JA-SIG ConferenceBal Harbour, Florida

08 - 09 December, 2003

Solutions Track Enterprise Calendaring Solutions for

Higher Education

Introductions

• Greg Barnes– University of Washington– gsbarnes@washington.edu

• Laura Appelhans– University of Colorado– laura.appelhans@colorado.edu

Presentation Outline

• The Calendaring Problem• Our Solutions

– UW Calendar– CU’s WebCal

• Conclusion

The problem … from a user's point of view

• Too many calendars– personal calendar– academic calendar– department calendar– multiple class calendars– research or workgroup calendar– calendar for every outside interest– other calendars the user don't know about

Types of events

• Private: Doctor's appointment at 3:30

• Public: Michael Moore speaks at 3:30

• Group– ad hoc: People in this room meet for drinks at 3:30– well-known: Department's annual picnic at 3:30 – resources: Need group laptop, slide projector, and

conference room #102 for 3:30 presentation

Other problems

• Some people already have calendaring solutions they like• Some units already have calendaring solutions they like• Lots of feature requests• Many people are qualified to enter public events

• Political concerns/turf wars• Once you build it, how do you get people to use it?

Similarities

• Both try to solve personal, public and group calendaring for the entire institution.

• Both distribute entering of public events across campus.• Both use open standards.• Both try to interoperate with other calendaring solutions.• Both can be accessed using the web.• Both support calendars accessible to the public.• Both are/will be integrated with their campus portal.

Differences• UW Calendar

– Open source• Code is available/modifiable.• Database agnostic (for calendar data and groups)• Authentication agnostic (UW uses PubCookie)

– Working toward group calendaring– In production for over two years

• CU WebCal– Based on Sun's SunONE calendar

• Binary code access only• SleepyCat Berkeley DB for calendar data, SunONE directory for groups/authorization• Kerberos/SunONE directory for authentication

– WebCal has group calendaring already– Gradually being phased into production (started August 2002)

UW Calendar

We are building an open source calendaring system for

higher education• It will support public, private and group

calendars.• It will use existing open standards.• It will support access via the web and other

forms of access.• It will integrate with other systems, particularly

uPortal.

What we have now• Web applications

– personal calendar– public events entry– public events display

• Portal view (MyUW, not uPortal)• Beginnings of a CAP server• Small applications

– Export to iCalendar/XML/text– Add my class schedule to my calendar– Subscribe to this calendar– Add this event to my calendar

What's next

• Better export pages

• E-mail notifications• Recurring events• Group events• Struts architecture (pending lawyer approval)• Full CAP server (pending grant approval)

UW Calendar at UW

• Java servlets

• 2 Apache web servers, 6 Resin application servers, Informix database server

• PubCookie for single sign-on (separate server)• In production since 2001• Portal channel• Database of class meetings updated nightly. Ability to

add teaching/student schedule to your personal calendar.

• Monitoring, logging, daily reports.

Statistics

• 2000-4000 private calendar users, 150-450 logins per day.

• 200-500 public calendar logins per day• 300 users authorized to add public events• 126K events. 29K public (24K class meetings), 97K private.• 4100 subscriptions to 60 public calendars, 700 subscribers• 39K public events in private calendars (35K class meetings)

Most desired features at UW

• Recurrences, Sync with <X>, Notifications

• Small workgroup calendars• New public calendars

– To subscribe to– To download/export to another format

• Public events entry– Redesign input pages– Extra fields (speaker, opponent, etc.)

• Replacement for Corporate Time

Demo …

The open source project

• Web site: http://www.washington.edu/ucal– project description– requirements document– CVS– mailing lists– Bugzilla– quickstart release: all you need is Java

CU WebCal

WebCal Project Evolution

• Developed requirements document• Vendor research• Selection of iPlanet/SunONE• Formation of calendar team• Pilot within ITS (Information Technology Services)

• Campus ‘beta’ group implementation• Process/policy development• Support/training program establishment• Communication plan• Complete faculty/staff launch• Complete campus launch

SunONE Calendar Server• Directory enabled• Web interface• Group scheduling• Synchronization• Email interaction

– Invitations– Reminders

• Multiple calendars• Individualized permissions• Individual user import/export

– Import/export calendars in iCal or XML format

CU WebCal Features

• Portal integration• Security

– Kerberos authentication– https/ssl/stunnel

• Resource scheduling– Check room/classroom availability – Organizational and events calendaring

• Support and training program– ITS Service Center– ITS Help Desk– Online self-help– Hands-on training

Calendar Components

• Server Specifications– SunOS 5.8 Generic_108528-26 sun4u sparc

SUNW, Ultra-4, 480x4, RAID5• VeriSign certificate• Apache Web Server• ssl/stunnel• Kerberos auth server• Notre Dame Kerberos plugin• SunONE Directory Server• SunONE Calendar Server

Calendar Configuration

SISHR ETC

CU

Calendar

CU

Directory

Calendar

Directory

MetaMerge

Registry (Oracle)

Replication

Apache:80

https:443

443:stunnel:81

Kerberos

Server

Notre DamePlugin

Clientcalendar.colorado.edu

VeriSign Cert

Demo …

Portal Calendar Components

• Server Specifications– Sun SPARC … 8 - Sunfire V100, 500Mhz,1GB

• Content switch (load balancing)• uPortal• Directory (inclusive)• Postgres db• ssl/stunnel• Tomcat• Combined with Calendar Server components

Portal Calendar Configuration

Modified inline framec web proxy

Sends sshtunnelcommand

Executes calendarscript command

SunONEProxy

auth sdk

Executes secondary script

uPortal(WebCal)

CU

uPortal

Proxy logincompleted

Result URL w/valid cred passed

CU uPortal

WebCal

uportal.colorado.edu

Client

Demo …

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Advantages

• UW Calendar– Open source– Cost– Java foundation– In-house support

• CU WebCal– Sun support– Continued development– Feature rich– Integrated solutions

(directory/calendar/ messenger)

Disadvantages

• UW Calendar– Development intensive– No commercial support– Lesser functionality– Legacy of developers

• CU WebCal– Cost– Proprietary code– Embedded database– Legacy of product

Conclusion

• Thank you for your time. • Greg Barnes

– University of Washington– gsbarnes@washington.edu– http://www.washington.edu/ucal

• Laura Appelhans– University of Colorado– laura.appelhans@colorado.edu– http://calendar.colorado.edu/

• Calendaring BOF: Tuesday Lunch• UW Calendar Demo: Tuesday, 9.45 – 10.15 AM

Open Forum

• Questions?

• Comments?