?

- I guess I could find answers for them in Help or at www.IBM.com.

Forgot the most important one..

4. What would you like to see done with policies?

To be able to set the Mail file [path] in the registration settings!

As this is delegated to RA's on some companies they unavoidably keep typing the Mail file path different every time, sometimes with capital letters sometimes spelled wrong etc.. and it ends up as an unstructured mess on your Admin Client [Files] tab.

1. Do you use policies in your organization today? No, but I've tried.

2. If so, how do you have them implemented? Is it by OU? By groups of users? Or just one big policy? Have tried applying to groups.

3. What do you leverage policies for? Was trying to get a specific home database in Notes for staff based on their group.

4. What would you like to see done with policies? I would like them to work.

5. What questions do you have about policies and/or how they work? Why don't they work. Many hours spent with IBM on PMRs related to this problem with absolutely no resolution. Same thing on Smart upgrade.

Servers are 8.0.1. Users are 6.5.6. We only use Notes for applications. Don't use Notes mail. Don't use Sametime.

Would definitely like to use policies to control ECL settings.

Yes!

I'm probably a bit late on this, but want to pitch in.

We have a policy for each major group/section in our office environment. The policy helps ensure each section has access to their specific resources and settings. My biggest issues however:

1. It does not appear there's an easy way to push a single change to every policy. For example, you want to make one detail change to 20 different office sections, you have to edit all 20 desktop policies.

2. Pushing databases required by each section via the policy is erratic. Adding and editing bookmarks to keep all users up to date on what databases they should have shortcuts for is just difficult to manage.