Multiple address book problems

[joho]

Has anyone used Zimbra with more than a handful of contacts? We're having issues with customers that have anywhere from 100 to 2000 contacts. At first, we didn't think much of it, but putting ourselves into their situation, I'm beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem.

Simply put, I'm not sure the Zimbra desiners have paid any attention at all to how the address book interface works in conjunction with creating e-mail.

Before you respond to this, please do not say "Sure, it's easy, just create a distribution list". DL:s are something completely different, they give the user no useful search/browse functionality for single e-mail messaging. Second, Zimbra itself does not present an EXPORT format that is suitable for creating distribution lists within its own framework. All export formats are geared towards other applications. Why can't Zimbra export just e-mail addresses, suitable for copy 'n' paste into the "free format" text window available when creating distribution lists?

Back to the issue ..

1) I cannot create an e-mail to multiple recipients in multiple address books. The reason is that Zimbra doesn't keep the selected entries selected as soon as you choose to browse another address book.

2) If you click on the TO, CC or BCC field buttons when composing an e-mail, you get an aggregated view with no sub-folder (address book) browsing capabilities (!). It simply throws all of your contacts (according to the filter set to the right) into a huge list. So if I have ten address books with 100 addresses in each, I get a list of one thousand addresses here.

Can someone, anyone, please tell me how this is useful to the user?

Has anyone at Zimbra ever used this "feature" of the product?

Are our users the only ones thinking this feels a bit "outdated" and "pre-internet"?


-joho
(ZCS 6.0.6)

[ThomS]

Have you already reported these issues as bug/RFE?

[joho]

No, I have not. I was waiting to hear if someone had come up with a neat "work-around", although one shouldn't be required for something as obvious as this.


-joho

[LinuxETC]

Joho:

As I understand things, I am assuming you are using the Zimbra web interface here and not a third party interface (e.g., Thunderbird, Outlook) when composing the emails.

Have you tried when composing emails seeing if the Zimbra auto complete feature works or not? By this I mean typing in a few letters such as "Joh" and having "Joh*" possible options to select from come up? This is not clicking on "To:", "Cc:", or similar for reference.

Sincerely,

Crawford Rainwater
Linux+, LCP, RHCT, LPIC-1

The Linux ETC Company
10121 Yates Court
Westminster, CO 80031 USA
voice: +1.303.604.2550
web: The Linux ETC Company |

[mmorse]

About all I have for a workaround is typing in:foldername as the start of the search (and selecting type contacts on the right) Only if you know it exactly - no autocomplete like the main search bar there yet.

Bug 32718 - RFE: Contact picker should allow selection of individual addressbook folders

[joho]

As I understand things, I am assuming you are using the Zimbra web interface here and not a third party interface (e.g., Thunderbird, Outlook) when composing the emails.

Have you tried when composing emails seeing if the Zimbra auto complete feature works or not? By this I mean typing in a few letters such as "Joh" and having "Joh*" possible options to select from come up? This is not clicking on "To:", "Cc:", or similar for reference.

But if we're talking about users with hundreds of contacts in their address books, and/or users that want to send an e-mail to 22 users in one address book, and 16 users in another address book.. ?

Many users use address books as "containers" or "grouping", and they want to be able to send to all or a few of these contacts in a simple manner.


-joho

[joho]

About all I have for a workaround is typing in:foldername as the start of the search (and selecting type contacts on the right) Only if you now it exactly - no autocomplete like the main search bar there yet.

While this isn't something I'd recommend to "plain vanilla users", it certainls has merit for "techies" or "power users". Thanks. The Zimbra advanced search "language" is very powerful and can certainly be used to achieve many things not possible in other environments.

Here, however, I have to go with the users. They come from a "GUI environment", and when we say "Zimbra has an advanced and feature rich web client", they expect basic things like recipient handling to be top notch. As things are at the moment in Zimbra, it isn't.

(I am sending a rather lengthy message to this effect to Zimbra today and I'm really hoping they listen)


-joho