Calendar improvements

In version 3.5.15, event and meeting templates and user interfaces have been further improved.

Improvements to invitations and attendee management

BlueMind eliminates errors and inconsistencies between users with clearer labels and notification options:

1. For meeting organizers:
   
   • They now have a "Send", "Save draft" and "Back" (cancel) buttons
     
   • Saving as draft is only available before invitations are sent. Once guests have been invited, only the "Send" button is left and the organizer is warned that changes will not be sent when they click the "back" button
   • When attendees are added or deleted and no other changes made, the organizer can choose to notify all attendees or not:
   • 
2. For attendees:
   
   • Attendees can no longer accept or decline an invitation without sending the response. That way the organizer has an up-to-date view of participation
   • Attendees can always send a note with their response
   • As before, they can send a different response for a all instances of one instance of an event only:
     

Unified behavior for recurring events

Managing recurring events has also been improved. Users can choose what instances of an event to update (only the current instance, the whole series or the subsequent instances in the series) for all the actions performed in calendar view:

For more details on these new functionalities, please go to the pages on the Calendar, and in particular those on Events and Organizing Meetings.

Improved performance

Resource-hungry tasks such as reminders, syncing and backup have been overhauled in version 4.1.4 to improve performance and lighten the server's load.

Event reminder improvements

In addition to having overhauled reminder tasks which are particularly demanding on some installations, improvements have also been made to the way event reminders work. Users can customize the type of alert they prefer – an email message or a desktop notification:

Reminders can still be repeated and users can set different reminder types. To find out more, please go to our page on even ts .

Calendar attachments

One or our users' most popular suggestions, attaching files to calendar events, is finally possible with BlueMind version 3.5.13!

Find out more about it in our page on calendar events.

Event Duplication 

Version 3.5.16 of BlueMind introduces one of the Suggestion Box's most eagerly awaited feature: event duplication.

You no longer need to retrieve a long list of meeting participants or previously booked resources, just enter the location or the meeting's title, you can now copy the event to create it based on the same template with a simple click!

You can duplicate a single event, an entire series of events or one instance in a series of events.

Find out more about this feature on our page about calendar events.

Resource content templates

From BlueMind 3.5.13 event description templates can be set up for resources. When a resource of that type is invited to an event, the template will be automatically inserted into the event description. These templates can contain variables and be set up in several languages to match the event organizer's language.

To find out more, please go to our page about resources in the Administrator's Guide.

Exporting user data

BlueMind version 3.5.13 makes it possible to export all of a user's data using a new bm-cli command:

bm-cli user export jdoe@bluemind.loc

Find out more about this in our dedicated page: CLI Admin Client

Calendar

Redesigned features

In order to level up with other market players and bring new possibilities to our users, BlueMind 3.5 calendar features have been redesigned. Please find out more about them in our documentation's page: Calendar - Meeting management.

New Calendar features include:

• Being able to specify different participation statuses for each instance of a recurring meeting. I.e., participants can confirm their assistance for the whole series and, if necessary, specify that they will not attend a particular instance.
• Event organizers, who are now participants in all their events and meetings, have better control over the meeting and centralizes participation statuses. Other participants can check others' participants' status through the organizer's event view.
• Each participant now has a customized view of a meeting, which means they can edit it (customized title, description, location, etc.) without changes being seen by other participants.

Domain calendars

Domain calendars are no longer considered as physical entities like users and resources. They are now considered as calendars whose purpose is to inform users.

As a result, domain calendars can no longer be set as event organizers or be invited to events, as used to be the case with BlueMind 3.0.

To find out more about domain calendars, how to use them and new practices, please go to the user's guide page Calendar - Meeting management, and in particular the paragraph about Domain calendars.

Overbooking and automatic resource booking

BlueMind 3.5.5 brings a long-awaited feature: auto-accept or reject resource bookings.

Thanks to this, although resource managers will continue to be alerted about resource bookings, they will no longer have to accept or reject requests through the resource's calendar. If a resource is available, its participation is automatically confirmed, if not, it is rejected. The resource manager can still arbitrate and edit bookings as necessary.

This feature is optional and BlueMind's earlier resource management method can be kept.

To find out more, go to the dedicated page Resource administration.

Multiple Calendars

BlueMind users can now create and own as many personal calendars as they like. This means they can sort and share events more efficiently.

In addition, users can choose which calendars will be used to show their availability:

External calendars

BlueMind 3.5 makes it possible to synchronize external calendars for viewing through a calendar's url in iCal format (.ics file extension).

External sharing

The BlueMind calendar can now be shared externally through a public address or a private address that allows private events to be viewed.

For more details about this feature, go to Sharing Calendars

Custom calendar colors

With BlueMind 3.5, you can set calendar colors which are saved for future sessions.

To find out more, go to the section:  calendar colors.

Object history

You can now view events, contacts, or tasks creation and modification history.

Default alerts 

Default alerts are now enabled and can be configured according to your preferences.

Mail

Large files and linked attachments

BlueMind v.3.5 introduces the possibility to detach attachments from messages and show them as download links instead. This makes messages lighter, thereby alleviating servers and communication networks: files are no longer sent within email messages and stored on the incoming server in addition to the outgoing server and being duplicated and multiplied as messages are forwarded and replied to.

To find out more about how this works, please go to: Large files and linked attachments.

For more details about implementing this feature, go to the administrator's guide's page: Post-installation configuration.

Connecting with Nextcloud

To complement the linked attachments feature, BlueMind 3.5.7 offers the possibility for you to connect to Nextcloud accounts so that you can use your Nextcloud space:

To find out more, please go to our pages on Nextcloud administration or configuration by users .

File chooser

The file chooser enables you to browse previously sent files which are stored in your user area:

Auto-forward to several recipients

BlueMind now enables you to forward a mailbox's messages to several recipients automatically.

See Administrator's Guide > Users > § Mail

Corporate Signatures

BlueMind version 3.5.12 incorporates a new version of corporate and group signatures – which is available since version 3.5.8.

You can set up as many signatures as you like for messages sent within or outside the domain, for a group of users or all users, for a specific period, etc.

You can customize signatures based on the same design to include names, addresses, phone numbers or other data extracted from senders contact cards.

The application also allows you add a disclaimer to outgoing messages.

From version 3.5.12 a preview of the signature is shown in the message composer.

From version 3.5.14, the administrator can set up signatures for single entities, including shared mailboxes.

Tasks

With BlueMind 3.5 you can now  manage tasks in a specific UI and synchronized with the calendar.

You can organize tasks in lists and use tags which are shared with other BlueMind applications (Contacts and Calendar).

You can share tasks lists with your colleagues by giving them basic or full management privileges.

Navigation bar

A brand new top navigation bar makes is easier to move around BlueMind and access applications and features:

EAS/iOS synchronization

Contacts

Apple mobile devices synchronized via EAS now include the synchronization of multiple address books: personal and shared.

Only collected contacts and the directory cannot be synchronized.

Tasks

You can manage all BlueMind tasks (create, edit, confirm...) in your usual iOS app:

For administrators

Updating BlueMind and installing packages

From version 3.5.14,  a new security feature ensures that additional packages are installed in the same version of BlueMind and that the administrator controls the server version. This enables administrators to update BlueMind to a specific version, to the latest available version or freeze a version to stop BlueMind being automatically updated with the system.

This requires a new pre-update step. To find out more, please go to our page about Updating BlueMind.

OS Support

BlueMind now supports RedHat 7, Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) and Debian 9 (Stretch).

Find out more about all supported operating systems in the Installation prerequisites page.

Subscription

For subscription-based BlueMind 3.5 installations, the number of BlueMind users must be the same as the number indicated in the subscription.

From version 3.5.11, email addresses can be set as the recipients of subscription alerts (validity date or maximum user quota approaching).

A first address is requested when you install the version. Addresses are then managed from the subscription management page in the admin console.

Command lines 

BlueMind 3.5.10 offers the possibility to install a CLI client (Command Line Interface) which enables you to perform admin tasks for the BlueMind platform in command line without having to write scripts.

In version 3.5.11, this tool includes additional functionalities: user, calendar and contact management.

More advanced administration rights management

Improvements have been made to administration rights which can now be fine tuned for specific users or domain administrators. Rights can now be specifically set for:

• users
• groups
• domain address books
• domain calendars
• shared mailboxes
• resources
• the domain (quotas, number of users)
• ...

This is now done through groups as opposed to assigning user or administrator profiles .

Restricting the number of domain users

A maximum number of users can now be set for each domain.

External Users

With BlueMind 3.5.10, you can have users with an email address outside the domain. These users can be added to BlueMind groups, which means that you can write to a group of both internal and external people.

To find out more, go to the administrator's guide: External Users

For Developers

PHP Client

With BlueMind version 3.5.11 the API PHP client is published.

API Documentation

The BlueMind API has been completely redesigned and is available either directly through HTTP REST calls or using clients (currently Java, Javascript, C#, Python and PHP). The bluemind-samples repository is available and incorporates everything you need to contribute to BlueMind by developing Add-Ons. A maven archetype is also available to facilitate the definition of new projects.

An interactive documentation for our new API REST is imbedded in the installer and can be accessed by users with “Api docs” privileges. This documentation is also published in BlueMind Docs.