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Mac Calendaring Solutions?
ubercombatwombat asks: "I have been tasked with providing groupware for the administrative office at the school district, for which I am the network admin. Laetly, I have been searching in vain for an Entourage compatible groupware calendar solution. We have Communigate Pro, which was supposed to support Entorage by now, but doesn't. Meanwhile, I have placed HP 2410 iPaq's with The Missing Sync for PocketPC on the 10 desktops without groupware. Secretaries use Apple Remote Desktop, a few times a day, to update their bosses Entourage calendar. It is not the best solution, but it is all I can come up with, at the moment. Incidentally, we also have Brown Bear Software's excellent iCal product (yes, Apple licensed the 'iCal' name from them), but Brown Bear doesn't work with Entourage or Apple's iCal in a groupware role. As far as Exchange goes, I'd rather not use it. Does anyone have a Mac OS X groupware solution?"
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/apps?f=groupware
Try Kerio's mail server if you must host your own. Or 4SmartPhone.net for hosted Exchange. I personally use CGPro as well because we need a solid mail backbone that is easy to administer, but otherwise we'd probably go with Kerio or 4SmartPhone.net. Both support Entourage in groupware mode as well as Outlook.
While this doesn't solve your problem it may interest /. macheads out there....
...though it does allow you to share iCal shares you've subscribed to from the internet ;-p which is nice, cause you can basically set up one Mac as a calendar server and have it subscribe to all the various published iCal files from external urls and share them out to the subnet for everyone else.
CalTalk is a 'Bonjour' enabling app for iCal that lets you automatically share and find shared iCal calendars on the network. It only works on the local subnet because that's all Bonjour supports but that's just right for at home or at work use...
And of course it's a Free as in Beer app you can download now.
p.s. I'm not affiliated w/ the developer in any way
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Or how about web-based solutions?
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
Zimbra.
p _id=153217&package_id=170387
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?grou
Your situation sounds like it's ideal for an online calendar. The newly-released AJAXified 30 Boxes is a great little online calendar, and is definitely worth a look.
What about Open-Xchange? 8.2-R3 is out. You may want to check that out too htt://open-xchange.org
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/25/113421 1&mode=thread
You may want to use the search on that site with a few other keywords. This subject comes along every once in a while so there's likely more than one thread about it.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Ask Slashdot, because things like Google don't exist
Check out Now Up-to-Date and Contact. It's not exactly my favorite program, but it does the job. There's also a Windows version in case you have and PCs that need to connect. http://www.nowsoftware.com/
One of my clients has been the main beta-tester for a Mac centric Calendar program called Daylite.
http://www.marketcircle.com/daylite/index.html
It's a groupware based calendar system. Works great over VPN connections into the server. Apparenly the new version also plugs into some of Apples apps directly.
We've been using it for a good while now and it's finally coming into shape because of the all feedback my client gave to the company.
Much much better than using Apple Remote Desktop.
Best,
C
My last long-term consulting gig used an OS X Server used to publish iCal calendars from their computer. Each computer/user had 1 public and 1 private calendar. It utilized WebDav, and was passworded.
From there, other people subscribed to the public calendars.
I can't recall whether there was an option to allow others to edit your calendar, but you can allow them to view notes or have them get the alarms from your published calendar, and they were visible from the web as long as the server was web-accessible.
---- I'm out of your mind!
My company is evaluating XC Connect by Xchange Network (http://www.xcnetwork.com/index.jsp). We plan on using it calendaring while we use Communigate Pro for e-mail.
Product quote.
"Looking for a simple and inexpensive solution to share contacts, calendars and tasks between and across Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage for Macintosh, iCal and Address Book for OS X and Novell Evolution for Linux?"
Why not try a wab based service like WebEx WebOffice. It's a full groupware suite that's easy to use, works in Safari, Gecko and IE and you don't have to administer a bunch of servers. Easy as can be.
... laetly ...
I am not sure who needs to be sent back to class in the school district, the submitter or the so-called editor...
Check out this app. It's generally well-regarded in the Mac community. Does rather more than calendaring, though.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Zimbra attempts to provide this (and much, much more):
http://www.zimbra.com/
Mark me off topic or troll if you like, but I have to say it...
You know it's Friday night in nerdtown when there are four back to back "Ask Slashdots".
What I don't understand is why you don't just use iCal. And Apple Mail and Address Book. I use all of the free native Apple programs to run my business and they are great. You gain nothing from Entourage especially if you aren't using Exchange server.
iCalanders can be uploaded to any WebDav capable server and be subscribed to or viewed as a web page. Addresses can be dropped onto schedules and used as links for sending appointment or update emails, etc.
The three apps together are almost Lotus Notes without being advertised as such. I've used Lotus Notes, I've used Microsoft and other CRM tools, and I can honestly say what comes installed on my Mac is easier to use, cheaper, and in some cases, like Lotus Notes, isn't a resource hog.
Maybe Novell Groupwise or IBM lotus domino? ($$$)
I've heard Kerio is good, but I've never used it.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Meeting Maker the server runs on Windows, Mac, Solaris or Linux. Native clients for Macs and PCs, Web clients for anything with a decent browser. Lots of good features like iCal or outlook integration, PDA sync, all sorts of cool bits.
I'll admit I don't have any real experience with it, but as I understand it, iCal supports webDAV servers other than .mac; Perhaps you could "roll your own" webDAV server, which both entorage and ical talk to?
moox. for a new generation.
I'm a Machead myself but I think this is the best solution, it surely was the cheapest and will run on everything with a webbrowser. And it is the savest solution for the future. Right now there are some people who want to change everything from Mac to Windows, who knows if in a few years our city switches to Linux?
Sticking with Entourage may be a problem, though.
s er/daychaser_overview.html
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You might want to look at or evaluate these:
Crm4Mc 2.0
http://www.ibizzi.com/
DayChaser : Econ Technologies
http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/DayCha
DayLite : Marketcircle
http://www.marketcircle.com/
ecOrganizer
http://www.ecorganizer.com/
intuiware : HotPlan
http://www.intuiware.com/
Now Software : Now up to date
http://www.nowsoftware.com/
Organizer software by CSoftLabs
http://www.csoftlab.com/
Pure Mac : Personal Information Managers
http://www.pure-mac.com/pims.html
RadicalBreeze.com - Formation
http://www.radicalbreeze.com/formation/index.shtm
SOHO Organizer
http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohoorganizer.
OD4Contact
http://objective-decision.com/en/
Liam P. ~ "Intelligence is a lethal mutation." (me)
Oracle also has a multi-platform product - Oracle Calendar - that is part of their Collaboration Suite (which includes email, calendaring, PDA sync, etc...). It's not free, but Oracle has fairly generous licensing terms for schools. They also offer it in a hosted environment for low monthly fees. It'll do everything you want and more, and they are constantly working on providing enhanced support for applications that are part of the respective operating systems.
obm.aliacom.fr
http://www.chronosnet.com/Products/sohoorganizer.h tml
~Why not go mad? -Douglas Adams
There's some work being done on this - using iCal on Mac OS X as proper groupware using SyncServices. Initial release will support Mac OS X only - further releases will link to Sunbird and Vista Calendar. Just started investigating the possibilities of linking to other online calendaring solutions (30boxes etc). There is a working prototype but it's not released yet. Stuff will be posted on sourceforge as well.
http://www.infurious.com/blogs/
(Warning: Link is to a blog. And yes, I'm involved in this. So, this is almost a cheap shill advert!)
from Open Text (http://www.cirstclass.com./ They have a free fully functioning intro-server. It is a full workgroup solution, server can be Mac OS X, Windows or Linux and it serves all af those platforms. We have been using it for years.
I went through a similar process recently for our all-OS X org (35 people/3 offices).
After LOTS of searching, I gave up on the all-in-one groupware solution and decided to pick individual apps that just do what we need, nothing more. There is no good groupware solution w/ a full client for OS X outside of Exchange/E'rage and Notes; this is a big hole someone should fill.
I chose Communigate Pro for email, because it's solid, and I don't want to spend precious time fooling w/ a cranky email server. Exchange was out, it's expensive, and I have zero experience (or desire) adminning it or windows server. It was either CGP or Kerio, and Kerio has more groupware features, but when I looked, Kerio was having some pretty serious bug/stability issues--this was pre 6.1 I think. The support forums were a bloodbath, and I didn't need that headache.
For calendaring, we're currently testing Meeting Maker. Native OS X client, web interface too, it does calendaring and little else. People like it so far.
Even w/ individual programs, the administrative burden can be lessened by support for LDAP authentication. Both CGP and Meeting Maker support this (MM w/ an extra bundle).
If I were you, I'd drop the requirement for Entourage integration, and find standalone solutions that best fit your need. Even just using Meeting Maker would be a huge improvement over what you have now.
you can download a trail for 30 days unlimted in very way from
www.kerio.co.uk
that should have been
www.kerio.co.uk
I does calendars, project management, wiki, issue tracking, email, etc. It's a great app, fully web based and it now uses AJAX. Give it a try.
http://www.egroupware.org/
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Have you checked out http://zimbra.com/? It's a complete OSS email, contact, calendaring solution. I'm not sure about the Entourage integration, but it does have outlook integration in the commercial version. I'd be surprised that it doesn't work. It does come with an AJAX interface that's well worth looking into as an addition/replacement for entourage.
----
tachijuan
http://amuyu.com/
-- thoughts on one of those things: http://amuyu.com/
OpenGroupware is still in beta; has been for years. The Outlook and Palm plugins for Open Xchange are commercial.
Also, I'm a Linux sysadmin, and unless the company building the linux box really knows what they're doing, you can't really treat it like an appliance. Additionally, both projects on their own strike me as immature (ie some monitoring and such would be a great idea).
Please help metamoderate.
...i did a search last week for s/th to merge icals calendars and ended up writing al little (250 lines) ruby script which does that job. the script idientifies different events by UID and merges the attributes, adding the old summary and start-time to the description-field. we sync our calendars to our osx-server when the screensaver activates (stop ical to make it write its changes, rsync the ical-dir to the server) and trigger the merge via folder-action-script on the server. one minute late the client gets the merged version back and starts ical again. works fine so far. i know, many other calendars can do this out of the box, but i like the ical interface best.
open your requirements to include other platforms. i've tackled this problem several times in the last five years for different employers. it seems like it's a holy grail when i speak with others that have similar needs, even with folks who have already deployed commercial groupware products. being too narrow to the mac will bite you in the ass later. at the very least consider a system that is both mac and pc compliant.
consider an all web deployment, one that does not require specific software on the client side but will work with a variety of client apps. php and mysql based systems seem the most flexible.
take a look at phpgroupware, geeklog, and joomla.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Zimbra is a neat new open source offering that is very Mac OS X friendly, integrates with just about everything and runs on OS X server and various Linux flavors.
Groupwise has an awesome feature set and a very nice Java-based
client that runs great on Linux and MacOS-X. It basically has all
the features of Exchange and more, without the administration
hassles and it runs on Linux servers.
You look like you're at an educational institution, which means you
can probably get their ALA pricing (only $5k/year for several hundred
users).
Hava look at http://indie.yi.org:8000/gesall/en. It is still just a demo but if there is enough interest the service might be released.
Two things:
1. You forgot to put "Oblig." in the subject. It seems like every time there's an Ask Slashdot, someone says this.
2. While Google can provide you with the product names, there is some benefit to the personal opinions and experiences you find on Slashdot. People can say, "I used this, and this works great" or "stay away from this if you need it to do this". You have to really dig to find information like that, elsewhere.
Apparently, none of you ever considered the benefit to shared knowledge. This is another thing people with common interests do; they talk about things that interest and concern then, typically with the goal of informing each other. I don't need a Mac OS X groupware application right now, but I learned about CalTalk, which I can use.
In conclusion, if you don't think there's benefit in asking questions of your peers, then skip the article and let the rest of us learn.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Go with MeetingMaker. It's not the prettiest, but its the most reliable we've tried. We also use(d) Kerio as another person here recommended, it's crap, don't bother.
MeetingMaker (I think they just changed their name to PeopleCube) is solid on all its platforms (OS X/OS9; Windows; and the Web Client). Also has Palm conduits, and can interface with Blackberry and WinCE with Intellisync.
If you're willing to consider an on-demand, SaaS solution, which would be available through any Internet-connected Mac (or PC), take a look at NetOffice -- http://www.netoffice.com./ It has all the features of Entourage or Outlook but adds a slew of other contact, communications, and file sharing capabilities.
Let me highjack this for a moment and expand to the Windows platform -
/subscribe/ to online calendars?
Are there any decent calendaring applications that let me
Plenty of programs will import iCal calendars (which seems to be the most popular format), but it's a one-time thing. I'm looking for something more like RSS - import what's there now, and check back on a regular basis for updates.
Importing isn't very helpful if I have to do it manually every couple days.
I think the time is ripe for a new kind of calendar application. Most calendars programs are pretty simple and assume there's just one person involved - you. The assumption is any event on the calendar is one that you are involved in. There's not much notation for differentiations like "This is something I'm doing" and
"This is something I'm interested in"
Here's a use case. I open my calendar program. I go to my custom views for "entertainment". I check out what movies are showing next week, what plays, what concerts, sports events, etc. I see my favorite band is coming to town, so I mark that entry. Now, if I go back to "my" calendar, I see that concert. Two days later, the bassist gets sick and the concert is postponed two weeks. When I open my calendar program, it alerts me that the event that I was interested in has changed.
Nothing I have found comes close to this. To be honest, most were just plain painful to use, and none had anything close to my dynamic calendars ideal.
There's some hope. Nat Friedman started the Hula Project last year (though JMZ had some reservations -- a good read, as Jamie's obversations usually are) which is open source and has the backing of Novell. I'm not sure if they've actually gotten anywhere, though; the open source landscape is littered with failed projects that started off as a code-dump from some major corporation. But at least someone seems to have the same idea and is trying to make a go of it...
Calendering is a real mess