Re: Integration

[Michael Ströder <michael@stroeder.com>]

A Gilmore wrote:
> I have contacts in a sql db, I'm wanting to make them available in
> outlook, blackberries, and other clients such as thunderbird.  What I'm
> currently thinking is to setup an openldap server and import the data
> into that.

Some issues are with the different schema used by the different
LDAP-enabled address book clients.

> I'm not expecting much trouble getting the data into LDAP.

A simple example script can be found here which pumps an eGroupware
address book stored in a mySQL DB to an OpenLDAP server:

http://www.stroeder.com/pylib/egadr2ldap.py

> But how much
> effort/time is normally involved in the actual implementation of hooking
> these devices/applications to an openldap directory so non-technical
> users can use it?

Not sure I understand your question. For each application you should
watch out how to configure this application centrally. For Outlook I'd
look whether you can define some group policy objects. AFAIK there's no
such mechanism for Thunderbird. Not sure about Blackberry. But for
mobile devices you should rather provide a sync service since the
devices might not have network access to your LDAP directory all the time.

Ciao, Michael.