Instant Messaging is integrated with Sun JavaTM System Calendar Server to provide automatic pop-up reminders to Instant Messenger users for both calendar events and tasks.
This section contains the following topics:
This section contains information about Calendar pop-up reminders in the following topics:
Users can receive Instant Messenger pop-up reminders for upcoming events and tasks on their calendars. To enable these pop-up reminders, the following must occur:
The administrator must configure the Calendar server and the Instant Messaging server to allow pop-up notifications.
The end user must specify email reminders in the Options tab of either Calendar Express or Communications Express, which sets an alarm in the Event Notification System.
The end user must enable calendar reminders in Instant Messenger.
With pop-ups enabled, when an impending event or task nears, the alarm set in the Event Notification System causes Calendar Server to send an email notification and Instant Messaging to display a pop-up reminder.
If configured, Instant Messaging pop-up reminders follow this architectural flow:
The Instant Messaging JMS subscriber subscribes to Calendar server events and notifications in the Event Notification Service (ENS).
Calendar server publishes an event or task notification in text/xml or text/calendar format to ENS.
The Instant Messaging JMS subscriber receives the calendar event or task notification and then generates a message in text/calendar format.
The Instant Messaging server sends the message to the calendar owner, if the end user is online.
If the recipient is available, Instant Messenger generates an HTML pop-up reminder on the end user’s desktop based on the message.
If the recipient is not available, the Instant Messaging server discards the message.
When you install Instant Messaging, several configuration parameters used with the Calendar agent are added by default to iim.conf. You can also enable the Calendar agent and provide associated configuration information when you run the configure utility. However, you might want to manually configure pop-ups, for example, if you have customized the resource files for Instant Messenger. If you rerun configure, you will then need to redeploy the resource files. If you choose to manually configure the Instant Messaging server for Calendar pop-ups instead of running the configure utility, you will need to provide values for these parameters. See Chapter 1, Configuring Instant Messaging After Installation for information on the configure utility.
Table 16–1 lists the configuration parameters you will use to configure the Instant Messaging server and the Calendar agent in order to use Calendar pop-ups.
Table 16–1 iim.conf Parameters for Configuring Calendar Pop-ups
Parameter or Section in iim.conf |
Description and Appropriate Value |
---|---|
JMS Consumers Section |
|
jms.consumers |
Name of alarm. Set the value to: cal_reminder |
jms.consumer.cal_reminder.destination |
Destination of the alarm. This must be the same as the value of the caldb.serveralarms.url configuration parameter in the ics.conf file. For example, enp:///ics/customalarm |
jms.consumer.cal_reminder.provider |
The name of the provider. Set to ens. This must be the same as the name in the jms.providers parameter in the JMS Providers section. |
jms.consumer.cal_reminder.type |
The type of alarm to set. Set the value to: topic |
jms.consumer.cal_reminder.param |
The alarm parameter. Set the value as follows including the quotes: "eventtype=calendar.alarm" |
jms.consumer.cal_reminder.factory |
A listener that registers itself for the new calendar reminder messages. Set the value to: com.iplanet.im.server.JMSCalendarMessageListener Enter the value on a single line. |
JMS Providers Section |
|
jms.providers |
The name of the provider. Set value to ens. This must be the same as the value listed in the JMS Consumers Section for the jms.consumer.cal_reminder.provider parameter. |
jms.provider.ens.broker |
Hostname of the ENS and the port number on which the ENS listens for incoming requests. Set to the port specified in the ics.conf file parameter service.ens.port. The default is 57997. For example: jms.provider.ens.broker=cal.example.com:57997 |
jms.provider.ens.factory |
Factory class used for creating the topic connection objects. Set the value to: com.iplanet.ens.jms.EnsTopicConnFactory |
Instant Messaging General Parameters |
|
iim_agent.enable |
Enables agents for Instant Messaging. By default, this parameter is set to False. Set the value as follows including the quotes: iim_agent.enable="true" |
iim_agent.agent-calendar.enable |
Loads a component that enables the Calendar agent. Set the value as follows including the quotes: iim_agent.agent-calendar.enable="true" |
agent-calendar.jid |
The JID of the Calendar agent. Set this value as follows: agent-calendar.jid=calimbot.server.domain |
agent-calendar.password |
Set this parameter to a password you want the Calendar agent to use to connect to the Instant Messaging server. Set this value as follows: agent-calendar.password=password |
iim_server.components |
Set this value as follows: iim_server.components=agent-calendar |
This section includes the following configuration instructions:
To Configure Instant Messaging Server for Calendar Pop-ups Using the configure Utility
To Manually Configure Instant Messaging Server for Calendar Pop-ups
Run configure.
See Completing the Configuration Checklist for more information about the configure utility.
On the Calendar Agent configuration screen, select the Enable Calendar Agent checkbox.
Enter the Notification Server hostname and port number.
Use the same port number as the port number specified by the service.ens.port parameter in the ics.conf file on the Calendar Server.
The values you provide are combined and stored as the value for the jms.provider.ens.broker parameter in iim.conf. For example, if you enter localhost for the hostname and 57997 for the port number, the jms.provider.ens.broker parameter would be set as follows:
jms.provider.ens.broker=localhost:57997 |
Enter the Calendar Alarm URL.
This URL is the destination of the alarm. For example:
enp:///ics/customalarm |
Use the same URL as the URL specified by the caldb.serveralarms.url parameter in the ics.conf file on the Calendar Server.
The value you provide is stored as the value for the jms.consumer.cal_reminder.destination parameter in iim.conf.
Click Next and continue with configuration.
See Chapter 1, Configuring Instant Messaging After Installation for more information about the configure utility.
Gather the information in Table 16–1.
Edit one or more of the parameters in the iim.conf file as shown in Table 16–1.
See iim.conf File Syntax for instructions on locating and modifying iim.conf.
The parameter values shown assume you want pop-up reminders for both events and tasks. If these parameters do not already exist in iim.conf, add them.
Start the Calendar agent using imadmin.
imadmin start agent-calendar |
The imadmin command-line utility is located in the following directory:
im-svr-base/sbin
Where im-svr-base is the directory in which you installed Instant Messaging.
Log in to the Calendar server host as an administrator with permission to change the configuration.
Change to the cal-svr-base/SUNWics5/cal/config directory.
Where cal-svr-base is the directory in which you installed Calendar Server.
Save your old ics.conf file by copying and renaming it.
Confirm that the parameters shown in the following table have the values shown. If they do not, you need to modify them.
Parameter |
Description and Default Value |
---|---|
caldb.serveralarms |
Enables calendar alarms to be queued. The default is "1" (enabled). |
caldb.serveralarms.contenttype |
Output format for alarm content. The default is "text/xml". |
caldb.serveralarms.dispatch |
Enables calendar alarms to be dispatched. The default is "yes". |
caldb.serveralarms.dispatchtype |
The type of server alarm to dispatch. The default is "ens". |
caldb.serveralarms.url |
This is the URL for alarm retrieving alarm contents. The default is "enp:///ics/customalarm". |
Save the ics.conf file.
Restart Calendar server.
cal-svr-base/SUNWics5/cal/sbin/start-cal
Where cal-svr-base is the directory in which you installed Sun Java System Calendar Server.
On the Instant Messenger Main window, select Tools ->Settings.
On the Settings window, click the Alerts tab.
Check the Show Calendar Reminders option.
Click OK.
Users can now receive Calendar pop-ups through Instant Messenger while they are online.
To configure Calendar pop-ups to work in a server pool deployment, you only need to configure one server's Calendar agent in the pool. A pop-up will be delivered for each configured Calendar agent in the pool.
The Calendar agent is an Instant Messaging component that provides pop-up functionality to Calendar and Instant Messaging users. In addition, using tools provided with Instant Messaging, you can start, stop, restart, or check the status of the Calendar agent as well as monitor its activity through log files. See Stopping, Starting, Refreshing, and Checking Instant Messaging Components for information on administering the Calendar agent component. Also see Chapter 13, Managing Logging for Instant Messaging for information about Calendar agent logs. This section describes enabling and disabling Instant Messaging agents.
Open iim.conf.
See iim.conf File Syntax for instructions on locating and modifying iim.conf.
Set the iim_agent.enable parameter to true:
iim_agent.enable="true"
Save and close iim.conf.
Refresh the server.
imadmin refresh server |