Blog Entry

Submitted by kaaresm on 24 May 2008 - 2:07am.

In my oppinion webmanagement is essential. As a consultant I am daily confronted with the difficulties customers have with the mix of iManager, C1, versions and plugins which are all very confusing and often cause errors and problems. Especially because you need a mapped drive to the Groupwise server to use C1 management. In most of the installations I visit the only thing we need C1 for is Groupwise - everything else can be managed by iManager & NRM. I would love for Novell to finally come through on the promise of a single client-independent management platform for all Novell products.

Regarding Groupwise Clients: The reason why I have seen lots of wonderfull Groupwise systems beeing migrated to Exchange are client related. They get a lot of functionality - little things - out of the box with Outlook. Things like the Office integration giving worprocessing facilities in mails, direct integration of lots of gadgets, phones etc. that have outlook integration. Things like national hollidays in their calendar etc. Between 90 & 100% of my clients users likes Outlook better than the Groupwise client. Secondly management sees the ever increasing possibilities of integration with other systems like CRM and ERP which are seen as essential to developing businesses. These integrations work out-of-the-box with Exchange/Outlook but very rarely with Groupwise which is a perfect reason to keep the Outlook connector running and updating it for every new version of Outlook.
I really like the idea of a full feature web-client but I am sure we still need the local client and especially an up-to-date Outlook connector as an alternative so that we can keep people happy and on Groupwise.

Submitted by FlyingGuy on 24 May 2008 - 1:04pm.

To http or not to http... Well actually its, to tomcat/apache/soap or not to tomcat/apache/soap.

Here are my issues with this:

A. The entire tomcat/apache/soap/java stack is to fragile. If any one of those bits of tech stop working, for any reason, you no longer have control over your system, thats it, end of discussion and that is unacceptable.

B. They are frustrating:

1. Because of the limitations of CSS, browser issues and the like you stuck with a horribly clunky interface, unless of course you really go off the deep end and start shoving tons of javascript in to bring in yet another bit of tech into the picture, aka AJAX. Now we have an even more fragile control stack. Now everyone can point to Google's accomplishments to vindicate a web interface, but last time I checked Novell's stock price was not pushing $600.00 USD per share and you don't have unlimited ( for all intents and purposes ) engineering talent.

2, Sorry guys, but web interfaces are slow, slow, slow and that just adds to the frustration leve.

Those arguments alone should clearly demonstrate the serious issues trying to do a web interface for something this complex.

As I have said SO many times before:

The administrative interface can and should be a very very small program, which talks directly to the post office over TCP/IP and the post office puts the changes into effect.

The admin program is nothing but a parse and display engine that can be written X-Platform in a native language ie: Not Java, that speaks to the POA with a well defined, yet very small, set of commands, that first authenticate that you are indeed the system administrator, and then accept commands to alter any part of the system.

It presents the label, the current value, and the edit possibilities of that value for any particular setting. This information is then shot back to the POA in the form of an insert/update/delete statement.

If as I proposed in another message that we remove all dependencies on client side settings from local entries, ie: windows registry and .settings files then administration becomes even simpler.

Someone said something about "scriptable" installs in the forums, and therefor having things written into the registry solves this problem. I would disagree with this completely. This could be solved quite simply by borrowing a page from the eDir manual. All you need is a template from which to generate any new e-mail user. This template holds all the settings that populate the UserDB, because the userDB contains ALL settings for that user, ie: view settings, environment, smtp class of service, etc. etc..

The user logs in the first time, there is a brief pause while the clients reads its setting from the UserDB and then implements them, it's just that simple.

YES this does mean getting GW separated ( for ALL configuration information ) from ANY directory system, including eDir, AD, LDap, all of them.

So what does this really mean? It means that users can be mapped over to any of these directory engines, but GW must be self contained,

----- Address Books ------

How one displays the address book is only relevant from a UI interface POV. How ones holds the data and the mechanisms to get at that data is what matters.

Currently all address book data is held in the GW message Store and that is AS IT SHOULD BE. What is fundamentally wrong is how the data is stored. The Address Book data structure has changed very little over the years and change is long overdue.

We need to take a page straight out of the MS playbook and build an address book that is superior to theirs and display it as such.

Integration is a touchy subject because there all real security concerns here. One of the best tricks that malware, bot and virus writers know is how to get the the Outlook Address book and then just bomb everyone in it. so the question is how to we prevent that and still make the GW address book the best solution for things like mail merges and the like? I submit that there is no complete solution to mitigating these types of security concerns but I can think of one easy to implement solution, that if implemented correctly will go a long way to making us look better then everyone else.

Word, Open Office, and the the like have very well defined methods of doing merges. We implement a query system to the address book that will generate a merge file for the user, and we have the ability for them to choose, better yet we discover and give them the RIGHT choice for the word processor they are using. They are free to choose an alternate, but that is the best path.

----- Application integration -----

As someone who deals with this on a regular basis, we have to GIVE AWAY a properly implemented and properly DOCUMENTED DLL or .SO file for outside vendors to be able to use to send e-mail via GW.

IMO it has to have bindings for C, C++ and C#, any other language is secondary and wuite possibly irrelevant since most other languages can link to those three. Why you might ask? Well because all those applications that are written for Accounting, Real Estate and such do NOT use MAPI they use VBA to get things out via Outlook.

Additionally the interfaces have to be simple, simple, simple!!!!

The call should be nothing more complicate then:

CreateMail(pChar : To,pChar CC, pChar: BCC, pChar: Attachments) : * Result ;

Yes you have to have the Client Installed and the user must be authenticated. On the flip side, for those systems who have server generated events, we have to provide the SAME dll / .SO file, but we have to provide a simple methodology for generating the "trusted application" key. The key generator must be a kit that we provide to the vendor, not force them to write on their time. More over we have to have the ability to link that trusted app key to a specific named user, this will make it more difficult for a rouge system to generate mass e-mails.

I eagerly await your thoughts and opinions.

- Bill

Submitted by dewita on 25 May 2008 - 6:14pm.

Hi Dean,

Thanks for posting your thoughts and asking for input.

I agree the Address Book needs to go. Users understand the Contacts folder better and the Address Book has a clunky feel to it and is needlessly separate from the client, unless it can be leveraged by other clients, e.g., Pidgin -- that could be quite important! Is there a way to have the access to the same contacts in Pidgin as in GroupWise and T+C?

As an aside, can/will Bonsai fix the auto-complete mechanism so that users are less frustrated by it? Specifically:

1. auto-complete on first and last name at the same time, e.g., if I type Blair, it should offer me "Susan Blair" and "Blair Smith".

2. show the user the list of potential matches rather than showing them one and having them arrow-up/down to cycle through them. The user could then select the right one from that list using mouse, or arrow keys, or maybe even put a number against each one and they can just press that number key to select the right contact.

Can/will Bonsai also change the weird (non-standard) drop/combo box thing for recipient lists? Our users get quite confused by this UI widget as they've never seen anything like it (probably for good reasons). Have a look at how other email clients do it and choose the one that makes the most sense. Thunderbird does it OK (though the dropbox for selecting To, CC, or BC is bad); I can't remember how Outlook does it; and OS X Mail's approach is quite nice. I'd be interested to see how Evolution does it...

I agree with your take on the WebAccess client. Nice for admins to have everyone on it but users might revolt!

No comment on the admin tool question as I'm not an sysadmin but I'll point our sysadmin at this blog in case he wants to comment.

Thanks again for asking for input.

Regards,

Arian

Submitted by redds on 25 May 2008 - 8:17pm.

I like the idea of a contact folder. Is there a way to get rid of Frequent Contacts because it invariably causes issues when people leave or change e-mail addresses and e-mails don't get sent right.

I like the web based iManager or ZCM type interface but I actually like NWAdmin more. It's much faster than C1 and if my browser has issues I can't get make iManager work. Although admittedly I have found iManager useful when working on specific tasks that are not done from my workstation, I still like NWAdmin the best out of all the tools.

Submitted by tim_fitch on 27 May 2008 - 4:46am.

I believe you must improve the 3rd party integration. So many apps work natively with Outlook. Many CRM/ERP programs just will not work properly with GroupWise. Be it mailto:, calendars, To do lists, etc.

Submitted by rmckenna1 on 28 May 2008 - 7:19am.

It would be extremely nice for individual users to be able to more easily manage multiple archives. For example, I have quite a few users who absolutely refuse to delete any e-mail, citing a need to be able to retrieve those e-mails at a later date for legal purposes. For this reason, their archive directories grow quite large. When we start having issues fitting backups on one tape, it is usually these archive directories taking up the most storage space. It would be extremely nice if these users could "archive" their archives on a yearly basis, being that past years e-mail archives would remain completely static and could be archived off to external media and removed from our backup scripts.

I am aware that this can be done now, but the process of having to manually change the archive path in the GroupWise client to each individual archive directory, making sure you don't accidentally merge the archives together, and then having to remember to manually change the path back to the current archive directory, is very cumbersome and will inevitably lead to problems and end user frustration.

It would be very nice if the GroupWise client could handle multiple archive directories simultaneously and just treat them as separate folders or as separate archives, all accessible without the end user having to constantly modify the path manually.

Submitted by dlythgoe on 28 May 2008 - 7:29am.

Provide the needed APIs.....

This one is well known and one that there really is not a lot of discussion required. We know what you want/need.... we know how to do it...We need to simply deliver!

This one is on me...

Submitted by joebrug on 28 May 2008 - 11:22am.

The more stuff that can be placed into the Client Options of C1 (or wherever) for admin control, the better!

For example, Name Completion Search Order, so we can get rid of Frequent Contacts :)

Also, of course, integration/3rd party AWARENESS is very important.. I've been recently battling this because we are switching our phone system to VoIP.. and every company we've talked to keeps brining up.. "Oh by the way, we integrate all of this into Exchange/Outlook!"... "What about groupwise?" .."um...no"

Very frustrating.

You're doing a wonderful job at the helm, Dean!

Thanks for asking..

Submitted by vgalino on 31 May 2008 - 2:29am.

Hello

For the address book it s interesting you can import and export to a CSV format or directly to another applications.

What another applications : If you can pass the address book to Oulook, then you can pass to all the systems. Then integration with outlook its very good

Some questions of new groupwise administrators guys is.
--------------------------------------------------------

¿ Why i need to connect to wpdomain.db for administer the system (with a unc path)?. It s not a database ?. Why i can not connect with a port to the database ?

Administration
--------------

Novell has a lot of Administration Consoles. It s time you have ONE

NWADMIN
ConsoleOne
Imanager

On a "Sales prespective " iManager it s the best (Web administration)

For New Clients, and for IT Decission people, iManager is the best option

From a "operation o technical manager" is more faster a local application like ConsoleOne , not a Web interface

If you are a partner basically you mount a system, they works, and then the only need for the technical manager its to add , delete or changue users (yes, they can mount new poas and new mtas, but bassically thats all they need)

Outlook Connector
-----------------

If you have a company thinking to migrate from Exchange to Groupwise they love this think.

Assume you have a company with 2.500 users working with Outlook.

If you have a connector and only needs to changue the systemm on the servers thats VERY GOOD. They don t need to retraining to the users and the solution are fine

Groupwise is attractive for the lowest price compared with Exchange

Hope this usseful for the discussion

Regards
Victor

Submitted by seschenburg on 2 June 2008 - 8:10am.

Unfortunately all management consoles are lacking, not just the three mentioned. Even Microsoft's MMC sucks due to it's linear nature. But, of the three you mentioned I like NWAdmin best, hands down. But, NWAdmin isn't the recommended console for our version of eDir. So, as it is, I'm in Console One all day so it's quirks and shorcomings are a major irritation. iManager is simply too cumbersome.

I also liked OnSite Admin Pro for those that can remember it. I've found no easier way to manage multiple NetWare servers.

Here's what I'd like to see in a management console:
- speed. NWAdmin was fast. Console One and iManager are not so fast. There's at least three paychecks involved when a user has a problem - the user, the tech working the issue, and me. And, if an outside customer is involved you can include their paycheck and our image in that equation. Time is money, so the less time I spend waiting on a directory update or simple screen refresh the better.
- the ability to do more than one thing at a time. iManager, and all web-based interfaces, fail this test. Even NWAdmin and Console One have issues in some regards.
- saved searches. Come on, doesn't everybody need to search for a user by some common attribute every single day? How often do you get the correctly spelled username initially? NWAdmin had this ability, Console One doesn't.

If I had to summarize my response (because I need to get back to work) it would be to Consolidate, Simplify, and Optimize. These are essentially the same goals we all have in our day to day activities. Our management console should help us reach those goals.

Thanks for asking.

Submitted by ukdtom on 4 June 2008 - 3:38pm.

1)....Man...Great minds think alike :-)

2)....You just outlined the cons....The pros. are i my humble appinion the following:

a) Less storage needed, since there's no need to store both mime, text.htm, plain msg and attachments as seperate files...instead only the mime

b) No need to do any conversion in any agents besides the clients and WebAcc...no need for GWIA anymore, or ?

c) If note storing the mime in an encrypted format...(Admin choice IMHO, it would open up for 3. Party integration...Like AntiVira stuff etc.

d) Less storage needed for cache on local wkstn.

e) Not sure, but beleave, that trafic also will be less, since only one file needs to be downloaded when viewed...
(After all, the mime is a duplicate of all the other files)

Submitted by jsessler on 10 June 2008 - 5:43pm.

Dean,

OutLook connector:
Instead of putting all of this effort into the Outlook Connector, why not emulate the Exchange API at the POA? Outlook would then connect just as it would to Exchange.

Trying to endlessly update the connector and then deal with problems with 3rd party apps not liking the connector, etc. seems like wasted effort. If you put all of that into emulating the Exchange API on the POA, then wouldn't many of those problems go away? If the PostPath people can do it, why can't Novell?

This is the same argument I've made toward building native ActiveSync support into the POA (or gateway). Instead of having to look to a 3rd-party for mobile support (nokia), or re-invent the wheel, every ActiveSync smartphone out there including the iPhone would just work with GroupWise. Again, others are already doing this (Zimbra) so why can't Novell?

Novell has this supposed partnership with Microsoft, so it's time to leverage it. In reality, having Groupwise emulate the Exchange/Activesync API is a good thing if you're looking to offer it as a plug-in replacement to MS customers. For die-hard GW folk, it makes our lives easier.

WebClient:
Three words... Look at Zimbra.
The GW webclient has many of the same features, but Zimbra has gone far beyond. From the mini-calendar, the quickfinder-like message window, mouse-over quick description, etc.

No matter what, I don't see this as a replacement for a "real" client, that is for the windows GW client. For xPlat users, our users are so unhappy that they are already using WebAccess, so improving it is a plus.

Admin:
I don't care what the underlying technology is for admining GW as long as it isn't any slower than what C1 is today. iManager is great, but it takes me a lot longer to say configure/manage a printer then it ever did in C1/NWadmin. If that's the same for GW, I don't want to use it.

Submitted by alandpearson on 16 July 2008 - 12:58pm.

Dean

I hate to say it, but Groupwise embarrasses me in some respects.
I'm sick of being beaten up, and now we're looking at exchange.

Why ?

NOVELL DOESN'T LISTEN !
NOVELL CAN'T GET THE BASICS RIGHT.

1) iCal - Calendaring with non-GW systems.
Get an updated appointment - Duplicates in the GW system
This is the single biggest reason why we're considering leaving GW.

1b) Recurring appointments.
I'm sorry but that convuluted 'auto date' is RUBBISH
Users don't understand it.
I don't understand it.
How hard is it to say 'recurrs daily/weekly/monthly' and specify and end date ?
AWFUL.

2) MOBILE NUMBERS
How hard is it to integrate the mobile number into GW ?
I mean PROPERLY.
So it can be see in WebAccess (admin fields can't)
So it can be seen in Blackberries. (admin fields can't)

Admin defined Mobile field ONLY works in native client.

3) Contacts.
The contacts folder should show ALL address books, and all should be searchable in one hit using the filter.
Our CEO has 12 address books and browsing and searching them sucks.
At a minimum, the user should be able to select multiple address books for display in the contacts folder, not just one.

4) Why the hell to people have to access their archive separately.
It should be shown as part of the folder structure, just like outlook.
People are used to filing things, and expect it to be done easily (read drag to folder)
I've had really big battles with our CEO over this.

Because of the shortcomings in the Native client, you'd better keep the outlook connector around for a long time.
If you could fix these basics, a lot more users would be much happier, and the GW client could be considered better than outlook.

Our CEO & COO have had enough of GWs shortcomings, and these points are so DAMN SIMPLE & BASIC that it frustrates the hell out of everyone.

I love GW, especially the architecture and reliability, but face it, you need to get the basics right first.

PLEASE PLEASE FIX THESE IN BONSAI OR LOOSE ANOTHER CUSTOMER.

A very frustrated GW admin.

Submitted by Anonymous on 27 September 2008 - 12:47am.

Comment from a NON technical user, with interest for rural and remote areas.

Most drivers lack knowledge of what they drive, only needing know more where wanting to go, their direction and speed.

Most users seek ability easily access and save their email and work, regardless or ignorant towards OS used, they are moving towards online storage where able download to whatever PC/+OS they are working on at the time, with security for data if lost/stolen.

Priority is ability to do things when (a) online, then (b) when not able to be online.

Most only see benefit of (b) when their connection dead.

Many, if not majority of world, still operate without permanent internet connection, perhaps with ~50kbs transfer rate, and may be for some time still.

Mobile phones may replace PCs, as their storage, processing and security equal the current PC[desktop/laptop].

Downloading emails/data to pc enables continue reading, writing, and consideration for whatever working upon, whilst internet / dialup / phone NOT available.

End-users DO “want features and capability like offline / archive / backup, desktop integrations, control over their data, a very rich email, task management, contacts and calendaring experience.”

When users can continue to work, save, learn or teach, using Web Client applications after connection dies, then when connection restored update data (offline and online), those Web Client applications will be far more useful ;-)

Technically speaking, I have no idea why my ID is not showing on this page, but is on the other pages...