Inserting Oracle Calendar Server / Meeting Maker into Zimbra

By this point the idea is to make the actual insertion into Zimbra a boring anti-climax.

We have the same goal inserting legacy data into Microsoft Exchange, but because of Exchange architecture this is a little more intricate than Zimbra (So we deal with it separately).

Your primary tool is called zinsert.exe, which you invoke from the Command Prompt (which those of us of a certain age refer to as "DOS").

Simply typing zinsert (-Enter-) will give you a brief summary of functionality.

First off, use ODBC (available under Control Panel) to point to the conversion database. Let's call your ODBC connection "Zimbra."

To create a series of ICS files with appropriate cross-linked GUIDs, use this command:

zinsert -fo -cs DSN=ZIMBRA -tf_utc_to_timezone

In general, converting for the appropriate time zone, use the -tf_utc_to_timezone option unless we determine another one is better (not likely, but we keep them there in case -- you never know what the US Congress is going to do with Daylight Savings Time).

Inserting into Zimbra

That's what the -post command is for, which as of this date we haven't actually had to use (also it will require knowing each user's password which is a pain)

You can use curl, or (thanks to a college in New Jersey), you can use this method.

This solution doesn't require an admin to know the user's password.

It does require a configured web server and assumes there is a separate ICS for each user calendar.

1. The ICS files need to be placed on a web server that the Zimbra server will be able to access via http (or https). I'll assume a base of http://YOURDOMAIN/migrate/.

2. Create a file (e.g. /tmp/importcals.zcs) that will be fed to zmprov with contents like this:

selectMailbox USERID1

emptyFolder Calendar <--- optional command

importURLIntoFolder Calendar http://YOURDOMAIN/migrate/USERID1.ics

selectMailbox USERID2

emptyFolder Calendar <--- optional command

importURLIntoFolder Calendar http://YOURDOMAIN/migrate/USERID2.ics

3. Run that through zmprov.

zmprov -f /tmp/importcals.zcs