Re: [Phpgroupware-users] Request for Help: Outlook <-> PHP Groupware Syncronization Tool

[Guillaume Courtois]

>With this in mind, I have created a 'proof of concept' code which
>uploads Outlook addressbook entries to PHP Groupware entries. Not all
>data can be transferred 100%, some data does not exist in PHP Groupware,
>and other data is very difficult to map.  This code uses very simple
>rules, and may be simply wrong for some data. Also, it does not support
>'updating' the data, meaning every time it is ran it will simply attempt
>to re-upload everything. Conflict management helps keep this from being
>a mess if you do run it more than once, but please do not use it in a
>production environment.

Hello,

Your tool is a very good idea, but I would say that maybe using SOAP is not the 
best idea for doing synchronization.

There is a standard (syncml -> www.syncml.org) which is a subset of xml 
dedicated to synchronizing.

phpGroupWare has some code for a syncml server, but there is a lot of work to 
do on it to make it usable.

On the other side, I'm in the process of writing a syncml client in Perl. Once 
it is done, it would be easy to interface it with lots of apps, like PDA, 
phones, etc ... And now, when I look at your code, I can add Outlook too ! 
(which is good news to me :-)

Personally, I'm focusing on having the client-side working, as I think it's the 
biggest part to do. If I succeed in ending that, I would try to have the server 
part in phpGW working. But if you or somebody else wants to work on that part, 
I can help understanding the syncml standard concepts, and this way let people 
save lots of time !

If somebody wants to work on this, we can coordinate efforts. Don't hesitate to 
contact me !