[HAP+][v8] - Live Tiles

[nickbro]

Here's a little pressie for those running an exchange server, Live Tiles will be coming in HAP+ v8. Every 30 seconds a HAP+ tile will ping the server to get an update, only managed to code the exchange email notification so far.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13633[/ATTACH]

The plan is to have live tiles for:

 

1. Exchange Emails
   
2. Exchange Calendar
   
3. HAP+ Help Desk Tickets
   
4. HAP+ Booking System Reminders
   
5. Homework's due.
   

 

The tiles won't be limited to the standard tile size, they could be wider (up to 3 tiles wide I'm thinking at the moment)

 

What do you lot think?

 

BTW, Exchange hits are done using Exchange Web Services (EWS), so with the exception of HAP+, no middle man

[TheScarfedOne]

That sound like a nifty addition

[PiqueABoo]

BTW, Exchange hits are done using Exchange Web Services (EWS), so with the exception of HAP+, no middle man

 

Academic question coz I've done EWS: How are you getting to the exchange service? Explicitly or via autodiscover? And is that with the users credentials or impersonation?

 

[i'm essentially wondering about whether that Exchange could be Live@Edu/Office365 where autodiscover+impersonation via some admin account with access to mailboxes could work]

Edited April 17, 2012 by PiqueABoo

[nickbro]

it's https, there's going to be a new config setting (exchange, under SMTP). So you enter e.g. schoolmail.crickhowell-hs.powys.sch.uk, hap+ will add https:// and /ews/exchange.asmx. Uses the Exchange EWS API SDK.

 

It doesn't impersonate, it'll log on as the user using the HAP+ Authentication Token

[mattgrimley]

wow, looks nice

[nickbro]

Another tile, the calendar tile (it uses the outlook calendar. I may make a timetable tile as well)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13684[/ATTACH]

It updates every 30 seconds as well (I may increase this to 60 seconds), and, again, uses EWS.

[nickbro]

Some more live tiles:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13714[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]13715[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]13716[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]13717[/ATTACH]

 

The me tile will have the student photo in it if the student photo handler is enabled, and the user has a UPN set in AD (usually in the employeeID field)

[nickbro]

Full animated screen shot of the new look homepage in action (still a work in progress, going to add some stuff to the Me Page)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13722[/ATTACH]

[mattgrimley]

Wow! That looks fab Nick!

 

Really nice work.

[nickbro]

Here's what I just redesigned my HAP+ homepage into, also added the Me tab.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13738[/ATTACH]

 

Still planned:

 

 

• Server Uptime Tile (will use the default windows performance monitors, hopefully, should impersonate the administrator user)
  
  • A tile for each server on your domain
    

   

  [*]Booking System Tile (shows today/tomorrow's bookings)

  [*]Help Desk Tile (shows your current tickets)

 

Note about the GIFs (the yellow on link clicks and textbox hovers is part of Crickhowell High School's CSS

 

Also for anyone wanting a Cookie blurb for your website concerning the ECC Directive on Cookies, you can see it on CHS's website (http://www.crickhowell-hs.powys.sch.uk/about/cookies), where you can also see what cookies HAP+ uses

[mattgrimley]

@nickbro that looks fab mate. Really exciting stuff.

 

Are you permitting re-use of your cookies blurb? It seems really detailed and would save some serious hastle.. How would i make it pop-up on the home page?

 

Thanks again for all you do!!

 

Matt

[nickbro]

Reuse is fine, i nicked some of the stuff off the http://www.GOV.uk page. Cause I use wordpress I just installed the EU Directive Plugin

[nickbro]

Just finishing off the live tiles bit, should be getting checked into source control at 3pm BST

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13788[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]13789[/ATTACH]

[mattgrimley]

Tried to build the DLL's but Visuall C# express edition doesn't support "Solution Folders" - so it makes Bin, Installers and a bunch of other stuff unavailable.. I think this then stops a bunch of the dll's from compiling. I may need to be patient!

[nickbro]

The solution folders can be ignored really, as they are only for the quota services.

 

Attached is an ALPHA 7.12 upgrade release that enables these features.

 

Here is my config to get it working:

 

 

If you want to use EWS tiles, you will need to add

 

exchange="schoolmail.crickhowell-hs.powys.sch.uk"

(change schoolmail to your exchange client access server external address (can be internal as well))

to the SMTP section

[nickbro]

If anyone wants to write a live tile, HAP+ will quite happily support this if you know javascript, edit ~/scripts/hap.web.js.js. You should find my live tiles, you can make a jQuery AJAX request for a JSON from a webservice and parse it to your own liking.

[mattgrimley]

Thanks for the zip Nick

 

Getting a Compiler Error Message: CS1061: 'ASP.default_aspx' does not contain a definition for 'editmydetails_Click' and no extension method 'editmydetails_Click' accepting a first argument of type 'ASP.default_aspx' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

 

Am i missing a file or have a just messed something up in the install?

 

(This is just my play server, so nothing "production" is broke!)

[nickbro]

Make sure the HAP.Web.dll has been updated, as well as the default.aspx page, I've deleted code references so using the old homepage and the new dll wont work

[mattgrimley]

okay, a step closer The default.aspx file within the zip on the previous page is an old one. The site is loading now, but i am getting 3 error messages. IE and Chrome just report "Internal Server Error". However, Firefox reports:

 

1> Exchange Server doesn't support the requested version.

2> Method not found: 'Void HAP.Data.BookingSystem.Booking..ctor(System.Xml.XmlNode, Boolean)'.

 

The mail server is Exchange 2010.. I have added what i thought you asked to the SMTP bit in the hapconfig.xml file.. it now reads like this:

 

Does that look correct?

 

The page loads and The Me tab, the My Files tab and the Help Desk tab are all excitingly animated! The Access my emails, Calendar and "Booking System" buttons are all quiet though.

 

[nickbro]

might be worth replacing that file with this one on codeplex source control: Home Access Plus&#43

[mattgrimley]

Tried that and it does the same

 

Firebug shows me three errors:

 

(1)https://portal.school.lea.sch.uk/beta/api/livetiles/exchange/unread

500 Internal Server Error

(2)https://portal.school.lea.sch.uk/beta/api/livetiles/exchange/appointments

500 Internal Server Error

(3)https://portal.school.lea.sch.uk/beta/api/BookingSystem/Search?%222012-04-30T11:05:24.385Z%22

500 Internal Server Error

 

Do I need to post more of the error details?

 

I presume the SMTP "exchangeserver" bit is right, because if i change the domain name, i get a different error about not finding the domain name.

 

My exchange server is "MS Exchange Server 2010 SP1", version number is 14.2 (Build number 218.15).

 

For reference, to check your exchange server version, you can run the following from powershell on the server:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010

Get-ExchangeServer |ft identity,*DisplayVersion

 

and check against the table at:

Exchange Server and Update Rollups Builds Numbers - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

[nickbro]

Very odd, unless the DLL microsoft provide is version specific, i.e. Exchange 2010 SP2 Update Rollup 2

[mattgrimley]

meh.. i was trying to avoid the service pack as the last time i installed a roll-up it borked my server!

This is as good a reason as any to "man-up" i suppose!

 

I'll let you know if it works after my update.

 

Though i presume the 3rd error is unrelated? (it's from the bookingsystem)

 

Matt

[minimoo]

(1)portal.school.lea.sch.uk/beta/api/livetiles/exchange/unread

500 Internal Server Error

(2)portal.school.lea.sch.uk/beta/api/livetiles/exchange/appointments

500 Internal Server Error

 

My exchange server is "MS Exchange Server 2010 SP1", version number is 14.2 (Build number 218.15).

 

EWS Dotnet component uses the latest version by default, but can be initialised to use an older version. [msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.exchange.webservices.data.exchangeservice.exchangeservice(v=exchg.80).aspx]

 

So to fix this without updating exchange to SP2, if you have visual studio installed, it should be possible to fix this by editing exchangeconnector.cs in the HAP.Web.LiveText.

 

Changing the line that reads:

 

ExchangeService service = new ExchangeService();

 

To:

 

ExchangeService service = new ExchangeService(ExchangeVersion.Exchange2010_SP1);

 

in your case.

 

Valid exchange server versions in this enumeration are currently: Exchange2007, Exchange2007_SP1,Exchange2010,Exchange2010_SP1,Exchange2010_SP2

 

I'm thinking a dropdown list in the setup that allows someone to specify the current exchange server version

 

Paul

[PiqueABoo]

Guess it depends what you're doing, but all my EWS code deliberately uses ExchangeVersion.Exchange2007_SP1 and that happily works (lots of mailbox enumeration, reading and writing) with newer Exchange versions e.g. Exchange 2010 SP2.