For many Notes Migrator for SharePoint users, the most significant new feature added in version 5.1 (currently in beta) is the ability to save embedded images, attachments and OLE objects to a different location than the "main" document being migrated.  While this may sound like an esoteric feature, it opens up a wide range of new migration scenarios, many of which have been requested by customers on a fairy regular basis:

• Generation of stand-alone HTML pages with links to embedded images and attachments
• Generation of stand-alone ASPX pages (also new with version 5.1) with links to embedded images and attachments
• Leveraging SharePoint Document Library features such as version control, approval processing for all attachments
• Leveraging Office integration for round-trip editing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments
• Support for the MOSS "Publishing Site" paradigm of storing images and attachments in separate libraries

Before diving into how this feature works, I want to recap how things work in prior versions.  Notes Migrator for SharePoint has always had the ability to migrate rich documents to SharePoint lists and this included embedded images, attachments and OLE objects.  These "parts" are stored as list item attachments any references to these parts in the generated HTML are fixed up to point to these attachments.  From the end-users perspective, it just works:

That's all good and fine if you (a) want to target list items and (b) you do not plan to do much editing of the migrated attachments.  But for all the reasons cited above, people sometimes want to move the embedded "parts" to alternate locations.

With version 5.1 you can now specify "alternate locations" in your target data definitions.  For example, instead migrating embedded images to attachments in the the same list item, we can specify an alternate library called "Shared Documents":

Notice that we are using File fields here instead of Attachment fields.  We could also have chosen to specify a folder within that Library:

Finally, as we define other data and meta-data fields to map our Notes content to, we can now specify which outputs (the main item or the alternate files) they apply to.  In this example we are defining a target field that will set the file names of images and objects sent to alternate locations.  We map the Notes "Subject" field to that target field.

The result of all this is that list item we generate no longer has attachments in it.  Instead, those parts are stored in the Shared Documents library and the parts are correctly cross-referenced:

Look ma, no attachments in the list item!  Note that the author names, created dates, and (most importantly) the access control permissions on the library files still reflect the original Notes document.

Also, because the "parts" are now library files, they automatically benefit from the version control, approval processing, and Office integration that SharePoint document libraries provide.

There is a lot more to say about this feature.  Stay tuned...