HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino, and before that Lotus Domino) is an enterprise application development platform, boasting mobile-app capabilities to enterprise authentication and a companion low-code app builder called Domino Volt.
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SharePoint
Score 7.6 out of 10
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Microsoft's SharePoint is an Intranet solution that enables users to share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and collaborate across the organization.
We use SharePoint, SQL and Teams but only for the things that they excel in. For example, we use teams for small team interactions (including external participants). We use teams for meetings too. We've discovered that Teams collaboration is not as full-functional as Domino and …
Domino is best in medium-sized businesses of 20-100 employees. It's too complicated to implement in very small companies unless you have good external resources. It scales up very well for larger companies but the pressures of users wanting particular "brand-name" software can become difficult. If you want a restricted "extranet/portal" system for a limited set of members it's a great system, particularly if you add a Domino CRM on top. Unlike Microsoft, you never have to resort to command-line tools, like PowerShell, in Domino to get things done.
SharePoint Document Management excels as a central repository for storing, organising, and retrieving documents. It supports version control, metadata tagging, secure access, and integration with tools like Power Automate. At our organisation, it's used for managing contracts, policies, and supplier documents. SharePoint Workflow Automation integrates with Power Automate to streamline approvals, gather feedback, and automate recurring tasks. This reduces reliance on email chains and manual trackers.
Windows Explorer users have some difficulty having to constantly UPLOAD / DOWNLOAD files. Specifically on the DOWNLOAD when they are used to Drag & Drop in & out of LOCAL folders via Window's explorer.
Microsoft SharePoint supports multiple "library" types. When implementing our "image" library the search function is done via "tags" and boolean logic. This is challenging to most end users. I'd like our users to be able to search our Microsoft SharePoint image library without having to enter KEYWORD or other BOOLEAN logic.
Microsoft SharePoint can also be an internal website for each department or company wide communication tool but I believe these features are geared for much larger organizations. Since we are a SMB we really aren't using these features. So maybe something more useful to SMBs would be nice.
It's integral to our business. It's already included with most of the Office 365 licensing we buy, so the cost is effectively zero. It stores our files, it is the foundation for custom applications, and Microsoft only continues to enhance its functionality and its connections to other Microsoft tools. SharePoint just keeps getting better and better.
No usability issues reported. Individual teams also have allocated areas which replace legacy shared drives on local LANs. Access to Sharepoint resources is fully integrated with corporate Active Directory with additional two-factor authentication required for administrative users. Users have access to Microsoft Services Hub which allows you to create, manage, and track support requests while staying current on Microsoft technologies with access to select self-paced learning paths
The face to face training I received was on SharePoint Administration. It was rushed as there was a lot of information to cover and the application of the labs weren't that great either. I like to be able to relate what I am learning to what I am currently doing.
I like to learn at my own pace and online training allows for that. Additionally, you can skip through pieces of content that you already know or are already comfortable with. Microsoft actually offers great videos on their website for basic fundamental SharePoint Training. I have used these training videos in some of my own training sessions with end users.
We use SharePoint, SQL and Teams but only for the things that they excel in. For example, we use teams for small team interactions (including external participants). We use teams for meetings too. We've discovered that Teams collaboration is not as full-functional as Domino and more importantly, that our members (financial services) do not trust the Open Office365 cloud. SharePoint and Team collaborative features are often blocked in our member organizations. Domino is much easier to identify and unblock at the firewall level. It's much easier to restrict collaboration to approved options in Domino.
The reasons for selecting MS SharePoint are: SharePoint provides ease of use and web design assistance and support SharePoint helps you schedule your content for publishing. enables users to share documents with external parties and offers a better internal structure of the content and better indexing and searching capabilities.
The immediate impact on my organization as a non-profit is cost. Enterprise pricing for a Domino solution is exponentially more inexpensive than more popular applications.
Of the most obvious impacts is user familiarity. Given a vast majority of the employment pool having familiarity with MS products, orienting new employees to Domino\Notes is burdensome. Adoption is slow and resistance is high.
Hiring Domino administrators and developers is increasingly challenging.
The recent sale of the Domino platform away from IBM is concerning.
