Locking Your ID

When you start Lotus Notes you enter your password. Once your password has been entered and authenticated by Notes, you can leave Notes running on your computer and you won't be prompted to enter your password againunless you close and reopen Notes. If you walk away from your desk with Lotus Notes running, you stand the risk of others accessing your personal information and your mail. You may want to lock your ID in Notes, which will require you to reenter your password after a certain (determined by you) amount of time.

To lock your ID, choose File, Security, Lock Display from the menu, or press F5. Lotus Notes will display a large splash screen and no one can see your mail or other databases unless they enter your password. If you keep Notes open all day and you work with sensitive data or are in a high-traffic area, you can set Notes to automatically lock your ID for you after a specified time period of inactivity. To set up this automatic lock, choose File, Preferences, User Preferences from the menu to open the User Preferences dialog box. Enter the number of minutes in the "Logout (and lock Notes display) if you haven't used Notes for ____ Minutes" field. Click the checkbox in front of this field and enter your preferred number of minutes. Click OK. You can customize the logout screen as described in Chapter 19.