Lotus Notes was once the gold standard for enterprise collaboration. Thousands of custom applications — workflow approvals, document management, customer tracking, HR processes — were built inside Notes databases. Migrating off Notes is one of the most complex legacy software challenges an organisation can face.

The Lotus Notes problem

Notes migrations are hard for a specific reason: Notes applications aren’t just databases. They’re combinations of data, workflow logic, UI, and business rules — all bundled together in a proprietary format.

The challenge:

• Notes databases contain custom applications built by developers who have since left
• The logic inside those applications was never documented
• Each Notes database may have been built by a different person with a different approach
• The underlying infrastructure (Domino servers) is expensive to maintain and increasingly hard to support
• Modern replacements (SharePoint, Teams, cloud platforms) don’t map cleanly to how Notes works

Migrating Notes data is relatively straightforward. Migrating Notes applications — preserving the workflow logic, business rules, and approval chains — is genuinely difficult.

What I do

• Audit and documentation of existing Notes databases and applications
• Business process mapping — what each application actually does
• Data extraction from NSF files to modern formats
• Workflow and approval logic documentation for redevelopment
• Migration planning — which applications to rebuild, retire, or archive
• Options analysis for target platforms (SharePoint, cloud workflows, custom)

What I need

• Access to the Notes/Domino environment or exported NSF files
• A list of the databases or applications that matter most
• Context on which workflows are business-critical versus historical

---