1 - I agree with Matt, must take a look at the most used apps from OpenNTF. Mlist is similar too:

1) bulletin board
2) wiki
3) helpdesk/bug tracking app
4) timesheets
5) improved teamroom

Is this the Nifty Fifty Revival?

2 - The Quickr Templates from Snapps came pretty close to matching my needs list as well as the Personal Content template yet to be released with the upcoming Quickr personal version, but it would be nice to have these in a non-Quickr server environment even if we have to install Dojo. These should be functional in Notes 8 and in the browser too with an up-to-date look and functionality. I don't recommend Java Applets, but maybe that JavaFX stuff would be interesting.

1. Documents (but with more of a Windows Folder metaphor, include drag n'drop functionality for importing files and entire folders easily).

2. Surveys (so end users can just roll their own)

3. Discussions (show threads like in Notes.net forums)
interface)

4. Pictr (Picture, graphics database for Marketing Dept

5. Content Manager - have a converter like quickplace to render Word Docs or the ODF equivalent to HTML.

3 - I agree with Nathan that we need more templates that show value to management and fewer that help IT and other admin people do their jobs. If you could develop a template of reporting tools, that would be very nice and useful. It could be a composite app (though remembering that not everyone has websphere), and to the extent that the reporting UI could be abstracted from the data (so it could come from db2, SQL server or whatever), that would be fantastic. If it could provide drill-downs to finer levels of data presented both graphically and numerically, that would be even better.

4 - Something better to put knowledge in: A wiki which also works in Notes: the concept (linked net instead of a tree of categories) works great for knowledge storing and finding, but also with something like a meta language to tag the knowledge and a possebility to search for this (Tagged Notes and DEV and has the word "parser" in the body...). Web AND Notes is important: we have several laptop workers and having the knowledge on the laptop, but can't get to it is ... bad.

5 - Wow - I have never been asked this so here it goes.

1. Domino Version of QEDWiki/Popfly (create web mashups)
2. Global Data Connection Database (somewhat like an ODBC for Notes) that uses jdbc or "x". I know you can do this in LEI but I am talking a global connection for use across all databases.


Right now - since it is 10:30pm here i am tired - I am out of ideas but I will add some more.

6 - There's some overlap with Quickr here, but I prefer to look at it as an integration opportunity for the Notes client with Quickr And it's more. Much more.

I just want one template, but it brings a lot of other stuff with it.

It's I call "social doclib networks". (That's my current name for it. The concept is something I've had for the better part of a decade, long before "social" became a buzzword.)

Anyhow, it starts with the personal doclib. This is a fully functional doclib, not a crippled personal journal. It is server-based, and the ACL has -default- access set to "reader". Everything that is marked "normal" is protected by a readernames field that gives access only to you and your servers. But you can also designate a document as "shared" or "public". If it is "shared" then you specify who can read it. If it is "public", then everyone can read it. And anything that is "normal" or "shared" can also be marked "secret" through a separate check-box, which means it is protected by the readernames field and it is encrypted with the valid readers' public keys.

Then there is an on-demand system for creating and managing shared doclibs. Everyone who is included in a shared doclib is invited in, and is given the opportunity to link the shared doclib to his personal doclib.

When doclibs are linked, users have the ability to move documents between them (i.e., "publish"), or to create doclinks (i.e., "advertise") pointing from one doclib to another. Both operations are accomplished with a single click, selection of target from a list of available linked doclibs. And most importantly, all adjustments to readernames fields and encryption are done automatically when you publish or advertise.

Just one of several possible integration points with Quickr: the publish operation could show Quickr targets as well as other doclibs.

Domino Blog targets for the publish operation would also be a good thing. And if you do a wiki template, that would be a good target, too.

Integration with mail (similar to Quickr -- saving large attachments to your personal doclib), could/should also be possible. Another possible integration point would be rules that automatically file messages to your personal doclib or any doclib linked with your personal doclib.

The RSS reader should be integrated, too: with one-click ability to either save a link or a full copy of any article into your personal doclib or any doclib linked with it. And also a more general feature: a smarticon that can be used anywhere, and a bookmarklet or browser plugin too, also for saving links or copies into doclibs.

7 - - a Gmail-like, light web mail interface, AJAX driven, ST integration of course
- team calendar, with central planning and creation of appointments
- a lighter document library with tagging support, an easy-to-use mail-this-to-a-group-of-users-button, drag&drop support for attachments (a slightly enhanced journal template with focus on tagging/categories would be enough here)
- an RSS aggregator

8 - James Dellow asked a question { Link } prompted by using LinkedIn Answers.

He talks about a Q&A type application, which though similar to a forum , discussions, or maybe even blog-like, its something which could be differentiated sufficiently IMHO.

It would make good use of Sametime integration, Web 2.0 concepts like tagging, integration points with Quickr, Activities, and maybe more.
Perhaps a good candidate for a new template, although the idea is not new? Certainly plays well with Notes' strengths.

As Kevin mentioned though, given some of the similarities in things being suggested, perhaps a better goal would be combining some of these reworked templates into a shared and documented code-base. This could then give us "components" we could go and reuse.

9 - Hey! I NEVER said "damn"!!!

10 - Hi Rocky,

I guess I keep coming back to what people use--or would like to use--the technology for:

1) Discussion. They're stupid, basic, Notes databasese, but they are the big catch-all in Notes usage...they're used for all kinds of things.

2) Document repository.

3) Workflow. OK, yes, I'll admit listing workflow here is to some extent self-serving. We have a terrific workflow product that just happens to be easily delivered as a template. Therefore, a little skepticism here is probably appropriate. On the other hand, workflow is the one thing that has always been held up as one of Notes' major strengths even though there's never really been any way to take advantage of that strength with what you get in the box. Workflow has always been possible, of course, but only if you were (or hired) a damned good Notes developer. And yet, the world is FILLED with workflow applications of all levels of complexity...Notes ought to come with a template able to handle 80% of them, IMNSHO.

(steps off the soapbox)

4) Some kind of application which integrates with the whole Calendaring & Scheduling mess to let you schedule meetings of all kinds, including multi-day meetings, meetings--like Lotusphere--involving many rooms with multiple schedules. Meetings that involve participants outside the enterprise (Shareholder meetings, for example). There won't be LOTS of people using these templates but the ones that do will generally be reporting to the folks in the Big Office, who can keep or kill Domino at their company.

5) Something to use for managing moderately-complex projects.

That's what I'd like to see. Thanks for asking!

Scott

11 - 1.Team Room
2.Discussion
3.Journal
4.Doc Library
TeamRoom and DocLibrary are tools which failed to thrive in our environment because the applets caused so much grief.
All templates could do with a make over plus add in RSS.
What would really be nice is a developer type tutorial or comments detailing WHY and HOW certain design choices were made in the templates.
Also, I don't think the web version HAS to look and operate like the Notes Client, both interfaces have their own strengths and the templates should make good use of that fact.

12 - There's a huge overlap with OpenNTF apps for me here but my list would be...

1) A bulletin board / discussion app
2) A bug tracking app
3) A time recording app
4) A Holiday / Vacation Request app
5) A wiki

I think a newer version of TeamRoom would be a nice to have, but given that it would be directly competing with Sharepoint, it would have to be such a major piece of work that I can't see it being a vanilla template.

The list above is by order of the number of times I've been asked to provide an application in a short timeframe by clients. In all cases the most important factor is that there is a good web front end, with Notes client access being of secondary importance.

Matt

13 - 1) Better Group/Team Calendar, though this may best be implemented as a tweak to the current mail template which makes it a bad request according to question guidelines. I know the BP community provides solutions here but when Outlook/Exchange offers better group calendar views out of the box a third party solution is a hard pill to swallow.

2)Something, ANYTHING, that is a multi-NSF implementation.... Amen, there are great features being added to the product to help understand dependancies within a database (Who uses this shared column, etc...), however there is nothing outside of independantly developed and implemented standards to help developers with dependancies across databases. I don't even think TeamStudio has a straightforward solution for this...

3)Web Application Core - Think about the Template Builder for NaSs. A developer goes through a gui selecting optional functionality points their web app needs, the wizard output is a database template that can serve as a starting point for creating a web based application or web enabling a Notes client app. (is it ok to ask for the moon?)

4)Web Survey Builder App - If you haven't seen it before check out the Survey app iSeries users get for deployment on WAS on iSeries. Not that is better than sliced bread, but something similar does exist as a "freebie" with other IBM platforms.

5) whatever you do with any of the templates, no java applets plz. I am a huge fan of java in the right context but I don't feel applets are that context as a rule (exceptions do exist).

14 - I don't need five, I only need three:

1 - Group calendar that integrates with personal calendars, including the ability to post a general entry that anyone can add to their own calendars and get updates. I have been asked by upper management for this at least twice a month for 8 years. The time required to develop it has always prevented me from doing it myself.

2 - An intranet/portal kind of thing for the Notes client. There needs to be a nice, clean way to publish apps so users can know they exist. It's easy to build the apps, and easy to deploy them to servers. Getting them to the end users is where it kind of falls apart. Peanuts Portal on OpenNTF is a great start and it has a good web UI. mPortal is also nice, but it has no client UI and I think web-only would be a tremendous mistake. This ties in with Nathan's #4.

3 - An employee directory separate from the NAB. I'm not a fan of users directly opening the NAB, there's too much sensitive stuff in there. This is like Carl Tyler's #4.

I've not seen Activities or Connections so I can't comment about what may be available there that could be extended with out of the box Notes templates.

15 - a way better teamroom: the concept is ok, but it's a pain to explain and use. Make it notes & webenabled. Sametime integration. Show related activities.

A nice discussion db (web-enabled). Integration with connections so you can click a name and see blog, profile, tags etc. Ability to tag entries, and by clicking on a tag show dogear links / other stuff with the same tag.

NO wiki/blog. There are opensource, quickr, connections solutions for that. How many wiki's do you need....

group/team calender: easily see who is where. Possibility to add information (e.g. location, phone nr, current project)

for devs: a versioning db. store templates/design elements. who's working on what. automatic detection of scheduled agents, to be viewed in a view. scan all design elements in all db's on a server, and link it with the code in the versioning db.

16 - I do not want to see you canalbalize the BP market. If you do that, you will lose many of the folks that keep Notes and Domino moving forward.

So, I would do templates that are not CRM, Project management, Help Desk, etc.

Go for wiki, discussion .. and take the openntf projects as a start (or inspiration).

But what we should get from these templates is code samples that lets us interact with Quickr, Activities and Dogear (connections), skinning an app with a new theme/ui, how to create sidebar apps and menus, etc. Focus on functionality and show us how to extend to the entire client and Lotus product line.

I also like Nathan's idea of a Notes client template for accessing Quickr, but not sure how that plays once we all have Quickr Personal.

Putting in CRM, HelpDesk, and other businss apps will just get long time supporters of the platform to walk away from it.

17 - 1. Group/Team/Department Calendar
2. Vacation/Holiday Request
3. Content Management App (Intranet)
4. Lite Project Management
5. Reporting Template (plugin/hooks to Crystal Reports or Cognos)

18 - Here's my short list:

Discussion Board (BBS-style)
Content Management (intranet)
CRM
Helpdesk/Call Center
Project Management

It's not so much the app types really, but their design and ability to configure/maintain/deploy. Right now, if I create a new DocLibrary, I have to go in a modify it until it's almost unrecognizable (obviously, I create a new template... but that's neither here nor there):
The solutions should be vanilla, but every feature, function, visual, etc. should be configurable to the "admin" (admin-controlled settings) for things like keywords, colors, various action buttons, and such.
This would allow shops that have Domino and a Network Admin the ability to roll out applications that shops that have an on-staff/on-call developer only get to see. You get into these SMB markets with a collaborative tool that also addresses ALL of your mid-size business requirements and you're getting a customer for life.
And sure, there are BPs and such that develop these products, but they would still have a marketshare alongside such built-in applications - so there shouldn't be any worries there.

19 - 1) Time Reporting
2) Group/Team Calendar
3) Vacation Requests
4) Help Desk
5) Team Room

20 - - Group Calendar / Shared Calendat ( one, where you can create entries and deploy these entries to the users private calendars )

- Helpdesk ( of course )

- a "Base Template" like SuperNTF combined with Qenos Application Framework for the workflow stuff

- lightweight mail template ( without calendaring and stuff; just basic mail functionality as shared mailbox for teams and info@ addresses )

21 - Great Question;

1. An extranet document posting template with varying levels of security and the ability to create forums against individual documents.

2. Some kind of Staff Manual for containing policy documents as well as internal procedures. This db should be able to contain compliance "signatures" from staff and would need various levels of security.

3. A DRP/BCP Matrix style application - something that simplifies the task of maintaining and updating the document. It would probably include reminder broadcasts to update ageing pages and multiple levels of ownership/versioning.

4. A centralized Room bookings/calendar db with Web 2.0 interface. It would handle to-dos and compliance deadline dates (annual reminders etc). Various levels of security would allow it to display certain information on a public web site or extranet.

5. Survey database which allows creation of your own surveys, conditional branching and collation. Ideally it would be able to export results to CSV/Excel and (possibly) provide some form a charting.

(If I was allowed 6, I'd add a notes version of MS Project).

22 - Hi,

My choices would be

For clients:

* In/Out board db
* Vacation request db
* Export facility (Txt, Excel, etc)
* Mass mailing db (Instead of sending 100 mails with 5 megs attachment, send only the doc link to a central db containg the attachment)
* Survey database
* Project management/Time tracking
* Follow on mails (Db to monitor mails received by directors, useful for a secretary who must ensure the follow-up of the mails for her boss)

For Dev and/or Admin:

* Tool to search log.nsf db
* Tool to monitor mail cluster (Are they in synch?)
* Tool to search for Profile documents

If possible, it should be for both Notes and Web clients

JYR

23 - 1) Web based user self registration, email verification, password reset etc.
2) Java free web discussion, easy to brand for companies to have customer discussion forums, ties in nicely with 1.
3) Java free web Document library, really an extension to 2, make it easy to share files etc.
4) Employee records database, let users update their own pictures, would tie in nicely with Sametime business cards.
5) Small Business CRM, for tracking/generating invoicing/Quotes etc.

24 -
1. Full Customer sales support/Marketing campaigns/mass mailing/tracking of all correspondence.
2. An "anything" request (workflow) database-Course bookings/Travel requests /Vacations (including tracking days left)/Sickleave (including sickleave pattern checking)/Expenses(linked to travel requests etc and linked to the Customer database in 1 to allow for billing)
3. Document management. Domino.doc lite?
4. Improved reporting/import/export tools.

5. Decent department/group calendar including Lotus Organiser style year-planner. (Why haven't we had one of these yet?)

John Head has a point, many of these things are provided by 3rd parties and you have to be sensitive to that. The problem is that if you can't sell domino because it lacks some out-of-the-box tools that end-users can make use of then there is no point in having 3rd party support anyway. Keep the templates basic so that people can see what can be done and let the BPs do the advanced stuff.

25 - What Nathan said. Project Management and Agenda Management.

26 - Have a look at { <a href="{ Link } rel="nofollow" target ="blank">Link</a> }<br /><br />a database with the following function:<br /><br />- AJAX Interface<br /><br />- Lightweight Interface with individual Tabs for all the Topics<br /><br />- Adding Applications within a Tab: Notes, Calender-View, Sametime, Editor for a short text ... what ever you need for this specific topic to collect all the informations and work with it. And if I need it I use some of this application at the next tab again. maybe with another collection of documents or parameters.<br /><br />- different types of Widgets <br />-- Quick and easy for personal use: Notes, Weather, RSS-Feeds, Comment, external Webpage, Link-Collection... -&gt; records are stored within this database<br />-- easy Integration of all this important web 2.0 Applications: flickr, youtube, ...<br />-- Integration of Notes Mail, Calender, To-Do, Journal -&gt; but also in a more lightweight design (have a look at google mail)<br />-- A kind of an API for databases, like Notes-Diskussion or from Business Partners, which descripes the way of how a developer has to define a database, a view, a document, ... to have the same layout <br /><br />-- an easy mindmap tool, a small wiki (with the fast wiki syntax)and a tiny weblog-Application (maybe with the blogger-api to use external programms); because a lot of people are used to write down ideas in this way. if it is important for the rest of the world there is a RSS-Feed (of course).<br /><br />- It is a database for personal use - personal web workspace - but it should also be possible to invite friends vom N&amp;A and maybe guests for reading and writing.<br /><br />- If my personal Tab within my database becomes so important I can move it to another database for a shared use or to a colleague.<br /><br />I know there are elements from Portalserver and maybe Quickr but it should be light and easy and usually for personal use. e.g. there is a discussion database on the server and it is used for a group discussion. At my personal tab view I have this database linked and also some short notes, a google map, ... everthing I need for this discussion. and it looks different to the other group members.<br /><br /><br />and!<br />usually the documents in notes are stored in a hierachical way. For a better navigation it would be nice to work with this documents in a mindmap view which is also hierachically. this mindmap view could be integrated in the notes templates. And Categories are used to see a specific selection of documents

27 - Rocky, this is great - I'm thrilled to see that serious attention is finally being paid to breathing new life into our poor templates.

Like a lot of folks, especially those of us heavily involved in OpenNTF, I've given a lot of thought to the question of "missing templates". So much thought in fact that I couldn't fit it all here so I wrote my own piece: { Link }

In addition to actual template suggestions, I also offered my "My General view of templates", which include:

- All web facing templates should adhere to some sort of standard CSS structure similar to the way Blogsphere "skins" work. Not sure how the Notes 8 client does "styles" but the principle should apply there too.

- Sametime integration should be standard, but should also be taken to logical extremes. Presence awareness is great, but so is providing easy ways to schedule online team meetings from within "team focused" templates.

- Templates should be integrated with each other wherever it makes sense to do so. A good example would be clicking on a document submitter's name to see their employee profile in the Employee Directory.

- Templates should share as much underlying code as possible. Not only will this make it easier for developers in the field to "decode the code", but it will make updates to the templates that much easier for IBM. It will also make it easier for IBM to standardize various UI elements across various databases, making user training easier.

- Templates should be built under the assumption that they will be customized. Cleanly written, well commented code and form notes are essential. Rocky's session on "Writing Readable Code" provides a good foundation for this approach.

- All templates should provide RSS feeds/hooks wherever appropriate. Security would need to be maintained, so this could prove challenging in some cases.

- IBM should not be afraid to step on the toes of business partners with products in these categories. Many of these templates are central to what Notes is all about, so at least *some* sort of usable example template needs to be included. The selling point for partners needs to be clearly communicated, and it is this: They will benefit more from the increased adoption of Notes as an application platform than they will suffer from lost sales. Even in an overlap situation, the "basic" IBM template that got them started may no longer meet their needs, so they go looking for better at that point.

- The question of what templates to offer should be informed by what Microsoft is shipping with Sharepoint, as well as what other vendors (e.g. Zimbra) might offer.

Thanks for asking

28 - I would love to have a Library template.
Blogging with more options themes.
Discussion board
Team Room.
Knowledge Management tools etc

29 -
1. Some kind of Web content management template (domCMS or IBM Blog template)
2. Blog template
3. Wiki Template
4. Bulletin Board Template
5. RSS aggregator Template

Make them all skinable from database based on template 1 so they all look the same. Be able to include dynamic content from the other databases using template 5 - call it the IBM Domino Intranet suite.

I think Domino's missing an off the shelf Intranet solution with fully web enabled administration and content entry/management. I suspect for a lot of small-mid size businesses trying to use Quickr and Connections as a kind of intranet will be too expensive/complex.

30 - When you folks are thinking about these templates, also think about our other "stuff" - like, would you use ST awareness (that's a given in my book)? What about Activity interactions? Think outside the box a bit. Think in the future a bit as well, ok?

Carry on!

Rock

31 - A couple of thoughts here...

1) Time reporting & vacation requests -- shouldn't these just be evolutions of what you already did for the NaSS stuff?

2) How about a Notes client interface for Quickr? Something that lets me open the Quickr place directly from the Notes client and gives is a coherent feel.

3) Something, ANYTHING, that is a multi-NSF implementation, and I don't care if you build a pure NSF-based front-end or a composite app front-end -- but something that's from IBM and uses multiple NSFs, so the Notes core devs will finally deal with the complexities of multi-NSF development.

4) Perhaps the bookmarks/homepage/workspace elements can finally all be merged, and be template-based, and we can get away from this "50 ways to open your app" UI model we still have today.

5) Whatever the templates are, they should have a crosshairs not on the Samanthas of the world, but on the Teds. That is, whatever the business app is, it should be senior-management oriented, instead of line-worker oriented.

Y'know, that means forgetting timesheets and vacation requests, and focusing on meeting agenda & project management.

32 - 1. A TeamRoom template with a better UI design.
2. Departmental/Shared Calendar
3. Not sure how to say this one: But it would be great to be able to build an application starting from a basic template, where you can implement automated sequential numbering for documents (probably controlled by the Admin server of the database).
4. Balanced Scorecard Tracking - keep track of objectives/measures with an automated reporting facility running at user-configurable interval, giving out the status of each objective and so forth.

33 - Rocky, the ability to do import/export would make a lot of people stand up and break out with clapping. Printing labels from a server application, etc.

Thanks,
Jack

34 - Ooooh Rocky, what a great question to be asking... Not necessarily because of the answers you extract, but what has gone on behind the scenes to make you ask it. I'm stoked just to hear IBM asking...

I mostly agree with Matt above.

1) A true team/department calendar, with automatic bi-directional synchronisation and ability for managers to add events to a "pending" list then allocate to users
2) A wiki (with full wiki syntax support)
3) A time recording app, with plug-in to allow start/stop of recording etc. (this would make great use of the plug-in sidebar)
4) A Holiday / Vacation Request app
5) A quick and easy content management template, similar to Dolmio from OpenNTF. Perfect for quick websites for events, training courses, announcements etc.

Again, so pleased you're asking...

Stuart

35 - Have a look at { Link }

a database with the following function:

- AJAX Interface

- Lightweight Interface with individual Tabs for all the Topics

- Adding Applications within a Tab: Notes, Calender-View, Sametime, Editor for a short text ... what ever you need for this specific topic to collect all the informations and work with it. And if I need it I use some of this application at the next tab again. maybe with another collection of documents or parameters.

- different types of Widgets
-- Quick and easy for personal use: Notes, Weather, RSS-Feeds, Comment, external Webpage, Link-Collection... -> records are stored within this database
-- easy Integration of all this important web 2.0 Applications: flickr, youtube, ...
-- Integration of Notes Mail, Calender, To-Do, Journal -> but also in a more lightweight design (have a look at google mail)
-- A kind of an API for databases, like Notes-Diskussion or from Business Partners, which descripes the way of how a developer has to define a database, a view, a document, ... to have the same layout

-- an easy mindmap tool, a small wiki (with the fast wiki syntax)and a tiny weblog-Application (maybe with the blogger-api to use external programms); because a lot of people are used to write down ideas in this way. if it is important for the rest of the world there is a RSS-Feed (of course).

- It is a database for personal use - personal web workspace - but it should also be possible to invite friends vom N&A and maybe guests for reading and writing.

- If my personal Tab within my database becomes so important I can move it to another database for a shared use or to a colleague.

I know there are elements from Portalserver and maybe Quickr but it should be light and easy and usually for personal use. e.g. there is a discussion database on the server and it is used for a group discussion. At my personal tab view I have this database linked and also some short notes, a google map, ... everthing I need for this discussion. and it looks different to the other group members.


and!
usually the documents in notes are stored in a hierachical way. For a better navigation it would be nice to work with this documents in a mindmap view which is also hierachically. this mindmap view could be integrated in the notes templates. And Categories are used to see a specific selection of documents

36 - Wiki and blog templates rarely get used in the business world. If Domino came with templates such as the following, it would be much easier to promote. Lotus always fails by telling everyone how great new features are, such as Notes on a Stick, only to discover that it takes a rocket scientist to implement.

time off tracking
document management
CRM
dashboard interface for custom home pages
Intranet templates