Meeting Requests & Resources

[vshah]

[Using 3.1.0 GA and OCS 3.1.0 866 build]

When using a resource (conference room) in a meeting request:


1. Outlook doesn't recognize the auto-accept email that is received from the resource and insists that it hasn't been booked.

2. The resource doesn't appear busy despite having auto-accepted. I can do another meeting invite for the same time and the calendar schedule shows it as free. This happens regardless of whether I create the meeting request from Outlook or from the Web UI.

3. I can't delegate someone to arbitrate/approve the resource calendar (a client meeting is more important than an internal meeting)

4. I can't see what the resource is being used for at any time that it is busy.


Anyone else having the same issues?

[sam]

1. what does the auto response look like for you in outlook? it should look like a standard meeting response (accepted/tentative/declined) in your outlook inbox.

2. have you set the internet free busy search path to point to the zimbra server? without that outlook will not show you the fbstatus of any users/resources.

3. you can, but not via outlook. this is an adminsstrative feature found in the admin console.

4. today the only way to see what the resource is booked for you must login to the resource mailbox and view its calendar.

[vshah]

1. The auto-accept email looks like an accepted meeting response should look like, but outlook didn't update the meeting with the fact that the resource was booked (or even that the resource had replied in the affirmative)

2. The free/busy works for people. Just didn't work for the resource.

3. Maybe I'm missing a feature in the Admin Console, but I can't find anything in there to delegate a resource to someone.

4. Aah. I tried from the admin console and couldn't "View Mail" for the resource. Does this mean that I actually have to login as the resource? I'm confused: I don't even know what its password is.

[sam]

1,2 there may be a bug with updating of the fbstatus on replies from resources

3. Delegated resources got pushed to a future release and is not in the current code (sorry).

4. you can set a password for the resource account with zmprov then login with the web client.

[Kirkaiya]

I know there are posted work-arounds for being able to view a resource's calendar (I guess using zmprov, then logging as the resource, and sharing it's calendar out to everybody as view-only is the current one?) but -

Hopefully in a future release, when resources are created, their calendars are automatically shared (viewable) by everybody in that domain (?). This would be great, unless people have 10 or 20 resources, in which case there are a lot of calendars showing up in the left-nav area of the web-client.

?????
On a related note - when using the ZCS Outlook 2003 connector, and Zimbra 3.1 (NE), should I automatically be able to view free/busy info for other users in the GAL?

Because right now, I can add them from the GAL in Outlook (on the "Scheduling" tab, using "Add Others", and choosing "Global Address Book", then picking users). But after adding them, Outlook says it cannot retrieve the free/busy info.

I have checked the Outlook User's guide, the NE Admin guide, and done searches on this forum, and variously found URLs for free/busy info, and one post that said that with the connector, free/busy worked already.

Soo... should this in fact be working? Do I need to open port 8081 on my zimbra server's firewall? I'll start trolling thru the rest of the the "Outlook Connector" forum posts, but any help is appreciated!

[vshah]

Are you using https in the free/busy URL? or http?

I initially used https because we were only allowing SSL connections. However, that requires a proper cert, and since we are in trial, we decided that changing it to mixed mode (and changing the free/busy URL to use http) was ok.

[sam]

Yes, free busy lookups should work. You should be able to do them over SSL if you have a valid SSL certificate on the server.

I haven't tried it but you should be able to import the self-signed certificate to make it a trusted entity. See here for more information:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

[Kirkaiya]

es, free busy lookups should work. You should be able to do them over SSL if you have a valid SSL certificate on the server.

Thanks! But I'm still unclear if this is another step I need users to do (going into Tools -> Options -> Calendar Options -> Free/Busy Options), and setting the "Publish at my location" and "Search Location" URLs, or whether the ZCS Connector is set up to automatically check a specific url (of the form http://my.server.com/service/pubcal/...account@domain, or .... ?)

The first post at Outlook free busy lookup - tenative status (by kiwicmc) says that "I'm looking at the Outlook integration for published free busy information. To my pleasant surprise it all *just worked*".

Sooo.. Do i need to manually set the free/busy URL in each Outlook client, or does the ZCS connector "know" the path on the server to look for free/busy info? (and if so, and it's checking on port 8081, then I need to add that port to IPTABLES)

[sam]

the zcs connector does not set the fb url; you must do it manually.

fyi, outlook 2003 stores this url in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\O utlook\Options\Calendar\Internet Free/Busy\Read URL

[Kirkaiya]

Thanks Sam, now that I know that it should be manually set, I think it won't be a problem.

It seems like it would be pretty trivial to add a few lines to the ZCS connector to set that key to the correct path, since on the first installer dialog, you collect the server name and user-name... (of course, everything seems trivial until I start writing code!)

Off-topic somewhat:
Have you guys been looking at other "Outlook connectors" that are out there (thinking of OpenXchange and Scalix, specifically). I read that the connector for Scalix has rudimenatary support for syncing rules back to the server. Not sure how the OOM supports getting access to the rules, but you guys are smart!!