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

[Daryl Manning <dwm wakatara com>]

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