More about KEEP.WORKS

We’ve been asked numerous times to explain a little more about what KEEP.WORKS is, what it does, what it doesn’t do, how it works, and who it’s for.

Before tackling those, let’s talk about why we’ve created it.

Why KEEP.WORKS?

There are two main reasons. Firstly: IBM Lotus Notes - there’s a lot of it about, but it’s also on the endangered species list. By which we mean there are many individuals and teams whose Notes applications - that they rely on to run their job/work - are being removed or threatened by an organisation shutting down their IBM Lotus Notes and Domino infrastructure. So KEEP.WORKS is designed to help them have a low-cost migration path. At the very least, it lets them retain their data, safe from the destructive urges of their management and IT people. But more, it lets them continue to work with that data (more on this later). And it’s sufficiently low-cost that it can all pass through on expenses or a company credit card.

The second reason for KEEP.WORKS is that we’ve found that some people have understandably struggled with the migration tooling we provide to move data into LDC Via. That’s been down to a mixture of Domino complexities and LDC Via complexities, but it has been a stumbling block. So KEEP.WORKS is a way of removing that barrier by having us do the heavy lifting. It’s limited to small-ish NSFs - up to 2Gb and 50,000 documents - but that’s plenty for many uses, and sufficient for a serious pilot in the case of larger applications.

Who is it for?

• Individuals who have useful data locked into NSFs but no longer use Notes and may not even have it installed any more
• Individuals whose Notes applications are under threat from shifting IT strategy
• Departments and teams within an organisation that rely on threatened Notes applications to run their operations
• People or organisations wanting to ‘try’ the LDC Via platform with as little learning curve as possible
• Those looking to bring simple Notes client apps to the web

What does it do?

As the website says: you upload your NSF, we convert it onto the LDC Via platform automagically, and then you access and work with your data via a browser or mobile device.

If the NSF you upload is a ‘standard’ Notes/Domino one, we provide your data back to you in a working application. The types of NSF we support here are:

• Personal templates
  • Contacts, also known as “Personal Address Book”
  • Journal
  • Mail (read-only)
• Team templates
  • Discussion
  • TeamRoom
  • Document Library

It can take as little as 10 minutes to move data from Notes/Domino into KEEP.WORKS, and have it operational on the cloud and fully mobile-enabled. Additional users can be created using the KEEP.WORKS application.

If your NSF is not based on one of those templates, then we have a point-and-click interface to allow you to build a “no code” interface onto your data, that will allow you and your users to interact with - search, update, export - the data on desktop and mobile devices.

Pricing

We wanted to keep the pricing as simple and predictable as possible. Partly because we like it that way, and partly perhaps in reaction to the labyrinthine pricing of certain large software businesses (naming no names). So it’s a flat per-month pricing structure, with no additional per-user costs, and no minimum period. There’s even a 14-day free trial period before any cost is incurred, so you get to really kick the tyres before your credit card gets charged: if you don’t like it, or it’s not what you needed, simply cancel the account before the 14 days are up.

See https://keep.works/#pricing for full pricing details.

What doesn’t it do?

We’ve said what it does, who it’s for, and how much it costs. But what about the limitations? Well, first thing first: it’s not a “magic bullet” solution. There have been attempts in the past to automate the process of transforming an application from the Notes/Domino world into a.n.other world. In our view, any such attempt is doomed to failure. Notes/Domino applications are highly complex, and rely on a variety of programming models: @formula, LotusScript, hide-whens, sections, computed subforms, xpages, server-side triggered and scheduled agents, etc. For an older and/or complex application the end result is often a barely-intelligible jumble of code. Any automated conversion is destined to make that less intelligible and less maintainable.

Our approach, as with LDC Via, is to retain the data in as perfect a form as reasonably possible, while removing the reliance on legacy server platforms and obscure and outdated software development tools. We provide a simple point-and-click interface to allow you to define the form layout. Over time we will be providing more options, in response to user feedback, but we wouldn’t want to set up the expectation that you can develop a complex multi-faceted application entirely within KEEP.WORKS: that’s not what this product is for.

How does it work?

KEEP.WORKS is an application built on top of the LDC Via platform. It’s not a core part of LDC Via, which is why it has its own name and website, and is hosted separately from LDC Via. Everything we’ve done on the KEEP.WORKS site uses the normal published LDC Via REST-based APIs to do its work. You could subscribe to LDC Via and go out and build a KEEP.WORKS type tool yourself, if you so chose (with the one minor caveat of the database conversion process that runs behind the scenes - that’s not exposed as API calls).

What next?

Well, if you’re one of those who made it onto our beta programme - congratulations, and you will receive an email this week detailing how to create your account. If you’re not … you’ll have to wait until we go fully live in a few weeks time. You can register your interest in KEEP.WORKS at https://keep.works/#register.

'Toad In The Hole' is ready

We are delighted to announce the availability of our ‘Toad In The Hole’ release, hot on the heels of ‘Eton Mess’ back in June. It’s been almost two years since we released LDC Via, and the code keeps coming!

Whilst this release offers a number of significant improvements and additions (including a brand new comprehensive API documentation site no less), the headline for Toad In The Hole is search: specifically, “domain search” and the ability to do things like use regular expressions (!).

For the full low-down, be sure to read our exquisitely-drivelled release notes, and as always, please do get in touch if you want to know more.

What is KEEP.WORKS and why is it so different?

Nearly two years ago we launched LDC Via, a new platform that allows you to migrate your legacy Notes and Domino data, and host it on our servers while retaining a lot of the best features of Lotus Notes. Over that time we’ve talked to a lot of people and, it’s fair to say, what we offer is a broad palette of tools: a migration utility, a database platform and a full featured API. But it can be a little overwhelming to get started.

Initially we created several templates that run on the main LDC Via servers. But they were really technical demonstrations at best. So, over the last few months, we’ve created a new service: KEEP.WORKS.

KEEP.WORKS offers several things. Key among them is a simple migration path. You simply need to upload your legacy Notes database to our servers and we will convert it for you. This can be done in as little as ten minutes, depending on the size of your database. If your database matches one of our standard templates (Discussion, Document Library, Teamroom, Journal, Personal Address Book or Mail) then you can immediately log in and carry on working with your data.

To be honest, if that were all that KEEP.WORKS offered you might feel a little underwhelmed. Automated database migration is nice, but we want more! Well, how about a configuration driven way of continuing to work with your data? We’ve got it.

When you import a non-standard database, you can configure how to view, create and edit the data. You can even enable document-level security and set up additional users to access it. All without writing a single line of code.

And the nice thing about all this? Well it’s developed using LDC Via as the underlying platform, so if you outgrow the KEEP.WORKS platform your developers can continue to work with the data and create your own custom applications using whatever languages and coding tools you (or they!) choose. Or, if you prefer, we can create more complex custom applications for you.

For the first month of its life, KEEP.WORKS is going to run in an invitation-only beta status, with a strict limit of 12 places. If you’d like to be one of the first people to put KEEP.WORKS through its paces, visit the home page here: https://keep.works/ - alternatively, you’ll be able to sign up for a full account in just a couple of months time.

And the price? Well we start at £20 per month!

Announcing KEEP.WORKS

Today we are announcing a brand new product: KEEP.WORKS.

KEEP.WORKS lowers the barrier for migrating IBM Notes and Domino data to a modern cloud platform. For a very small monthly fee, an individual or a small team can upload an NSF file, and have it converted automatically and available on desktop and mobile devices for them and any other users they care to invite. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, and more details will follow.

But for now… we have a total of 12 places available on our invitation-only beta programme. If you’re interested in being one of the first people to put KEEP.WORKS through its paces, go to the home page and register, and we’ll be in touch when the beta programme opens in mid-September.

More surprises from LDC Via

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at LDC Via. But we haven’t finished yet.

Keep a look out for another major announcement this week!

In the meantime, here are the things we already announced last week:

LDC Via has been selected as a G-Cloud 8 supplier

LDC Via strategic partnership with PSC Group