LDAP Address Book

[nickwoolley]

Hi,

I have browsed the forums for someone who may have implemented a real time solution for linking up Sugar with an LDAP server to store contacts.

The Outlook integration is great and a Python script by David MacKinnon allows the data to be loaded into OpenLDAP periodically, but neither offers a realtime solution for accessing contacts through a 3rd party e-mail client.

I would propose that the best way to do this would be to integrate Sugar with LDAP so whenever a contact was added through Sugar the directory was also updated in real time. That way e-mail clients from Outlook to Thunderbird would be able to configure an LDAP directory and see a complete list of contacts, and automatically mail the correct person.

It could also be extended to users for internal addressing also.

It may be that this is on the way, but i think it would make integration between other clients really easy.

Thanks,

Nick

[nickwoolley]

There is a project on Sugar Forge to do something quite similar, but no files are released as yet ... http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/contactldap/

This would come at it from the OpenLDAP end - couldn't Sugar be altered so that when we added a contact it updated an LDAP directory of our choice, rather than modding OpenLDAP to read the Sugar contacts database?

Nick

[mvaldez]

Nick:

This would come at it from the OpenLDAP end - couldn't Sugar
be altered so that when we added a contact it updated an LDAP
directory of our choice, rather than modding OpenLDAP to read
the Sugar contacts database?

I agree, it is pretty silly to use the Sugar database as the source and the LDAP as the target of the sync, when LDAP is the natural store for this kind of data.

I think there are several ways to to the LDAP integration:

a) Modify SugarCRM so it store and retrieve contact data in the LDAP server.
b) Modify SugarCRM so it retrieve contact data ALSO from the LDAP server.
c) Create a sync module so that the LDAP and SugarCRM DB sync each other. (A half solution would be to sync only in one way, from Sugar DB to LDAP or from LDAP to Sugar DB.

For a programmer, the easiest way (in the long run) is the third, because you don't need to modify the SugerCRM code. The second is next and the first is the hardest. And if you change the Sugar code you have to play catch up.

Mmmh... I'm tempted to try to build a LDAP patch.

[simone.girlanda]

Hi

I'm looking to something similar, does anybody develop it ?

Does exist any solution that allow me to access to sugarCRM contacts via a LDAP server ?

[ElgertS]

This would make life so much more convenient if this were possible. I would really rather OpenLDAP be the main repository of all contact info and SugarCRM sync with it.

[HolmesA]

Voting for this too. This will allow us to have better integration between corporate systems and use a single contact book.

[dennism]

Nick:
c) Create a sync module so that the LDAP and SugarCRM DB sync each other. (A half solution would be to sync only in one way, from Sugar DB to LDAP or from LDAP to Sugar DB.

Has anyone made any progress on this. I too would very much like to access my Sugar contacts as an address book in Outlook. Ldap would be the logical way to do that.

Seems like it wouldnt be that hard to make a script/batch file the did a one way export from Sugar to a file a couple times a day. Then on the LDAP side a similar script/batch file to import the data...

What do you think?

[fugazied]

I would also love to see a decent implementation of this by one of the Sugar gurus out there. I am currently writing it into our 5.0.0.a sugar system, but I am just getting my head around sugar so its slow going.

[phrawzty]

I'm just bumping this as a feature request - we've already got a functioning LDAP infrastructure (RedHat Directory, to be specific), and it would be absolutely lovely if SugarCRM could use LDAP for the contact list.

[mikeshinn]

Ditto. I found a script though that will "extract contact data from Sugar, and import it into an LDAP tree, so that Thunderbird clients can use it as an address book." Might help some folks - but I too would love to have this feature so we can use our RH directory as the central store of contact information.

http://tumbleweed.org.za/code/sugarc...ontact-slurper