Why MS Transporter not good for Notes to Outlook Migration

Why MS Transporter is not good for Notes to Outlook Migration

Both Lotus Notes and MS Outlook are widely used by business organization. They have been the most popular email clients in today’s world. One cannot conclude which client is best as each has its own capabilities and blemishes. The selection between these two email clients is done according to the requirements of the business. Many a times the users need to migrate from Lotus Notes to Outlook and vice versa.

The main reason which compels users to migrate from Lotus Notes to Outlook is the file format of the two clients. Both Lotus Notes and Outlook uses two different formats to store its database. The section below shows the contrast between the file formats of the two clients.

Contrast Between File Formats Of Lotus Notes And Outlook

Lotus Notes saves file in NSF (Notes Storage Facility) format while Outlook uses PST (Personal Storage Table) format. The file extensions for them are different so it is not possible to open a PST file in Lotus Notes or vice versa. Scenarios arises when there is a need to access Lotus Notes emails in Outlook, in such situations there is a need to migrate emails from Lotus Notes to Outlook. Before going into details, let’s find out some benefits of Outlook that compels users to migrate from Lotus Notes to Outlook.

Reasons To Convert From Lotus Notes To Outlook

An email client is selected by the organization keeping in mind the features provided by the client and how it is suitable for the organization. Most of the organizations prefer Outlook over Lotus Notes due to the following reasons:

• Outlook is available as a part of Microsoft Office Suite and is easy to maintain.
• Outlook acquires all the lime light as far as additional features and user friendliness is concern.
• Maintaining backup in Outlook is easy as compared to Lotus Notes.
• Outlook emails can be configured with smart phones easily hence, it can be used anytime.
• Access to multiple accounts in Outlook can be done from the same window which is not possible in case of Lotus Notes.
• Outlook is much flexible then Lotus Notes and hence it is easier to learn for the beginners.
• A number of utilities are provided with Outlook using which one can easily recover data without any hassle.

Scenarios For NSF To PST Conversion

Migration from Lotus Notes to Outlook is done in various scenarios. Some of the scenarios that compel users to perform NSF to PST conversion are:

• When an organization wants to switch from Lotus Notes Domino Server environment to Microsoft Exchange Server Environment as Outlook provides a strong disaster recovery.
• If Lotus Notes Domino Server is infected with virus or spyware.
• NSF files needs to viewed in Microsoft Exchange environment.

How To perform Notes To Outlook Conversion

Most of the users wish to export data from Notes to Outlook using free of cost or some built in utilities. The users can get the desired solution using these tools but a bit of compromising will be made in particular or other fields. One such utility is Microsoft Transporter Suite.

Using Microsoft Transporter Suite

Microsoft Transporter Suite is a built in utility provided by Microsoft in order to export Notes data into PST format. It compromises of a set of tools that are employed by the administrators to export data from Lotus Notes, IMAP and POP Servers to MS Exchange, Active Directory and SharePoint Services 3.0

The basic steps involved in Notes to Outlook conversion using MS Transporter Suite include:

• Download of Microsoft Transporter Suite
• Installation of the Utility
• Synchronization of the Directory

Although, MS Transporter Suite is available free of cost to perform migration of database from Exchange as well as non Exchange platforms, a wide range of drawbacks are associated with this utility. The following section discusses about the disadvantages of this utility.

Why Microsoft Transporter Suite Isn’t The Right Choice For The Conversion

Microsoft Transporter Suite is not a right choice for migrating Lotus notes database to Outlook. Some of the limitations imposed with this utility are listed below:

• The users need to have accessibility of the Domino Server to perform the migration.
• Migration can be done only to Exchange Server 2000 and 2003 versions.
• The user should log in as Network administrator on the destination system using Exchange migration utility.
• Mailboxes with a maximum size of 1 GB are used by the tool for the conversion.
• Further, every mail folder of the Lotus Notes mailboxes should have emails less than 1500.
• MS Transporter Suit does not allow users to migrate embedded documents from Lotus Notes Domino Server to Outlook.

Conclusion

Migration from NSF to PST has been a common practice today. A large number of tools are available which helps the users to perform the conversion. However, selection of a right utility for the conversion should be done so that the users can perform the conversion with ease. On considering the limitations of Microsoft Transporter Suite, it is generally advised to avoid this utility for the conversion.