Topic: Central Address Book. Ok ok ok....

[Jasonuocs]

Ok I know this has been done to death, BUT! I can not find a solid answer!

 I am being asked for a central email address list so we can in theory have customers emails & suppliers emails and such which everyone on the network can add, edit and remove contacts from (Very trusting I know).

I have...
SME 6.0.1 running very basic install with Spam Assassin & Clam AV.

Outlook 2k/XP / Outlook Express clients.

I have looked at LDAP but from what I can make out it is for internal contacts only!
What I would really like is for a sales or purchasing dept to bring up an email selcet the to and drop down the central contact list and select the recepient....
Can this be done with SME 6.0.1? If so what do I need to do to get it working?

Any help what so ever would be much appreciated

Thanks
Jason

[smeghead]

I don't know of any robust, simple system that runs on SME so take look at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm.

This may keep you going until SME can do the job.

[jeroenm]

I don't know of any robust, simple system that runs on SME so take look at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm.

This may keep you going until SME can do the job.

This link seems to be death.

[smeghead]

.. bugger, my punctuation got me, just remove the trailing full stop on the URL

[Jasonuocs]

Thanks Smeg, Unfortunatly I looked at Outlooks sharing and found it very slow on updates in comparison to Exchange, although it worked.

Looks like I might be back to the dreaded Exchange server with all it's over complications....

Thanks for the feedback much appreciated.

Jason

[Jasonuocs]

I have just found this, I know it's not free but it is a lot cheaper than Exchange and looks as though it will do the job seemlessly. Thought I would post it see what others think.

http://www.publicshareware.com/

Jason

[guest22]

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/hmuhammad/

[Damian]

I'm also looking for exactly what Jason is seeking and I'm afraid that http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/hmuhammad/ doesn't do it. (Sorry Hasan - don't feel unappreciated)
If I ask one of my users to email any addresses they want adding to the global addressbook to me, they'll think I've gone mad. Computers are enablers and everyone is now so used to using them to do the job themselves. The inability to create/edit/update/delete entries in a globally available addressbook is (in my view) SME's only failing. In conversations with potential user companies this usually comes up and I have to fudge over it.

Damian

[mdo]

I think Hasan's contrib is very good and it might be suitable for most of the requirements due to it's simple but flexible input file format (tab delimited text file).
If you have already a system in use as your central system for contact details (CRM system? eg. ACT) you could use it's export functionality to create the input for the contacts contrib.

Regards,
Michael

[MSmith]

Having one clueful person in charge of maintaining the enterprise contacts DB is a Good Thing ... because otherwise, sure as the sun comes up in the morning, someone is going to delete an important contact's information, or play a prank, or otherwise bugger up your precious contact list.  Then there will be screaming, and demands for a mechanism for tracking changes to the database, and requests to restore the database from backup.  

But if for most users the DB is read-only ... data integrity is assured and serenity reigns.

[Damian]

I take your point but I still disagree. In our environments the users will put up with recovering yesterday's addressbook if someone stuffs todays, in exchange for the freedom to make changes themselves. Each to their own I s'pose.

Damian