Benefits of condensed directory catalogs on clients

Condensed directory catalogs on HCL Notes® clients, also called mobile directory catalogs, are useful to organizations that use one or multiple HCL Domino® directories.

About this task

Although Notes® users' mail or directory servers can do lookups in Domino® directories on behalf of Notes® users, using condensed directory catalogs on Notes® clients instead offers these benefits:

  • Notes® users have access to one local, corporate-wide directory, even when their clients are disconnected from the network.
  • When they address mail, users can press F9 to verify quickly the address of anyone in the organization.
  • Users can flag mail for encryption when using clients that are disconnected from the network. The clients look up the public key and encrypt the mail when the users connect to the network and send the mail.
  • Groups are included in a directory catalog by default, so users can send mail to groups. However, to minimize the size of the directory catalog, the members of the groups are not included by default, so users' mail servers or directory servers must be able to look up the members of the groups.
  • Type-ahead name resolution is instantaneous because type-ahead searches the local directory catalog. Type-ahead searches never extend to a server when there is a directory catalog configured locally on the client.
  • Users can use the detailed search feature available in Contacts to search the directory catalog. For example, if a user wants to send mail to someone by the name of Robin at the Los Angeles location but doesn't remember Robin's last name, the user can search for "First name" Robin and "Location" Los Angeles to retrieve the name from the directory catalog.
  • Users can use the Mail Address dialog box to open and scroll through the names in the directory catalog.
  • Using Soundex, users can enter phonetic spellings to search for names they don't know how to spell.
  • Network traffic is reduced because name resolution occurs locally on the client, rather than on a server.