Exchange EWS Provider Add-on for Lightning (Thunderbird/Seamonkey)

(2014-10-21) As you can read I no longer maintain this add-on. But the guys from Ericsson have taken over maintanance. You can get new versions from their github page: https://github.com/Ericsson/exchangecalendar/releases.

I will keep my pages online for the archive.

(2014-05-08) I do not maintain this add-on anymore. Anyone who would like to take over can use the source at Github for it’s own fork. Thanks to everyone who has supported and helped to get the add-on to it’s current state.

!!! The next information is old and outdated !!!

Welcome on the website with the only add-on for Thunderbird and Seamonkey which will add access to you Exchange calendars, contacts and Global Address List (GAL). It is an add-on for the Lightning Calendering Add-on and will allow you to communicate with an Exchange 2007, 2010 and 2013 server using the Exchange Web Service (EWS) interface.You can access any Calendar, Task or Contacts folder on the EWS server in an easy way. And also manage your “Out of Office” settings.

Requirements:

• Version 3.2.x for Thunderbird 12 up to 27 (tested up to and with 27).
• Version 3.1.x for Thunderbird 6 up to 17 (tested up to and with 17).
• Version 3.0.x for Thunderbird 6 up to 17 (tested up to and with 17).
• Version 2.x.x for Thunderbird 6 up to 14 (tested up to and with 14).
• Seamonkey 2.6.1 – 2.20.
• Lightning add-on
• This add-on.
• Access to an Exchange Webservice Server (EWS) with an username, password and/or primarySMTP or email alias.
• The Exchange Webservice Server of Exchange 2007, 2010 or 2013. Or that from Microsoft Office 365 (see FAQ for howto).

The latest stable version (3.1.3 released 25th of October 2012), which can be newer than on the Mozilla repository, can also be downloaded from this site: [download id=”13″]. If you find problems please report them to the bugzilla. What has changed please see [download id=”14″].

The latest development version (3.2.x) can be downloaded through this link: [download id=”17″]. Because of it’s development nature some new functionality might only work half because it is still in development. Or it is a bug fix which is still in it’s testing phase. If you find problems please report them. See Reporting Bugs. What has changed please see [download id=”18″]. (On GitHUB this is the “master” branch).
Please try this version and turn on offline cache (below calendar settings). When you already use offline cache please turn it first off for the calendar. Restart TB and then turn it on again. It should stay in sync now.

All versions can be downloaded from the download page.

Changed in version 3.2.0-BetaX:

• Completely new Event Interface. We now use our own which is an extension of the one default in Lightning.
• New TimeZone function for matching between the Exchange TimeZone and the Lightning TimeZone.
• Almost complete rewrite of task/todo handling.
• It will now try to show the Exchange time zone for the start and end times as close as it can match it to the one in Lightning.
• Added the Exchange SOAP Autodiscovery functionality. This will be used first and when it fails it will fall back to the old POX Autodiscovery.
• Can follow redirectAddr response from Exchange.
• Will try Basic authentication as default when available.
• Fixed problems with opening attachments when having multiple items open.
• Adjusted reminder configuration to what is possible in Exchange.
• Address autocompletion for composing emails or adding attendees to calendar event.
• Showing of icon/image for contact in address book.
• Added Exchange Task details.
• Fixed editing Out Of Office messages with HTML editor.
• New Exchange server version detection.
• Rich text description editing/viewing including link editing and following.

What can it do:

• Support Exchange server 2007, 2010 and 2013 (Office365).
• Sync Calendar, Task/Todo and Contact items from an EWS (Exchange) server.  Syncing is done on a user settable poll interval. It will track changes on the server and update the local memory cache.
• Create, modify and delete calendar events and task/todo items. They will get synced immediately with the EWS server.
• Contacts are currently read-only.
• Search the Global Address List (GAL).
• Use contacts and GAL in address auto completion.
• During creation of a new calendar you can use the Exchange Autodiscover functionality (when enabled on the Exchange server) to find the right server and mailbox settings. Selecting the right folder is easy with the build-in folder browser.
• You can access any Calendar, Task or Contacts folder on your EWS server as long as you have the right primarySMTP or alias email address and enough permissions for the used user.
• Let it poll your inbox for meeting invitation request or cancellations. They will show up in your calendar.
• Manage how meeting invitations or cancellations are automatically handled (responded to).
• Add as many calendar objects as you wish and Lightning will allow.
• Manage “Out of Office”settings for each calendar mailbox.
• Import ICS files.
• Export to ICS files. (Experimental: new since 1.8.0a4 not a full calendar yet only local memory cache)
• Manage and view attachments.
• Edit event/todo description with rich-text. Colours, fonts, links, etc…
• User availability (Free/Busy) information.
• Currently in Dutch (Nederlands), English, French (Français) (Thanks to Dominique Fillon) , Swedish, Japanese and German (Deutsch) (Thanks to Christian A. Meyer) localizations. When you would like to make a translation for your language please let me know .
• Can work with Basic, Negotiate and Kerberos authentication. Please see this page for an explanation. No NTLMv1 or NTLMv2 on Linux.

Known issues:

• When Thunderbird is started or a new Calendar is added it can take some time to load and cache the items from the EWS server. Be patient it will all be loaded. After it is loaded it is fast because it will work with an local temporary memorycache.
• Because of the previous slowness. When you try to change, add or delete an item during loading this change might take some time to be synced to the EWS server.
• And those mentioned in the bugzilla.
• It is not possible to accept or decline assigned tasks. Microsoft does not provide the necessary API calls for this. Even OWA cannot do this. Only outlook.

For questions please send them to Ericsson but first read the FAQ section or have a look at the Forum pages.

If you think of a nice feature or functionality which currently is not available have a look at the feature request page.

If you find a bug in this add-on please report it at https://www.1st-setup.nl/bugzilla/.