Google Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes Installation & Administration Guide Google Apps for Business Google Apps for Education
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Introduction About this guide This guide is provided to help you understand and implement Google Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes (GCCLN).
Contents Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 6 Features .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Google to Notes Busy Time Lookup .................................................................................................... 6 Notes to Google Busy Time Lookup .......................
Overview Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes (GAMLN) is a native IBM Lotus Notes application that you install on an IBM Lotus Domino server running on Microsoft Windows. Once you install GAMLN, you can then migrate Notes users and Mail-In databases to Google Apps. Migration includes mail, calendars, contacts, and groups. GAMLN also supports an optional Calendar Connector component (the Calendar Connector or GCCLN). This document deals specifically with this component.
Notes to Google Busy Time Lookup The Notes to Google lookup is made against the Notes busy time store. An agent on the GCCLN server polls the Google calendars every hour extracting meeting details and updating the Notes systems with the Google data. Note: The Notes mail files of users who have already migrated to Google Calendar must be retained to support this feature.
Architecture This section covers the primary architectural components of the GCCLN. Components Calendar Connector database: This database contains all of the configuration information needed by the connector and the agents that are required to provide the key connector features. “(GetNotesFreeBusy)” agent: This agent acts as the web service provider for Google to Notes busy time lookups. “Update Calendars” agent: This agent carries out the following tasks: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Actions completed by the “Update Calendars” polling agent to support Notes to Google Calendar Lookup Google Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes Installation and Administration Guide 9
Topologies The Calendar Connector database can be installed and configured differently depending upon the size and spread of your Domino environment. Option 1 - Single server/site implementation Where all Domino mail servers exist at one site you will install the Calendar Connector database onto a single server in your organization. This server will be solely responsible for: Acting as the web service provider for incoming Google to Notes lookups.
The following diagram shows how the polling activity is managed in a multiple connector server implementation. “Update Calendars” polling agent in a multiple implementation. Each GCCLN server processes only those users whose home mail server is part of its Server Group.
Installation In order for you to successfully implement the Calendar Connector, it is important that you follow the guidelines provided here. This section outlines the system requirements and preparations you need to make before you install the product, and the installation procedure. System requirements To implement the Google Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes, your environment must meet the following minimum requirements for Google Apps, Lotus Domino and Notes, and Microsoft Windows.
Things to do before you install GCCLN You need to do some preparatory work before you install GCCLN. If you ignore this preparatory work, you will encounter problems when using the system. Prepare the Domino servers Verify system requirements Confirm your server or servers meet the specifications detailed earlier in this guide. Make sure that the Http task is running on your connector server Applies to the server responsible for responding to incoming Free/Busy requests from Google.
Sign the installation templates and check access Use the Domino Administrator client to copy the Notes templates “google-calconn.ntf” and “gccln-log.ntf” provided in the installation kit to your Connector server. Sign the template with the server ID. Note: The server(s) on which the Connector runs polling activities must have at least Editor level access with document delete rights to each Google user’s Notes mail file that it is responsible for managing.
Update the Person Form in your Domino Directory Before users on either system can share busy time information a new field called “Calendar” must be added to the Person form in your Domino directory. There are number of ways that you can add and manage this field. One approach is as follows Add the calendar field to the $PersonExtensibleSchema Domino directory sub form This particular sub form appears on each Person’s “Other” tab and is designed to allow you to add your own attributes to the Person form.
Configure Google Apps Once you have completed the Domino server configuration, you must now configure the Web service consumer for your Google Apps domain(s). To do this, complete the following steps. Log in to your Google Apps domain as a domain super administrator. Select the “Security” control from the dashboard. Select “API reference” and “Enable API access” in the right hand pane.
Return to your dashboard and select the “Google Apps” control. Select the “Calendar” service. Select “General settings” and then select the “Set up Calendar to use your free/busy web service” link in the right hand pane.
Choose “I am using a free/busy service at this URI:” option and enter the full URL to the (GetNotesFreeBusy) agent in your Calendar Connector database. An example URI is as follows http://dominoserver.mycompany.com/google-calconn.nsf/(GetNotesFreeBusy)?OpenAgent Press the Save changes button.
Create the Calendar Connector Database on your Domino Server Create a database on your server from the google-calconn.ntf template that you copied to your server earlier. It is recommended to place this database in a sub folder on the Domino server (e.g. "gccln") rather than the root directory. Do not copy the template to an NSF file. If you do, the monitoring agents will not run and the ACL will not be set up correctly.
Find Notes users named in a Google to Notes Free/Busy request using When a Google user requests free/busy information for a Notes user the system must locate the Notes user in the Domino directory before the request can be fulfilled. The system has two ways to locate the Notes user in the directory. Select "View lookup" where the Google user adds the Notes user's SMTP address to the calendar event. The system will locate each Notes user via the address supplied by referring to the directory's ($Users) view.
Domain administrator full email address Enter the full email address of your Google domain's super administrator. You must now authorize the software for your domain. To do this, complete the following steps: 1. Ensure the Notes client is set to use the operating system’s default browser when opening web pages. Refer to your Notes help for more information on setting your default browser for Lotus Notes as the steps vary between different versions of the client. 2. Press the Authorize Now button.
4. Log in to your Apps domain using your super administrator credentials if prompted. You will see the following page. 5. Click Accept. You are redirected to the following page.
6. Copy the code from the web page into the Authorize dialog box as shown below.
7. Press the Get Access Token button. A message in the dialog box indicates the token has been obtained. 8. Press OK to close the dialog box. If you do not see an access token valid from date/time beneath the Authorize Now button, check the connector log for more information.
Advanced Tab Configure the Advanced tab as described below. Detailed event logging A log database is created automatically from the "gccln-log.ntf" template and placed into the same folder as the connector database. Basic polling service activities are always added to the connector log. Set this field to "Enabled" to include detailed polling activity and free/busy web service events in the log.
Create Server Group Document Once you have completed the system setup document you must create a Server Group (aka Site) document for this instance of the connector. To create a Server Group document, complete the following steps. Select “Server Groups” from the left hand navigator. Press the “New Server Group” action button and enter the “Server Group” name when prompted. Now complete the form as described below. General Tab Configure the General tab as described below.
Network Tab Configure the Network tab as described below. Delay between HTTP posts If you experience HTTP locks or service-unavailable responses from Google Apps, you may need to increase this value to introduce a delay between successive posts. For optimum performance, keep the value at 0.0. HTTP transport Use ServerXMLHTTP whenever possible. XMLHTTP should only be used for demonstrations or proofs of concept and is not supported in production environments. XMLHTTP does not support any proxy options.
What Happens Next Once the system has been configured and the “Update Calendars” agent has run, you should see a profile for each Google Calendar user listed in the “Google Users” view. This view shows each Google Calendar user along with their Google Apps email address, the location of their Notes mail file and when the Notes Calendar was last updated. Note: The “Update Calendars” polling process checks to see if the Google calendar has been updated since the last update was made to the Notes calendar.
Administration This section covers the basic management and tracking of the Calendar Connector. It also offers some troubleshooting tips. Views This system contains three views. The Server Groups view shows your site/server group document. The Google Users view contains a user profile for every user in the Domino directory where the calendar field is set to “Google”. These are created automatically by the “Update Calendars” polling agent.
User Profiles User profiles are created by the “Update Calendars” agent and there should be a user profile document for each user in the Domino directory where the “Calendar” field is set to “Google”. A user profile holds the following key pieces of information: Notes username Gmail username (This is the only editable field on the document) Location of the user’s Notes mail file The user profile also contains the “Schedule Information” tab.
Putting a user on hold To suspend a user from the polling process, you can put the user on hold. To put a user on hold you can select the user(s) from the “Google Users” view and press the “Toggle Status” action or you can open the user profile and press the “Hold” button. When a user is on hold, the system will skip the user during the regular Google calendar polling activity which is undertake by the “Update Calendars” agent.
Troubleshooting Google calendar users are not able to see Notes calendar details. Instead they see “Calendar does not exist or is not shared” The Google calendar user is not able to connect to your Domino server. Check all settings and confirm that there are no restrictions preventing requests getting through to the Domino server from the browser. Enable detailed event logging and check the log database for incoming web service requests. The Notes user has been provisioned in Google Apps.
Connector characteristics and constraints The system has been designed with performance in mind. The following characteristics have been built into the connector. 1. The system returns only busy time blocks to the other calendar. Event details are not returned. 2. The system does not read event details. Whilst, it is not likely that your busy time store is gathering event details as IBM recommend that you do not do this.
