As Silverside has recently become a partner for harmon.ie I've been testing their harmon.ie plugin for IBM Notes. A plugin that allows organizations running SharePoint as well as IBM Notes to have access to their SharePoint content from within their mail environment. I must say I’m enthusiastic!

Originally developed to allow access from within Outlook it was also adapted to run in IBM Notes. Making it possible to seamlessly use most of the SharePoint features without having to leave the collaboration/mail environment.

“…More than a file navigator…”

What harmon.ie does is to show you your SharePoint sites and site contents in the widget bar of your IBM Notes environment. Allowing you access to your sites, files and profiles and giving you the option of easily ‘dragging & dropping’ files, emails or individual attachments to or from your SharePoint site. A great way to collaborate with your colleagues and share information if SharePoint is your chosen platform for team work or document storage.

Dragging & dropping files between your mail and SharePoint environment enables your users to collaborate by sending either links (internal users) or the actual files (for external recipients) by simply selecting the [ALT] button on the keyboard.

Harmon.ie is however much more than just a ‘file navigator’ for SharePoint. It also allows you to surface and edit your SharePoint team calendars in your IBM Notes agenda, browse and access profile information from the SharePoint MySites and integrates with Sametime instant messaging.

“…Bringing together both worlds…”

Seeing as more and more IBM Notes organizations have SharePoint running too, bringing together the two worlds really makes for a better and more connected way of working. Leveraging both the power of SharePoint as well as the capabilities of the IBM Notes environment. And as it supports both Outlook as well as IBM Notes it offers benefits to mixed environments as well.

• Gives you access to one or more SharePoint sites from within your IBM Notes environment
• Allows you to ‘drag & drop’ files from your mail to SharePoint & vice versa
• Brings content types, meta-data, version history, workflow and check-in/check-out from SharePoint into your IBM Notes environment
• Allows the attachment of links to files in SharePoint or actual files themselves
• Leverages Sametime awareness and IM
• Allows incorporation of SharePoint team calendars in your IBM Notes agenda
• Enables access to MySite profiles for searching, updating and interaction
• Shows recent SharePoint activity for profiles and files

But the reason I think I like it most is that harmon.ie offers organizations and users a practical way to use the platforms their organization requires and prefers without being forced into a vendor lock-in or costly migrations. Bridging the gap and at the same time expanding the way users can work with their SharePoint data. So if your organization is using SharePoint then check out this video for a more detailed overview and download a trial version. It's definitely worth trying out.

Images courtesy of http://harmon.ie