Export Notes content to SQL or Excel

Notes2SQL – Reliable Notes Data Migration to SQL

Lialis Notes2SQL migrates Lotus Notes document data to SQL Server in a structured, reliable, and scalable way. It is designed for real-world Notes databases where data is inconsistent, dynamic, and often does not match the original form design.

The tool automatically analyzes the Notes database, creates the required SQL schema, and migrates the data — including support for very large databases.

Smart Notes Database Analysis

Before migrating any data, Notes2SQL scans all documents in the Notes database.

Because Notes is schema-less, documents using the same form may contain:

• extra fields

• missing fields

• dynamically added fields

• agent-generated data

Notes2SQL therefore analyzes the actual document content, not just the form design.

This analysis determines:

• which fields really exist

• how often each field occurs

• Notes data types and value structures

• correct SQL data types and column sizes

This guarantees that the SQL schema reflects the real Notes data, not assumptions.

Automatic SQL Schema Creation

After analysis, Notes2SQL automatically creates the SQL database:

• One SQL table per Notes form

• One SQL column per detected Notes field

• Correct data types and column sizes

• Support for multi-value fields and rich text

No manual schema design is required.

Scalable Content Migration

The actual migration is executed by the Domino Server Agent Manager.

Notes2SQL is designed to work within Domino agent runtime limits:

• Migration runs safely stop before timeout

• The next run resumes exactly where it stopped

This makes it possible to migrate very large Notes databases, including databases with hundreds of thousands or millions of documents.

Incremental Update Runs

After the initial migration, Notes2SQL can run update cycles to keep SQL in sync with Notes:

• Modified documents → updated in SQL

• New documents → inserted

• Deleted documents → removed

This allows ongoing synchronization without full re-migration.

Transparent Logging

All steps — analysis, SQL creation, and migration — are fully logged:

• document counts

• progress indicators

• form and table creation

• updates and deletions

This makes migrations auditable and easy to monitor.

Content-Only Migration

Notes2SQL migrates data only.

✅ Document content
✅ Text, numbers, dates, rich text, attachments

❌ Notes design
❌ Forms, views, agents, scripts

For Notes design or code analysis, separate tooling is required.

Documentation

Detailed technical explanations, field mappings, and configuration options are available in the Notes2SQL Admin Manual.

Notes rich text fields

A Notes document can contain attachments, images, links, text, and other rich text content in one or more rich text fields. Since a Notes rich text field can hold multiple files with the same name, a file like document.docx may appear several times across different fields. To prevent “file already exists” errors during migration, all content from each rich text field is exported as a single MIME data set. The rich text field is then stored in SQL as MIME data within a dedicated SQL field (see image below).

Exporting the rich text content (text, images and files) to disk.

Documentation

Detailed technical explanations, field mappings, and configuration options are available in the Notes2SQL Admin Manual.

Performance

It is possible to create multiple instances of the Lialis Notes2SQL nsf application (for example, Notes2SQL1.nsf, Notes2SQL2.nsf, etc.) on the Domino migration server. This allows you to run migrations in parallel, provided your Domino server has enough Agent Manager threads available to execute multiple agents simultaneously.

Analysis Speed

The analysis phase often takes longer than the actual content migration. In large projects, we have encountered Notes databases containing millions of documents and thousands of fields per document. In such extreme cases, the analysis may take several days to complete.

For typical Notes databases — with a few thousand documents and a moderate number of fields — the analysis is usually finished within one to two days.

Migration Speed

Content migration speed depends mainly on:

• The number of fields per document (each field must be written to SQL).

• The performance of the Domino and SQL servers.

• The network connection between the servers.

On average, you can expect a migration rate of around 20,000 documents per day.

Summary

Migration speed varies greatly depending on the database size, structure, and server performance.
While large databases may take considerable time, Lialis Notes2SQL provides reliable and resumable migration runs to handle even very large datasets efficiently.

System Requirements (Summary)

• HCL Domino Server 9 or higher, running on Windows Server 2012 or newer

• Notes Client 9 or higher for Notes2SQL configuration

• Microsoft SQL Server (e.g. Express or Developer edition)

• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) required

• Microsoft Excel not required on the migration server

• Running SQL Server on a separate server from Domino is recommende

Expert Support for Complex Notes Migrations

Every Domino environment is different — and every Notes database holds its own surprises. During migrations, unexpected data structures, hidden fields, or design inconsistencies often appear. That’s why we don’t just deliver software — we deliver expertise.

Our team consists of highly experienced Domino administrators and developers who have handled countless migration projects. They understand the technical and practical challenges that come with large-scale Notes environments and know how to solve them quickly.

When issues arise, we can adapt and extend our tooling to handle special cases, ensuring that the migration process continues smoothly and successfully.

Whether your project involves a few databases or thousands, our specialists can guide, troubleshoot, and fine-tune the migration — making sure your data arrives in SQL exactly as expected.