USER AND SERVER CONFIGURATION

Using the How to Apply settings
The policy settings documents contain a “How to apply” setting that enables you to uniformly control how and when users can modify the individual field values in these documents and when the field values cannot be modified by end users. The “How to apply” feature provides a central location, the policy settings document, from which you can set, and optionally, lock down policy settings. This feature is especially useful for implementing company procedures and increasing security. The “How to apply” setting is available in all policy settings documents.

If the policy settings document displays a How to apply setting that is a check box, that feature setting is exposed to anyone who can view the policy using the IBM® Lotus® Notes® client. The Notes client end user cannot specify a value for that setting. If the policy settings document displays a drop-down list box for the How to apply setting, the setting is exposed in the Notes client and the Notes client end user can change the value if they are assigned the [PolicyModifier] role in the Domino Directory.

IBM® Lotus® Domino® uses dynamic configuration to deploy all policy settings except the mail policy settings. When end-users authenticate with their home servers, information stored in the policy settings documents is deployed (pushed down) to the end-users. The mail policy settings document is deployed to the user's mail file by the Administration Process, not by dynamic configuration.

If a field is set to “Don't set value” those policy settings are not overwritten when changes are made due to dynamic configuration or the Administration Process. If a field is set to “Set initial value,” the initial policy settings are overwritten just once. If a field cannot be modified by end users, the policy is deployed using the settings designated by the administrator who set up the policy settings document.

The “How to apply” setting offers the following options:


You can change the “How to apply” setting that you assign to a field at any time by opening the policy settings document and choosing a different How to apply option.

If you open a policy settings document in IBM® Lotus® Domino® Designer, the fields that have a How to Apply setting enabled contain the suffix $HA. The only exception is the mail policy settings document which uses the suffix $UP to indicate that a How to Apply option has been set for the field.

The existing inheritance and enforcement properties also apply to settings that have the “How to apply” feature. If the field is marked Inherit, the “How to apply” setting is also inherited. If the field is marked Enforce, the “How to apply” setting is also enforced. If you are using dynamic policies, any precedence order that you established also applies.

Note For related Domino policies tips and best practices, see the Notes and Domino wiki.

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