SWA Shared calendars

[cjwilber]

I have searched through this forum, and I think that the following is not possible. If it is possible please could you tell me how to do it?

Scenario:
User 1 and User 2 both have User class: FULL when running omshowu -n user
User 1 has SWA and also has Outlook set up and running using Scalix server
User2 only has SWA
User 1 wants User 2 to be able to view his calendar, so gives permission using Outlook

Questions:
1) Is Outlook the only way for user 1 to give permission to his calendar i.e. is it also possible to give permission to calendars through SWA?
2) How is it possible for User2 to view User1's calendar through SWA?

Many thanks.

[florian]

You're right.

Unfortunately, as of Scalix 10, Outlook is the only client that supports full delegation action, i.e. set permissions on private folders and view other people private's folders.

We're working on delegate access for SWA though and plan to release it in one of the next major Scalix releases - stay tuned.

Currently, the only way to share calendar information for SWA users is through Public Folders; this may server as a workaround. Permissions for those can be setup through outlook or the command line administration interface.

Cheers,
Florian.

[cjwilber]

You're right.

Unfortunately, as of Scalix 10, Outlook is the only client that supports full delegation action, i.e. set permissions on private folders and view other people private's folders.

Cheers,
Florian.

Good to know I'm not missing anything obvious. However, I can't make shared folders work in Outlook either.
Here is what I have tried.
1) In Outlook, right click Calendar, select properties, select permissions tab, and add another scalix user, making sure they have the correct permissions. Do the same for Mail folder.
2) In other user's Outlook client, select Tools/Scalix Properties/Advanced and add the mailbox for the user above. Gives error: "Unable to expand the folder. The set of folders could not be opened. The information store could not be opened" when trying to click on the + by the folder list to expand it.
3) Try to open other users calendar by File/Open/Other user's folder and selecting folder type calendar and entering the name of the person above who gave permission. This time I get "The information store could not be opened"

Is the problem because these users are on different mailnodes? I have created two separate mailnodes so that I can have different email addresses - one for my small business, and one for my private email - and was trying to give visibility of my work movements to my family so they know where I am.

Thanks for any help

[ScalixSupport]

The very first thing to check is that the PC is capable of resolving the fully qualified host name of the Scalix server.

From the server, type the command:

Code: Select all

omshowmnmp

This will show you a mapping between the mailnodes and the home server. If the PC isn't able to resolve those names, delegate access won't work.

Cheers

Dave

[cjwilber]

The very first thing to check is that the PC is capable of resolving the fully qualified host name of the Scalix server.

From the server, type the command:

Code: Select all

omshowmnmp

This will show you a mapping between the mailnodes and the home server. If the PC isn't able to resolve those names, delegate access won't work.

Cheers

Dave

Well, that gives a response. Let's assume my domain is domain.com and nmy scalix server is server.domain.com
omshowmnmp gives:
mailnode1 server.domain.com
mailnode2 server.domain.com

Now on the PC where I have Outlook, nslookup for server.domain.com returns the correct address. Note that this is the same address as for domain.com, which also returns an address OK.
The server.domain.com machine is behind a NT firewall in case that makes any difference, with various ports forwarded (143, 443, 25, 5729 -- am I missing some ports that need to be forwarded?).
However, given that I can make the Outlook connection to the Scalix server OK, doesn't that indicate that I have DNS and server names set up correctly?

Is the problem that I have two different domains receiving email on this server, and I am trying to give access from one to the other for calendar. In other words, I am trying to give user with email address user1@domain1.com access to a calendar for another user - user2@domain2.com, where these users are in separate Scalix nodes.

Thanks

[florian]

It shouldn't be a problem.

First thing to check is if the permissions on the calendar folder are setup allright.

Go to the users whose calendar is to be shared, right click on the calendar, go to properties, permissions - you should see the user that wants to see it at least with "Reviewer" permissions.

Another way to check is to run the ommapiperms tool on the shared users account from the Scalix command line.

when the reader user tries to open the other users calendar, the following happens:
1. outlook over its primary connection asks the server which other machine the mailnode of the user whose calendar is to be opened is on
2. the server returns a hostname as a result, the hostname will be exactly what's listed on omshowmnmp for that particular users mailnode
3. outlook will then try to make a secondary connection to that hostname, port 5729

if that connect fails (because hostname cannot be resolved or port 5729 is not available), the said error message appears.

obviously firewalls can have an influence here as well. if both users are on the same physical server and the mailnodes are mapped correctly, it should work.

can you "telnet my.server.hostname 5729" from the windows pc in question, where my.server.hostname is the fully-qualified hostname of the machine on which the sharer's calendar is located?

Thx,
F.

[cjwilber]

Thanks very much for your help. Let me answer part by part in the quote below

It shouldn't be a problem.

First thing to check is if the permissions on the calendar folder are setup allright.

Go to the users whose calendar is to be shared, right click on the calendar, go to properties, permissions - you should see the user that wants to see it at least with "Reviewer" permissions.

**** I had set up permissions to be Editor. Those permissions are still in place.

Another way to check is to run the ommapiperms tool on the shared users account from the Scalix command line.
**** Interesting. trying this for either user gives absolutely nothing

when the reader user tries to open the other users calendar, the following happens:
1. outlook over its primary connection asks the server which other machine the mailnode of the user whose calendar is to be opened is on
2. the server returns a hostname as a result, the hostname will be exactly what's listed on omshowmnmp for that particular users mailnode
3. outlook will then try to make a secondary connection to that hostname, port 5729

if that connect fails (because hostname cannot be resolved or port 5729 is not available), the said error message appears.

obviously firewalls can have an influence here as well. if both users are on the same physical server and the mailnodes are mapped correctly, it should work.
**** Yes they are both on the same physical server.

can you "telnet my.server.hostname 5729" from the windows pc in question, where my.server.hostname is the fully-qualified hostname of the machine on which the sharer's calendar is located?
**** I can telnet from the windows pc in question. Just get control codes on the screen (smiley faces, ¬, that kind of thing), but it does connect
Thx,
F.

[florian]

Obviously,

Another way to check is to run the ommapiperms tool on the shared users account from the Scalix command line.
**** Interesting. trying this for either user gives absolutely nothing

this is key - how did you try to setup the permissions in the first place?

Thx,
Florian.

[cjwilber]

Obviously,

Another way to check is to run the ommapiperms tool on the shared users account from the Scalix command line.
**** Interesting. trying this for either user gives absolutely nothing

this is key - how did you try to setup the permissions in the first place?

Thx,
Florian.

Yes, I kind of figured this wasn't quite right :D
So how did I set things up?
1) Set up Outlook from the very start to use Other server type, Scalix server.
That all seems OK in that I can synchronise and work offline etc. I'm assuming nothing broken with the basic installation. Is that a reasonable assumption?
2) In the Outlook 2003 Navigation pane, select the Calendar section.
3) Within this section, there is a section called My Calendars. In this section is a Calendar Icon, and the word Calendar. Right click this and select properties. In resulting dialog select the Permissions tab. Click Add, which brings up a dialog "Add Users". In this Dialog, which defaults to ShowNames from the: SYSTEM there is a list of Scalix users (including the admins, group admins etc.)
4) From this list, select the person to whom I want to give permission and click on the Add-> button and click on OK
5) By default, permissions section of the dialog has None against Roles:
6) Change role to Reviewer and click Apply and then click OK
That's it.
Just repeated all that, and reran ommapiperms and still shows nothing.

Am I doing something very silly here that is so obvious we are overlooking it.

[florian]

Hm. Is there only one calendar listed under My Calendars? Sometimes one can get easily confused. I just did the same thing on mine and ended up with Output like

Code: Select all

Calendar
|        The Delegate/scalix,demo Reviewer


in ommapiperms.

So this is really what you want to see.

-- f.

[cjwilber]

Hm. Is there only one calendar listed under My Calendars? Sometimes one can get easily confused. I just did the same thing on mine and ended up with Output like

Code: Select all

Calendar
|        The Delegate/scalix,demo Reviewer


in ommapiperms.

So this is really what you want to see.

-- f.

Maybe I misunderstand, but ys there is only one calendar in the Outlook client of the user who is wanting to share his calendar.

Perhaps I should mention that the other user (the one who wants to see the calendar) is using Outlook 2000 but things are going wrong well before the Outrlook2000 user tries to see the calendar that the Outlook2003 user shared given what is happening with the ommapiperms command (i.e. nothing)

Is it worth my deleting the Outlook connector completely and starting again. Maybe I missed something during the install, or pointed towards the wrong server - though if this is the case, I would expect nothing to work.

[florian]

Does the role re-appear when you click on the permissions page again - i.e. is it actually stored?

-- f.

[cjwilber]

Does the role re-appear when you click on the permissions page again - i.e. is it actually stored?

-- f.

Yes, I have checked that. The role stays there in the Outlook client, with whatever permissions I set for it.
I have tried switching to and from offline working to see if this made a difference.
I have manually synchronised after every change.

I wonder if there is a process that should be running that isn't. Any suggestions for a particular logfile to look in?

Thanks again for your help.

[florian]

No, actually what you're describing is virtually impossible - as the outlook connector writes the permission information to exactly the same place that ommapiperms reads them from. :-(

You are executing ommapiperms on the user who is sharing the calendar, not on the one that tries to access it, right? does it output anything?

thx,
F.

[cjwilber]

No, actually what you're describing is virtually impossible - as the outlook connector writes the permission information to exactly the same place that ommapiperms reads them from. :-(

You are executing ommapiperms on the user who is sharing the calendar, not on the one that tries to access it, right? does it output anything?

thx,
F.

It's strange isn't it?

I have run it on both users.
Neither output anything.

I have Outlook Business Manager installed too. I am just uninstalling that to see if it makes any difference.