Developing GroupWise Web Services (SOAP/XML Protocol)
Novell GroupWise is an full-featured collaboration product that allows
developers access to such things as mail, calendars, contacts, tasks,
and notes. GroupWise provides different APIs and protocols to access
user's account data. We will provide an overview of the different APIs
and protocols available to developers. We will then move onto the main
focus of the class - GroupWise Web Services.
GroupWise Web Services (SOAP/XML protocol) allows third party
developers to integrate directly with a GroupWise Post Office Agent
(POA). GroupWise Web Services uses open standards such as XML, SOAP,
and HTTP. It provides the tools third party developers need to create
custom application that meet the needs of their customers.
First we will focus on GroupWise Web Services, which provides developers server-side access to user's mailboxes. We will
provide an overview of GroupWise Web Services and discuss the
protocols capabilities, methods, and objects. We will spend some time
discussing best practices for some common tasks like efficiently
getting items, using filters and views, among other things. In the hands-on portion of the class, we will use the Java programming
language. We will create programs to:
- Login to GroupWise
- Get a folder
list
- Get items using cursors
- Send an item
- Get calendar items
- Get free busy information
- Work with address books.
If time permits, we
can explore code examples written to GroupWise using Microsoft .Net.
Then we will focus on GroupWise Events, which provide developers real-time notifications when changes occur to
a user's mailbox. For example, if a developer wants to track when an
item is deleted in a GroupWise user's mailbox, the developer creates an
Event Configuration that tracks items that are deleted. During the
configuration, the developer can provide an IP address and port to be
notified when the specific event occurs. When notified, the developer
can take the appropriate action.
In the GroupWise Events hands-on portion of the class, we will use the
Java programming language to work with Events. We will create programs
to:
- Create an event configuration record
- Listen for notifications
- Act
on the notification
- Clean-up event records.
If time permits, we
can explore other features that interest the participants.
