The Outlook Connector

The Outlook Connector is a tool that interfaces Microsoft Outlook to the Sun software used for RULink. With this tool installed, Outlook will see rulink more or less as an Exchange server. That is, rather than synchronizing your Outlook calendar to RULink, Outlook will access your calendar directly. You can also access other people's calendars, and do whatever they have permitted you to do with it.

This document summarizes instructions for users of RULink. If you want to see the more complete Sun instructions, take a look at http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2567

There are some caveats, which we will list below.

Before going further, please check the prerequistes. Your system needs to meet these, or the Connector won't work.

Prerequisites

All Systems

Operating System must be Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Microsoft Outlook must be from Office 2000 with Service Pack 3 or higher in Workground mode, Outlook 2002 / Office XP, with Service Pack 2 or higher, or Outlook 2003. The service packs are essential not just as bug fixes but because they add functionality used by the Connector.
Outlook must be your default mail reader, at least during installation. This can be set within Outlook (Tools / Options / Other / Make Outlook the Default ...), but I use Control Panel / Internet Properties / Programs and set Microsoft Outlook for at least Calendar, E-Mail, and Contact List.

If Sun Synchronization is installed

If you have installed Sun's Synchronization for Outlook, Palm, etc.

You must remove the Sync tool before installing the Connector.

Sun recommends syncing Palm and Pocket PC to Outlook rather than using their sync tool, if you are using Outlook. However it is possible to reinstall the Sun sync tool after you have set up the Outlook Connector and made sure it is working. If you do this, make sure you don't select the checkbox for Microsoft Outlook during the reinstallation.

For Windows 2000 or Outlook 2000

For Windows 2000 and Outlook 2000, you may need to add some Microsoft software. I would do this before starting the installation of Connector. You do not need the following if you are using Windows XP and Outlook XP.

Web Publishing Wizard. It appears that this is installed as part of current versions of Windows XP, although I haven't found any web page that absolutely states this. For Windows 2000, see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=22658&area=search&ordinal=2. Note that you may have to ignore some error messages: This is not intended for Windows 2000, although Microsoft says it will work.
To see whether you have the Web Publishing Wizard, look for wpwiz.exe, e.g. C:\Program Files\Web Publish\Wpwiz.exe.
Microsoft LDAP Service. Sun says this is needed only for Outlook 2000. It is built into Outlook 2002 and 2003. I have been unable to find a download site. Sun says it is on the Office/Outlook CD. I found a knowledge base article giving a patch for Outlook 2000 that appears to be needed if you have used the Corporate or Workgroup options during installation.

Installing the Connector

If you are reinstalling for some reason, I recommend deleting the Sun mail profile, to force it to be recreated. Control Panel / Mail / Show Profiles, select Sun Java System and hit "Remove."

The Synchronization Tools site has the necessary software. Most users will just need jes2005q4.exe. This is a normal Windows installer that sets up the software.

jes2005q4.exe is tailored for use with RULink. Note the following:

It assumes that you are using RULink for mail. If you use another system, you can go into Tools / Email Accounts and add a new email account. I believe the RULink mail option will be harmless if you don't use it.
It creates a new Outlook Profile, called "Sun Java System." It is supposed to make that profile the default.

It may be possible to build a profile that doesn't use RULink mail at all. I'll try that later.

During installation it will ask you for 4 things:

Name: This is your normal name, e.g. "John Smith," in the form you prefer it to be used
Email address: This is the email address you want used as your return address.
Username: This is normally your NetID.
Password: This is the password you normally use with RULink.

The first time you start Outlook after installation, startup will take longer than usual, because it has to set things up. Your primary calendar should now show as the Outlook Calendar.

If you have a very large mailbox, I find that loading data is faster than with the normal IMAP option. However there is no feedback until all of the information has been loaded from the network, so it may seem to be hung.

Brief instructions

This isn't complete documentation, but rather talks about some options I think will be commonly needed.

Addressbooks

By default you have

Global address list. This should give the same results as ldap.rutgers.edu, though for technical reasons it actually uses RULink's private LDAP server. Like ldap, it is configured to show only faculty and staff. It goes through MAPI. [I'm thinking about how to provide access to a student directory as well.]
Contacts. This is your personal addressbook. It uses MAPI to talk to the new JES addressbook. That is, your Outlook addressbook is actually located on the server. That means that the same addressbook is available in Outlook and in the JES web interface. (NB: the unified web client -- the older JES web tools use an old addressbook that's being phased out.)

You can add additional addressbooks using the normal Control Panel mail tool. If you want to have a departmental addressbook, I recommend that the departmental admin use the departmental addressbook maintenance feature in rulink/admin. E.g. ACS maintains both users and mailing lists that way. They point Outlook to an ldap directory at rulink.rutgers.edu, with search base of o=acs.rutgers.edu,o=rulink-top. That accesses their departmental addressbook. I strongly recommend making it public (a setting in rulink/admin), to avoid fairly hairy setup issues.

[We may want to phase this out. The Outlook Connector supports shared addressbooks, so it may be better to do things that way.]

NOTE: Outlook's addressbook applet is less useful than one would hope. It tries to download the whole directory and then let you choose an item. This won't work with the global addressbook, because you can't download all 100,000 entries. Thus you'll get an error (or sometimes, just a blank list) if you try. This shouldn't be a big problem. You can still look things up by typing part of a name in a "to" field and hitting ^K, or by typing in the lookup bar in the main outlook screen.

FYI: When you do a lookup in the global addressbook, it looks for users whose first name, lastname, whole name or email address starts with what you give. Some first names seem not to work (e.g. John). I suspect they generate more than 1000 matches. You can also include *'s explicitly in the name. While I normally use the last name, with common names I might use the whole name. "John Smith" will actually work, because there's someone with that exact name. However "Robert Smith" won't, because the person that matches is actually "Robert R Smith." However "Robert*Smith" will work.

The one place where things get interesting is if you have a name in your personal directory, and want to find someone with the same last name in the global directory. Because outlook is configured to check the personal directory first, you can't explicitly choose the global directory. But there's a kludge: end the name in a *. Then it won't match your personal directory, but it will work fine in the global directory. Apparently Outlook doesn't understand wildcards in its local lookup, but of course LDAP does.

Calendar

Outlook should show all of the calendars you have subscribed to. Where they show depends upon the version of Outlook in Outlook XP, they are under "shared calendars" in the folder list. In Outlook 2003, those entries exist, but you actually access the shared calendars by clicking on "Calendar." To subscribe or unsubscribe to a calendar, right click on "Shared Calendars", then choose "properties" and "subscribe". Note that the "search" function in Add Calendar will not work, because it tries to download all 100,000 directory entries and let you choose from that list. It may be easier to manage subscriptions from the web interface.

Outlook can only open a calendar if you have read access to it. The ability to see whether a time slot is busy is not enough. Note that the attempt to open is done in your name, so the owner of the calendar will need to give you permission to read, or they will to select "Anyone can read my calendar".

When you schedule a meeting in outlook, you can look at what time the invitees are busy. That is done in a different way from opening calendars. In particular, the access is done as the anonymous user. For outlook to see free/busy information, the calendar must permit everyone (specifically, the anonymous user) to see availability. In the Unified web client, this is "Anyone can view my availability".

Mail

Mail should show all of your folders. If you have access to other people's folders, you can right click on "shared folders" choose Properties and then Subscribe to get to a box that lets you add other people's folders. I recommend typing the netid in the box and clicking "query". "Search" should let you get a list of netid's, but it is too slow to use because it tries to download all 100,000 directory entries. You can also subscribe to folders through the mail web interface. Outlook actions are synchronized with the web interface.

Notes

The "subscribe" options don't work properly if you have your display set up with a resolution greater than 96 dpi. Key items are invisible.

When you create a mail message or calendar appointment, you can type part of the name and hit ^K to look it up. The addressbook is configured to check your personal addressbook and then the Global Addressbook. See above for more information on how the addressbook works.

For known problems with the Outlook Connector, see Sun's Release Notes.

Customized Departmental Installations

The installation software is able to update existing profiles to change over to RULink. It can install the Web Publishing Wizard and Microsoft LDAP Service if necessary. It can even migrate .pst files. However doing this requires you to set up an installation package for your particular department. To do that you'll need to use the Connector Admin Tool to build your own package. You'll need to look carefully at the Sun documentation before doing this.