Release Notes for iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3

Updated March 2, 2001

These release notes contain important information available at the time of the version 5.0p3 release of iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0. New features and enhancements, installation notes, known problems, and other late breaking issues are addressed here. Read this document before you begin using iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3.

These release notes can be found at the iPlanet documentation web site: http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/calendar.html. Check the web site prior to installing and setting up your software and then periodically thereafter to view the most up-to-date release notes and manuals.

These release notes contain the following sections:

What's New in iPlanet Calendar Server

For complete information, refer to the iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 documentation at http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals.

iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3 includes the following features:

  • Horizontal Scalability
  • Calendar Express 5.0p3
  • Free-Busy Search and Group Views
  • Group Scheduling
  • Resource Scheduling
  • On-Behalf-of-Owner Scheduling
  • Customization Tips & Programmer's Reference

    • Horizontal Scalability

    Supports hundreds of thousands of users through a scalable networked server-to-server, client server architecture. Supports Horizontal scalability to allow de coupling of iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 to many front end servers with back end servers.
     

    Calendar Express 5.0p3

    iPlanet Calendar Express 5.0 allows users to publish their calendars on the web and provide a URL to their calendar. Users can export their calendar data in iCalendar or XML formats.  iPlanet Calendar Express supports text based searches for events and tasks. Integration with the Event Notification Server 5.0 (ENS 5.0) will extend capability to wireless devices. iPlanet Calendar Express is accessible from wireless phones via a WAP gateway. It will also be supported on wireless devices including group scheduling via wireless phones. Calendars can be printed from the day, week, month, and year views.

    Added in the iPlanet Calendar Express 5.0p3 release is the ability to lookup calendar users from the user/group directory server when creating events.  Also new is the ability to Accept or Decline all invitations when viewing the Invitations/Tasks box.
     

    Free-Busy Search and Group Views

    The server supports a FreeBusy search feature on multiple calendars. Calendar Express 5.0 also offers side-by-side group comparison views for a set of calendars to help with group scheduling.
     

    Group Scheduling

    iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 is designed to perform Group Scheduling. In particular, Calendar Express 5.0 allows a user to create an event to which other Attendees are invited. The Attendees can accept or decline invitations. Attendees are typically people on the same calendar server, but this is not an absolute requirement. When iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 detects that an Attendee is not on the calendar server, it can send the scheduling message (a request, reply, and so forth) via email as an IMIP message. This allows Calendar Express 5.0 users to schedule with Outlook users. Users can:
  • invite others to events
  • accept and decline events
  • put invitations directly into a calendar, or send them via email
  • view free/busy information for attendees of an event
  • compare a group schedule (view attendees' schedules side-by-side)

    • Resource Scheduling

    Conference rooms, overhead projectors and other resources can be managed and scheduled using Calendar Express 5.0. Each resource is associated with its own calendar. In iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0, a calendar can also be configured to enable or disable the double book option. By default, a calendar associated with a resource has this option disabled, and a person's calendar has the double booking enabled by default.

    On-Behalf-of-Owner Scheduling

    The Access Control model implemented in iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 allows the owner of a calendar to specify another user as an owner that can act of behalf of them. For example, an executive can designate an administrative assistant as an owner, enabling the assistant to have complete access to all of the executive's calendars or any set of chosen multiple calendars. The administrative assistant can create group meetings on behalf of the executive and can accept or decline meetings on behalf of the executive. The executive can then decide not to give access to a personal calendar.

    Limited Virtual Domain Support

    Virtual Domain support provides portals and ISPs a way to host multiple calendar sites on the same calendar installation. Full virtual domain support is scheduled for iCS 5.1, however. a limited subset of virtual domain functionality is included iCS 5.0. This Early Implementation  functionality may allow customers to implement their virtual domain solutions in a limited fashion. If you would like to further investigate the use of this limited virtual domain capability contact your iPlanet Technical Support representative through your normal support channel.
    See Technote #20010213-2.

    Installation Notes

    This section contains important information you should know before installing the product. For complete installation related information and instructions, refer to the iPlanet Calendar Server Installation Guide.

    Hardware Requirements

    The minimum hardware requirements for iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 are:
  • Approximately 500 MB of disk space for a standard installation. For production systems, you should plan at least 1 GB to support the product binaries.
  • 128 MB of RAM. For production systems, you should have between 256 MB to 1 GB of RAM for best performance.

    • RAID storage for fast access (optional).

    Supported Platforms

    iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3 supports the following operating systems at the appropriate version and patch levels:
  • Solaris 2.6 and Solaris 8 (SPARC) require patches from the table below and can be obtained from your service provider or downloaded from the Web.

    • Software Requirements

    For Calendar Server 5.0p3, the following Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer versions are recommended:
    Table 1    Supported versions of Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer
     
    Windows
    Macintosh
    UNIX
    Netscape Communicator 
    4.7x
    4.7x
    4.7x
    Microsoft Internet Explorer
    5.0 & 5.5
    5.0
    (not currently supported)

    Data Migration

    From iCS 2.x to 5.0 -
    A Migration tool is also available to sites with previously installed iCS 2.x. This tool provides data migration for calendar databases as well as for LDAP user preferences. Before using this tool, users should use csuser reset <userid> to clean up previous migration data on LDAP userprefs (if applicable). For users who did a previous iCS 2.x database migration, they should perform the migration again due to the changes in ACL. The complete instructions are provided in iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0 Installation Guide.

    From NCS and SCS to 5.x -
    Migration tools for the Netscape Calendar Server and the Sun Calendar Server  to iCS 5.x are not yet available in this release.

    If you are running NS Directory Server 4.12 or greater, and haven't put in any schema's, the installation program updates these schema's for you.
     
     

    Known Problems and Limitations

    iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3 includes the following known limitations and considerations:

    What's Fixed in this Release

    Administration

    Installation

    Server

    Database Wire Protocol (DWP)

    Calendar Express

  • (536838) Email notifications can crash Communicator.   iCS 5.x notifications are optimized by default for the Outlook client.  Notifications are sent out in multi-part MIME formats - text/plain, text/html, and text/calendar.  These formats are defined in the <install>/bin/config/en directory. With these default formats the event notifications are not correctly rendered in Communicator. Being rendered in this case means that Communicator is trying to handle the text/calendar format that is optimized for Outlook. In Communicator it exposes the "More Details", "Accept", and "Decline" buttons that can crash Communicator. It also will desplay a "Error:  3.0 Unknown: (::)".  There are workarounds:
    1. From the Communicator toolbar go to Edit: Preferences: Navigator: Applications and create an application to handle the ics extension.  The mime format would be text/calendar2 and the application to use can be Notepad, Outlook, or something similar. This would have to be done on every user client and might not be the best choice for large deployments.
    2. In the <install>/bin/config/en directory modify the format files so that the text/html format comes after the text/calendar format.  !!!! NOTE - This could disable the Outlook interoperability.
  • Setting calendar display name to the LDAP CN - See technote #20010228-1

    • Internationalization Issues

  •  (518572) - It is not possible to create a group name containing extended characters. There is no workaround.
  •  (519293) - It is not possible to create a Calendar Name containing extended characters .There is no workaround.

    • Potential Problems and Solutions

    The following section details the known potential problems and solutions for the Calendar Server 5.0p3 release.
    See also, Known Limitations and Considerations, and the following section, Corrections to the Documentation, for other issues that might affect product capability or use.

    How to Report Problems

    If you have problems with iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3, contact iPlanet customer support using one of the following mechanisms:
  • iPlanet online support web site at http://www.iplanet.com/support/online/

    • From this location, the CaseTracker and CaseView tools are available for logging problems.
  • The telephone dispatch number associated with your maintenance contract
    • So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:
  • Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation
  • Machine type, operating system version, and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem
  • Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem
  • Any error logs or core dumps

    • For More Information

    Useful iPlanet information can be found at the following Internet locations:
    Use of iPlanet Calendar Server 5.0p3 is subject to the terms described in the license agreement accompanying it. (See link_to_licensing_info.)

    Copyright © 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Some preexisting portions Copyright © 2000 Netscape Communications Corp. All rights reserved.

    Last Updated April 3, 2001