Outlook and Zimbra calendar without MAPI

[bjquinn]

Ok so how does this work? How does the Zimbra web client's calendar talk to the Zimbra server? Through some kind of iCal protocol or something? Whatever method that is, could I get Outlook to speak that protocol too? I don't want to pay for (or wait for) the MAPI connector, but couldn't I find a way to get Outlook talking whatever protocol the Zimbra server uses to talk to its own web client or whatever other protocols it already supports for calendaring?

-BJ Quinn

[marcmac]

Our APIs are open source, we speak soap. There's documentation on the protocol bundled with the source code.

Outlook, on the other hand, is proprietary, so I'm not sure you'll be able to hack our soap protocol into that email client.

[sam]

Outlook speaks IMAP/POP and so does the Zimbra server.

[bjquinn]

Ok well if you speak soap, are you speaking some well-standardized soap language to talk back and forth between a calendar and a server, or is it a set of commands you guys came up with? In other words, is it "possible" (from a theoretical standpoint, I'm not asking if you know if such a thing exists) that I could find some plugin to Outlook (or any other calendaring program) that would talk to your soap calendar? Or did you guys use soap as an open API yet came up with your own command set using that API to talk back and forth between the calendaring program and the server, which I imagine would mean that any plugin to Outlook or anything else to make its calendar talk to Zimbra would have to have been specifically developed to talk to Zimbra, not just some standardized "soap calendaring protocol" or something?

[KevinH]

We speak *standard* SOAP. The SOAP commands are something we here at Zimbra came up with. They are fully documented in the source here:

ZimbraServer/soap*.txt

Just to be clear our Outlook Plugin (aka Storage Provider, Outlook Connector) does exactly what you are talking about. So while it is technically possible to create such a plugin it's not trivial.

You mentioned 'wait for' in your first message but the Outlook plugin is now available in the Network Edition.

[pinion247]

Sorry if I'm asking this question in the wrong place, but:

My company is intrigued by Zimbra, but we currently use Outlook w/ Exchange. Is there any Outlook-type application that can integrate with Zimbra (both email and calendar)?

BTW, your product looks great... I'm really interested in testing the OSS version!

[sam]

If you get the ZCS Connector for Outlook, your end users can continue to use Outlook.

[pinion247]

^^^ Whoops... I was thinking that the ZCS was only for the Network Version?

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by pinion247

^^^ Whoops... I was thinking that the ZCS was only for the Network Version?

The Outlook Connector *is* only for the Network Edition. Your question didn't say you wanted it to work with the OSS edition so I think Sam just assumed you'd have the Network edition.