Enable Group Calendar in Common Calendar

 

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Group Calendars allow users to see when other users are free or busy. Enabling the Group Calendar feature involves some configuration of both the IBM Lotus Domino server and Common Calendar portlet on WebSphere Portal, and may require portlet users to set a preference in their Lotus Notes mail databases.

The Group Calendar feature is not supported when Microsoft Exchange is the back-end server, and requires Lotus Domino 7.0.1 on the Lotus Domino server.

 

Settings controlled by the administrator

To configure the Lotus Domino server, we need to decide whether you want to give users the ability to allow others to see details about their busy times (details beyond just the times they are busy, for example, who is chairing a meeting they are attending). You allow this from the server's Configuration Settings document by enabling or disabling the server to extract these details and provide them across the entire Lotus Domino domain. The details (as well as the basic times users are busy) are stored in the Local Free Time Info database, BUSYTIME.NSF, and retrieved for the portal by a Web services proxy agent in the CPP FreeBusy WebServices database, CPPFBWS.NSF. (These databases, which are in the /Domino/data directory, can be on the same or different servers.)

To limit growth of BUSYTIME.NSF, do not enable the details extraction feature. Users can still view which times other users are busy - they just cannot see details about those times.

You also must set up the LDAP schema to expose users' contact information, so that a user can use the Current view in Group Calendar to display other users' office telephone numbers, cellular phone numbers, and office fax numbers. The Group Calendar queries LDAP for this information.

To configure the portal server, you enable the Group Calendar feature by specifying some settings in the Configuration of the Common Calendar portlet.

  1. To allow users to see details about other users' busy times, and to set up the LDAP schema to expose users' telephone contact information, perform the following steps:

    1. On the Lotus Domino server that contains the CPP FreeBusy WebServices database (CPPFBWS.NSF), make sure HTTP and TCP/IP port status are enabled.

    2. From the Domino Administrator client, click the Configuration tab, and then click Server - Configurations.

    3. Select the server configuration document, and click Edit Configuration.

    4. On the Basics tab, make sure Use these settings as the default settings for all servers is selected, because the feature is available only on the All Servers configuration document. This option must be selected to display the field Extract calendar details.

    5. Select Extract calendar details.

      This feature provides information to the BUSYTIME.NSF database, including the Subject of each meeting. Users can specify a preference to avoid revealing the Subject. For details, see Settings controlled by the user in this topic.

    6. Choose which calendar details other users will see:

      Appointment Type Allows other users to see whether the event is an appointment, anniversary, reminder, or all-day event
      Chair Allows other users to see who will chair the meeting
      Location Allows other users to see the location (for example, the building name) where the event will take place.

    7. On the LDAP tab, click Select Attribute Types.

    8. In the Object Classes field, enter *.

    9. Click Display Attributes.

    10. Select telephoneNumber for the office phone number, mobile for the cellular phone number, and facsimileTelephoneNumber for the office fax number.

    11. Click Add and then click OK.

    12. Click Save and Close.

  2. Set up a Lotus Domino user to authenticate the actions performed by CPPFBWS.NSF by performing the following steps:

    1. In the Domino Directory, create a Person document for the user. (To keep busy-time information secure, it is best if this user is not registered in the Lotus Domino domain).

    2. Enter the user's first and last names, user name, and Internet password.

  3. Give the user the necessary rights and access by doing the following:

    1. From the Domino Administrator client, click Configuration, and open the Server document.

    2. Click the Security tab.

    3. In the Programmability Restrictions section, add the user to the Run restricted Lotus Script/Java agents field.

    4. Save the document.

    5. In the Domino data directory, open the database CPPFBWS.NSF.

    6. Add the user to the database ACL, with at least Depositor access.

  4. Configure the Common Calendar portlet for Group Calendar by doing the following:

    1. Log in to WebSphere Portal as the administrator.

    2. From the portal main menu, select...

      Administration | Access | Credential Vault | Add a vault slot

      For specific instructions, select help from the drop-down menu and click the link "Add a vault slot.") Give the slot an unused name (a recommended name is domino.busytime.credentials). Under "Vault resource associated with vault slot," select new and enter the same name. Select "Vault slot is shared." In the fields Shared userid and Shared password, type the user name and password of the proxy Domino user that you included in the ACL of CPPFBWS.NSF, and confirm the password. Under Description, give the slot a name that will be useful when you configure the portlet, for example, "Credential Vault for Domino Busytime Users."

    3. Click the Messaging tab, and then click Calendar.

    4. From the drop-down menu on portlet title bar, select Configure.

    5. Click the wrench icon next to the IBM Lotus Notes server type.

    6. Under Features, select Enable GroupCalendar extension.

    7. Under Busytime Source, enter the fully qualified domain name of the Domino server that contains CPPFBWS.NSF, for example, myserver.mycompany.com.

    8. In the Port field, accept the default value (80) unless the Domino server that contains CPPFBWS.NSF is using a different port.

    9. By default, Domino installs CPPFBWS.NSF in the Domino data directory. If you did not change this location, accept the default value for the path and file name. If you changed the location, enter the complete path and file name.

    10. Under Credential vault slot, select the name (description) you gave the slot in step 4b.

    11. Click OK.

 

Settings controlled by the user

To specify whether the Subject of a meeting appears in the group calendar, users must set their mail preferences using either IBM Lotus Notes or IBM Domino Web Access. If users do not want to share Subject information, they must deselect the option Do not include the subject of a calendar entry when detailed information is made available in the Access & Delegation preferences in their Lotus Notes Mail database. Advise users to see Delegating access to the schedule information in the Lotus Notes Help.

 

Parent Topic

Use the Common PIM portlets with Domino

 

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