Open source and OU connector

[russgalleywood]

Hi all,

Testing Zimbra as possible replacement to Openxchange (which is crap) and have a question which I'm sure you are all sick of hearing over and over!

I was just a little unsure, can you get the Outlook connector if you are using the Open Source version?

I am not expecting to get this for free and would be perfectly happy to buy licensed copies for our users. We use Sugar CRM and link it to Outlook using the paid for and licensed OU connector they supply. Is this possible with Zimbra as it is with Scalix?

If not then thats probably the end of our brief look at Zimbra as I do not wish to purchase the full Network version unless it is significantly better than the OS version and cheap!

Thanks and have a good weekend.

Russ

[KevinH]

No mix and match today. The Network Edition is significantly better. Depending on how many users and the type of use, we are competitively priced. I recommend you try a Network Edition trial, it's a quick way to see all the benefits.

[russgalleywood]

Thanks Kevin for the prompt answer.

One of the ways I initially judge whether to implement an new piece of software is the condition of the Forums.
Sounds mad I know but you feel better about something if the Forum seems lively and the users friendly and quick to answer don't you?!


Yes, Zimbra does seem quite reasonable although the price of the Mobile Sync plug-in seems a little high.($500? Apologies if I have misread this bit)

The one thing that would probably swing it would be integration with Sugar CRM. The project seems a little dead on this.

Thanks again

Russ

[gmsmith]

Thanks Kevin for the prompt answer.

One of the ways I initially judge whether to implement an new piece of software is the condition of the Forums.
Sounds mad I know but you feel better about something if the Forum seems lively and the users friendly and quick to answer don't you?!


Yes, Zimbra does seem quite reasonable although the price of the Mobile Sync plug-in seems a little high.($500? Apologies if I have misread this bit)

The one thing that would probably swing it would be integration with Sugar CRM. The project seems a little dead on this.

Thanks again

Russ

Russ,

What kind of integration with Sugar are you looking for? What types of things would you like to do from Zimbra? We wrote a basic Zimlet to connect to Sugar (not available to the public), but would be interested in hearing what you have a need for.

Greg

[russgalleywood]

Hi Greg,

once again, thanks for the quick answer, especially at the weekend!

I think, pretty much what you get with the Sugar Outlook connector is what we are looking for.
Namely a link to and from Calendar, Tasks and Contacts. The fact that the new 4.0 version of Zimbra has Document management does away with the need for the rather poor Sugar Document module and is another thing that we needed for a move from OpenXchange.

I won't go into great detail about the Sugar OU connector as I'm sure you have been looking at it anyway but it works really well.

Though our Office staff use Outlook daily our warehousing staff do not so a direct connection to Sugar from the web frontend of Zimbra would serve them well.
Alo due to the buggy nature of Outlook I would like to do away with it for all staff if possible but users would want something very similar looking to OU.

The way that the Sugar connector gives you the chance to 'Send and Archive' an email from Outook to Sugar and the choice in the OU Address Book to look up Contacts in Sugar works really well so I think this relatively simple method would work equally well with Zimbra too. The Outlook connector for OpenXchange, for example, is over-complicated and badly bugged for us. It crashes Outlook and sometimes just deletes Contacts completely! (I have yet to try out the Zimbra OU connector but am hoping it works better!)

I am no expert, (as I'm sure you can tell!), but the Sugar system seems much less invasive on your PC and as a Zimlet shouldn't involve any additional software being installed on a Workstation should it?

Basically I'm asking these questions now because on Wednesday I need to convince my company Boss to ditch OpenXchange and switch to Zimbra.
One last question which is rather off-topic I'm afraid, is Zimbra stable enough on OpenSuse10 or CentOS Linux to be used in a production environment or would you only recommend to use SLES10 or Redhat ES?

Thanks again and hope that all makes sense!

Russ

[phoenix]

One last question which is rather off-topic I'm afraid, is Zimbra stable enough on OpenSuse10 or CentOS Linux to be used in a production environment or would you only recommend to use SLES10 or Redhat ES?

I'll leave Greg to comment on sugar & OU. Zimbra will run fine on CentOS as it's binary compatible with RHEL and I'd recommend that as the most stable and least cost option, obviously if you feel more comfortable with support from a vendor then either SLES 10 or RHEL4 would be fine.

[gmsmith]

Hi Greg,

once again, thanks for the quick answer, especially at the weekend!

I think, pretty much what you get with the Sugar Outlook connector is what we are looking for.
Namely a link to and from Calendar, Tasks and Contacts. The fact that the new 4.0 version of Zimbra has Document management does away with the need for the rather poor Sugar Document module and is another thing that we needed for a move from OpenXchange.

I won't go into great detail about the Sugar OU connector as I'm sure you have been looking at it anyway but it works really well.

Though our Office staff use Outlook daily our warehousing staff do not so a direct connection to Sugar from the web frontend of Zimbra would serve them well.
Alo due to the buggy nature of Outlook I would like to do away with it for all staff if possible but users would want something very similar looking to OU.

The way that the Sugar connector gives you the chance to 'Send and Archive' an email from Outook to Sugar and the choice in the OU Address Book to look up Contacts in Sugar works really well so I think this relatively simple method would work equally well with Zimbra too. The Outlook connector for OpenXchange, for example, is over-complicated and badly bugged for us. It crashes Outlook and sometimes just deletes Contacts completely! (I have yet to try out the Zimbra OU connector but am hoping it works better!)

I am no expert, (as I'm sure you can tell!), but the Sugar system seems much less invasive on your PC and as a Zimlet shouldn't involve any additional software being installed on a Workstation should it?

Basically I'm asking these questions now because on Wednesday I need to convince my company Boss to ditch OpenXchange and switch to Zimbra.
One last question which is rather off-topic I'm afraid, is Zimbra stable enough on OpenSuse10 or CentOS Linux to be used in a production environment or would you only recommend to use SLES10 or Redhat ES?

Thanks again and hope that all makes sense!

Russ

We have only done Zimbra on RHEL, OS X, and are working a demo for someone on SuSE 10.1. phoenix knows his stuff, so I would trust his recommendations.

Well out of the box, you can share your calendar from SugarCRM in your Zimbra portal. The zimlet we wrote allows queries against Leads, Contacts, and Accounts. The zimlet is server based and is available only through the web portal. If you need something from Outlook a Zimlet isn't what you need. Why not run the Outlook connector for Sugar and the Zimbra connector? Brief testing suggests it works without issue.

[russgalleywood]

I will install the demo Network Edition on CentOS tomorrow then.

When you say about sharing the Calendar with Sugar, are you meaning just pointing at the iCal address of Sugar? Sorry but as I say I'm new to Zimbra so am not fully sure how it does things yet? Sugar is also MySQL based so is this what you meant Greg?
Nevertheless the Calendar bit would be slightly less important than Contact syncronisation with Sugar for Email purposes of course.

Yes you are right there is no reason that the Sugar OU connector should not work but I was thinking of the Users who do not have OU. Also I would have thought it would have been a good selling point for Zimbra to have a Zimlet for Sugar. It is a rapidly growing CRM and they have in fact just gone into partnership with Microsoft! Not neccesarily a good thing I know but surely a sign that it will grow bigger. Lastly, I like Evolution, ( I believe there is a plugin for this? ), and there is also Thunderbird and Outlook Express which would not have a plugin for Zimbra or Sugar which many Users would use.

Overall I realise that a Sugar connector is not essential and you are right, most people would just be using Outlook. It doesn't put me off Zimbra it would just be a nice extra if it wasn't too difficult to create.

Thanks Guys

Russ

[gmsmith]

I will install the demo Network Edition on CentOS tomorrow then.

When you say about sharing the Calendar with Sugar, are you meaning just pointing at the iCal address of Sugar? Sorry but as I say I'm new to Zimbra so am not fully sure how it does things yet? Sugar is also MySQL based so is this what you meant Greg?
Nevertheless the Calendar bit would be slightly less important than Contact syncronisation with Sugar for Email purposes of course.

Yes you are right there is no reason that the Sugar OU connector should not work but I was thinking of the Users who do not have OU. Also I would have thought it would have been a good selling point for Zimbra to have a Zimlet for Sugar. It is a rapidly growing CRM and they have in fact just gone into partnership with Microsoft! Not neccesarily a good thing I know but surely a sign that it will grow bigger. Lastly, I like Evolution, ( I believe there is a plugin for this? ), and there is also Thunderbird and Outlook Express which would not have a plugin for Zimbra or Sugar which many Users would use.

Overall I realise that a Sugar connector is not essential and you are right, most people would just be using Outlook. It doesn't put me off Zimbra it would just be a nice extra if it wasn't too difficult to create.

Thanks Guys

Russ

Yes, you can just subscribe to your calendar from Sugar in the Zimbra portal, pretty simple. Developing a zimlet is only as difficult as you want it to be. A basic contact/lead/account zimlet should be pretty easy. Remember, as Sugar changes its DB structure, you may run into difficulties or need to tweak the zimlet. The beauty of Zimbra is its ability to integrate via Zimlets with all sorts of applications. While Zimbra doesn't have an offering for a Sugar (or vTiger for that matter) CRM, it is setup to support you adding them. Zimbra does have a Salesforce.com zimlet that is shipped in the zimlets-extra folder.

[yoghurtman]

Hi

Seems I might be another potential user that would like to integrate Zimbra with SugarCRM. The very least is to be able to link contact databases, diaries and appoinments and email.

I would also like to set up universal messaging, but we use sipxpbx (it is much more scaleable) rather than Asterisk. Is there support for sipxpbx too?

Thanks

Bill