2.4. Archiving to SharePoint

SWING Seascape enables you to easily archive your Lotus Notes content in a SharePoint library or a SharePoint list. 

The archiving process consists of two steps:
  1. Exporting your Notes data to a staging folder on disk. 
  2. Uploading the data from the staging folder into SharePoint using the SharePoint Upload Utility. 

To begin the process click on the SharePoint icon on the Seascape home page: 


Next, create your archive and save it in the staging folder (the procedure is the same as when creating a Plain Archive):



Once the archive is created, click on the Upload to SharePoint button to open the SharePoint Upload Utility in a new window:




Here is a screenshot of the SharePoint Upload Utility window: 




You can now upload your archive either to a SharePoint library or a SharePoint list. 

Jump the the following sections to see how it's done: 

Note:  You can also launch the SharePoint Upload Utility manually by clicking on the Upload existing archive button:



UPLOADING YOUR ARCHIVE TO A SHAREPOINT LIBRARY (PDF & METADATA)
The upload process consists of three steps as follows:
  1. Selecting the Full Archive or the Plain Archive that you wish to upload
  2. Selecting the SharePoint destination folder
  3. Configuring your upload options and running the upload

STEP 1: Select an archive

You'll need to:
  • Select the source folder where your archives are saved
  • Select the archive that you wish to upload into SharePoint


When finished, click Next to proceed to the next step.

STEP 2: Select the SharePoint destination folder

Click Add a new site in order to set up a new SharePoint connection. 

The connection settings popup will appear where you can enter your login information and test the connection. If the connection is established successfully, click Save Settings so you can re-use the settings for your future uploads:


Note: You can set up a connection for both the On Premise library or an Office 365 / SharePoint online library.

Once your SharePoint connection is saved, select your SharePoint site in the connection drop-down. 

You will also need to select the Document library option as the library type, and the SharePoint folder where the data will be imported:



When finished, click Next to proceed to the next step.

STEP 3: Configure the upload options and start the upload

In Step 3 of the upload procedure you can:
  • Preview a summary of the data that will be uploaded
  • Map your Notes metadata to the corresponding SharePoint properties by clicking the Review and map fields between Notes and SharePoint link (for more info see the Field Mapping section towards the end of this article)
  • Optionally select the additional Upload settings:
    • Shorten Notes canonical name to common name: "CN=Mary Tsen/OU=Illustration/O=Acme" becomes "Mary Tsen"
    • Publish documents after upload (Check-In): Documents will be published after upload (if unchecked, the uploaded documents will be saved as drafts)


When you're ready, click Start Upload to begin uploading your documents. During the upload, the upload progress information will be shown in the popup window:


After the upload is completed, a confirmation message will be shown, and you can now open your SharePoint library and verify that all the data has been imported successfully:

EXAMPLE: SharePoint Library


Here is an example of how the uploaded PDF files and metadata are displayed in the SharePoint library:





UPLOADING YOUR ARCHIVE TO A SHAREPOINT LIST (METADATA ONLY)

The upload process consists of three steps as follows:
  1. Selecting the Full Archive or the Plain Archive that you wish to upload
  2. Selecting the SharePoint list
  3. Configuring your upload options and running the upload

STEP 1: Select an archive

You'll need to:
  • Select the source folder where your archives are saved
  • Select the archive that you wish to upload into SharePoint


When finished, click Next to proceed to the next step.

STEP 2: Select the SharePoint list

Click Add a new site in order to set up a new SharePoint connection. 

The connection settings popup will appear where you can enter your login information and test the connection. If the connection is established successfully, click Save Settings so you can re-use the settings for your future uploads:


Note: You can set up a connection for both tje On Premise library or an Office 365 / SharePoint online library.

Once your SharePoint connection is saved, select your SharePoint site in the connection drop-down. 

You will also need to select the List (metadata and attachments only) option as the library type, and the SharePoint list where the data will be imported:


When finished, click Next to proceed to the next step.

STEP 3: Configure the upload options and start the upload

In Step 3 of the upload procedure you can:
  • Preview a summary of the data that will be uploaded
  • Map your Notes metadata to the corresponding SharePoint properties by clicking the Review and map fields between Notes and SharePoint link (for more info see the Field Mapping section towards the end of this article)
  • Optionally select the additional Upload settings:
    • Shorten Notes canonical name to common name: "CN=Mary Tsen/OU=Illustration/O=Acme" becomes "Mary Tsen"
    • Create new entries for duplicate documents
    • Upload parent doc as file attachment (the created PDF files are appended to each list record and displayed in the record's properties pane)



When you're ready, click Start Upload to begin uploading your data. During the upload, the upload progress information will be shown in the popup window:


After the upload is completed, a confirmation message will be shown, and you can now open your SharePoint library and verify that all the data has been imported successfully:


EXAMPLE: SharePoint List


Here is an example of how the uploaded metadata is displayed in the SharePoint list:




EXAMPLE: SharePoint List Attachments



NOTES TO SHAREPOINT FIELD MAPPING

The Field mapping dialog allows you to map Lotus Notes fields to the corresponding SharePoint properties:



The field mapping popup is split into several collapsible sections as shown in the below image. The first section shows the general metadata, while the remaining sections show the metadata grouped by Notes form:




To map a Notes field to an existing SharePoint field, select the checkbox next to the Notes field and then select the appropriate SharePoint field:




The SharePoint uploader also enables you to create new fields in SharePoint and transfer the metadata to those fields. 

In order to create a new field in SharePoint, type in a custom field title in the SharePoint field title field, and select the SharePoint field type. 

When the upload begins, the SharePoint uploader will automatically create a new field in SharePoint with that title and field type, and transfer the corresponding metadata to that field. 

Note that some field names are reserved and cannot be used as field titles. If you enter such a name in the SharePoint title field, then the field will be highlighted in red color:



Note: Once your upload is completed, the imported metadata may not be displayed in the SharePoint columns automatically. 

If that's the case, use the Show/hide columns option to enable the appropriate columns in your view:




NOTES ATTACHMENTS


Before you begin to export your Notes data, you will need to configure your attachment options.

The attachment options are configured in the Export Settings (see Plain Archive settings) where you can select a combination of the following settings:



Attachment Embedding

If you select the option to attach Notes files in the PDF documents, then in order to access the attachments later the users will have to download the PDF document from SharePoint, open it in Adobe acrobat, and then click on the attachment icons (or open the attachments from the Attachments pane in Adobe). 



Save Attachments In Folders

If you select the option to save Notes files in the Attachments folder, and after you upload your archive from the staging folder into SharePoint, Seascape will automatically create a folder called Attachments in SharePoint.

Within the Attachments folder additional sub-folders will be created (one folder for each Notes document which contained attachments), and the attachments will be saved in the appropriate sub-folders. The sub-folders are named using the same name as the folder's parent PDF document. 

The main SharePoint view will now also show a new Attachment column with links that take the user directly to the appropriate attachments sub-folder for each document in the view: 



Attachment Conversion

Seascape also allows you to convert supported attachments types (such as Word or Excel documents or standard image formats) to PDF, after which the converted attachments may again be embedded in the parent PDF file, appended to the parent PDF file, or saved externally in the Attachments sub-folder. 

Note that this option requires you to have MS Office installed on the same workstation on which your export will be running. 


NOTES DOCLINKS


The document links in the generated PDF records will remain functional (within the scope of a SharePoint library) only if the archive is generated using the Archive to SharePoint option described at the beginning of this article. 

However if you're uploading data from a Full Archive or Plain Archive, then the doclinks will not be functional. 

This is due to the fact that Seascape recreates the doclinks in different ways depending on how a particular type of archive is deployed (e.g. launched from a local folder (or shared network folder), hosted on a web server, or uploaded into SharePoint).

IMPORTANT: The SharePoint file preview feature does not support doclinks. Therefore in order to be able to click on a doclink in the PDF record, you will need to open the PDF in the browser. 

Simply right-click on the SharePoint document and click Open > Open in browser: 



Specially, you may also host the Full Archive in a SharePoint library (similarly as you would on a web server). In this instance the Full Archive doclinks will work normally. 


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