Files play a critical role in enterprises.

Files like Word, Excel, and others serve as crucial repositories for storing valuable information across various organizations.

Notes / Domino solely provides the rich text field for file storage in Notes apps. Users have the freedom to utilize the rich text field according to their preferences, as there are no built-in control mechanisms provided out of the box.

We have witnessed Notes rich text fields with a multitude of files attached, comprising text, rich text, and images. The users attempted to organize the content into Notes sections to enhance readability.

The renowned Notes rich text field may appear impressive, but in production environments, it can become chaotic if users are not adequately trained in its usage.

To exert control over the rich text field in Notes/Domino and manage user interactions, extensive development is required.

We have encountered enterprises that invested significant effort in developing a Document Management System (DMS) within Notes. They took pride in the Notes app they built over a decade.

They couldn’t grasp the fact that the SharePoint library, out of the box, effortlessly handles all the DMS tasks that their Notes app required extensive development hours to achieve.

This begs the question: Why haven’t the file/attachment features in Notes/Domino been enhanced to better meet the demands of Document Management Systems (DMS)?

Notes / Domino lacks:

• file version history feature
• restoring previous file versions
• file sharing with external users
• preventing the storage of files with the same file name
• a user-friendly file editing feature, which can lead to mistakes and user errors

SharePoint Online offers both lists and libraries.

Combining lists and libraries in business apps on SharePoint results in better applications compared to Notes, primarily due to the robust document management system (DMS) capabilities offered by SharePoint libraries.

Shareflex by Portal Systems is specifically designed to excel in this area, seamlessly combining the power of SharePoint lists and libraries to create exceptional business apps.

In summary Shareflex combines best of both worlds and hence is a much more sophisticated business applications compared to Notes. We can now offer all companies that are looking for document-driven business applications a great alternative.

To get a better understanding of what Shareflex offers, please check our website  www.lialis.com to see a listing of some of the SharePoint applications we built using Shareflex to replace Notes apps.