Topic: Groupware with Outlook sync option for SME7

[jester]

Has anyone had luck with a groupware contrib on SME7 that also syncs with Outlook?!

There are currently (by my knowledge) 3 potential candidates: Horde, eGroupware, and Open-Xchange. If somebody has any luck with syncing one of these (or another) please report it.

Kind regards,
jester.

[p-jones]

I'm looking for something also to replace MS Exchange AND collaboration feature s(calendar / shared calendars) for around 10 users. Happy to pay for something commercial AND ROBUST

Open Xchange looks very good but the cost of the Outlook Xtenders is very high - almost the cost of TWO copies of M$ SBS.

Any comments, suggestions, experiences welcome.

[soprom]

I paied around 20USD for a connector and it works fine.

[crazybob]

soprom,
Which connector did you get, and where did you buy it from?

Bob

[mrjhb3]

Has anyone had luck with a groupware contrib on SME7 that also syncs with Outlook?!

There are currently (by my knowledge) 3 potential candidates: Horde, eGroupware, and Open-Xchange. If somebody has any luck with syncing one of these (or another) please report it.

Kind regards,
jester.

I plan on looking at horde sometime after 7.0 ships.

JB

[soprom]

The connector is sold with OpenXchange on their web site.

I also tried Toltec and Insight connectors with a cyrus-imap running on SME6.0. This was a great solution. But now, with SME7, nothing does it. DevTeam seems to stick to dovecot and to keed away from cyrus-imap.

The openXchange approach is complicated compared to cyrus-imap. I had OX running and then broke it whithout knowing which modification could have caused the problem. It sits there out of order.

The only way I know to keep it simple is to install basic CENTOS with Kolab. But this drives me away from the help from the community and from SME. As I'm no guru and don't want to become one, Kolab is the best shot, but support is poor.

Another way is with EGroupware. When php5 will be available on SME7, EGW will sync with open source connectors. In the mean time, a box with CENTOS and PHP5 would let you sync.

Many threads about this kind of need never triggered any developer's interest even if the need is real.

[mrjhb3]

Many threads about this kind of need never triggered any developer's interest even if the need is real.

I wouldn't say that.  Since there are less than 10 developers, maybe more like 5 active ones, there is not enough resources to devote to doing this without someone funding it.  If someone really has the need and wants to fund the development, then I'm sure it could/would get done.

JB

[jester]

JB,

What ways of funding are acceptable by the developers?! My only way of doing this, since i'm a linux nitwit, would be by putting up a bounty. Bit this seems to be a not so appreciated topic by many (don't know why though).

Kind regards,
jester.

[mrjhb3]

JB,

What ways of funding are acceptable by the developers?! My only way of doing this, since i'm a linux nitwit, would be by putting up a bounty. Bit this seems to be a not so appreciated topic by many (don't know why though).

Kind regards,
jester.

Jester,

Not sure why it's not an appreciated topic.  It has been stated at various times that funding development of a feature is acceptable.  There is a bug report for allowing php4 and php5 to be available on sme7.  Maybe you could search for this bug and add comments about offering a bounty for it there and see if it gets anywhere.

JB

[jester]

If bounty's are ok by the developers, isn't there some bounty system that can be integated into contribs.org website?

Most of these initiatives are started on, and also get lost in the depths of, the forums. It is unchanneld, unclear what feature are wanted and for the developers there is no way of assuring they will get their money.

jester.

[p-jones]

A bounty system, Uhmmm why not. Sounds like a good topic for a new thread.

[p-jones]

The info I got re Outlook Oxtenders

"We sell Outlook OXtenders in packs of 25.  Each pack costs $815
Let me know how you would like to proceed.
Best regards,
Nick HErring "

[icewalker]

http://www.kolab.org/

[mrjhb3]

Has anyone had luck with a groupware contrib on SME7 that also syncs with Outlook?!

There are currently (by my knowledge) 3 potential candidates: Horde, eGroupware, and Open-Xchange. If somebody has any luck with syncing one of these (or another) please report it.

Kind regards,
jester.

I plan on looking at horde sometime after 7.0 ships.

JB

Link to horde 3.1.x rpm announcement.
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=34191.msg146791#msg146791

John Bennett

[Amir Inbar]

@ mrjhb3 :

Downloaded, rpm'ed and started testing.

The first thing i have noticed is that Hebrew is present again !
After the new rpms were applied, the system gives the option to login in the Hebrew language (Hewbrew charset is enabled by deafault, i am talking about Hebrew GUI).

Thank you,

Amir

[jonroberts]

I also tried Toltec and Insight connectors with a cyrus-imap running on SME6.0. This was a great solution. But now, with SME7, nothing does it.

Since this comment was made, the Cyrus-Imap contrib has been updated for SME7 & so the combination of this with Toltec connector is a viable option.

Searching the forums for Toltec or Cyrus should produce more info on the pros & cons, or read the how-to at http://www.westcountrybusiness.com

[Agent86]

Disregard my post,

[soprom]

And it's working extremely well too on SME7 !

I've implemented the cyrus-imap solution in production with success.
Thunderbird without Toltec, and Outlook with Toltec.

I'm using this since the beginning of august.

[jvels]

The person there are making the open-xchange port to SME are working on integrate a syncml pack, so it would be possibel to use outlook and mobile phone to sync. OX

[Agent86]

Hi all

I've seen mention about the rpm for horde suite, and also read the contrib/how/to's for egroupware.

I've not successfully gotten the egroupware working properly even when trying to follow the instructions from the how to's

Well I guess my question is bout the horde suite ?

What will the rpm's do ? How do you login to the suite ?

Is it the same as loging into the webmail ? or something different ?

Since I'm not familiar with this, and can't seem to find a working horde  suite demo I'm not sure I even understand what it can do.

I've look at the horde suite site to try and understand the features but I'm not getting it.

Please shed a little light on this subject
Thanks

[mudtoe]

I've got egroupware working, for the most part, with cyrus and toltec connector.  Horde doesn't work and play well with cyrus from my experience, so if you want to use toltec connector for outlook synch, and you need web email, egroupware may be your only choice.  Some of the web pages with egroupware are a bit flakey, and I had to do the admin setups through firefox, as some of the config pages wouldn't work right with IE.  However, in my case the outlook synch is more important than the web page access, which only gets used once in a while, so the tradeoff is worth it.

mudtoe

[jester]

If you want Outlook sharing AND web-access (and a really nice one too.... look at their demo) and you're willing to spend a little money on it, take a look at:

http://www.zarafa.com


Regards,
jester.

[jonroberts]

If you want to use toltec connector for outlook synch, and you need web email, egroupware may be your only choice

A compromise, working on the basis that most Outlook users will use webmail to check recent messages, is to set your POP settings in Outlook to leave mail on server for up to 7 days.

I know that's not great, as mail deleted in Outlook still appears in Webmail and Sent Mail wont appears under SentItems (as Horde uses a different named folder - unless you sync that too, but 2 Sent Items folders will confuse most Outlook users)

I've got a couple of clients who make do with this as it gives a quick check on recent emails which is mostly what they want webmail for.

Of course, if they only want recent email and their Outlook isn't running, Webmail will provide this (i.e. server will always show mail not yet delivered to Outlook) and if their Outlook is running (& so downloading mail off the server) then Internet access could be provided by a VPN into the SME server and an RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) into their own PC (only if Win XP Pro) & just use Outlook as normal (less easy to do from an Internet cafe, but fairly straightforward if they're logging in from their home PC).

If you haven't used RDC, its worth a look.  I use it for remote support to a number of clients.  More efficient & easier to use than VNC (IMO), but does require the client PC to be running XP Pro.

Jon

[daniel]

I've been working on several solutions with Horde, egroupware, OX, etc.  Here is what I've found out.

Test bed config:  SME test server is running php5/mysql5, outlook version 2000 with all patches.

Egroupware 1.2-105 will sync using the funambol outlook client for calendar/tasks/contacts but trying to share sometimes doesn't work
Using sun mozilla calendar addin to mozilla firefox will also sych by way of the ical standard but egroupware server always takes precidence.  Egroupware has the possibility of becoming a good business intranet appliciation.

Open-Xchange on SME test server mysql4/php4  
Using the outlook connector sold by OX.com, I was able to get it to working to sync.  It was the only one that was always a live sync, not a timed or scheduled sync.  But the web interface of OX is cumbersome and had lots of issues with sharing calendar events in Outlook 2000.

Horde/Kronolith - The 3.1.x versions are working well in the Web interface, never could get funambol outlook to sync to the horde framework.  Found out its still in heavy development.  I think a beta solution might arrive early next year.

Optional workaround, found workgroupshare.  Runs on a windows 2k/XP pc, connector works on any version of outlook.  It shares the PST files, does not exchange data like an MSExchange server would.  Cost is reasonable for business, just not free.  30 day full trials are available.

Scalix - works well, but will not run on an SME server, must be on a dedicated box.