harmon.ie, Notes Edition, deployment strategies

This article applies to harmon.ie for SharePoint, Notes Edition, only.

harmon.ie deployment includes two components: (1) the plug-in for Lotus Notes and (2) mail template customizations to extend harmon.ie functionality right in your mail template.


There are several options available for installing plug-ins into the Lotus Notes environment; the following three options are available with harmon.ie:

  • Desktop / NSF-based installation
  • Domino® Widget Catalog / Update site-based installation
  • Software Management System / MSI-based installation



The following sections discuss each of these options.

Desktop/NSF-based installation

The NSF-based installation of harmon.ie is a single click desktop installation which requires no administrative privileges – making this installation option ideal for personal evaluation and small pilots. Simply download the 30 day evaluation installation MainsoftSharePointIntegrator_8.5.nsf and double-click to install it in your Lotus Notes 8.5!

Domino Widget Catalog / Update site-based installation

In larger deployment environments, a more robust approach is necessary. Using the Domino Widget Catalog, available for Domino Server 8.0.1 and later, you can have full control over the deployment of harmon.ie, including plug-in update management, managed settings, Microsoft® SharePoint site provisioning via Domino Desktop Settings, and selecting your user audience via Domino Policy. Detailed step-by-step instructions for deploying harmon.ie via Domino Widget Catalog, including SharePoint site provisioning and managed settings, are available in the Mainsoft Online Administration Guide section 3. Installation Instructions.

The widget catalog deployment is recommended by Lotus Best Practices.

To utilize the Widget Catalog deployment, assistance from your Domino administrators is required.

Software Management System / MSI-based installation

Another option for deploying the harmon.ie plug-in is via a software management system, such as Altiris. Lotus Notes 8.5.1 includes a customized add-on installer toolkit which enables you to create an MSI-based add-on installer which can be used to deploy the harmon.ie plug-in to existing Lotus Notes environments.

Using the following steps, you can easily build MSI-based installations for harmon.ie, Notes Edition:

  1. Download the harmon.ie update site containing site.xml descriptor, features, and plugins folders. The 30-day evaluation version of the update site may be downloaded from the Mainsoft web site. If you have already purchased harmon.ie, Notes Edition, you can download the update site with an embedded license from Mainsoft Support Site under the Downloads section.
  2. Locate the Lotus Notes add-on installer toolkit, which is included in the Lotus Notes installation package under Utility/NotesCustomizationKit_1_0.zip/ notes_addon_installer_toolkit.zip.
  3. Extract notes_addon_installer_toolkit.zip to a location on your computer, for instance C:\msikit\src.
  4. Copy extracted update site to a sub-folder named updateSite. (For instance, C:\msikit\src\updateSite).
  5. Create a deploy sub-folder named deploy, (C:\msikit\src\deploy), in which we are going to place the necessary descriptors (install.addon.xml and uninstall.addon.xml).
    1. install.addon.xml
    2. uninstall.addon.xml
  6. Place the plugin_customization.ini in the deploy folder. The .ini file will be used to define the local policy setting for UNTRUSTED_SIGNATURE_POLICY as ALLOW in order to enable installation of the plug-in.
    Modify AddonConfig.ini as appropriate (or use this AddonConfig.ini). Make sure to double-check that the version information in the AddonConfig.ini matches that in updateSite/site.xml.
  7. Verify that the version information in deploy/install.addon.xml and deploy/uninstall.addon.xml matches exactly to the version in updateSite/site.xml.
  8. You can now run the CustomizeAddon.exe to create the MSI-based installation package (please note the ‘/’ used in the command line).

    CustomizeAddon.exe C:/msikit/src C:/msikit/msi.
  9. Once CustomizeAddon.exe has completed successfully, you have an MSI-based installation for harmon.ie, Notes Edition.

Please note that while it is possible to deploy the harmon.ie plug-in using an MSI-based installation, the use of the Domino Policy and Domino Desktop Setting is required to provision SharePoint sites and harmon.ie managed settings. For more details, please see Mainsoft Online Administration Guide section 4.Centralized Provisioning preferences.

To take advantage of the Mainsoft mail template customizations, which provide quick access to the frequently used features of harmon.ie, your Domino administrator may choose to simply use Replace Design to apply the mail template customized by Mainsoft. If you already have a customized enterprise mail template, your Domino administrator may merge the Mainsoft customizations by following the step-by-step instructions in the Mainsoft Online Administration Guide section 5.1 Customizing Mail Template.