Zimbra - Packt Publishing · Zimbra For More Information: -Sourc e/book Implement, Administer and Manage Zimbra is an open-source server …

Zimbra Implement, Administer and Manage

Marty Resnick David Touitou

Chapter No. 4 "The Zimbra Web Client"

For More Information:

www.packtpub.com/Zimbra-Administer-Network-Open-Source/book

In this package, you will find: A Biography of the authors of the book

A preview chapter from the book, Chapter NO. 4 "The Zimbra Web Client"

A synopsis of the book’s content

Information on where to buy this book

About the Authors Marty Resnick has been in the Information Technology field for over 10 years. As owner of Techmaking, Inc. Marty's main focus has been on helping small-medium sized businesses create enterprise-level infrastructures on an SMB budget. With a strong emphasis on open-source technologies, Marty has helped businesses accomplish their goals effectively, efficiently, and securely.

Marty has received a Masters of Computer Information Science from Boston University, also, is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA).

David Touitou has been working in the IT field for 15 years now. He started (fixing Novell Netware 3.12 servers) even before graduation. He has gone through tiny local companies around Paris to big ones (the leader in BI), also from web design to infrastructure management.

His previous job was to design and manage the R&D datacentre of a software vendor (800 servers, 39 racks in 2003, multi-vendors VPN with the rest of the world), while doing some high-level support in networking for the developing teams.

As CTO (and owner) of Network Studio, he is still working around datacentres, designing and managing infrastructure for customers (from SMB to the EU Council). His company were one of the first to spread the Zimbra word in France (beginning of 2006) and currently have several customers with several thousands of Zimbra licences up and running

http://www.packtpub.com/Zimbra-Administer-Network-Open-Source/book



Zimbra Implement, Administer and Manage Zimbra is an open-source server and client software for messaging and collaboration—email, group calendaring, contacts, and web document management and authoring. The Zimbra server is available for Linux, Mac OS X, appliances, and virtualization platforms. The Zimbra Web 2.0 Ajax client runs on Firefox, Safari, and IE, and features easy integration/mash-ups of web portals, business applications, and VoIP using web services.

The book will show readers how to install and configure Zimbra for use with the Web Client, Outlook, and Mobile devices. Readers will learn about Zimbra Collaboration Suite architecture, and get an overview of the Administration Console of Zimbra Collaboration Suite. It will show how to set up users, how to use Zimbra as your main email server, security, spam, and virus issues. It'll wrap up by looking at some Zimlets—Zimbra mash-ups—as well as backing up and managing performance.

A compact Administrators Guide, it is friendly, and contains plenty of step-by-step instructions for installation and configuration of Zimbra, as well as useful references and checklists.

What This Book Covers Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the Zimbra Collaboration Suite.

Chapter 2 will guide you through installing the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. The chapter will help you install Zimbra on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, SUSE ES 9, and on MAC OS X. It will also provide you with some post-installation scripts and help you uninstall the Zimbra Collaboration Suite, if necessary.

Chapter 3 introduces the basic functions of administering the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. You will learn about how to create and modify user accounts, and server settings.

Chapter 4 will focus on Zimbra AJAX Web Client, which is the recommended client to take advantage of all the features and functionality that Zimbra has to offer. You will get to learn about Web Client System Requirements, working with email, managing and sharing contacts, managing and sharing calendars, creating and sharing notebook pages, using the Zimbra Assistant, and an introduction to using keyboard shortcuts in Zimbra.

Chapter 5 discusses the importance and methods that could be used to secure your Zimbra environment. You will learn about Zimbra's built-in security tools including: Web Client security, anti-spam, and anti-virus. The chapter will then focus on securing ports, disabling unnecessary services, and being sure to keep the system patched and updated on a regular basis. Lastly, you will be looking at securing the network with a discussion on creating a demilitarized zone (DMZ), configuring firewalls, and the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN).




Chapter 6 will take an indepth look at customizing Zimbra from a user perspective. This chapter begins with a look at user options and then moves creating mail identities and aliases for users. Lastly, you will look at the power of the built-in Search Builder.

Chapter 7 will focus on using Zimbra on the desktop. Specifically, you will be looking at how to integrate Zimbra with Microsoft Outlook.

Chapter 8 will discuss how to configure the Zimbra server for allowing mobile access, as well as, how to configure some of the most popular "smart phones" to act as a Zimbra Mobile client. Specifically, this chapter will discuss preparing the Zimbra server for Zimbra Mobile, configuring Windows Mobile and PalmOS to sync with Zimbra. This chapter also focuses on configuring the Zimbra server to allow users at both the Class of Service (COS) and user level, permission to sync with the Zimbra server with their mobile devices.

Chapter 9 will take a brief look at the third-party applications and "mash-ups" called Zimlets that are an effective set of tools and programs, which add more functionality to the Zimbra Web Client.

Chapter 10 explores the various ways the systems administrator could make sure that all mailboxes (including all of their information) are backed up on a regular and consistent basis.

Chapter 11 discusses the implementation and maintenance of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and looks at a few built-in tools Zimbra provides. It also deals with working with and monitoring mail queues, and viewing three key log files for additional troubleshooting information.




The Zimbra Web ClientAs we continue our understanding and knowledge of managing the Zimbra Collaboration Suite, it is important, at this point, that we take a break from the back end systems administration, and see what Zimbra looks like from the user's perspective. As systems administrators, our main goal is to ensure that our system is working properly and creating a messaging infrastructure that is both effective and easy to use for our user community. Without understanding how the users are using the system, or for that matter, should be using the system, our jobs would not be possible.

In this chapter, we will take a break from confi gurations and day-to-day systems administration and focus on the Zimbra Web Client. Keep in mind, that there are many clients available to access the Zimbra email server (as explained in Chapter One). However, this chapter will focus on the Zimbra AJAX web client, which is the recommended client, to take advantage of all the features and functionality that Zimbra has to offer. The AJAX web client offers an interactive web application that presents a very responsive client that could be accessed from any computer that has an Internet connection and a web browser. Of course, access to the web application may be limited by the network administrator, but that is a conversation for another time.

Currently (end of July 2007), the web-client is supported on Internet Explorer 6 SP2 and 7, Firefox 1.0.7, 1.5 and 2, and Safari (beta, version 3.0 is not supported at all).

The Web Client System Requirements According to the client system requirements, as listed on www.zimbra.com, the client computer could be any one of three operating systems:

Windows XPFedora Core 4MAC OS X 10.4

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The system requirements for Windows XP include:

1.5 GHZ Processor512MB RAMInternet Explorer 6.0 SP2 or 7Or Firefox 1.0.7, 1.5 or 2.0

For Fedora Core 4, the requirements are:

1.5 GHZ Processor512MB RAMFirefox 1.5 or 2.0

And for MAC OS X 10.4:

1.5 GHZ Processor512MB RAMFirefox 1.5 (or 2.0) or Safari 2.0.4

A 1024x768 screen is mandatory.

Although the Zimbra Web Client works on all types of operating systems and browsers, in my experience, I have found that the highest performing client confi guration for a Zimbra implementation would be to use Fedora Core 4 clients with Firefox 1.5. If your environment is a Windows XP and/or MAC OS X environment, your best bet is to use the Firefox browser for all of your clients.

To access the Zimbra Web Client, users will need to open up their browser, and type the URL for the server that you created in Chapter Two. In our case, that URL would be http://zimbra.emailcs.com.

At this point, we are going to walk through the Zimbra Web Client, put on our user's hat, and learn how to use the major functionality the client has to offer.

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A Bird's Eye View of the Web Client Before we begin using the web client, we are going to take a few moments looking at an overview of the web client and the various components that make up this rich Internet application.

To follow along, open up your browser and enter the URL of your Zimbra client. Again in our case, we will change to visit http://zimbra.emailcs.com. We are going to use the worker account we created in Chapter 3. When the web client fi rst appears, you will be presented with the screen shown in the following screenshot:

W e will log into the client as the username worker and the password you created in Chapter Three. Once those pieces of information are entered, click Log In and we are ready to go.





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The initial screen users will be presented with will look similar to the one shown in the following screenshot. However, I have highlighted and labeled certain areas that we will focus on in this chapter.

Starting from the uppermost left corner of the web client, we will now defi ne each section and what its uses are, as it pertains to the user.

A. Lo cation Box displays the application the user is currently using, in our case Mail or Email, and then present a drop-down menu of available views for that application, if applicable.

B. Ov erview Pane displays a list of folders available to the user. Included in the list of folders are system folders (INBOX, SENT, DRAFTS, JUNK, TRASH), as well as custom folders that are created by the user, Tags, Zimlets, and Searches.

C. Ca lendar Overview Pane displays the current month and highlights the day's date. The Calendar also presents the user an overview of days that have appointments or events by presenting the numbers in bold. By double clicking on any day of the week, the user is presented with the Calendar application. It's also called the "minical".




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D. St atus Box displays the current time, as well as displays any informational messages that the system communicates to the user. An example of an informational message would be letting the user know when an email message has been successfully sent.

E. Ap plication Chooser presents the user with a shortcut list of applications presented via tabs. The user could simply click the appropriate tab to quickly open up the Zimbra application of their choice. On our screen, from top to bottom, the applications are Mail, Address Book, Calendar, Notebook, Help, Options, and Log Out.

F. Se arch Bar is used to perform ad-hoc searches within Zimbra, as well as access the more advanced Search Builder feature.

G. Qu ota Display Bar displays the current logged user and the amount of space they are currently using on the server. Lastly, it displays the total quota, or amount of space, they have available to use.

H. To olbar presents the user with functions that are available for the user to use in the current application.

I. Co ntent Pane presents the user with results of the currently selected item in the Navigation Pane. In the case of the previous screenshot, Inbox is selected in the Folders section of the Mail Application. So the Content Pane is displaying our email in our Inbox.

With an understanding of where to fi nd things in the application, we will now discuss interacting with the Zimbra Web Client, accomplishing everyday messaging tasks.

Working with EmailCo mmunicating via email is as much a pa rt of our lives as writing letters through "snail mail", talking on the phone, or faxing one another. That being the case, we are not going to spend a lot of time discussing what it means to compose, send, reply, forward, and add attachments to email. These tasks tend to be standardized among most email applications. So in this section, we are going to quickly walk through these tasks, and then discuss Zimbra emailing functionality in more detail. This additional functionality will include working with Tags and viewing Conversations.

So let's begin walking through the basic email functionality of Zimbra. I have sent a sample email from the CEO to our Worker Bee and will use this email to begin discussing the overview of the email process.





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Checking EmailAs you can see in the following screenshot, I have just logged into the Zimbra application as Worker Bee (username worker) and have received a new message.




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Whe n new email is received, the name of the folder is highlighted with bold text, with the number of new messages in parentheses. In our case, we have one new message and if we click on the Inbox, we see the new message in the Content Pane. The content pane, by default, lists seven columns including Flag, Tag, From, Attachment, Subject, Count, and Received.

Thes e columns are customizable, by right-clicking on any column heading and placing a check next to the columns you would like to be visible. Removing the check hides the corresponding column. Each column may also be used as a criteria for sorting the display, simply by clicking on the column. For example, if you would like to see all messages that have a Flag marked for them, click on the Flag column.





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To open up a message, double-click the message in the Content Pane. Now the Content Pane changes to reveal the message in two parts. Also, the buttons on the Toolbar change to allow for additional email functionality.

The fi rst part of the message is the Header. This includes the subject of the message, who it was sent by, who it was sent to, and the date/time of when it was sent. What is unique to Zimbra, is that when you hover the mouse cursor over a name that is in your contacts (in this case CEO), the contact information is revealed in a pop-up box. By highlighting the Date, a list of any appointments that you have that day is listed. By clicking on any of the displayed names, the Compose Email screen appears allowing you to send an email to that person.




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One other feature that the Zimbra Web client offers, is by right clicking on any name or email address, a context sensitive menu is displayed in a pop-up menu, offering a list of options including creating searches, adding contacts, creating rules, and so on as seen in the following screenshot.

Once a n email is read, it is no longer highlighted. With the email open, you may reply, reply to all, or forward the message if desired. This functionality is standard in every email application. When you are done with the message, you may choose to fi le it in a folder other than the Inbox for organization purposes.





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To cre ate a new folder:

1. Right-click on the Inbox and select New Folder.

2. When th e Create Folder Dialog box appears, type a name for the new folder and click OK. In this case, I will be creating a folder called CEO, to fi le all of my email messages from the CEO automatically.

2. To creat e a rule to automatically fi le emails from the CEO to this folder, I could right-click on the message in the Inbox and select New Filter.




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3. Most fi elds are automatically populated for you based on the message selected. You just need to add a Filter Name and select the folder you would like to fi le the email into.

4. This rule will be effective for every new email that comes in from the CEO. Now, just drag the current message from the Inbox (Content Pane) and place it into the CEO folder.

Please go ahead and reply to the CEO's message, so we could use the email message for later examples.

Composing EmailJust like the functionality for checking email, composing email in Zimbra is fairly straightforward. We had discussed earlier that clicking on the from or contact in an email message will automatically open up the compose email screen. However, if you are going to initiate an email to someone, you would:

1. Click on the New button of the Mail application toolbar.





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2. The Content Pane is now changed to a new email message template, with the Toolbar changing as well. The new buttons are Send, Cancel, Save Draft, Add Attachment, and Options.

3. Either ent er the contact name manually (if it is an address you have used before, Zimbra will display a list of matching entries as you type in the To address) or you could click on the To button to open up the contact list.

4. By default, there are three address lists to choose from:a. Contacts

b. Personal and Shared Contacts

c. Global Address List




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As we only have contacts in our Global Address List, select it from the drop-down menu and type CEO in the search text box.

5. You can now select the proper email address and add it to the To, Cc, or Bcc form of the email.

6. One option you have is to add an attachment to the email using the appropriate button on the toolbar. A text box will appear under the subject line and will also provide you with a Browse button to choose the attachment from your computer. You could add or remove attachments as you wish.





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7. Another opt ion is if you would like to save an email to work on later, or to just send at another point, you could click on the Save Draft button.

8. The Options button allows you to add additional options to the email including:

a. Format as HTML

b. Format as Text

c. Show Bcc

9. If you have installed the Zimbra Spell module, you will also have an option to spell check your email by clicking the appropriate button.

10. When you've fi nished composing the email, you may click on Send.11. A copy of the email will be saved in the Sent folder by default.

Please go t hrough the proceeding steps and send an email to the CEO. We will need this email to examine some additional features Zimbra offers.

TagsEmail clien ts are great, especially when they provide you with a means to organize emails into folders. But what happens when a particular email could be organized into multiple folders. Or what happens if you just want to group emails together on a particular topic or project, but do not want them fi led away in separate folders? The answer is Tags.

Tags are used to fl ag messages and logically organize emails, regardless of which folders they are stored in. Tags are used to essentially "color code" email messages and create a quick way of seeing all emails related to a particular topic.




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For example, we have received an email from the CEO and we have sent a completely unrelated message to him as well. Well, at least they are unrelated as far as Zimbra is concerned. But, in our minds, we want to be able to group those messages together. So what we will do is Tag each message, thereby grouping them together.

1. Login to the Zimbra Web Client at http://zimbra.emailcs.com.2. In the CEO folder, beneath the Inbox, right click on the "Good Morning"

message from the CEO (you will need to send this message using the CEO account, if you have not already done so).

3. Select Tag Conversation New Tag from the pop up menu.





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4. The Tag dial og box will open where we could name the Tag. Let's name the Tag "CEO Brown Nosing" and select Orange from the drop-down list.

5. Notice that t he email message now has an orange tag next to it in the Tag column.

6. Click on the Sent folder and fi nd the email you composed in the earlier section.




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7. Right-click on the message, select Tag Conversation, and now you can select "CEO Brown Nosing" from the list.

8. This message wi ll now also have an orange tag in the Tag column.

You have now successfully tagged messages and grouped them together. You may have also noticed that the reply-to email message you created when replying to the CEO's earlier message also has an orange tag. The reason for this is by default, Zimbra groups these messages together into conversations (see below), which we will explore in the next section. In this case, Zimbra automatically tagged the message as well.

To quickly bring up all the messages that are related to the "CEO Brown Nosing" group, click on the CEO Brown Nosing Tag on the Navigation Pane under Tags. This will display the two tagged messages. The reply-to is grouped together with the initial "Good Morning" email from the CEO.





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ConversationsZimbra has a bu ilt-in feature that groups email conversations into a single thread. This being the case, we can now make it easier to fi nd messages, as they are all logically grouped together, with no extra effort on our own.

Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the Location Box and how, for some applications, it will have a View drop-down box. In the Mail application, the two views are By Conversation and By Message. By default, messages are grouped by Conversation, so the initial email in the thread will be displayed with a number in parentheses in the Conversations column. In our case, that number is "(2)" representing that there are two messages in the conversation. By double-clicking on the message, the Content Pane will now display the list of messages that make up the conversation, as shown in the following screenshot:

Conversations ma ke it easier to organize your email and increase search and grouping capabilities with very little interaction from the user.

Admittedly, some users will not like the Conversation view and they have the option to choose By Message from the View menu.




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Working with email only reveals a small measure of the unique capabilities that the Zimbra Web Client has to offer. Continuing on with our exploration of the Web Client, we will now take a look at managing contacts.

Managing ContactsImagine life wit hout your list of Contacts. In my experience as an Email Administrator and Implementer, this is the one area where users get very protective, especially executives and managers within an organization. Zimbra provides the users with two types of personal address books. One called Contacts allow users to add users manually to their address book. The other, Emailed Contacts, tracks contacts that the user has sent and received emails to or from. This list is populated automatically.

For the following exercise, we will be logging in as the CEO and managing his address book.

1. Login to the Zimbra Web Client at http://zimbra.emailcs.com as CEO.2. Once logged in, click on Address Book.3. In the Address Books application, the Content Pane changes to a phone list

of our contacts. At this point, our Address Book list is blank.





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4. Click on New in the Toolbar to add our fi rst contact.5. Enter your fi rst name, last name, and email address and click Save. Zimbra

offers the ability to store a ton of information about a contact, for now, we will just keep it simple.

6. The File As: section provides options for how the user would like contacts displayed in the Address Book. Ours will be fi led as "Last, First".

7. In the Content Pane, you should now be able to click on the fi rst letter of your last name or the All button and see an entry for the new contact.

Seems pretty strai ghtforward, but let's add some additional Zimbra functionality to make things more interesting. For example, earlier we discussed how users have the ability to Tag email messages, well what if the user wanted to logically group contacts through Tags?

1. Find the contact we just created in the Address Book, right-click the contact and select Tag Contact New Tag.




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2. Type a name for the Tag, we will call this one "Networking Group", and choose Cyan for the color.

3. Click OK and you should see a Cyan tag next to the contact in the Content Pane.

4. Also in the Navigation Pane, under Tags, you should see the Cyan tag labelled Networking Group. By clicking on the Tag, all of the members of the Networking Group will appear.

Keep in mind that Tags are universal among all of the Zimbra applications. So a contact and an email message and an appointment could all be assigned to the same Tag. Also, items could be assigned to multiple tags. Zimbra really makes organizing your user's messaging needs pretty easy.

One more feature we should take a look at, is the ability to share address books among users.

Sharing Address Books As the Worker Bee, you have been assigned the task of managing the contacts of the CEO. He has much more important things to do. The CEO needs only to share his address book with you and you will be able to manage his contacts from your Zimbra Web Client using your login. Here's how:

1. As the CEO, right click on the Contacts folder in the Address Books application.





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2. Select Share Address Book from the drop-down menu as shown in the following screenshot.

3. T he Shared Address Book dialog box will appear. Enter [email protected] for email and select the radio button labelled Manager. Sending a standard message is fi ne, so click OK.

4. Log out of the Zimbra Web Client by clicking on Log Off and log back in as the worker.

5. You should now see a new email message from the CEO with the subject line "Share Created". This message will be in the CEO folder (because of the rule we created before).

6. Double click the email message and in the Content Pane you will have the option to Accept or Decline the share. Seeing as though this is from the CEO, we better accept it. Click Accept Share and a dialog box will appear.

7. Leave the default name of "The Boss's Contacts" and select Orange for the color.




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8. Th ere is no need to send an email about the share, so click Yes.9. Click on the Address Book icon in the Application Chooser and you should

now see The Boss's Contacts in the Worker's contact list.





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The worker now has full control of the CEO's contacts. Any changes made here are made directly to the CEO's contacts, and he will see them when he logs in. Not only do users have the ability to share contacts, they could also allow people to share their schedule as well.

Managing SchedulesIn this section, we will explore the Calendar application of the Zimbra Web Client. We will start with the basics of adding and managing appointments and then end with a look at sharing and letting others manage your calendar.

To follow along with the examples in this section, please log in to the Web Client as the CEO user. Once logged in click on Calendar. The Content Pane will now change to reveal the current view of the calendar and the toolbar will now be changed to allow for Calendar functionality including, New, Refresh, Trash, Print, and then a button for each of the fi ve views available for the application.

There are fi ve different views you could view the calendar in, they are by Day, Week, Work Week, Month, and Schedule. For now, we will be using the Week view.




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Adding AppointmentsTher e are a couple of different ways to add an appointment to your calendar. The easiest way is to simply click on a date in the calendar (at the bottom of the Navigation Pane) and this will open up the Calendar view of the Content Pane.

1. Click New from the Toolbar and select Appointment.2. From there, the Appointment dialog box opens with fi ve tabs that could be

completed if necessary.

3. The Appointment Details tab is just that: the overall details of the appointment itself. For this example, add "Training" to the Subject and CEO for location (CEO's Offi ce). The show as drop-down menu is how you would like the Schedule to show that time as. This is especially important when others are looking at your schedule to determine a good time to contact you.

4. Let's make this an All Day Event by checking the checkbox and clicking on the Schedule tab.





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5. The S chedule tab allows us to check our availability, as well as other members of our organization's availablility in order to know if we should invite them to our meeting/event at that time. By default, you will see your own schedule. In the box directly underneath, add worker and it will reveal his schedule, which at this point should be wide open.

6. On the Find Attendees tab, you could now search for people to attend this event. Type Boss in the Find textbox and click Search. Once The Boss shows up in the results pane, click Add.




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7. As we h ave not set up any locations or resources in our system, we could skip those two tabs. Click back on the Appointment Details tab and it should now look as shown in the following screenshot.

8. Click Sa ve and your event is now scheduled. Because you added The Boss to your attendees list, he will receive an email like the one below to accept or decline the invitation. By accepting the invitation, it will be added to his schedule as well.





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Creating Multiple CalendarsZimbra al so provides the ability for someone to have multiple calendars. This is especially useful if you are managing multiple projects, or you have a need to keep a personal and/or business calendar separate. This is also very useful if you are managing multiple calendars for different users.

To create an additional calendar:

1. Open the Calendar Application (as the CEO user) and click New.2. From the drop-down menu, select Calendar.3. This will open up the Create New Calendar dialog box.4. We will call this Calendar "personal" and use blue as its color.5. Check the box to have it included when reporting free/busy times.6. Leave the remote calendar synchronizing box unchecked. This would be

used if we were syncing the calendar with another application such as iCal or Outlook. You could use the "remote sync" with an external calendar such as the one provided by Mozilla's website that contains the days of country per country.

7. Click OK.

You shoul d now see an additional calendar in the Navigation Pane. Now, when you create a new event, you will have the choice of which calendar to add it to. Also, appointments will show up in the color of its respective calendar. In this case, personal appointments will be blue, and regular calendar appointments will be orange.

As Worker has done such a great job managing the CEO's contacts, the CEO has determined he would like Worker to now manage his schedule.

Sharing CalendarsSharing C alendars works exactly the same as sharing Address Books. Users have the ability to share any of their calendars and give additional users rights to view or completely manage the calendar from their own web client.

To share the CEO's calendar:

1. Login to Zimbra as the CEO.2. Click on the Calendar application.




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3. Right click on the calendar you wish to share. For this exercise, right click the orange calendar and select Share Calendar.

4. Complete the Share Calendar dialog box giving access to [email protected] and select Manager for the role as shown below.

5. When compl eted, click OK.6. Log out of Zimbra and log back in as Worker.7. You should now see a message from "The Boss" in the CEO folder of the

Inbox with the subject line "Share Created".8. Double-click on the message, and select Accept Share.





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9. Leave the name of the Calendar as the default "The Boss's Calendar" and change the color to Green.

10. Click Yes and open up the Calendar application.11. The Boss's calendar should now be listed in the Navigation Pane. Any

appointments that are his are now displayed in green in your calendar.12. If you do not want to see appointments for a particular calendar, you could

simply uncheck the checkbox next to the calendar's name.

The ability to create, manage, and share multiple calendars makes Zimbra a key piece to any collaboration suite.

The Zimbra Documents Another key component to a collaboration suite, is the ability to store and upload documents. Zimbra uses a feature called Documents to allow for this functionality. The Documents feature provides the ability for users to store notes on various pages in the Zimbra Web Client. This is especially useful because you now have access to your notes from any computer that has access to the Zimbra Web Client.

Imagine you are a salesperson, and you have taken notes regarding a specifi c client and their specifi c quote. At the client's site, assuming the Zimbra client is on a public address, the salesperson could log into their Zimbra Web Client, and pull up the notes. Additionally, each note could have attachments to them which are uploaded to the server. I use this for two purposes. First, I have access to attachments and documents from any computer and secondly, I now have a backup vehicle for critical documents.




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This feature is currently beta.

Creating Documents PagesTo create a documents page:

1. Login to the Zimbra Web Client as the CEO user and click on the Documents [beta] tab.

2. The Content Pane will now change to Documents specifi c functions.3. Click on New and then select Page from the drop-down menu.4. Call this page "The Boss's Notes".5. The text box in the content pane could be used to type text, add pictures, and

add attachments. It is basically a WYSIWYG editor. For this exercise, we will just add a line of text that says "These are my important notes:", then hit Enter.

6. Click on the paperclip icon on the toolbar which will open up an add attachment dialog box. Browse to any fi le on your computer and then click OK. Please note: you will have the option to either overwrite a fi le with the same fi le name that is on the server, or rename the fi le. In general I prefer to keep it on Ask Me so that I do not accidentally overwrite a fi le. Other options are Replace With My File or Keep Existing File.





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7. The Notebook page will now show a hyperlink for the location of the fi le and should look like in the following screenshot.

8. When complete , click Save and then Close, and you will be returned to the main Notebook page with a link to this new page.

Sharing DocumentsLike Address Book and Calendars, Notebooks can be shared the exact same way with just a few easy steps.

1. Right-click on the notebook and select Share Notebook from the drop-down menu.

2. Type [email protected] as the intended person to share the notebook with and select Manager as the role.

3. Click OK when complete.4. Log In as the Worker in the Zimbra Web Client and open the Share

Created email.4. Click Accept Share.5. In the dialog box, keep the name as The Boss's Notebook and change the

color to Red. Click Yes.6. Click on the Documents [beta] tab and you should now see a link to The

Boss's Notebook in the Navigation Pane.




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Saving Time with the Zimbra AssistantThe best part of learning a new product or technology is discovering all of the shortcuts that make your life easier. Zimbra has its own fair share of shortcuts that help users accomplish tasks with as few keystrokes and mouse clicks as possible. The fi rst of these shortcut tools is the Zimbra Assistant.

To open up the Zimbra Assistant type Shift ~ on your keyboard. The Zimbra Assistant will appear waiting for your command.

The Zimbra Assistant could be used to send an email message, add an appointment, or even add a contact without having to go through the application itself. For example, if I wanted to add a quick appointment to my calendar, I could use the Zimbra Assistant as follows:

1. Log in to the Zimbra Web Client as Worker.2. Open the Zimbra Assistant by typing Shift ~ .3. In the text box type appointment.4. In quotes add the subject line "pick up boss's dry cleaning".5. Type in the day, date, and time for the appointment as follows: Thursday

January 4, 2007 8:00am – 9:00am.6. Add some notes in parentheses (two shirts) on the next line.7. Provide the location in brackets [Cleaners].8. Click OK to add to the Calendar.





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The context-se nsitive help of the Zimbra Assistant is very good. Just type in the application you would like to use and follow the instructions from there to send an email, create an appointment, or add a contact. After a few times, it becomes second nature and my personal preferential way of accomplishing these everyday tasks.

Saving Even More Time with Keyboard ShortcutsLike most appl ications these days, sometimes it is just much easier to use keyboard shortcuts, as opposed to clicking the mouse multiple times. It seems, after a while, clicking the mouse becomes redundant and amazingly enough just too slow.

Zimbra Web Client comes complete with many keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are divided into six main categories according to Zimbra. The categories are General, Mail, Mail Compose, Contacts, Calendar View, and Appointment Compose. There are too many keyboard shortcuts to mention here, but they are listed in the Help system within the Zimbra Web Client by clicking the Help icon (question mark) in the Application chooser. However, I would like to provide you with an example of how to use keyboard shortcuts to send an email with an attachment.

Sending an Em ail with Shortcuts1. Log in to the Zimbra Web Client as Worker.2. Type g m to open up the mail application.3. Type n to compose the message.4. Type alt-T to open up the search for addresses.5. Type CEO in the Search box.6. Click Enter and highlight The Boss on the Search results.7. Click TO and click OK.8. Type Shortcut in the subject Field.9. Type the message Who needs a mouse?10. Type alt-S to send the message

Applications within the Zimbra Web Client have keyboard shortcuts that are either particular to that application, or general to the overall client itself. When you have time, and I would also encourage your users to do the same, print out a Quick Reference Card of the shortcuts and keep them handy.




Chapter 4

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SummaryIn this chapter, we covered a lot of ground. We looked at using Zimbra, and in particular the Web Client, from a user's perspective. The goal of the chapter was to help us better understand how our users will be using the system, so we could make sure we confi gure and maintain the system accordingly.

In this chapter, we had a look at the system requirements of our web client.

Then, we went on to see how to work with email; manage and share contacts; and manage and share calendars.

We also covered creating and sharing notebook pages, along with using the Zimbra Assistant.

Last but not least, we discovered some of the keyboard shortcuts that Zimbra provides.

In the next chapter, we will put our systems administrator's hat back on and look at more advanced server confi gurations: we'll secure Zimbra and the server it runs on.




Where to buy this book You can buy Zimbra from the Packt Publishing website: http://www.packtpub.com/Zimbra-Administer-Network-Open-Source/book.

Free shipping to the US, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and India.

Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, BN.com, Computer Manuals and most internet book retailers.

www.PacktPub.com

http://www.packtpub.com/
