Author Topic: CiviSync Released (Read 8843 times)

polestar · April 25, 2010, 04:52:51 am

Hey Guys!!!

The wait for CiviSync is now over. Download the files from here and give us your reviews. http://bit.ly/bw34Fh

CiviSync is an Outlook Synchronisation Addon. At the moment CiviSync has following features:

Uni-directional Sync (CiviCRM to Outlook)
Creates Contacts in Outlook
Creates Mailing Lists for Groups and Tags in Outlook
Schedule Synchronisation (Periodic)
Only differential contacts (modified contacts) are downloaded to improve the performance

Also, please note there are gaps and we are working towards bridging those in the final version:

There is no security at the moment and what that means is, once you install the files in your respective CiviCRM installation anyone can download the contacts using CiviSync or the SOAP queries. (They only need to know the URL)
Currently all the groups are being downloaded which effect the performance of Outlook every time Outlook is run. A differential update for Groups is awaited as well.

Let us know if you have any queries or questions. We'll appreciate your feedbacks.

Regards
Rohit

Eileen · April 25, 2010, 12:16:23 pm

Cool - can you limit the contacts sync to a particular group?

I guess ideally you would 'cc' a civi address when you e-mail them to get your e-mails in civi?

polestar · April 25, 2010, 12:18:36 pm

Nope you can't limit groups at the moment

Didn't understand your second question though

fossie · May 05, 2010, 07:13:36 am

First of all thx for the nice plugin.

What is the version to work with the plugin? Should it work with 3.1.4?

Why? I had version (3.1.x) and installed the necessary files from the download and the synchronization didn't work. (Drupal version of CiviCRM)

I re-installed a version 2.2.9 and the contacts sync'd without a problem, but the groups (lists) didn't work

I installed version 2.2.8 (like in your signature) and the groups, contacts where synchronized.

Do you think this is related to the php files contributed or is this the outlook plugin specific? I didn't have time to review code etc... but I do want to help to make it more secure (with login name/password, maybe https connections, ...).

I will do more tests tomorrow.

TIA,
Fossie

polestar · May 05, 2010, 07:50:42 am

Fossie,

Thanks very much for Testing CiviSync. Yes it has been built primarily and tested with version 2.2.8 but I would have assumed it to have worked for other versions as well. It is PHP and MySQL specific because the Outlook Plugin will create mailing lists for the information provided by the PHP files.

The way we are thinking of making it secure in short term and releasing a full version of CiviSync is by using Site Key. So, every CiviSync interface will have a field to enter the site key and server will only allow a synchronisation request only if the site key matches.

Looking forward to the rest of the test results.

Regards
Rohit

fossie · May 05, 2010, 02:14:01 pm

A bit more information after a few hours of playing with the plugin, civicrm test system:

I was playing with the plugin, but something went wrong, I don't know what, but sometimes it sync's and sometimes it doesn't. Currently I can't get Outlook sync with the civicrm site I have setup (2.2.8, drupal version).

It worked, but I deleted the contacts in the civisync folder and couldn't get the contacts back in.

I deleted the folder, uninstalled the plugin, reinstalled the plugin, folder is created, but initial synchronization fails (stating last synchronized at 1/01/1601 1:00:00.)

I can't get the initial sync to work, don't know what happened, maybe something went wrong at the server side due the first (before uninstall / re-install the plugin) synchronizations.

Another point: When I changed a contacts name, the contact was twice in my civisync book. Once with initial name and once with the new name. The group where the contact was belonging to, had not that duplicated contact in it, just the last one.

I hope someone else can confirm these issues so we can get around them.

TOmorrow I'll try to find some time to see if I can reproduce it with an other Outlook 2007, a fresh new civicrm install.

Fossie

fossie · May 11, 2010, 08:13:23 am

I re-installed a 3.1.4 civicrm version and could make synchronization work with the plugin. It just seems that the synchronization doesn't start, when it starts it runs fine I think.

I Sync'ed with the demo data and it seems that some special characters are messing up, but that's maybe related to the installed languages on the windows system.

Is their some progress with the authentication site-key?

If you want I can help debug the code.

Fossie

polestar · June 13, 2010, 01:46:48 am

Hi Fossie,

Thanks for the detailed testing of the component. CiviSync is not yet compatible with the latest version of CiviCRM.

The resources allocated to CiviSync are limited at the moment and we plan to release a compatible version as soon as there is some funding available for the project to bring it up to date.

Your testing and feedback is great and we will consider them during the upgrade and internal testing process.

Thanks Again
Regards
Rohit

cesy · July 21, 2010, 08:30:28 am

This project sounds interesting. How far did you get with the security stuff, and what kind of level of funding would you need to make it work with the latest version of CiviCRM?

polestar · July 22, 2010, 01:44:05 am

Hi Cesy, The project is working fine for our client who is using 2.1.4 (they didn't need security). Version 2.1.4 didn't have SOAP web services so we put nuSOAP and some custom code to make it work but latest version 3.1 has REST API which can be used for CiviSync as well.

If we were to upgrade it to make it work with version 3.1 we would probably re-write a lot of the code so that it doesn't need any third party soap toolkit etc.

Drop me a PM with your contact details and we can discuss further.

xavier · November 08, 2010, 12:16:24 am

Hi,

Trying to understand the state of sync

So civisync works (with some custom code) on 2.1.4 but not on 3.x ?

On the client side, did you start from an existing base (eg from another CRM) or started from scratch ? (I thought the 2..1 version already had a REST interface, not the SOAP one).

X+

polestar · November 13, 2010, 10:55:14 am

Hi Xavier,

Yes CiviSync Works with a SOAP API nuSOAP and one more file.

We started from Scratch. The API which was there wasn't sufficient.

We have started working on the project again and hope to bring some updates to all of you soon.

Watch this space

Rohit

xavier · November 13, 2010, 10:13:08 pm

Quote from: polestar on November 13, 2010, 10:55:14 am

Yes CiviSync Works with a SOAP API nuSOAP and one more file.

We started from Scratch. The API which was there wasn't sufficient.

Do you recall what ? I'd rather improve the API than having another layer of access.
If this is about feature, tell me, we can probably find a way of adding what you need within the API.

X+

mohit_ti · November 21, 2010, 06:48:19 pm

Hi Xavier,

There were bunch of the things that we needed primarily for optimization. First thing was there was no way to get total contacts. So, that before sync we could show the number of contacts to be downloaded. Then, the queries that were there in the API, were using too many of joins. Since, those queries performs a search where as we don't need to do a search.

For first time sync we downloaded all the contacts and then subsequent sync's just downloads the contacts on the basis of the Modified Date.

So, all in all what our custom code does is following.

Get the total number of contacts to be synched,
Get the total number of DistList to be synched,
Get contacts on the basis of modified date in batched fashion. where first time modified date clause is not added.
Since, there is no way to decide what contacts got added or removed from the DistList(Tag or Group). we sync distlist every time from scratch.

If you need any other information, Please let me know.

Regards
Mohit Thakral

xavier · November 21, 2010, 10:13:22 pm

Quote from: mohit_ti on November 21, 2010, 06:48:19 pm

There were bunch of the things that we needed primarily for optimization. First thing was there was no way to get total contacts. So, that before sync we could show the number of contacts to be downloaded.

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC32/Contact+APIs#ContactAPIs-civicrmcontactsearchcount%28%26%24params%29

What is missing in the search_count ?

Quote from: mohit_ti on November 21, 2010, 06:48:19 pm

Then, the queries that were there in the API, were using too many of joins. Since, those queries performs a search where as we don't need to do a search.

If something is missing that make sense on the API (and for me, things that are needed to sync with an external tool are good candidates for inclusion), it can be added.

if it isn't added, that's easy to add a custom file in api/v2 and create your own apis, so you benefit from all the authentication and so on.

Quote from: mohit_ti on November 21, 2010, 06:48:19 pm

For first time sync we downloaded all the contacts and then subsequent sync's just downloads the contacts on the basis of the Modified Date.

So, all in all what our custom code does is following.

Get the total number of contacts to be synched,
Get the total number of DistList to be synched,
Get contacts on the basis of modified date in batched fashion. where first time modified date clause is not added.
Since, there is no way to decide what contacts got added or removed from the DistList(Tag or Group). we sync distlist every time from scratch.

If you need any other information, Please let me know.

What do you mean by DistList ?

What about writing a post hook on contacts that flags the groups/tags to be synced ? Would be easy and more scalable.

I think it'd be easy to use the log table (probably with an extra field), to store info about groups/tags adding or removing, so you know exactly what you have to sync, no ?

X+

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Author Topic: CiviSync Released (Read 8843 times)

polestar

CiviSync Released

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