Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

Online Demo Dashboard Goes Live!

cneal-novell — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:17:12 -0700

It gives me great pleasure to announce that our new Online Demo Dashboard feature is now live across all three Geo's. The dashboard is a customisable web page that is automatically generated each time you schedule a demo on NODS. With instant mesaging, a bulletin board, document uploads and innovative new remote control features, the Dashboard really takes the Art Of The Remote Demo to the next level by giving you a slick, professional home page for each specific remote customer meeting.

Try it out right now by visiting our portal at http://www.novell.com/demosystems
Or, watch this ten minute video to see what the dashboard can do http://is.gd/4RMYu

Kudos to our developer Dave Mitchell for the great work he has done on this.

Travel Less, Sell More!

Solution Provider

BrainShare 2010 Partner Promotions!

dlythgoe — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:49:43 -0700

I received an email this last week from GroupLink about a promotion they are doing around their products and BrainShare 2010. I thought it would be a great idea to collect all of these promotions and post them together in a single place. A blog seems like the perfect medium!

I only have this one promotion right now, but I am sure there are several others that will be made available. Please send them to me or post in this blog's comment section so that everyone can see what is available.

Of course, we want everyone to come to BrainShare and get the very most out of this technical conference. There are many new changes to BrainShare this year and a few throwbacks from previous conferences. I am very excited about seeing all of our customers, partners and friends. We want everyone who wants to come to be there. I hope that a few of these types of promotions/contests/giveaways/discounts will enable all of you to be there.

GroupLink

We at GroupLink would really like to do all that we can to ensure that BrainShare 10 is a great event! We would love to have as many people attend as possible. To help this happen, we have created a great promotion and detailed it on Novell Cool Solutions. http://www.grouplink.net/redir.asp?id=2009111101

The first 30 people who purchase GroupLink's everything HelpDesk, before the end of this year, and mention this email will receive a free BrainShare pass!*

Contact:
Casey Trujillo
Sales Manager, everything HelpDesk, the Novell Integrated Help Desk
GroupLink Corporation
Novell Silver Partner for 15 years
801‑335‑0708

*For new customers only. Minimum purchase of 3 user licenses, cannot be combined with other offers.

Workgroup Cool Solutions

The Demo Dashboard: a Preview Video

cneal-novell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:03:52 -0700

What if each online demo you schedule came with its very own customizable dashboard, that you and your customer can share as a focal point around any remote demonstration meeting?
We are in the process of rolling out just that. It's not ready just yet but will be soon. Meanwhile you can get a sneak peek at what's coming your way by watching this video http://is.gd/4RMYu.

Hope you like it!

Solution Provider

GroupWise 8 - More to come

aevans — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:17:47 -0700

As I promised in my last blog I wanted to share with you what we are doing in GroupWise 8 SP2. This blog is actually based on a session that Dean and I presented at GWAVACon Berlin, and plan to include at Brainshare next year.

Typically we release a .0 product and then follow it up with an SP1 which contains a quite a number of features, as well as bug fixes. After the SP1 release we never put features into the subsequent support packs. We followed this pattern with GroupWise 6.5, and GroupWise 7, however, with GroupWise 8 we are stepping away from this 'standard'.

GroupWise 8 SP1, which released in August, did not contain many features at all - for a recap, Dean blogged on what those few features were here. Where we are really entering new territory though is with the GroupWise 8 SP2 release. With this support pack we are adding features that fall within a couple of different themes.

First of all - the disclaimer - we make no guarantee that the features I am about to describe will be included in the product when it ships.

With that done, the themes under which the features will fall are Teaming Integrations, Conferencing Integrations and Access Control. The teaming and conferencing integrations are important as they help our users, many of whom spend the majority of their day in the GroupWise client, access the new collaboration methods that teaming and conferencing provide. This allows them to gain value from those products in a much more inuitive manner. The access control features are aimed at administrators and center around some of the features that we have been asked for the most.

So what are the features?

Teaming Integrations
Drag email to a Teaming folder The driver for this feature is that many of our customers use Teaming to track projects and they want to store all of the emails concerning a project with the project content itself. This feature will allow a GW user to be able to drag an email to a Teaming folder in the GroupWise client.
Save email to Teaming This is related to the requirement above, but instead of dragging a dropping one of the browse targets on the File | Save dialog will with Teaming.
Attach file from Teaming Similarly a browse target on File | Attach will be Teaming, so that a user can attach a file stored in Teaming to an email. In future versions we will add the ability to just attach a file reference instead of the actual file, so that any modifications to the file are stored in the central repository.
Teaming feed panel in Homeview This will be a panel that shows just the most recent updates in Teaming, which is a very popular feature of Teaming 2.

Conferencing Integrations
Schedule a conference from within GW This will allow a user to schedule a conference, including sending recipients unique PINs where necessary. It will simply be another option on an appointment.
Start a conference from within GW If you are the conference owner then the concept of 'starting' exists, which essentially allows people to enter the conference, and see/hear the content being presented.
Join a conference from within GW As a conference recipient you need the option to join, which is essentially starting the client and logging you in.
Start an ad hoc conference This is very simiilar to the other features I just described but, instead of it being a pre arranged conference, it is the ability to start a conference right away from various points in the interface. For example, on a contact or group, or from within a received email.
Search GWIM history The driver for this one is that we know many people remember that they had a conversation about a particular subject, but often don't remember what medium that conversation was in. This means that they have to search their email, IM conversations and other places to find what it is they were looking for. Most of the work for this requirement is actually on the GWIM side of things, and involves GWIM storing it's conversation logs in GroupWise. Once done this will allow those conversations to be searched alongside emails, and will appear on the history tab of a contact. It will also mean that those conversations can be replied to, forwarded etc.

Access Control
Access Control List for distribution lists Simply put, an administrator will be able to limit which users are able to send emails to any particular distribution list. What companies are trying to facilitate here are the ALL distribution lists, but keep them from being generally available. There are various ways to achieve this, but they are more workarounds than solutions.
Filter attachments of specific types This is for both internal and external mails. Customers want to be able to limit the kinds of attachments that can be added to emails - the plan is to allow for either a white list (only these kinds of attachments) or black lists (anything except these attachment types).
Limit number of recipients a user can send a mail to This has been a pretty popular request over the years, though many companies deal with it in their corporate policies. The idea is that you can, for any particular set of users, limit how many people they can send an email to at one time. It will likely be found in the Client Options interface for administrators.
Search on additional fields This last one is for WebAccess specifically, and will allow users to search on a few more fields. At this point it will not be equivalent of the Windows client, but that is our long term goal.

This is what we have planned for SP2, but we are also planning features for SP3. I will cover that closer to the time. I am planning my next blog topic, but I anticipate it to be around entering enhancement requests, and how I, as the GroupWise Product Manager deal with them (and no, they do not go into a black hole).

Cool Blogs: Official Novell Bloggers

Partner created iPhone app for GroupWise WebAccess

aevans — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:16:34 -0700

I just wanted to put together a very quick blog. A partner reached out to me with a simple iPhone app that they had created to allow users to get to WebAccess a little more quickly. The app creates a shortcut, which will remember your username and password, as well as taking you directly to your WebAccess page. It doesn't modify the templates in any way.

It's available here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/...

If you have ideas for other GW related apps then please let us know.

My next blog post is about what is coming in GroupWise 8 SP2, which I hope to get out this week.

Workgroup Cool Solutions

Novell Demo Systems, In Your Ears!

cneal-novell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:21:46 -0700

Reading all this Novell news making your eyes sore? Then use your ears for a change and check out Novell SalesTalk and Novell OpenAudio.

This week there are two new podcasts in which Chris Neal talks about recent changes and enhancements to the Novell Demo Systems. Listen in to hear what the Demo Systems Novell provides can do for you, and hear about cool upcoming features such as the Demo Dashboard.

If you want to get the gist in a short, bite-sized 5 minutes listen to this Novell Salestalk interview http://is.gd/4NWp4

For those of you who want more detail check out the full, more technical interview on Novell OpenAudio http://is.gd/4OFj4

As usual, feedback to demosystems@novell.com , or you can follow @novelldemo on Twitter.

Cool Solutions

Novell Demo Systems adds Twitter to communication channels

cneal-novell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:32:21 -0700

The Demo Systems team has added to its social media participation by getting a Twitter account. If you're a Twitter user please follow @novelldemo to get the latest demo news and views faster.

If you don't yet have a Twitter account setting one up is really easy. You can find our profile at http://www.novell.com/novelldemo .

While we're on the subject now is probably a good time to summarise the various communication channels we use, so that you know how to receive our news updates, ask us questions, and give us feedback on how we're doing.

Primary support channel is via the Novell Support Forums
http://forums.novell.com/novell-product-support-fo...

General questions and comments can be sent to us direct via email: demosystems@novell.com

Our Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/novelldemosystems . Become a fan!

Finally -- and for Novell employees only -- our internal mailing list: utopia@lists.novell.com

We get lonely when you don't talk to us. Get in touch!

Chris

Cool Solutions

Gradenko, ActiveSync, GroupWise, Teaming and a Webinar!

dlythgoe — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:03:24 -0700

The engineering team is working on several product releases over the next several months. It is important that we keep you informed about our progress and what is coming. It also allows you to participate in the many activities surrounding a product release. Those activities include product requirements, design reviews, BETAs, Lighthouse programs and final shipments. So here goes:

Gradenko (DataSync):

Gradenko is currently in authorized BETA. We have had several beta calls including beta calls for the SDK. Gradenko includes the following components:

- Sync Engine
- GroupWise Connector
- SDK
- Salesforce.com Connector
- SugarCRM Connector
- Sharepoint Connector

BETA2 is scheduled for later this month. Engineering is focused on installation, configuration and scalability. We are listening to our beta sites and gathering input from our internal testing and superlab experiences. Gradenko is the foundation for ActiveSync and for all of our 3rd-party integrations. Continue to watch this space for updates on our progress, schedule and final release.

ActiveSync

First of all, I refer you to Alex Evans' blog. This was posted back in September and provides some excellent background on the feature set, architecture and what will be available in this first release. http://www.novell.com/communities/node/9006/active...

ActiveSync BETA is scheduled for this month as well. Great progress has been made within the team over the last several weeks. The ActiveSync project is being head up by Jay Parker and they have implemented several aspects of the agile development model. As part of this methodology, the team demonstrates to interested team members the progress made during each 'sprint'. On Thursday, October 22nd, the team provided a demo of their Sprint 5 work. Several iPhones and iTouches were handed out to the audience and we were given several tasks to complete. Scheduling an appointments, sending an email, accepting an appointments, creating a contact, etc. There were a few delays and a few hiccups as several in the audience were all using the same account, but overall, things went very well. Engineering is now focused on performance, scalability, install, troubleshooting and documentation. We are anxious to begin the beta process and work out the final details.

GroupWise 7 and GroupWise 8

GroupWise 7.0.3 HP4 was released in September. Feedback so far on this release has been very positive. We do plan to release GroupWise 7.0.4 and that will be our final release of the GroupWise 7.0.x product line. We expect to release that final version of 7.0.x in roughly 6 months or so. GroupWise 8.0.1 was released in August. We are currently evaluating and planning a Hot Patch for 8.0.1. Our next support pack for GroupWise 8 will be 8.0.2. This is currently scheduled about mid-year 2010.

The vast majority of the feedback on 8.0.1 has been very positive. We continue to listen and evaluate the progress as our customers adopt and roll out this significant version of the product. Support has brought 6-10 issues to our attention, which we have addressed and provided specific customers relief. We plan to make these and other fixes available in a Hot Patch currently scheduled for December/January.

Cortez (Teaming 2.1)

Cortez is the next major release of our award winning product Teaming. As you may know, Teaming is a product that we are pushing as a 'rapid release' product. We plan to have new versions of this product available every 6-9 months. Teaming 2.0 was released in July and Teaming 2.1 was currently scheduled for January. It has a very specific and finite set of features and will be entering BETA also in the month of November. To see the design documents, participate in the user interaction mock ups and provide your input, please visit the project on kablink.org. A full list of the changes, features and roadmaps are all available as we engage our customers and partners in this project. Cortez includes:

- Import and Export capability
- Undelete
- Data quotas
- Mobility access
- Landing Page Editor
- Extension Administration
- Task/Calendar Improvements
- maybe a couple more :)

So watch for the BETA, check out kablink.org and download the 20 user Starter Pack.

Last note: There is a Webinar this Thursday, November 5th, "GW8 & M+Archive: Your email collaboration solution" I will be presenting with Messaging Architects. They will be presenting their stubbing solutions and I will be talking about GroupWise, Teaming, DataSync, etc. Tune in!

Here are the details:

GW8 & M+Archive: Your email collaboration solution - November 5, 2009 - 3:00PM EST

Both leading IT publications and end users alike agree GroupWise 8 brings collaboration to the next level with next-generation web technology and the latest productivity-enhancing tools featuring a highly customizable email client, as well as improved calendaring, contact and task management. Besides the enriched email client, one of the most important improvements in the GroupWise 8 release is a new Stubbing API that enables tight integration of GroupWise with email retention solutions and gives end users transparent access to their archives.

During this Webinar, Dean Lythgoe, Director, GroupWise Engineering, will discuss GroupWise 8 features, roadmap futures, mobility direction and the new DataSync technology. He will give a sneak peak at what is available today and what exciting new things are on the horizon in 2010.

Ranjit Sarai, Product Manager for M+Archive will then demonstrate the stubbing feature of M+Archive, currently the only product that offers this feature for GroupWise. After attending this Webinar, you will know how GroupWise with M+Archive will help you achieve an enterprise-class secure and compliant collaboration environment while helping you reduce overall cost, increase system performance and ensure a superior end-user experience.

BONUS: Registrants will receive a complimentary white paper written by Novell and Messaging Architects, which will give you more in depth information about how GroupWise works with stubbing.

Date: Thursday, November 05, 2009
Time: 3:00PM EST / 12:00 PM PST
Speaker(s): Dean Lythgoe, Director, GroupWise and Teaming + Conferencing Engineering at Novell & Ranjit Sarai, Product Manager for M+Archive at Messaging Architects

Register Now: https://messagingarchitects.webex.com/messagingarc...

Dean

Workgroup Cool Solutions

City of LA Decision to move to Google Apps

aevans — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:58:54 -0600

I realize that many who read my blog are our own GroupWise customers. You may have heard about the City of L.A.'s close-vote decision to make a change.

Through years of neglect of the system, ignoring best practices and not making the best uses of the inherent scalability of GroupWise the City justified a move to a system that is still more expensive to their tax payers, offers less functionality, and increases risk and downtime.

We are laser focused on continuing to provide a world-class e-mail and calendaring platform with the Web 2.0 innovations, end-user requested features and enterprise-class readiness you demand. Thank you to all who speak up for the value of GroupWise.

You can read our take on that here.

GroupWise Cool Solutions

Open Horizons and GWAVACon Berlin

dlythgoe — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Alex Evans and I are currently in Oxford, England attending the Open Horizons Tour - UK. We will be here until Friday, October 16th. We will then travel to Berlin, Germany to participate with several more partners and Novell employees in the annual GWAVACon European Event.

These events and conferences are unique in that we get to spend a lot of one on one time with many customers and partners. We are always energized by the enthusiasm and positive vibe we get from all of the attendees. We also always seem to meet new people or partners that we were not as familiar with. Of course we usually see a lot of ISV partners at these events, but many times we meet some of our long standing reseller partners. Today we spoke with Julie from Blueloop (www.blueloop.net). They are a Silver Reseller Partner out of the UK and have been selling Novell software for years.

We have also had the opportunity to meet again with SkyCom, Messaging Architects, Redback Systems, GWAVA, Omni-TSand Salford Software. All members of our active and growing partner ecosystem.

Today we spoke about our Collaboration strategy that includes GroupWise, Teaming, Conferencing and DataSync and then Alex spent quite a while talking about mobility and ActiveSync. Alex had to disappear for a little while this afternoon while he called into the very first DataSync (Gradenko) Authorized BETA call. Of course, now that we are back in Alex's home turf - he pronounces it BEETA. I thought I understood English????

Some of the topics being covered today at the conference include: Virtualization with XEN on SLES11 by Mark Robinson, ZENworks Configuration Management by Ian Stimpson and Unified Communications for GroupWise with SkyPro by Horst Fuhrmann. Sessions are being presented by Novell employees as well as partners like Altman Technologies, ENGL Ltd. and NDS8 Ltds.

Alex and I will participate in Question and Answer hour with all of the attendees and then tomorrow will begin the Open Horizons Summit with more sessions, hands-on labs and more opportunities to speak one on one with attendees.

If you have a chance to participate in an Open Horizons or GWAVACon event - I highly recommend it. Not only will you get the technical information you may need, but you will also become a member of a community that is pushing for Novell and its products to succeed!

Dean