Zimbra

One of the great things about being an open source company is that we have a passionate community that goes beyond the boundaries of any one location (Zimbra HQ, for example), with community members that participate and contribute from all over the globe.  We saw this early on with the help the community gave us for international translations,  and several of our early partners hailed from as far as South Africa, Brazil and Germany.

So in December when the Ministerio de Vivienda - the  Ministry of Housing in Lima, Peru - began looking for new options to replace their expensive proprietary software with lower-cost, open source alternatives, it came as no surprise that the open source community eventually led them to Software Libre Andino, a Zimbra / Red Hat distributor in Peru who helped replace their outdated systems with modern ones, including Zimbra for collaboration and Alfresco for document management.

The Ministerio de Vivienda, which is responsible for all the housing, construction and sewer systems in Peru, has a mission to improve access to adequate housing and basic services to all the citizens of Peru. Saving the government money is definitely one reason for the switch to Zimbra, but another important factor in their decision to deploy open source solutions is they found that open platforms allow their users to easily integrate and build new solutions on top of this foundation.

In this case they were able to deploy the Alfresco Zimlet created by Zimbra community members and allow a simple way for employees to store documents that are attached in email on the Alfresco server, and in turn select documents from the Alfresco server and attach them to a Zimbra email. Simple, inuitive integrations like these make it easy for government agencies or companies to invest in multiple open source products to meet their needs, instead of choosing proprietary options.

We love to hear stories of how Zimbra and open source technologies travel the globe – if you have any stories you want to share, drop us a line.

(Below: Save attachment to Alfresco and add an attachment to Zimbra from Alfresco).

Zimbra Gallery Pages:
Save in Alfresco Zimlet
Alfresco Zimlet
Alfresco Zimlet Peru

Themes that is.

Some know that you can append ?skin=name to the end of your server’s url to test a skin without changing your preference value, but here’s another way to open a bunch at once – the Skin Previewer Zimlet.

Select those you wish to try out, and new browser windows are opened for side by side comparison:

(You can download com_zimbra_skinpreviewer over in the gallery for use against ZCS 5.0.11+ or ZD RC1.)

So you’ve checked out available themes – now how to take advantage of them all? Beach, Waves, and Yahoo tend to be our favorites; but every so often a dose of Lemongrass, Hot Rod, Zmail, or Steel is in order.


Switch themes daily, or whatever frequency you desire using the new Skin Changer Zimlet:

 

 

 

 
Gallery Page: com_zimbra_skinchanger (ZCS 5.0.11+ / ZD)

 

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Need ideas for your own themes? Checkout the theme creation guide or the chameleon attributes for simple branding.

Sometimes there’s so much going on that we can’t take time to look forward on our calendars. Which always means scrambling at the last minute to get a present, send a card, or plan a party. A few social apps have saved me – barely. While there is an RFE you can vote for, Raja has once again come to the rescue with another Zimlet.

Kick off a scan of your existing contacts via the panel:

Choose exactly who to create reminders for, then select how many alerts you want and when to display them:

Like the Email Reminder Zimlet, we make use of a separate calendar for the re-occurring events; again marked as private / not shown in your free-busy status:

A short video of the new Zimlet in action:




You can find com_zimbra_birthdayreminder in the Gallery for use against ZCS 5.0.12+ (Zimbra Desktop install directions are over here).

More Info for Alerts

Often when I have an event or meeting coming up, other relevant information (like a phone bridge, remote session information, or who’s attending) is deep within the body but hard to get to from the current appointment alert.

com_zimbra_openappointment started as a separate add-on, but is now part of the alerts dialog code. It inserts a link so you can quickly navigate to your calendar for further details:

While an enhancement like this may not seem like much, it serves to highlight the convenience of using mashups to extend the UI to your needs.

 

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Like it? Got a great idea for a extending Zimbra? Leave a comment below or drop in over at the Zimlets forum section.

Internally of late we refer to him as “The Zimlet Machine”, since Raja has been pumping them out so fast it’s hard to keep up. Now there are so many new mashups to show off we’ve declared it Zimlet Month. So browse the gallery, try out the experimental Zimlets in the source, and even if your not a developer you can drop us an idea for new ones, or just mention tweaks you’d like to see made to existing Zimlets over in the community forums.

Ok it may not be a continuous month – a few of these will require 5.0.14, and others depend upon core changes to 6.0.x; they’ll be in your server’s zimlet directories shortly. If your not into running the 6.0 betas, teaser screencasts are attached; check them out and start the feedback rolling – we want to make these Zimlets exactly what you expect of them when it’s time to deploy.
 

Honestly how many times have you flagged something, only to forget to check your ‘is:flagged’ search? The same goes for a ‘followup’ tag. I’m definitely guilty of it. How do you not forget about those important emails? Create an appointment reminder right?

One might drag critical emails to the mini-cal, mark them private, remove the meeting invites for any pre-filled attendees, and store the events in another calendar to stay clutter free; but first you have to remember to do it, plus it’s multiple steps. The Email Reminder Zimlet solves all that without pulling you away from your inbox.

Flagging an email creates an appointment with a reminder set a few hours later by default:

You can also use it on drag to the panel icon, or when composing an email to take care of creation twice as fast:




 

 

 

 
The events show up on a separate ‘Email Reminders’ calendar so you can easily toggle visibility; they’re marked as private and set to show as free in order to not obscure your free-busy status:



 

 

 

 

A quick screencast of the Zimlet in action:




Gallery download link: com_zimbra_emailreminder

Requires 5.0.12+ (5.0.11 w/o flagging capability). It can also be used in Zimbra Desktop RC1 – we’re working on multiple ways to make them easier to install in the desktop client, but you can find current directions here.

 

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Enjoy this Zimlet or have an idea for enhancing it?

-Perhaps a per-user setting for the default reminder time?
-Would you like us to go with just single click buttons for 1 day / 3 days / 7days / 2 weeks / 1 month?
-Or even a “silent” appointment creation setting that doesn’t prompt you?

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Just a bit on new stuff that’s graced the Zimlet scene lately:

Xythos
Drag and drop your emails (including entire conversations with meta-data or just the attachments) from Zimbra into an Xythos folder of your choosing. Create new emails and link to documents stored on an Xythos content management server for internal accounts – you can even configure expiring tickets to share material with external users.

See it in action here, then contact info@xythos.com if you’d like to try it out.

Dimdim
Join a Dimdim web conference without leaving your inbox; start a meeting right from an email with a single click, drag contacts from your address book, or even drop any appointments in your calendar onto the Zimlet and instantly schedule a Dimdim session.

Dimdim is an awesome open source meeting platform that lets you share your presentations, documents, whiteboards, or desktop (currently Win & Mac with Linux on the roadmap) – and gets you connected via chat, VoIP, or webcam. Run your own server, use their hosted options, or create a free account that lets you connect with up to twenty people at once – attendees don’t even need to be registered.

Grab the Zimet here.

Alfresco
The first content management Zimlet by Starxpert let you save emails, conversations with attachments, or folders onto an Alfresco space.

A newly developed Zimlet from the folks at Alfresco not only helps you save content to ECM server, but also provides the ability to select multiple documents and attach them as links to outgoing emails; several widgets give you ease-of-use in Alfresco space selection and repository navigation. Visit the gallery page to download it.

Get your intent across.
With the new Babelfish Translator & Dictionary Zimlets:



Check them out in the source, they’re coming to your server’s “zimlets-extra” folder shortly – you can even use them in Zimbra Desktop.



 
Auto-Complete & Refined Search

Available in the main branch of perforce are com_zimbra_searchauto & searchrefine. While an updated Yahoo! search Zimlet displays results in a ZmApp tab instead of requiring you to open another browser window.

 

 

 

 

HackDay just kicked off, and we’ve seen all sorts of things go from idea to prototype in just 24 hours. This year has a twist: Not only are our engineers across the globe involved (with many making it an all-nighter) but everyone is invited to participate – even you. Open Hack 2008 takes place September 12-13th where anyone with an idea is encouraged to gather a team up, then spend a day building stuff that they think is cool. HackU (the University Hackdown) is even flying in its top ranks, with a few Zimbra customers among them (including Stanford & Georgia Tech) to join us at Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale, CA for rounds of coding; plus camaraderie, food, demos, awards, and good music. From our team KevinH & JohnH are also giving several presentations throughout the event.

Some of the things we’re ran across have given us ideas for Zimlets – so we’re hereby seeking Zimlet beta testers. This will be an ongoing project, meaning that those who volunteer will get continuous access to the latest and greatest Zimlet ideas.

We need volunteers that:

• Are using either ZCS (with the ability to deploy Zimlets – so essentially administrators of the respective system) or Zimbra Desktop users.

• Are willing to try out different services that some of these may link to, and consciously note how they affect their daily Zimbra experience.
• Of course give us feedback about their place in productivity, effectiveness, usefulness, and anything you’d like to see added or extended.

To join in just send me a PM/Email by the end of this week. (We’ll be sure to reward you for your efforts.)

We can’t take everyone, so if you not accepted don’t feel bad – there’s still plenty of cool & useful Zimlets over in the Gallery – plus they’ll soon be making it off engineer workstations and into perforce. We’re even working on a way to make them easier to install in Zimbra Desktop, but you can find current directions here.

Those on the development side will soon see a few community members marked “Zimlet Guru” – if you’ve created a few yourself, and are into helping out others in the Zimlet section of the forums, be sure to drop me a line.