IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook have always been at loggerheads, vying for the coveted spot of the best email client. If one excels in one area, the other shines in another. While both email clients have their own pros and cons and migration between the two is not undertaken regularly since it is a lengthy and tedious process, there are many situations in which Notes data within NSF files is migrated to Outlook data within PST files. Such situations include scenarios wherein a user moves between organizations, access his mailbox on different machines at the workplace and home, or simply wants to avail some particular feature in the other client.
Migration between email clients as pointed out earlier is time-taking and not very straightforward to achieve. The process is often marred with difficulties and incompatibilities that users ultimately have to resolve at their own ends. This article will highlight some issues that might crop up when users try to migrate NSF to PST and also provide handy solutions to fix them.
Common Issues Faced during NSF to PST Migration
1. “You are not authorized to perform that operation”
This error message might appear while trying to launch Lotus Notes and it points out that the user does not have the permission to access ‘bookmark.nsf’ database through Access Control List (ACL).
Solution
This error can be fixed by creating all new bookmark files with the user’s Notes ID.
2. “The message was migrated without the attachments”
If you’ve used the Transporter suite to migrate Lotus Notes to MS Exchange Server 2007, you might get the above mentioned error on trying to access an email with an attachment. The reason behind this error is that the Transporter suite can migrate emails only within the size limit of 4MB. Any email that goes beyond this size fails to migrate properly, meaning, the attachments are omitted from the migration.
Solution
To fix this error, you must increase the period of execution time-out and buffer threshold.
3. “Unable to open Names.nsf or address book”
On trying to open Notes address book, you might face the above mentioned error. This is caused due to some modification to the database or due to the existence of a different version of the INI file. Such a discrepancy prevents Lotus Notes from locating the Address book.
Solution
To resolve this error, you need to select a particular data type to convert NSF file manually.
4. “Unavailability of selected data conversion”
This error might actually arise as a side-effect of the solution to error 3 above. If you happen to convert the NSF file manually as indicated above, you might see this error due to the unavailability of the selected data type for conversion. This could be the final hurdle in the desired NSF to PST migration.
Recommended Solution
To overcome the errors and glitches mentioned above in one clean sweep, you should perform the migration through an automated tool dedicated to the purpose. The recommended product for this task is Stellar Converter for NSF. This software is equipped with state-of-the-art techniques to convert your emails, attachments, contacts, calendar, journals, etc stored within an NSF file into a new usable PST file. It can help you achieve accurate NSF to PST migration with all data intact and in minimum time.
Final Words
In the war between email clients, it is the users who ultimately reap the benefits and sometimes face the brunt too. That said, modern techniques and automated tools that can migrate NSF to PST in a few clicks have made this traditionally difficult task very easy. So if you need to switch your email platform from Notes to Outlook, instead of getting into the hassles of manual techniques, use a professional automated tool like Stellar Converter for NSF and save your time and energy.
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