CalDAV compatibility

[jcobb]

Alfresco is already storing calendar data as ical files in a folder that's accessible via webdav.

Would it be a huge amount of work to add calDAV compatibility?

That way alfresco calendars could be subscribed to from the likes of thunderbird. Neat!

Extending that, could contact data stored as vcards be made available to groupdav clients? There's a groupdav thunderbird client, and there's work on an outlook MAPI client for groupdav too (http://www.zideone.com/). That way all my contacts and calendar could be stored in Alfresco, and accessed both within alfresco and from my desktop mail / calendar / contacts.

Eventually tasks from the workflow system could also be made available via calDAV, allowing jBPM tasks to show up in thunderbird / outlook.

And extending that, a Funambol extension would make all that available on mobile devices…

Any thoughts as to how feasible all that is?

[whitemice]

Alfresco is already storing calendar data as ical files in a folder that's accessible via webdav.
Would it be a huge amount of work to add calDAV compatibility?

I'm not an Alfresco developer,  I'm a developer for OpenGroupware.  But I can answer this…. YES!  Supporting CalDAV is allot of work, at least if you want it to work.  You have to test with various clients and deal with the ways each one is stupid or broken.

Extending that, could contact data stored as vcards be made available to groupdav clients? There's a groupdav thunderbird client,

True, but it is pretty effectively broken at the moment.  Hopefully this will be resolved in the future.  The mozilla WebDAV library used by the plugin is broken is a couple of important ways and has been deprecated by Mozilla.  So there is a fair amount of rework required (to my understanding)

And there's work on an outlook MAPI client for groupdav too (http://www.zideone.com/). That way all my contacts and calendar could be stored in Alfresco, and accessed both within alfresco and from my desktop mail / calendar / contacts.

My understanding is that Alfresco is not a groupware server but a CMS.  What would be best is if there where (maybe there are) and interface/hooks to interoperate with a groupware server.  Then Alfresco could be integrated to them as SharePoint is integrated to Exchange.

Eventually tasks from the workflow system could also be made available via calDAV, allowing jBPM tasks to show up in thunderbird / outlook.

Now that is a beautiful idea.  But "tasks" in Outlook, and even more so in Thunderbird, are really brain-dead, borderline useless, things.

And extending that, a Funambol extension would make all that available on mobile devices…

There is already a GroupDAV connector for Funambol.   Implement GroupDAV and you get mobile device support for free.

[kevindiffily]

I strongly disagree.  Since Alfresco offers workflows with tasks it is much more than a CMS.  Exposing tasks in the standard format which is ical tasks via the standard protocol caldav is essential.

[jcobb]

Thanks for the response whitemice - do I remember you from the OGo lists - i think I was looking at exposing the OGo data via LDAP?

Couple of updates on caldav / alfresco:

1. I posted a JIRA ticket which has now been fixed in labs - the ical calendars in share can now be accessed outside the web client. So using the SOGo plugin for thunderbird for example, I can see alfresco share calendar appointments alongside my other calendars. Halfway there!

2.  there's a new forge project to build caldav on top of alfresco. Excellent!! Maybe i'll now be able to write appointments from thunderbird as well as read them. Job done!

[daniel_gradecak]

Hi guys,

my opinion is that the CalDAV idea  is completely valid and that is a logical addon to the Alfresco platform. Alfresco already implements a WebDAV interface which is maybe not too good implemented as it is almost impossible to technically extend it. For that reason we ported that code to work with webscripts and not directly based on servlets. We also added two CalDAV methods OPTIONS and REPORT. From there it is possible to get the iCal format in Thunderbird (Lightening) or Sunbird.

This project will soon be opensourced athttp://icodix.com/index.php?title=CalDAV_for_Alfresco and will be stored on the Alfresco forge http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/caldav/

However, that code needs some refactoring as I already said the Alfresco code that is used (webdav) is not really nice. Also, this code was built a couple of years ago with the iCal support and it would be good to review what is coming within Alfresco today for that purpose.

If anyone is interested to join the project please notify me and I will put more effort in adding it to the forge quicker.

Btw, I am not sure how you want to implement a GroupDAV server if you do not have a CalDAV implementation.

Kind regards,
Daniel

[helge]

> Btw, I am not sure how you want to implement a GroupDAV server if you do not have a CalDAV implementation.

GroupDAV is a super small subset of CalDAV/CardDAV, so its actually the other way around. If you manage CalDAV (which is quite complex), you got _much_ more than GroupDAV.

Greets,
  Helge

[daniel_gradecak]

That is correct as far as only GroupDAV is concerned. I was talking about the "enterprise" level for Calendaring, GroupDAV does not support a so extensive calendaring protocol as far as I know. But for sure I do not think one should be used without the other, as there is not much need to have only an extensive calendar protocol or to have it partly with all the other features, like emails.

[helge]

Did this ever get anywhere? 🙂 Does Alfresco now support CalDAV?

[daniel_gradecak]

In the scope of the Jibe framework http://jibeframework.org I did a proof of concept that is working. This would need some more work and a better webdav implementation than the one Alfresco has. If you are interested I can show you and maybe we can start that project. I also registered a project on Alfresco forge http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/caldav/

[dmihelj]

In the scope of the Jibe framework http://jibeframework.org I did a proof of concept that is working. This would need some more work and a better webdav implementation than the one Alfresco has. If you are interested I can show you and maybe we can start that project. I also registered a project on Alfresco forge http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/caldav/

I'm interested in this. Can you give me some pointers/directions?

Maybe we can start that project?