Blackberry, Horde, Thunderbird, Outlook co-existence

[Tom Malone]

Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> On Tuesday 07 April 2009, Tom Malone wrote:
>> The main problems we have with the current setup are the two Inbox
>> folders in Horde and Thunderbird
> 
> What exactely are the issues?
> Note that with IMAP email can come in from almost any folder.
> So having a folder called "Inbox" should be fine (in addition to the top 
> folder which could be displayed differently). We probably will change Horde to 
> behave in this respect.
> 
The issue is that Outlook with the Toltec connector would like mail to 
be deposited into the user INBOX folder.  It would then like to POP the 
mail out of that folder and sync it back to another folder INBOX/Inbox.

In Outlook the user only has one Inbox where all mail is delivered. 
However, when the user then switches over to Horde the reality of the 
server is revealed.  The user will see two folders named Inbox.

One Inbox has their mail from Outlook and the other Inbox has new mail 
that they have not seen.  This is VERY confusing to the user.

In order to provide a view that is similar to Outlook the two Inbox 
folders would need to be combined in Horde.

The POP/IMAP functionality is a necessary evil in Outlook/Toltec because 
there are Outlook functions that are not available if the POP processing 
is not utilized.

This split Inbox also interferes with reading mail on a BlackBerry. 
BlackBerries are not full IMAP clients which means they are not able to 
see any folders other than an INBOX, Sent and Trash folder.  These 
folders also need to be at the same level on the IMAP server.  A 
BlackBerry is not able to address a folder INBOX/Inbox, INBOX/Sent or 
INBOX/Trash.

Therefore, in order to user a BlackBerry with a Kolab server and the 
Toltec connector, in the standard configuration, a user would need to 
choose to either see new messages or their already seen messages.  The 
BlackBerries are my main reason for starting to go down the road of 
sub-folder mail delivery and altnamespace cyrus configurations.


>> and email messages disappearing into
>> Outlook, and out of the IMAP clients, only to reappear later when the
>> connector syncs to the server.
> 
> Once you know about the effect it should be okay, because as users you are 
> usually only using one client right now. 
> 
Sadly, I must disagree with you on this point.  Users, at least in my 
experience, are more and more starting to read mail from different 
devices and programs in different locations.

Regrettably, my users see Exchange, BlackBerries and Outlook Web Access 
and are looking to me to provide an experience that approaches or 
exceeds Microsoft's.

I am just trying to see if the collective wisdom of the group can give 
me any experience in this area.  It just might be that creative hacking 
can't get me around this problem and I will need to re-evaluate the 
configuration of a group of my users.

On another note I have also been casually following the progress the 
OpenChange project has been making on their OpenChange MAPI server.  If 
their promises hold true I think that a Kolab server back end with an 
OpenChange server front end to Outlook could really make people stand up 
and take notice.


>> Therefore, I have come up with the following design that I think may
>> help alleviate the problem.
> 
>> 2. Create an IMAP only mailbox for the user with a flat name space.
> 
> I advise against the "flat" namespace.
> 
>> 3. Upon delivery filter all appointments into the POP only mailbox and
>> the rest of the mail to the IMAP only mailbox.
> 
> Note that there already is a marker for filtering, this is called Mailbox 
> Delivery for the Webadmin Interface for the role user. So it is recommened for 
> group users to activate this sieve script.
> 
> Bernhard
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
************************************************************************
Thomas Malone, Systems Administration Manager
Lancer Financial Group Companies
370 West Park Avenue, Long Beach, NY 11561
(516) 431-4441 x3230 tmalone at lancer-ins.com
************************************************************************

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