Scalix 11.3 is on the way ...

[Derek]

Our problems with SMC are:

Mail stops being delivered.

Mail gets stuck in the Outbox.

Usually you have to restart Outlook to resolve both issues. We were receiving so many complaints that I had to move our server on to the LAN and make most users non-SMC.

[Ruthiness]

Ok so.. where is 11.3?
It is third week of December now...

I have a question for anyone who can answer.

We are using 11.2 Community Edition that has 25 Premium users. However, the desktops all have Outlook 2007 installed and the Outlook Connector will not work with Outlook 2007 I am told (in 11.2) and we need 11.3 for that.

Is it possible to install an older version of Outlook on machines that are using Office 2007?
This might be an option for those who do not want to move to 11.3 because of the limit to 10 Premium (Outlook Connector) users.

Any thoughts? Is that even possible to run an older version of Outlook once Outlook 2007 has been installed?

[florian]

Derek - assume you're running 11.2?

Ruthiness, we've delayed 11.3 into January - please read the thread.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on mixing and matching Office and Outlook versions - this used to be possible in the Office 2003 and Office 2000 days, however, not sure if that holds true today.

Florian.

[Derek]

Florian, yes, 11.2. I always install patches immediately in hopes that it will cause me to receive fewer phone calls :)

[florian]

Derek,

thanks - i actually hope that our patches move in the right direction.... Please, please, confirm - it's christmas soon!

Florian.

[bbryan]

Derek - assume you're running 11.2?
Unfortunately, I can't comment on mixing and matching Office and Outlook versions

I have Office 2007 installed with Outlook 2003 w/ Scalix Connector on a few test machines but YMMV. I think there may have been issues using Word for the editor in Outlook. We probably won't be upgrading people to Office 2007 until long after Scalix 11.3 is out anyway.

Ben

[florian]

Cool, thanks for the information.... Florian.

[madrooster]

Is there any hope for being able to subscribe to remote calendars from the server side.

I know there are Outlook plugins that allow this, but the problem has been you have to install the plugin on all devices and ultimately end up with duplicate records in the calendar

This has been the biggest hurdle of trying to get people to use Scalix over Google Apps, as being able to pull remote calendars from association sites, etc is what most of our clients want.

[florian]

I can't give you a date, but I think I may say that there is a view on quite exactly (and actually even some more) you're looking for.

assume you're simply requiring read-only .ics/webcal calendars over http, correct?

--f

[madrooster]

Correct, we want read only.

Many of our potential clients are running applications that generate the ics files on the fly, and change anything about the record (start time, day, etc), they have to log into the application to make the change, so read only is exactly what is needed.

Very similar to way Google does with the calendar.

[florian]

Can you explain the exact scenario, usecase and type of application to me a little bit more? When I think of applications generating calendar appointments, most of the time I think of eMail (iTIP/iMIP) messages that the application produces when an .ics file is attached that the user then imports into his or her calender.

That doesn't seem to be the case in your situation and I'm trying to understand what situation this is - just want to make sure, our concepts are covering it, as it seems relevant....

Cheers,
Florian.

[madrooster]

Ok, lets take a primary client I have in mind for Scalix.

They run a scheduling application to track jobs. This application allows the client to enter things like "Start Time", "End Time" Address of the Job, Contact info, etc...

The application also dynamically creates ics files. One for each Technician, as well as a master ics that includes all scheduled jobs.

What the client current does it gives each Tech their ICS URL, and they add it to the google calendar. And then the supervisor adds the master ics feed to his google calendar.

So the end result is the supervisor can see where all his guys are, and a brief description of what each one is doing (as this info is in the ics file). And the techs can login to their individual accounts, and see what they have on the schedule.

As stated before, anything they need to change, the must login to the application to update, so that it updates everything accordingly. But the nice thing about using the ics file format, is it allows a URL link, so if they need to update the record, the just open the record, and click the URL, and it takes them to record (one they authenticate, with the application if needed).

The goal is too be able to enter these ICS URLs at the server level. Like I said before, it is possible to add plugins to Outlook, but they are very buggy, and must be installed on every computer. And since Scalix sees these entries, it sometimes adds duplicate items. (noticed if running Outlook at the same time on two different computers)

By adding this feature you will be the only server based solution offering this. Presently Google Apps does the best job of this, but this option can make things very interesting for Scalix.

Also many business associations are publishing ICS feeds on their websites, with important dates. i.e. Membership Renewal Dates, Upcoming Meetings and Conferences, etc

This would be a huge assets to be able to track any number of calendars that a user needs reminders of.

[florian]

Thanks - couple interesting points; hope you don't mind me challenging this a bit more?

One usecase - and that's the one I have in mind for the feature - is external feeds like public event schedules, holidays, etc., and you clearly name that one.

The other one is not as clear to me, though..... just from a gut feel perspective, if an application schedules me or changes something for my personal schedule, it feels somewhat more logical to me if either

a) the application pushes stuff into my calendar when the event is scheduled
or
b) the application sends me an invite (by email?) that i then have to accept/confirm, thereby placing the appointment into my calendar.

Both would be possible with Scalix today, (a) through the REST API Messaging Services layer, (b) through simple iMIP eMail.

The reason why I'm saying that is that it does not feel logical to me for an application to actually store/manage/maintain a calendar with all the subtleties that this comes with; this should rather be done by a calendaring application that has all these features anyway.

Now, the only reason I could quickly think of why you would not want to do it that way is that the app is a given, cannot be changed and doesn't want to work that way - which is an acceptable reason, and it's also acceptable to ask of the calendaring system to provide a workaround and the feature we're working on will/does provide just that, as you describe, but it doesn't make it feel right, if you understand what I'm saying.......

so .... question .... do you think it's just that ... or do you think it actually is the 'right' (if there ever is such a word ) way of doing these things?

Technical/semantical question in addition... does the application actually maintain a schedule for each user and/or supervisor, i.e. a single http-accessible .ics feed that has all the persons appointments in there or does it create a series of URLs, each pointing to an .ics feed that only has a single appointment in it?

... any further thoughts/information appreciated. Many thanks for having this discussion, very useful for me and very good to align work in progress with some specific real-world usecases .... I'm in total agreement that such features open doors to many, many possibilities for integration and is highly useful (which is why we're investing into it.....

Cheers, happy new year,
Florian.

[madrooster]

Well the reason there is no need to "request" the appointment from the application is because the "techs" dont have a say so in their schedule. i.e. They do what they are told, when they are told if you catch my drift.

The 3-4 applications I know of that provide this type of service, all produce individual ics feeds based upon the techs and supervisors. These ics feeds include all appointments for that individual. They also offer the ability to group individuals, providing an single ics for say a "team" of techs.

The reason for wanting to import these into Scalix (or Google Apps), is that the applications do not allow "Misc Scheduling" So the end users cant add "personalized" appointments. Such as maybe a Bday Party after work one night, etc.

While since "iCal" is a standard, and there is an API to Scalix, it would be possible to make this two way communication (or sync), this is a highly undesired feature. The reason being is "Service Techs" have a tendency to see "jobs/projects" that they really dont want to do. And, in turn would adjust the schedule to make it where it wouldn't be "possible" to do the "scheduled job" at the alloted time. (i.e. move a 4 hour job from 9:00 am to 2:00pm, when the work day ends at 4:30 pm). For this reason, only the supervisor can make changes to the scheduled time, and this must be done through the application.
So as part of the above description, a great feature that is in Mozilla Sunfire, and Google Apps, is the ability to make the ics feed be "locked" or true readonly. While the ics feed would update any changed times the next time it syncs to the server, "locking" the feed, prevents even the temptation to change the time or details of the ics feed.

The last feature that would be nice would be cache of the feed between syncs. This would allow feeds to be visible when off line, or if the network goes down to the feed.

[florian]

Well the reason there is no need to "request" the appointment from the application is because the "techs" dont have a say so in their schedule. i.e. They do what they are told, when they are told if you catch my drift.

Right, that makes sense - however, fundamentally this is a process/work contract problem than a technical problem and I assume those things make sure that the individual performs their duty anyway (wouldn't keep their jobs for long if they didn't, I assume). With this in mind, a request-response mechanism (with it being mandatory for the individual to accept those tasks) somehow seems to make sense as well - as means of the tech to acknowledge that they have seen/noted the request - with a pure feed, wouldn't such feedback/acknowledgement be missing?

The 3-4 applications I know of that provide this type of service, all produce individual ics feeds based upon the techs and supervisors. These ics feeds include all appointments for that individual. They also offer the ability to group individuals, providing an single ics for say a "team" of techs.

Cool, that's good. Is this an inhouse application or are there any standard applications (that you can point me to, out of interest) that provide such feeds?, Also, just to be clear, from a technical perspective, is this 'webcal' stuff, i.e. just something that you http-GET to and that comes back as a text/calendar "single large ics file"?

The reason for wanting to import these into Scalix (or Google Apps), is that the applications do not allow "Misc Scheduling" So the end users cant add "personalized" appointments. Such as maybe a Bday Party after work one night, etc.

Good and that makes sense; so at least those apps don't try to turn themselves into general purpose calendaring systems, which is something e.g. CRM and ERP applications sometimes do, even though them, as well, are not completely up to the task.

While since "iCal" is a standard, and there is an API to Scalix, it would be possible to make this two way communication (or sync), this is a highly undesired feature. The reason being is "Service Techs" have a tendency to see "jobs/projects" that they really dont want to do. And, in turn would adjust the schedule to make it where it wouldn't be "possible" to do the "scheduled job" at the alloted time. (i.e. move a 4 hour job from 9:00 am to 2:00pm, when the work day ends at 4:30 pm). For this reason, only the supervisor can make changes to the scheduled time, and this must be done through the application.
So as part of the above description, a great feature that is in Mozilla Sunfire, and Google Apps, is the ability to make the ics feed be "locked" or true readonly. While the ics feed would update any changed times the next time it syncs to the server, "locking" the feed, prevents even the temptation to change the time or details of the ics feed.

Well, when using webcal, the feed is by default read-only - the only way to modify such a thing provided by some servers is to re-publish the whole calendar, which is usually disabled in a very simple way.

Now, on the API side, while the API *could* be used to create a two-way sync, the actual functionality, semantics and logic depends very much on what the applet using the API wants to do - One-way-sync, injection of appointment into the individual's schedule or putting stuff into a read-only public foler calendar that the tech cannot modify is all within reach - it's just software, as they say. So the above logic *could* be implemented on top of Messaging Services and REST API's (or CalDAV in 11.3, for that matter!)

The last feature that would be nice would be cache of the feed between syncs. This would allow feeds to be visible when off line, or if the network goes down to the feed.

That's a straight 'yes'; the ability for the server to cache such a feed is a mandatory requirement for our dev guys in working on the feature.....

Florian.