Problem with imap-calendar on MS Exchange Server

[Marc Schiffbauer]

Hi all,

I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to store the
calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).

This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar they only
get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in their subject
line.

There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.

I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we decided to
move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

I did some tests to see whats the difference between the
calendar-entries.

First Mail below in an appointment created with Outlook 2003 (whole
day), then viewed in kmail (raw) (I stripped some lines).
As you can see, Mail-Subject and SUMMARY are both what I entered as
subject for the appointment.
This entry looks good in korganizer as well! Location and Subject both
on its right place.

Second Mail below is an appointment created by kontact (korganizer),
then viewed in kmail (raw). korganizer seems to use the Mail-Subject as
unique-id field (Subject: iCal libkcal-638075274.915).
I think this is the problem! An Outlook-Client now shows "iCal
libkcal-638075274.915" as the subject of the appointment.

So to increase interoperability of kontact so that it can be used
together with outlook-clients using an ms-exchange-server I suggest to
use something different for the unique-id field and set the
mail-subject to be the same as the appointmentment-subject (Summary).

Or: why not only the already existing UID: field in the ical data?

Would that raise other problems e.g. with other groupware servers or
something? If so, it would we nice to be implemented only when kontact
talks to exchange or as an option like "Exchange Mode" or something...

What do you think?

Thanks for you suggestions and comments.

Cheers
-Marc



Created by Outlook 2003:
----------------------------------------------------------
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C6598A.121AC120"
Content-class: urn:content-classes:appointment
Subject: Outlook2k3-Subject
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 16:54:57 +0200
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Outlook2k3-Subject
Thread-Index: AcZZihIrFqqoZeBVQcys+Z0RIAbDsg==
From: "Schiffbauer, Marc" <***@fujitsu-siemens.com>
To: "Schiffbauer, Marc" <***@fujitsu-siemens.com>
X-UID: 273
X-Length: 3018
Status: RO
X-Status: OC
X-KMail-EncryptionState:
X-KMail-SignatureState:
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C6598A.121AC120
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

------_=_NextPart_001_01C6598A.121AC120
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<P>Microsoft Outlook Web Access: <A =
------_=_NextPart_001_01C6598A.121AC120
Content-class: urn:content-classes:appointment
Content-Type: text/calendar;
charset="UTF-8";
method=REQUEST
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:Microsoft CDO for Microsoft Exchange
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:(GMT+01.00) Sarajevo/Warsaw/Zagreb
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-TZID:2
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T030000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;WKST=MO;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;WKST=MO;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20060406T145605Z
DTSTART;TZID="(GMT+01.00) Sarajevo/Warsaw/Zagreb":20060407T010000
SUMMARY:Outlook2k3-Subject
UID:CD0000008B9511D182D800C04FB1625DE00224591C874F4EA9430ED72CAFE33D
ORGANIZER;CN="Schiffbauer,
Marc":MAILTO:***@fujitsu-siemens.com
LOCATION:Outlook2k3-Location
DTEND;TZID="(GMT+01.00) Sarajevo/Warsaw/Zagreb":20060408T010000
SEQUENCE:0
PRIORITY:5
CLASS:
CREATED:20060406T145311Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20060406T145517Z
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:OPAQUE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:FREE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INSTTYPE:0
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ALLDAYEVENT:TRUE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-OWNERAPPTID:-1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-APPT-SEQUENCE:0
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ATTENDEE-CRITICAL-CHANGE:20060406T145517Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

------_=_NextPart_001_01C6598A.121AC120--
----------------------------------------------------------



Created by korganizer:
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Marc Schiffbauer <***@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Organization: Siemens IT Services GmbH & Co. KG.
X-KMail-Transport: mail.siemens.de
X-KMail-Fcc: .324989522.directory/Sent
Subject: iCal libkcal-638075274.915
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 17:12:13 +0200
User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1
Content-Type: text/calendar;
method=REQUEST;
charset="utf-8"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: RO
X-Status: OC
X-KMail-EncryptionState:
X-KMail-SignatureState:
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:
X-UID: 274

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//K Desktop Environment//NONSGML libkcal 3.5//EN
VERSION:2.0
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20060406T151213Z
ORGANIZER;CN=Marc Schiffbauer:MAILTO:***@siemens.com
CREATED:20060406T151208Z
UID:libkcal-638075274.915
SEQUENCE:0
LAST-MODIFIED:20060406T151208Z
SUMMARY:Korganizer352-Subject
LOCATION:Korganizer352-Location
CLASS:PUBLIC
PRIORITY:5
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20060414
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20060415
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT

END:VCALENDAR
----------------------------------------------------------

[Daniel Molkentin]

Post by Marc Schiffbauer
I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to store the
calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).
This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar they only
get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in their subject
line.
There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.
I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we decided to
move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

Can somebody involved with Kolab look at this please? I am not in-depth enough
anymore to e.g. tell why we chose to abuse the topic to carry the UID of the
contained object.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Reinhold Kainhofer]

Post by Daniel Molkentin

Post by Marc Schiffbauer
I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to store the
calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).
This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar they only
get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in their subject
line.
There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.
I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we decided to
move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

Can somebody involved with Kolab look at this please? I am not in-depth
enough anymore to e.g. tell why we chose to abuse the topic to carry the
UID of the contained object.

IIRC, it was for performance reasons...

Cheers,
Reinhold

- --
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhold Kainhofer, Vienna, Austria
email: ***@kainhofer.com, http://reinhold.kainhofer.com/
* Financial and Actuarial Mathematics, TU Wien, http://www.fam.tuwien.ac.at
* K Desktop Environment, http://www.kde.org/, KOrganizer maintainer
* Chorvereinigung "Jung-Wien", http://www.jung-wien.at/

[David Faure]

Post by Reinhold Kainhofer

Post by Daniel Molkentin

Post by Marc Schiffbauer
I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to store the
calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).
This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar they only
get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in their subject
line.
There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.
I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we decided to
move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

Can somebody involved with Kolab look at this please? I am not in-depth
enough anymore to e.g. tell why we chose to abuse the topic to carry the
UID of the contained object.

IIRC, it was for performance reasons...

Yes, for web clients (not for kmail).

IMAP doesn't allow a fast search on a custom header; whereas it can search on the subject fast,
and obviously in a web client (state-less by definition), looking for a mail by UID is done very very often.

--
David Faure
***@kde.org

[Marc Schiffbauer]

Post by David Faure

Post by Reinhold Kainhofer

Post by Daniel Molkentin

Post by Marc Schiffbauer
I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to
store the calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).
This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar
they only get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in
their subject line.
There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.
I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we
decided to move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

Can somebody involved with Kolab look at this please? I am not
in-depth enough anymore to e.g. tell why we chose to abuse the
topic to carry the UID of the contained object.

IIRC, it was for performance reasons...

Yes, for web clients (not for kmail).
IMAP doesn't allow a fast search on a custom header; whereas it can
search on the subject fast, and obviously in a web client (state-less
by definition), looking for a mail by UID is done very very often.

Any chance there could be a switch somewhere to turn this off and set
the mail-subject just to the vcalendar-summary or something like that
so that kontact will be usable as Exchange-Client as well?

-Marc

[David Faure]

Post by Marc Schiffbauer

Post by David Faure

Post by Reinhold Kainhofer

Post by Daniel Molkentin

Post by Marc Schiffbauer
I have configured my kontact/korganizer/kmail (KDE 3.5.2) to
store the calendar in an imap folder (on MS-Exchange).
This works fine so far. But when collegues access my calendar
they only get to see the unique-entry created by korganizer in
their subject line.
There seems to be a difference in the way korganizer creates
calendar-items and outlook or outlook-web-access does.
I talked to Daniel (danimo) yesterday about that issue and we
decided to move the subject to this ML, so here it is.

Can somebody involved with Kolab look at this please? I am not
in-depth enough anymore to e.g. tell why we chose to abuse the
topic to carry the UID of the contained object.

IIRC, it was for performance reasons...

Yes, for web clients (not for kmail).
IMAP doesn't allow a fast search on a custom header; whereas it can
search on the subject fast, and obviously in a web client (state-less
by definition), looking for a mail by UID is done very very often.

Any chance there could be a switch somewhere to turn this off and set
the mail-subject just to the vcalendar-summary or something like that
so that kontact will be usable as Exchange-Client as well?

... but breaking all compatibility with Horde? This seems like a strange idea to me.

David.

[Marc Schiffbauer]

Am Dienstag, 18. April 2006 23:30 schrieb David Faure:

[...]

Post by David Faure

Post by Marc Schiffbauer

Post by David Faure
IMAP doesn't allow a fast search on a custom header; whereas it
can search on the subject fast, and obviously in a web client
(state-less by definition), looking for a mail by UID is done
very very often.

Any chance there could be a switch somewhere to turn this off and
set the mail-subject just to the vcalendar-summary or something
like that so that kontact will be usable as Exchange-Client as
well?

... but breaking all compatibility with Horde? This seems like a strange idea to me.

Well, maybe if its called "[ ] MS Exchange Mode" or so?

-Marc