At this stage, Maria has deployed a complete Funambol system for PIM synchronization and push e-mail, which fits well with the applications and devices that she uses for her job everyday. Specifically, she uses Mozilla Thunderbird as her e-mail, address book, and calendar application, along with a Windows Mobile phone.
However, in her company not all people use Thunderbird or Windows Mobile devices; therefore, Maria faces a more complex and heterogeneous environment. Fortunately, Funambol supports a wide range of mobile phones available in the market, along with one of the most used enterprise desktop applications, Microsoft Outlook.
In this chapter, Maria will learn how to support users with different applications and devices. Let's view the software and phones used by some of Maria's colleagues:
|
Name |
Computer type |
E-mail client |
Mobile phone |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Maria |
Linux |
Thunderbird |
Windows Mobile |
|
Mark |
Windows |
Outlook |
BlackBerry Curve |
|
Andrew |
Windows |
Outlook |
Samsung SGH-Z170 |
|
Sonia |
Mac OS |
Thunderbird |
Nokia E61 |
|
Brian |
Mac OS |
Thunderbird |
Apple iPhone |
In the following sections, we will see how Maria can help get Mark, Andrew, Sonia, and Brian up-and-running with Funambol.
Mark uses Microsoft Outlook as his e-mail client and personal data management. His business mobile phone is a BlackBerry Curve. Both Outlook and the BlackBerry do not natively support SyncML, but luckily Funambol provides a Funambol Sync Client for both Microsoft Outlook and BlackBerry. In this section, Mark will see how to use this combination to keep his information in sync.
The Funambol Outlook Sync Client can be downloaded from the Funambol download site at https://www.forge.funambol.org/download, in the Desktop Client Software section, by clicking the following icon:
The browser will ask you to download and save the program funambol-outlook-sync-client.exe (with a version number in the file name) and then, depending on the system, it may ask you to run it. On some systems, you may be requested to confirm that you want to run an application downloaded from the Internet. If the system does not start the installation automatically, open the folder where the downloaded file was saved and run it.
Note
Note that Mark will be requested to close Outlook, if it is currently running to perform the installation of the Funambol Outlook Sync Client.
At the present time, the Funambol Outlook Sync Client can be installed on a computer (desktop or laptop) running Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, and may be used with Outlook 2002 (XP), 2003, or 2007.
The installation is straightforward. Mark can simply accept the license terms and other default values. One final step of the setup that deserves to be mentioned is that Mark will be requested to accept the license terms of a library used by the Funambol Outlook Sync Client called Outlook Redemption (see http://www.dimastr.com/redemption for more information) as illustrated in the following screenshot:
This is used by Funambol to better integrate into Outlook, and is a third-party software not owned or developed by Funambol. For more information about the licensing policy of the Redemption library, see http://www.dimastr.com/redemption/download.htm.
The installation of the Funambol Outlook Sync Client ends with the following screenshot:
After completing the installation, Mark deselects the option to run Funambol now, as he first wants to see what happened in Outlook. Once the Funambol Sync Client is installed, on opening the Outlook menu, the button bars display the additional items, which are highlighted in the following screenshot:
Mark has many contacts and appointments in Outlook. He keeps both his personal and business data in the same application, but he uses the BlackBerry device as his business mobile phone on which he would like to have business contacts and appointments only. This is easily achievable with the use of Funambol and Outlook folders.
To do this, Mark can create Contacts and Calendar subfolders, called Work and Home, as shown in the following screenshot:
He can then put business contacts and appointments in the proper folder based on their purpose and tell Funambol to use the Work subfolders instead of the top level ones. The quickest way to open the Funambol client configuration is through the Funambol | Options menu item that displays the configuration windows shown in the following screenshot. It is possible to switch between the Account and Sync configuration panels by clicking the icons on the left side.
The following screenshot shows the settings when the user clicks on the Sync button.
Account options are the same as in the Funambol Mozilla Sync Client seen in Chapter 1. Mark needs to specify only the Location, and the Username and Password provided by Maria.
Mark can change the folder that the Funambol Outlook Sync Client will synchronize in the Sync options panel by clicking on Change... and selecting the Work folder from the Outlook Select Folder window that pops up (see the following screenshot for Contacts).
The same must be done for Calendar. In addition, in the Calendar options panel, it is possible to limit the time window for which appointments are synchronized. The possible values are:
Future only
Since last week
Since two weeks
Since one month
Since 3 months
Since 6 months
All
If Mark wants to synchronize only future appointments, Future only is the option to select. If he wants to have all appointments in sync, the option to select is All. The other options are used to synchronize a specific time window, starting from the specified amount of time in the past to and running to a specified time, which may be in the future. All appointments outside this period will be removed from the phone, but not from the Outlook calendar, which is where Mark wants all of his appointments to be permanently stored.
Another option available in the Details section of the Funambol Outlook Sync Client options panel is the Sync Direction. The most common value for this option is to synchronize the changes in both directions, that is, from Outlook to the Funambol Server and from the Funambol Server to Outlook. However, Mark may decide to synchronize only one-way from Outlook to the server or from the server to Outlook.
In addition to the address book and calendar applications, Mark can also synchronize notes and tasks stored in Outlook.
To see how the Outlook client works, let's assume Mark has the following contacts in his Work folder:
and the following appointments in his Work calendar:
Clicking the Funambol button in the Outlook button bar, or selecting the Sync All item from the Funambol menu in the Outlook menu, triggers the synchronization of the selected datasources. Assuming this is the first time Mark has synchronized, the contacts and calendar items above are transferred to the server. Mark is now ready to set up his mobile phone and then leave the office for an important meeting with a customer.
The first step in setting up Mark's BlackBerry is to download the Funambol software to his device. From the Funambol download page mentioned earlier, Mark clicks on the BlackBerry Email and Sync images in the Mobile Client Software section. Mark is taken to a second download page with different options, as illustrated in the following screenshot:
There are two different applications—the Funambol BlackBerry Email Client and the Funambol BlackBerry Sync Client. The former is a full push e-mail application, with a look and feel that is consistent with the Funambol suite of mobile clients and that uses Funambol technology for push e-mail. The latter is a BlackBerry extension that makes it possible to synchronize the BlackBerry's native address book and calendar (plus tasks and notes) with Funambol. With both the Sync Clients for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry, Mark can use the native address book and calendar applications on the device, while the underlying data is kept in sync with the Funambol server.
As shown in the previous screenshot, there are two versions of the BlackBerry Sync application—one compatible with BlackBerry OS before version 4.7 and one for more recent versions. As Mark owns a BlackBerry Curve that can be upgraded to the BlackBerry OS version 4.5, he downloads the first version.
Note
To check which version of the OS his BlackBerry device is running, Mark goes to the Main Menu, selects Option (note that on some devices this is in a folder called Settings), and then About. The OS version is displayed at the top of this About screen.
As Maria wants to provide all her users with a similar experience and wants to be able to support everybody to the best of her ability, the solution that makes more sense for her is to standardize the company on a single sync solution, which is easier than supporting multiple synchronization platforms. At the same time, Mark is happy to know that he can easily switch to another phone and keep using the same data and applications that he already uses. Therefore, Mark downloads and installs both Funambol applications so that they are now available from his BlackBerry main screen using the icons with the Funambol logo as shown in the next image.
To install the clients, Mark needs the Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.5, which he has installed on his PC from the BlackBerry software CD included with the device, and with some support from Maria. In fact, the clients downloaded from the Funambol download page are set up to be provisioned over the air or via the Internet. This would require Maria to set up a website from which the clients can be downloaded on the device and automatically installed by the phone. However, Maria prefers to manually install the two clients on Mark's device from Mark's PC to simplify the process.
Before installation, Maria unzips the files downloaded earlier into a directory of her choice—for example, c:lackberryemail for the e-mail client and c:lackberrysync for the sync client. Maria opens a command line window and then issues the following commands:
Note
JavaLoader is an installation program available with BlackBerry Desktop Manager from versions 4.5 and above.
Once installed, the two new Funambol applications are available from the BlackBerry's main screen as shown next:
Like other Funambol clients, the BlackBerry Sync Client is straightforward to configure. All Mark needs to do is launch the application from the main screen and open the configuration panel to insert the account settings.
Once the client has been configured, selecting Sync All from the menu downloads the contacts and appointments previously synchronized with Outlook. The result will be as shown in the following screenshot:
Mark is now in sync and can leave his desk confidently, as his business data will always be with him. The last step for him is to set up and run the e-mail client.
Going into the details of the Funambol BlackBerry E-mail Client is beyond the scope of this book. This application is a basic but powerful e-mail client that uses SyncML as the protocol to communicate with the Funambol server, which in turn uses IMAP or POP to talk to the e-mail server.
For more information on how to use the BlackBerry E-mail client, Mark can refer to the user guide, which he can download from the documentation download page at https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/documentation.html.
As usual, the first thing Mark is asked to do upon starting the application is specify the account settings. After everything is set up, Mark starts to receive his e-mail on the phone, as shown in the following image:
Andrew's case is another very common scenario. Like Mark, his e-mail client and personal information management system is Microsoft Outlook, but instead of a BlackBerry he owns a Java phone, the Samsung SGH-Z170. This phone has a powerful Java platform, but does not have a native SyncML client preinstalled. Nevertheless, Funambol can still be of great help to Andrew, thanks to the Funambol Java ME Email Client. This is an e-mail client similar to the one for BlackBerry, but it is mainly designed for Java phones.
Due to the variety of Java phones available, Maria needs to do some preparation work to enable Andrew's phone for Funambol push e-mail. As usual, the first step for her is to download the Funambol Java ME Email Client from the Funambol download page (again, in the the Mobile Client Software section). This package includes a pool of different versions of the client for different mobile phones. To know which version to use for the Samsung SGH-Z170, Maria opens the email_client_readme.txt file in the root directory of the archive. The different versions are manufacturer specific, but sometimes there could be more than one version for a single phone model. Maria might need to further refer to the manufacturer's website or to the device's user manual together with the aforementioned readme file to select the correct package.
Once Maria has identified the right version for Andrew's phone, she transfers it to the mobile phone and starts the installation process. Again, she may need to refer to the phone's user manual to know how to install third-party applications on the phone. In the case of Andrew's phone, Maria needs to install the package named SamsungHighRes_T (the "_T" labeled package contains the signed version of the application).
Upon the first execution of the client, Andrew will be asked to enter the account information—server URL, username, and password. After Andrew's credentials are verified, his e-mail will be downloaded on the phone.
Andrew's inbox will look like the last figure in the previous section. Andrew can also further configure the Funambol Email client like in the case of the BlackBerry client.
Sonia is a Mac user; she will never opt for a different system as she has been a Mac addict for a long time. Sonia is part of the technical support team; she has a technical background and loves open source software. Her e-mail and personal data client is Mozilla Thunderbird, so she can use Funambol software for PIM synchronization. Sonia's mobile phone is a Nokia E61, a perfect device for her, who needs to be in touch with her team even when she is not in the office, and sometimes even outside normal office hours.
The good news for both Sonia and Maria is that there is a version of the Funambol Mozilla Sync Client for Mac OS too. Sonia can download it from the Mozilla add-on website as described in Chapter 1. Doing it from her laptop, the site will present a download page with the Funambol client version that matches her system.
Sonia's phone, a Nokia E61, has a SyncML client installed out of the box; therefore no additional software is required to keep her personal data in sync. To configure the phone's SyncML client, Sonia needs to create a new SyncML account from the Data Synchronization application, placed under Menu | Tools | Sync, which will result in the following screen: Sonia creates a new account selecting Options | New Sync Profile specifying the connection information.
On phones such as the Nokia E61 (Symbian series 60 third Edition), Sonia needs to specify a piece of information that is not usually necessary for Funambol clients—the "remote" name of the sources or databases to synchronize. These values are used to address the server databases that must be synchronized with the mobile phone, as different servers may use different names. These phones can synchronize data for different applications: Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Lifeblog, Text messages, and Bookmarks. Funambol natively supports Contacts, Calendar, and Notes and hence Sonia needs to specify the remote names for such applications. For example, in the case of Contacts, selecting Applications | Contacts from the profile settings panel, will bring up the following screen:
In the case of a standard installation of a Funambol server, these names are "card" for contacts, "cal" for appointments and tasks when stored in the same database on the phone (the phone does not provide the possibility to specify a separate name for task synchronization), "event" for appointments when tasks are synchronized separately, "task" for tasks and to-dos, and "note" for notes synchronization.
For her Nokia E61, Sonia uses the following names—"card" for contacts, "cal" for appointments and tasks, and "note" for notes synchronization.
Starting the synchronization process is fairly simple; Sonia simply needs to open the application and select Synchronize from the Options menu.
The Nokia E61 is a powerful smartphone that provides e-mail client. However, this application has a couple of drawbacks that make it difficult to use. Firstly, the client is not very user-friendly. Secondly, it requires Maria to open POP or IMAP in her company's network, something that Maria is not willing to do for security reasons. Funambol is the solution to these issues and the Nokia E61 is a great Java phone. Therefore, all Maria and Sonia need to do is install the Funambol Java ME Email Client. The package to be downloaded and installed in this case is NokiaE61_T.
One of the most successful phones on the market is the Apple iPhone. Brian chose Apple for both, his laptop and his mobile device. On his Mac, being a Mozilla Thunderbird user, he uses the Funambol Mozilla Sync Client with the credentials that Maria provided him.
Thanks to Funambol software, Brian can also bring his Thunderbird address book with him on the iPhone. This is done by the Funambol iPhone Sync Client, which can be downloaded from the Apple Store at this location: http://itunes.com/app/funambol. Once it is downloaded and installed, on first launch, the client will request Brian's credentials and the server's URL. It is then ready to synchronize, as shown in the following screenshot:
To synchronize the iPhone's address book with the server when necessary, Brian simply needs to start the application and press the icon in the center of the application's screen, as shown in the following screenshot:
At the end of the synchronization process, Brian's mobile address book and Thunderbird address book will contain the same contacts.
Note
Apple does not currently provide programmatic access to the native iPhone calendar application, so there is no Funambol calendar sync application yet. Some features such as scheduled synchronization which are available in other Funambol clients, are not available on the iPhone due to the limitations of the iPhone platform.
In this section, Maria, Mark, Andrew, Sonia, and Brian learned how to use Funambol to keep their data in sync between their PC, server, and mobile phones. They saw different combinations of systems and devices, which reflect many enterprise environments where different users work with different systems and applications. This is particularly true in the mobile space, as those devices are often personal equipment that people choose based not only on business needs but also personal preferences.
Maria's users learned how to configure their systems and Funambol clients to set up synchronization and push e-mail. Maria is now under control of a full synchronization and mobile e-mail solution for her company, all in one system that she can manage and maintain.