Configuring MMCO

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Meeting Maker Connector for Outlook (MMCO), is an plug-in for Microsoft Outlook 2003/2007 that allows Outlook to synchronize with and display Meeting Maker calendar data. This functionality can also be used to transfer calendar data from Meeting Maker to Outlook and then export from Outlook to an Exchange account, but intermediate steps are involved and certain limitations apply.

Contents

Features

MMCO will allow you to interact with Meeting Maker calendars and use the most common Meeting Maker features through the Outlook interface. In particular, invitees & attendees and their free/busy information can be viewed, invitations can be accepted and declined, and other calendars can be viewed. Changes can be made to events and the attendees will be notified appropriately.

Limitations

MMCO will only synchronize with local Outlook calendars. This method will not synchronize your Meeting Maker calendar with Outlook if you have a Microsoft Exchange account. MMCO should not be run on an installation of Outlook connecting to Exchange. Running both simultaneously could result in the corruption of both calendars. Additionally, it is not recommended that you allow proxies to have edit access to your calendar while you are using MMCO, nor should you use any other clients to view and edit your calendar while you are using MMCO. Per the MMCO 8.54 release notes:
"Do not use any other Meeting Maker client to make any changes, such as the native client, the HTML client, etc. It is highly recommended that none of your proxies have read-write access to your calendar. If you use the MMCO client and you or a proxy makes changes to your calendar from another Meeting Maker client, unpredictable behavior will occur."
Lastly, a proposal from an external user to a MMCO user cannot be declined once it has already been accepted.

Patterns that will not synchronize and are blocked in Microsoft Outlook User Interface

  • Every N days where N > 109
  • Every N weeks where N > 36
  • Day M of every N months where N > 3
  • Monthly patterns that do not occur every month (i.e. every third month)
  • Weekly patterns that do not occur every week (i.e. every third week)
  • Yearly patterns that do not specify a specific day and month (i.e., the first Tuesday of June)

Unsupported patterns that will not synchronize from Meeting Maker to Microsoft Outlook

  • Any weekend move rule
  • Day N from the end of the month
  • Every month on weeks where more than one week is specified (i.e., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Last)
  • Monthly on day 29, 30 or 31

Additional limitations when exporting to .pst

If you are planning to export the calendar information, certain data will not be retained in the export:

  • Invitees & Attendees
  • Labels
  • Proxies
  • Quarterly recurring events and some other more complex patterns do not transfer properly

Configuration

Figure 1:Location of the Meeting Maker tab after installing MMCO
Figure 1:Location of the Meeting Maker tab after installing MMCO

These instructions assume that you already have Outlook 2003/2007 installed and configured as an IMAP/POP client. If this is not the case, then please follow the instructions located here first.

In order to obtain the MMCO client, you will need to contact the ISC LAN Services group (lan@isc.upenn.edu). Once you have a copy of MMCO X.XX installed, the instructions below will help you set up the plugin with the appropriate settings:

  1. Launch Outlook
  2. In the toolbar select Tools and click Options
  3. Select the Meeting Maker tab (shown in Figure 1)
  4. Configure the variables as shown:
    • User Name = your Meeting Maker user name
    • Password = your Meeting Maker password
    • Server Name = the Name of the server (NOT the server's DNS name)
    • MeetingMaker Connection URL = URL of the MMCO service given by LAN Services
  5. Once this is finished, click OK to exit the Options screen
  6. At the main Outlook screen, with the Calendar tab selected, you should see a Meeting Maker option at the top of the screen (see Figure 2). Click this button and select Synchronize Now.
Figure 2:Location of the Meeting Maker sync option in Outlook
Figure 2:Location of the Meeting Maker sync option in Outlook


Your initial synchronization may take a few minutes or several hours depending on the number of events in your Meeting Maker calendar.


Transferring calendar data to Exchange from MMCO

Transferring the calendar data is a fairly straightforward process that is the same as exporting and importing data from any other calendar. Some anomalies may occur as a result of the limitations documented above.

Exporting the calendar data

  1. Install and configure the Meeting Maker Connector for Outlook as outlined above.
  2. Once you are sure all of the data has been synchronized between the Meeting Maker server and Outlook, open Outlook and select File, Import and Export.
  3. Select Export to a file and click Next.
  4. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst) as your file type and click Next.
  5. Choose your calendar that has the Meeting Maker data in it and click Next.
  6. Select the destination you would like for this file. It will probably be no bigger than 20MB, but will vary with calendar size. Click Finish.
  7. You will be asked to name the personal folder. Type an appropriate name, add a password if you would like, and click OK.
  8. Outlook will process all of your calendar events. When it is finished, the window will disappear and you will have a new .pst file in the location that you chose above.

Importing the calendar data

  1. Open Outlook and select File, Import and Export.
  2. Select Import from another program or file and click Next.
  3. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst) as your file type and click Next.
  4. Browse to the destination you exported the file to and select the appropriate .pst. Click Next.
  5. Select the calendar as the folder to import from. Select your active calendar to import into and click Finish.
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