Which Shared Calendar Package Would You Use? 78
Bob McCown asks: "I manage several websites, both internally and externally accessible. Many of them have event calendars or schedulers. We'd like the ability to have these calendars shared, with the ability to modify them by both a web interface, and at the application level (via Sunbird, an Outlook plugin, or something similar). The web side of our system uses an Enterprise Linux distribution that runs Apache. Ideally, the web side would be written in PHP to minimize time to integrate with the rest of the sites. What's out there that can do this? What have you used before?"
Ical (Score:1, Offtopic)
Where everyone could see it, of course. (Score:5, Funny)
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Thoughts on Zimbra, Sunbird, Exchange clones, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
Sunbird [mozilla.org]'s goal is to support reading and writing of iCal via CalDAV [wikipedia.org], but Sunbird is very immature and highly unstable.
I haven't used these, but with Exchange server clones like Open-Xchange [open-xchange.org], you should be able to use Outlook. Not sure what Web interfaces they export, or what Web-based Exchange calendaring clients exist.
Of course, make sure you didn't dismiss Google Calendar [google.com] prematurely. This should suffice if you don't need too many bells/whistles, and it relieves you of many burdens. If you really want an application to use, you can use CalGoo [calgoo.com], but this (very early-in-development) program has always been excrutiatingly slow for me (and I tried their latest beta draft).
Re:Thoughts on Zimbra, Sunbird, Exchange clones, e (Score:2)
I looked into Zimbra at first to use their webmail system, but there seems to be no way of migrating one part of the system without converting everything at once.
In fact, with our curr
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When standard protocols are used, it should be no problem to operate a webcal application independently from the message store. Similar for the calendar.
Re:Thoughts on Zimbra, Sunbird, Exchange clones, e (Score:1, Funny)
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We currently use Open-Xchange at work for our calendaring/contacts/groupware solution, and boy howdy does it suck. Setting up events is a pain, the interface doesn't work in most browsers (FF/IE work though), and everything I ever do with it is a hassle and a chore.
We're evaluating other options, and the first one we tried was Zimbra... Nice package, polished, but the problem is that it's so Ajaxy... which means that pretty much anything you do requir
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Hive (Score:3, Funny)
Wrong question. (Score:5, Informative)
Then you don't need to worry about choosing a package, as long as it can manage the correct protocol. The decision will depend upon your environment, budget and beliefs; but as a general rule, going for an open standard isn't such a bad idea. RFC 2445 (aka iCalendar - based on the earlier vCalendar standard) should be a safe bet. You will be able to engineer solutions - not just for desktops, but also for some handhelds.
RFC 2445 is implemented/supported by a large number of products, including 30 Boxes, Apple's iCal application, Darwin Calendar Server, Contactizer and iPod, Chandler, Drupal with its event module, Citadel, Facebook, FirstClass, Google Calendar, Jalios JCMS, KOrganizer, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Entourage, Mozilla Calendar (including Mozilla Sunbird), Mulberry, Novell Evolution, Novell GroupWise, Nuvvo, Simple Groupware, Upcoming.org, Windows Calendar, Webical, Zimbra Collaboration Suite, and Microsoft Outlook (see below). Notably missing from this list is the Palm Desktop and Palm (PDA). Blackberry, Internet edition, does not recognize iCalendar, although in concert with the Blackberry Server, iCalendar invites can be sent and received.
Our company chose this route for a similar issue, using a WebDav server as a backend.
So.. unless you have wild environment, budget or beliefs - there isn't much choice!
below -- iCalendar support on Outlook (Score:4, Informative)
Outlook 2007 is now fully compatible with iCalendar. Users can add calendars under Account Options and set how often they should be updated. Individual calendars are shown as a list of checkboxes so you can view or hide a calendar without unsubscribing and they can be viewed as separate tabs or overlaid into a single calendar.
iCalendar support includes support for VTODO, VJOURNAL, etc. and Outlook 2007 still cannot import these objects.
Windows Calendar, found in the newly released Windows Vista also supports iCalendar.
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Sounds like a good choice -- Microsoft is well known for promoting open standards and publishing protocols. You know your product won't stop working in subtle ways with other products in the next version.
Oh, by the way, I have a contract to sell the Golden Gate bridge for scrap? You could be interested... I promise a good price.
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If slashdot was a cooking forum... (Score:4, Funny)
I am afraid you are asking the wrong question, you should not prepare a boiled egg, you should not EAT eggs beacuse they are bad for cholesterol. You'd better eat chicken, chicken is good for your health. But be aware of eating Free (as in wild) chicken and not those non-free chicken produced by Bachocco or any other vil corporation.
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Right question, probably wrong answer (Score:4, Informative)
The question you should be asking is - which shared calendar protocol should we choose?
Good call on the question remark, I'd disagree with your answer.
The problem is that iCalendar isn't calendar 'line' or 'sharing protocol, it's more of a 'serialization/persistance' protocol. iCalendar does not define any connection or query methods. Things like that have to be defined if there is to be any interop. We've actually written tools around the iCalendar/WebDAV combo, they work great for smaller teams, but you run into problems very quickly has the team grows or the calendar's use increases.
As things settle down, CalDAV [wikipedia.org], a.k.a RFC 4791 [ietf.org] will probably become more of an entrenched calendar sharing standard. I've been working on a CalDAV Outlook plugin, Open Connector [openconnector.org] for quite some time. CalDAV is supported by Apple Calendaring products, Mozill thunderbird, Oracle calendaring server and a bunch of other open-source and commercial packages.
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You should be aware that Lotus Notes' support for iCalendar is very incomplete.
(Opinions mine, not IBM's.)
How about Scalix? (Score:1)
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Sunbird and its ilk will *read* Scalix calendars, but WILL NOT PUBLISH OR POST TO THEM!
I wanted sooooo badly to run Scalix, but this was a deal breaker for me.
None (Score:4, Interesting)
As a result any shared calendar deployment usually descends into meetingitus: a well known corporate debilitating disease where people spend more time in meetings about meetings about meetings instead of doing work. In addition to that if you do not have meetings booked your time is considered a fair game and booking time "to do work" is considered very bad manners.
Now, if your calendar ties up straight into your into the project manager view of how much resource was spent on which part of the project as well as salary, overtime and performance management the shared calendar becomes a completely different ball game. Unfortunately I have yet to see such integration in any calendar package.
Re:None (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll get to business use of shared calendars later. Bear in mind that there are many other scenarios, outside of businesses, where shared calendars can be useful, such as:
None of those require "project management and work time allocation". Particularly since the OP didn't say these were corporate shared calendars, it's not safe for you to assume that's the only place they'd be used.
Agreed, but not all businesses are created equal. I suspect there's some sort of heuristic where the odds of "meetingitus" increases with the square of the number of employees per office, or some such. In other words, all else being equal, smaller businesses don't necessarily over-meeting themselves (though PHBs can increase meeting frequency in businesses of any size, etc.). While having a shared calendar that tied into project management would be nice, I wouldn't "throw out the baby with the bath water" and eschew shared calendars outright without corporate-wide project management tools.
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As for the meetingitus, each person who works in management or higher staff positions understands that people/projects/items get allocated time on a sliding scale. You keep that heirarchy in mind when you get a meeting request and use that to determine when your schedule is "free" and when you just need to get work done. That is true for non-business appointments, too.
I do agree that publishing can
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As much as you can have meetings about meetings, that is not a solution a calendar program (whether it includes project and time management) can deal with. That is a corporate management problem... software that nobody is trained on and knows how to use is not going to help that, no matter how programmable and slick you can integrate it.
I have used expensive all-in-one packages for lawyers like this one [amicusattorney.com] and this one [pclaw.com], and frankly, they are bloatware with 50 or 60 features you don't need and don't work very
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> project management and work time >allocation. None of the packages on the market
> at the moment does.
Yes, they do. http://www.opengroupware.org/ [opengroupware.org] - has a very nice project and task application integrated with the traditional schedular and addressbook.
> Now, if your calendar ties up straight into your into the project manager view of
> how much resource was spent on which part of the project as well as salary,
Google Apps (Score:2)
I'm not sure whether it could fulfill all your needs but you'll never know before trying it yourself.
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PhpiCalendar (Score:5, Informative)
Google Calendar in Thunderbird (Score:1)
http://bfish.xaedalus.net/?p=239 [xaedalus.net]
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I think the new version will tie in with the email side of things a little more, rather than just being an integrated version of Sunbird. Its a while since I checked the dev blog but I think it will allow automatic emailing of attendees etc. It also provides better printing facilities for those who like
Citadel BBS is another option (Score:1)
It as group calendaring etc
I believe that there is an outlook plugin on the way
works with Kontact. Easy enough to get running.
I got the server up and working in under 2 hours.
Sent the next couple of days tweaking it and generally messing about
Supports
IMAP(s)
POP3(s)
SMTP(s)
groupdav
http(s) front end
Also has a built in listserv
I've found it to be very cool
Me too! (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, can I have /.'ers look for free software for me, for free, so I don't have to do my own googling?
Re:Me too! (Score:4, Insightful)
All I want is read and write access to one or more calendars, the ability to selectively
1. Share with everyone (read - write)
2. Share with everyone (read only)
3. Selectively share read-write with a number of other users
4. Share only availability information
If you can find this _just_ by googling, you're a better man than me.
I guess what is really being asked here is 'Could people using products please recommend one, because most of what is other there is pure immature bullshit, half implemented at best'.
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http://www.foldera.com/ [foldera.com]
It is supposedly going to be released soon. It includes a calendar but has way more than that and sounds pretty cool from what I've read.
Calendar page: http://www.foldera.com/calendar.htm [foldera.com]
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I'm not Wiseass, but that is easy, Zimbra. Pretty soon you'll be saying it doesn't do this or that that Exchange does. but it does do things exchange doesn't also, so it is an example.
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I'd hate to see it languish forever under some thread that starts with some dickhead telling people to just google
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> 1. Share with everyone (read - write)
> 2. Share with everyone (read only)
> 3. Selectively share read-write with a number of other users
> 4. Share only availability information
http://www.opengroupware.org/ [opengroupware.org] - Yes, all the above.
Simple calendar (Score:2)
or
# cal -3
Is all you need.
Foldera (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.foldera.com/ [foldera.com]
It is supposedly going to be released soon. It includes a calendar but has way more than that and sounds pretty cool from what I've read.
Calendar page: http://www.foldera.com/calendar.htm [foldera.com]
Almost exactly my problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Outlook+Exchange (Score:5, Funny)
I expect this will happen again in the fall. For all its silly, annoying, single-threaded, poorly implemented crap, if I can spend six weeks out of the year dodging meetings and actually getting work done, I'll forgive it every other flaw.
Oracle Calendar (Score:1)
Downsides are the clients are a bit ugly. And I doubt it's cheap...
google cal and calgoo (Score:1)
WebCalendar.sf.net (Score:1)
WebCalendar [sf.net] is an open source, database driven, PHP web application that supports iCal and a rich feature set for multi-user calendaring.
http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php [k5n.us] (home page of the SourceForge project)
Calcium (Score:1)
http://www.brownbearsw.com/calcium/ [brownbearsw.com]
Also supports iCal, user notifications/reminders, etc.
it also wont break the bank, starting at just under $200.
Shared calendar and synced calendar (Score:3, Interesting)
But I also want to be able to sync my 'combined' calendar to my PDA or cell phone's calendar too. Is there anything (on Linux, not Windows) that can do this for me?
Personal example: I want my own private calendar for myself which only I add events to. Then I want a "household" calendar which anybody in the house can add events to, such as "we're going to a party on Saturday" and these events appear to me, and sync to my PDA. Then I may want to publish free/busy on the merged calendar to others who want to schedule me in meetings etc.
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> cell phone's calendar too. Is there anything (on Linux, not Windows)
> that can do this for me?
Funambol can't sync just about any device; and there is a GroupDAV connector. So you can sync a DAV share, or a real groupware server that supports GroupDAV: OpenGroupware, Citadel, or USA.
> I want my own private calendar for myself which only I add events to.
> Then I want a "household" calendar which anybody in the house ca
Zhou's WebCalendar (Score:1)
Web interface only, but imports and exports iCalendar.
OpenGroupware (Score:1)
http://www.opengroupware.org/ [opengroupware.org]
It supports GroupDAV [ http://www.groupdav.org/ [groupdav.org] ] which is an up-and-coming collaboration standard; there is already and Evolution plugin and a Thunderbird address book plugin. Mobile devices can be sync'd via the Fumanbol GroupDAV connector. And there is a commerical M$-Outlook connector (ZideLook), which is a real MAPI connector, not some weird sync-thing; ZideLook costs about $35 a seat. The OpenGroupware serv
No one has tried Lightning? (Score:2)
"Lightning is a fairly new development. Its first public release was in early 2006. However, being based off of the same backend code as Mozilla Sunbird(TM), it is maturing quickly"
It got some positive press recently, does it work? Is anyone using it?
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightnin
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I am hoping the 0.5 will introduce some sort of cache feature... as soon as you
Calendar sharing (Score:1)