Contacts Issues and Suggestions
After a cursory play with Vmware Zimbra Android app I have the following questions/suggestions, I may be incorrect in my observations, comments and observations requested:
1. BUGZILLA
Can users submit issues/features for this product using Zimbra bugzilla?
That would be quite useful to track progress as well...
2. FULL CONTACT SYNC
It would be really helpful if this app worked as an actual sync adapter for contacts. At present, it appears to hold them in the app's memory, and copies them to the phone memory (updating them in both places where necessary?).
This means twice as much storage space is utilised (troublesome where users have addressbooks with large numbers, including photographs). This also means that any required changes to contacts have to made by editing contacts within the Vmware App rather than the standard contact ecosystem. :(
3. CONTACT STORAGE TOO LARGE
After syncing an addressbook with about 2000 contacts, the amount of storage space utilised was huge - over 45MB. Syncing the same addressbook using the Enhanced Email app (which also uses Exchange Activesync) only took up 18MB of storage.
4. TAG SYNC
It would be useful if categories/tags would be synced (this doesn't appear to happen for contacts as yet).
In most contact management/dialer apps tags sync to groups/categories/tags, and are extremely helpful for sending bulk sms's, looking through a limited range in a large contact list etc...
5. SYNC ALL STANDARD CONTACT FIELDS
It would be really useful if all standard contact fields would show and be synced to the appropriate contact fields.
At present the range of fields synced is useful, but limited, and in some cases seems fairly arbitrary.
6. SYNC CUSTOM CONTACT FIELDS
Ideally, custom contact fields should be synced
7. PRESERVE MULTIPLE FIELDS
Where a contact (created either on the Android device, or via Zimbra) has custom fields, non-synced standard fields, or more than the permitted number of synced fields (i.e. multiple email addresses), Vmware Zimbra app should ensure that any un-synced fields, or multiple fields beyond the permitted number, are not lost but retained upon syncing.
8. CONTACT DISPLAY NAME
The 'displayname' in Android is not being set to match the fileAs/fullName values of the contacts (as set within Zimbra).
i.e. syncing 'Mary Jones' (full name 'Mary Natalia Zorina Jones') shows on the Android device as Mary Natalia Zorina Jones - which is not great. The Android Contacts API has a method for setting the display name, though no-one in any sync apps I've seen thus far appears to use it! :(
9. BRIEFCASE FOLDER SYNCiNG
It would be great to map certain folders on the Android device with specific briefcases, to permit 2-way sync.
Many thanks for creating this app btw!