Feature requests

@mcdaniels: so many programs uses the .NET Outlook object to automate groupware access. Example: adding appointments or adding contacts or sending nicely formatted mails with multiple attachments. If a customer needs any of this integrations, DeskApp or WebApp can’t do the job. Here in Austria many customers require Outlook or a Outlook compatible interface. Currently we lose customers when we offer Kopano instead of Exchange.

mcdaniels

@walterhof said in Feature requests:

@mcdaniels: so many programs uses the .NET Outlook object to automate groupware access.
Currently we lose customers when we offer Kopano instead of Exchange.

I see. Well, that is the “well known problem” if you do not use MS products in a MS-IT-World.

We are lucky about not being that “forced” to use MS products, but the lack of some functions seems to be very hard for our users.

My problem is, we are an IT company, so we sell time (manpower) to support customer, we also sell hard- and software. Unfortunately most bookkeeping systems or merchandise management systems are windows based and require a .NET Outlook object for a reliable integration into groupware system. So all customers asks for Outlook as frontend or a Outlook compatible frontend (.NET Outlook Object). As long, this real problem exists, we sell only a very low amount of Kopano systems.

mcostan

There are other products that are able to connect to Outlook as backend though, for example (If I am not mistaken) Kerio Connect?

I wonder if it would be a lot of work for Kopano to do the connection in the same way instead (or in addition) to z-push.

fbartels

Outlook

hasn’t this been discussed to death already? For us ourselves investing resources in a different kind of connection between Outlook and Kopano does not make sense, therefore we took what is already there (ActiveSync) and tried to make it better for those that really want it.

In the end Outlook (in fact the whole office package) will only work the way it’s intended with other Microsoft products in the backend. You already see this right now that you have to login with your Office 365 account instead of entering a license file, which then automatically configures a OneDrive account as well.

But as Kopano is open source, you are of course free to take the sources and find a developer that implements another Outlook connector for you.

mcostan

I am personally very happy with z-push and that’s what I use. I was talking more for other users who appear to lose customers which is ashame as personally I think Kopano is the best product out there.

fbartels

@mcdaniels said in Feature requests:

any thoughts?

Please be aware that this is a community forum. So when seeking official statements and wanting to prioritise certain tickets or functionality its often wiser to talk to our support and sales directly.

hasn’t this been discussed to death already?
Yes - but we lose customers. Today I talked with an German Kopano customer, he told me, the need Outlook for integration. His question was do I know someone who will migrate the Kopano system to Exchange.

mcdaniels

Only to make my point clear: Kopano is a great product and we are using it for 4 years + now (serverside). If you are not using programs which interact directly (and only) with Outlook I don’t see any big problems. On the other handside, most programs (running on Windows) interact only with Outlook. And that is the real point and it is a shame.

@Walterhof: I see your point. But I am seeing it from a completly different view. It is the task of the devs of the other programs to not only “look” for Outlook, but we all know these problems.

As I am no developer, I do not know exaclty how the programs interact with each other and how hard it would be, to make Kopano a 100% “Fake-Outlook”.

What exactly is needed by the customer for integration?

To interact with Outlook, this programs require the .NET Outlook object - so implementing the .NET Outlook object in DeskApp would help. But I assume, this is also a huge work.

marty

Hi @mcdaniels

@mcdaniels said in Feature requests:

Hi folks,
I hope I am at the right place to post, which are the mainconcerns of our users while using Kopano DeskApp.

They used Outlook before. You can see it as “feature requests”. ;-)

1.) Alter systraysymbol, when email comes into inbox.

We already thought of something like this. Resulting in https://jira.kopano.io/browse/KD-161 and https://jira.kopano.io/browse/KD-321 but so far we haven’t work on this.

2.) Concerning attachments: Let the user decide, wheter the attachment should be saved, or opened directly.

Could you explain what you’re missing here:
https://documentation.kopano.io/user_manual_deskapp/usage.html#download-settings

3.) Drag and drop of attachments into a new mail (this works via the “Attachment-field” but if you try to drag&drop a file, then you must be some kind of sniper, to find the correct position, to attach the file)

Ticket for this has been created a while ago: https://jira.kopano.io/browse/KW-394
So far not many request for this are made.

4.) Better separation of the different frames in the Kopano DeskApp.

Could you elaborate?

8.) Killerfeature for us (missing ): Print calendar “weekly” view with location of appointment – Location of the appointment is not viewed at the moment

I’ve created ticket https://jira.kopano.io/browse/KW-2813 for this.

Marty,
for WebApp / DeskApp we need:

a better spell checker, the German spell checker is very poor. The spell checker do not know so many words. Correct words get marked as incorrect.
a better editor, removing a empty line, changes font of next line.
selecting 200 or more items is a pain and very slow.
deleting 200 or more items, WebApp is unresponsive for minutes - this is also a pain.

mcdaniels

@marty
1.) Systray: Lots of our users are complaining about this. Would be nice, if it included in some future releases, but I think it is no that urgent.
2.) I will have a look into this again.
3.) Lots of complains here.
4.) Some users told, that there should be a better separation of the sections in the deskapp. They would like darker borders. (really not urgent!)
8.) As said absolute killerfeature for us. I would really pay for it, if this would be implemented as fast as possible.

marty

@mcdaniels said in Feature requests:

4.) Some users told, that there should be a better separation of the sections in the deskapp. They would like darker borders. (really not urgent!)

Try the high-contrast theme. You can also create a simple JSON theme yourself.

8.) As said absolute killerfeature for us. I would really pay for it, if this would be implemented as fast as possible.

You should get in contact with Kopano for this.

mcdaniels

@marty
concerning the attachment-opening. If you choose to ask the user whether the attachment should be opened or saved and you choose open, then deskapp asks where to save the attachment and after saving, it is opened.

It should work that way in my opinion: When the user says “Open” there is no extra step to save (it should be saved in a temp folder), and when the user says “save” the file is just saved (which works as expected).

4.) Ok, i will try ;)
concerning 8.) ok

sturzhelmut

Hi,
mcdaniels last statement is the way our users would prefer to open attachments too. For sure it is only a question of convenience, but our users whine about this at every meeting. It would be awesome if you could implement this feature soon.
Thank you.

mcdaniels

@sturzhelmut: I know what you are talking about ;-)

thctlo

Is’nt there anything new for kopano as option now MS has joined the OIN Software Patent pool which protects Linux systems.

https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/