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Re: [Evolution] Advice needed for Exchange-like calendaring

Hi Daryl 

Just spotted your post on 1/6/3. I´m the author of JiCal and have just
discovered (having upgraded Evolution from 1.0.8 to 1.2.2 that it´s
free/busy functionality has broken. I haven´t changed any code so either
Evo is broken or they´ve tightened/changed requirements outside of the
spec.

I´ll ensure that FBURL processing works as soon as I can detect what in
Evo has changed.

BTW. A Dutch Sys Integration firm recently funded an extension to do
work group calendaring. It´s Week-at-a-glance HTML views of particular
groups of users. A single XML file can be used to define each group and
the views can be forward planned . Works well and really tested the
Repeat Rules thoroughly. 

I´m currently docbooking JiCal so should be done this week sometime and
release under 1.3.4.

A question or two for the list. I´m designing a Calendar Access Protocol
server under the JiCal banner. Does anyone know how hard it will be to
plug in a ´CAP´ (http://www.calsch.org) Client to Evo? I´ve already had
talks with a German OS project who think the Outlook plugin is not so
bad. Wouldn´t it be nice to have a true open source calendar server and
a migration path from Outlook to Evolution as and when departments are
ready? I think Lotus Notes are moving to get CAP client/server working
for their offering (as main chatter on the calsch list is from there).

Best regards

Stuart Guthrie


On Sun, 2003-06-01 at 04:09, Daryl Manning wrote:

Did anyone try jiCal for what this guy is trying ? It doesn't even 
require you to use JBoss anymore, you can just set a cron job every 
couple of minutes to go through the directories and pick up changed 
information.

We were planning on trying this here where I am.

Be interested if anyone has crib notes on this or similar.

Goal is to get Evolution, Outlook and Apple iCal all working together 
for appointment bookings and such with FBURL and calendaring for each 
user in the org though it would be nice if we could have any iCal/iMips 
compatible client working with it.

ciao !
Daryl.


On Friday, May 30, 2003, at 09:56  PM, Lonnie Borntreger wrote:


I've commented on each point below.  General comment: points 1 and 3 do
not require a "calendar server"... just a host for free/busy, and the
meetings are accepted into the local Evolution/Outlook calendar.

On Fri, 2003-05-30 at 11:54, Bryce Harrington wrote:

   From inside of outlook:
   1) From inside of outlook. Create a
      meeting by selecting a list of attendees
      and having the tool (outlook) display
      the available times.


Set up an internal ftp or http server that accepts uploads (either
authenticated, or anonymous).  Set each Outlook user to publish their
free/busy time to this server (need to install the "Web Publishing
Wizard" for this), into some file (if using unique usernames, something
like this) -
 ftp://server/calendars/username.vfb

Place that information into the contact information, either local
contacts (Evolution and Outlook), global free/busy location settings 
(in
Outlook), or into the contact LDAP server (if you have one - for
Evolution and Outlook).

Then, when scheduling a meeting the free/busy info is retrieved and
displayed in the meeting scheduler dialog.

NOTE: Evolution currently does not have the ability to publish 
free/busy
to a server, but it can email the information (Actions->Publish
Free/Busy).  If you set up a special account on that free/busy server 
to
receive these emails, and use procmail or some other filter to pull out
the information and save it into the correct directory into
username.vfb, then Evolution calendars will be visible.  However,
Evolution users will have to remember to publish the free/busy 
manually,
unlike Outlook which would do it automatically.

NOTE2: this does not give calendar capabilities to users not using
Evolution or Outlook.

NOTE3: this does not give the ability to actually view someone's
calendar (to see what meeting they're in), just the times that are
already scheduled.  Others have posted tools that allow web viewing of
the Evolution calendar file (since it is ical formatted), but this
requires manually uploading the calendar, and I don't know of a way to
do this from Outlook.


   2) Be able to designate a proxy for a person,
      that person should get a copy of all meeting
      requests and be able to respond as the person
      requested for the meeting.


Don't know of anyway to do this outside of Exchange.



   3) And of course sync up with the individuals
      outlook/Evolution calendar when they get
      back online. e.g. You can make appointments
      without the individual actually being online
      at the time of the appointment.


Using the method shown in response to point 1, they will "sync up" by
receiving emailed meeting requests, and accepting - or declining - 
them;
since the actual calendar is stored locally.

So, while not quite as "integrated" as Exchange - there are other
options to allow scheduling meetings - without spending cash.  As far 
as
full-blown calendar sharing/serving stuff that works with different
calendar clients, there have been several free projects started over 
the
ages to do this, but all seem to have died - some never made it out of
planning.  Everybody seems to want this, but nobody seems to want to do
it.


One other option for all this.... buy Exchange and the Exchange plug-in
for Evolution.  That will give you all that you want, but will cost.


Hope that helps,
Lonnie Borntreger


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=====================================
Daryl Manning
Greenpeace International, IT
Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31 20 523 6678

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-- 
Stuart Guthrie <sfg eurekait com>
Eureka IT Pty Ltd
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