In the last months we have been busy preparing (configuring, installing, adapting)
a new web application that will act as the “advanced webmail app” for our university.
That is SOGo (Scalable Open Groupware).
It is not intended that SOGo fully replace our dear old Postman, but we think it will comfort users who need a more advanced and modern interface to access their mail.
Sogo interface is designed in AJAX, trying to be as similar as possible to a local computer application. In fact, it is very similar to a popular open source e-mail client: Thunderbird. The SOGo interface relies heavily on the mouse, it uses almost anywhere the right button to show context menus and provides drag and-drop to move objects (messages, events, etc…). Sadly, all this niceties have the disadvantage of a reduced compatibility: SOGo doesn’t support more than a small set of web browsers.
SOGo, allows to access and manage your mailboxes, and provides address books with support for search and mailing lists. Two of these address books are predefined with the board of the university (staff and students).
Also, SOGo has tools to create and manage multiple calendars that can record events and tasks.
SOGo, moreover, it is not only a webmail, it is also a collaborative tool, a groupware server designed from the beginning to allow you to share your information with other users and with other programs.
Calendars, address books and mailboxes can be shared with any other user or user group by simply changing the permissions, allowing others to read and / or write. Events can be automatically notified to users who subscribe to a calendar, and these users can be automatically notified of the inclusion of new events and tasks.
Both agendas and address books are accessible from any program that supports the protocol CARDAV (for addresses) and / or the CalDAV (for calendars). Tested ones are Evolution, iCal, iceowl, iPhone, etc… Specifically, SOGo is fully integrated with the aforementioned Thunderbird (which is the recommended client if you want to use a local application, not the web interface).
In short we hope also to install the funambol connector, which will allow to access and to syncronize calendars and address books from mobile devices.