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Virgin Atlantic Airways Completes Worldwide Notes Rollout w/ InstallPump For immediate release: SoftQuest Corporation One Selleck Street Norwalk, Ct 06855 Phone : 203-866-2126 Fax: 203-866-2127 URL www.installpump.com Virgin Atlantic Airways completes worldwide Notes rollout with the help of InstallPump About Virgin Atlantic Airways Back in the early 80s, when Virgin Atlantic was created, Richard Branson was a go-getting, sweater-wearing entrepreneur and head of the successful Virgin Group, probably best known for Virgin Records. Since then, Virgin Atlantic has become the second largest long-haul international airline operating services out of London's Heathrow and Gatwick Airports to 21 destinations all over the world - from Shanghai to the Caribbean and, of course, the United States. So what's next? Well there's plenty planned, not least the introduction of the six A380 aircraft we have ordered - Richard Branson intends them to be 'the cruise liners of the sky' with all the luxury and pampering that suggests. From launching with one leased jumbo jet, to becoming the UK's second largest long haul airline - Virgin Atlantic is a major British success story. The Challenge Virgin Atlantic was faced with the prospect of manually upgrading 4,000 Lotus Notes clients. This upgrade was to be done in conjunction with the deployment of a new Dell computer to each client worldwide. The project was further complicated because there would be a mix of laptop & desktop computers, with some clients having both types. Each computer would have the newer client version of Lotus Notes already installed on it as part of the build. The challenge for the Notes Administrators in the Groupware & Intranet Systems team was to convert the users' Notes data to new ODS version at the same time that their new computer was installed. An additional challenge was created by the fact that some users had already been upgraded in the UK, using a slightly different directory structure. Requirements: Detection of the current version of data. Detection of the user's hardware type: laptop versus desktop Conversion of user's data to newest ODS, ensuring that all contacts and existing archives etc. remain intact Updating location documents deployed for laptop users Limiting the location documents deployed for desktop users, involving some deletions Deploying standard preferences to all users, e.g. "Always prompt" to keep a copy when sending mail The Solution H2 Systems International trained the Notes Administrators at Virgin Atlantic on the InstallPump product and also assisted in the building of some elements of the deployment package. The Notes Administrator in the United States received training on the InstallPump software from the SoftQuest headquarters staff, and utilized the deployment packages created in the UK for the rollout to clients in the U.S., having made minor changes to suit their environment. The following deployment packages were created: Desktop data conversion Laptop data conversion New Desktop user New Laptop user Generally, each deployment package: Copied down to the local data directory the relevant templates required for upgrading the user's mail file, personal address book, and journal. A new log database also was created. Two templates were used for each (apart from the log.ntf), one containing agents and one without. Set new notes.ini parameters for preferences. Captured the user's password in PasswordWatcher (one of the InstallPump tools) so that multiple inputs were not required. Replaced the design of the user's mail file on their home mail server with the template containing agents. Ran the first agent in the template that upgraded private folders. Ran the second agent in the template, which deselected the "Do not allow design refresh/replace to modify the database icon" option. Replaced the design of the mail file with the template without agents and the new workspace icon. Deleted unwanted location documents from the personal address book. Created a new log database and added an icon for it to the user's workspace. Added other icons, such as Help and In-House Notes User Guides to the workspace. Deleted all of the templates that had been copied locally. Displayed a completion notice informing the Engineer running the deployment package that it had completed, and that testing of the client was now required on the machine. Using InstallPump to quickly and effectively convert the users' data has saved a tremendous amount of time, both in training rollout engineers and also in the time spent at each machine. This time saved translated to cost savings, which is a high priority in the current economic environment. The use of InstallPump also made it possible to standardize the Notes client configurations, making support for users much easier, thereby providing better service to them.