Now that you have Sametime installed, you'll need to log into it. You will have the Sametime icon on your desktop or in your start menu, depending on the operating system you are using. Launching Sametime will open up the logon dialog box:

A few essential pieces of information are needed to complete this dialog box, which they should be provided to you by your technical department, namely Host server, User name, and Password. The Host server field is the Sametime server name. As your contacts connect to this server, you can see when they are available for chatting by the status icons that appear by their names. Your username is normally the same name or user id you use to sign on to your Lotus Notes client, but you may have a separate user id for Sametime depending on the type of authentication Sametime is using. Your password is most likely the same as your Notes client id password, but your technical department should provide you with this information.

If you want to automatically logon when you start up Sametime, select the Remember Password and Automatically log in checkboxes. This combination ensures that you will automatically sign into Sametime whenever you start up the application. And while this says "automatically", it's important to remember to keep your password up-to-date. The password in the dialog box will require an update for your login to Sametime to be successful.

Once you have completed the dialog box, click on Log In, and if your login information is correct, your Sametime client will show you connected to the server: