Why do you want to drag emails to the desktop and what do you want to do with them?

Mary Beth Raven  October 24 2008 08:54:37 AM

Loyal constituency,

Here is your chance to influence a feature in the next version of the Notes client.  We are considering adding the ability to drag a message (or any Notes document) to the desktop, because several companies have asked for this.  First, I give you some background, and then I ask the questions.

THE BACKGROUND:
You can, indeed, drag any document from any Notes view to the desktop TODAY. However, it simply makes a shortcut and does not make any kind of a file that you can manipulate separately. For example, we know that we have customers who want to drag an email to their desktop, and then perhaps days later,  send that email to others as an attachment. (Personally,  I fail to understand why this is preferable to just forwarding the mail message, but hey, they are the customers and they tell us that they will not change the way they work. )


THE QUESTIONS:
(Please give us an idea of the importance of each of the possible features, where 1 is critical and 4 is not important.)

• Why do you (or your users) want to save emails to the desktop?  Is it so that they can refer back to them?  For compliance reasons?  Record retention? Evade Quotas?
  • Is it really just that they want to be able to find certain documents in a way they are used to? Maybe they really just want a Notes Database application to be "explorable" like File Explorer?
  • Is it because they don't know they can "bookmark" any Notes document as an alternative way to easily get back to a document?
• Is it only emails that they want to drag to the desktop, or would they want every Notes document to have this capability?
• Should any person by able to open the file, or should it require a Notes ID and the proper access rights?
• When an email is opened from the desktop, should it be editable?  
• Should the user be able to Reply, Resend and forward the message?
• Should the message retain all of its properties (e.g., time sent, time received, routing path, etc.)?
• What format would be best for you and your users?
  • A Notes proprietary one would be most likely to make it in the product. You'd need Notes to open and/or edit that document.
  • .msg (this is the format that MS Outlook appears to use)
  • a .pdf (this would be read-only)
  • an .odt (you could then open it in  any "open-document format-compliant editor, such as Lotus Symphony)

Thanks very much  for your feedback.

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