How do I create a support request?

Open a new support ticket on the sf-net pages or search the archive.

Note: When you change the Simple Groupware code base or add new code without publishing it, there can be no support for your code.

Can Simple Groupware be integrated with other software systems?

Yes. There are systems supported by default, see data handlers, authentication. Others can be integrated by using the SOAP server. All kinds of integrations require proper testing and in some cases coding, so it's up to you to hire the right programmers or software companies. Since Simple Groupware is completely open source, there are no limits.

The setup stops with: Please give write access to ...

Simple Groupware needs to write into some directories. Therefore the setup checks if write permissions are properly set.
Write permission means that the user running the Apache webserver has the permission to write. If you uploaded the Simple Groupware files with a FTP program, the owner of the directory may be different from the user running Apache. In that case it might be necessary to give write permissions to anonymous on a Linux/Unix system.

Directories with "write" permissions: <sgs-dir>/bin, <sgs-dir>/simple_cache, <sgs-dir>/simple_store, also <sgs-dir>/bin/index.php

Directories with "read" permissions: <sgs-dir>/src, <sgs-dir>/lang, <sgs-dir>/import

How do I change the language after the Simple Groupware installation ?

Language files are not parsed by Simple Groupware for every page request. Instead they are compiled into the code in order to increase the performance.
If you want to change the language, empty the directory "<sgs-dir>/bin/" and delete the file "<sgs-dir>/simple_store/config.php". Then open your browser with "http://your_server/sgs_dir/src/index.php" to start the setup with the language selection again. If you enter the same parameters for the database connection, all your data will remain.

Note: Making a full backup before changing the system is never wrong.

Can I install Simple Groupware with more than one language ?

No. During setup, all translations are directly compiled into the source code. That way, language files don't need to be parsed for every page request and the system has a much better performance.
When all users use the same user interface, there are fewer misunderstandings and less frustration regarding different labels, different sortings, folder names, etc.
Finally training, documentation and support is much easier if every user has the same unique user interface. All users in one organization should be able to read and write one common language in order to communicate with each other. Therefore, Simple Groupware can be installed only with one language.

How can I disable (or hide) some components like Personal folders, Personal projects, Bookmarks, Organization, Contacts...?

There are two simple ways:

1. Change the folder access rights so that your users can't see it: Select the folder, select Folder > "Rights: edit" (menu at top of page), remove "anonymous" from "read access" and "write access" panels (select "anonymous" and click X aside), click "Save and go back". Now only the admin user can see the folder.

2. Delete the folder and its subfolders: Select the folder, then select Folder > "Delete incl subfolders" (from the menu at the top of the page). It will be moved to the trash (System / Trash) which is accessible to admin only.

Note: If you hide the "Personal folders", you'll also need to make sure that the users are no longer directed to their personal folders when they log in. Select Organisation > Users in the folder tree at left, select all of the user account records (e.g. tick the box at the bottom left of the list of accounts), click the Edit tab, click the Account tab, enter a new "home folder id" number into each user account record (this is the id number of the folder the users will see when they log in), click "Save and go back". You can find the id number of a folder by moving the cursor over it - it is the last number in the destination URL, e.g. the "Workspace" folder is usually 101.

After deleting a dataset it appears again in select boxes for the super administrator / How can I restore a deleted dataset?

All deleted datasets are moved to "/Workspace/System/Trash/". From there you can delete them forever or make a restore. Since the super administrator has access to the trash folder, these datasets will be still available as long as they are not deleted forever.

How can I restore a deleted folder?

All deleted folders are moved to "/Workspace/System/Trash/" and all access rights for the folders (and the subfolders) are removed. From the Trash folder, you can delete them forever or make a restore by using Folder->Cut/Paste in the top menu. The restore also requires to set the folder permissions again. Since only the super administrator has access to the trash folder by default, normal users can't restore deleted folders.

When sending mail, I get: trigger::sendmail SMTP not configured

Creating users, groups and mail accounts is described here.

How many companies use Simple Groupware ?

Using Simple Groupware is totally anonymous. There is no activation procedure, no registration, etc. So nobody can say how many users or companies have it running in production or testing.
The download statistics from sourceforge.net are available here.

Is there a date planned when Simple Groupware development stops ?

No.

Are there any commercial support services ?

No. The support is also for free.

How can I create a shared calendar that is available for a group of persons ?

New calendars are created with the "new folder" function.
Login as super administrator and navigate to the folder that should contain the new calendar. Then click "Options" below the tree, enter a name for the new folder and select "Calendar" as module. Then confirm with "Ok". Now the new folder is created and you can you set the rights for it. Therefore click "Rights" below the tree, and click "Edit". Then give read and write access for the desired persons and click "Save". In order to get access to a folder, a users also needs to have at least read access to the parent folders.
Instead of the super administrator, you can also use another user who has the right "admin access" on the folder that should contain the new folder. By default, users are not allowed to specify rights on their personal folders.

Is there an online demo version of Simple Groupware ?

No. Running a demo takes a lot of resources.
You need a dedicated server, install security updates every week, control the logfiles, control the hardware, monitor the services, do an update for every release of Simple Groupware, etc. Also you can't give every user administrative rights. With administrative rights, you can do rather everything with the server and the database.

In order to avoid misuse (spammers, defamation), every user would need to register to the demo and I would need to confirm the registration, create and remove accounts/mail addresses every day. That means people would have to wait some hours until I activate their account. Doing an installation on Windows with XAMPP and Simple Groupware normally takes 10 minutes and you can test all features. Also it would be very difficult to simulate a bigger environment with a LDAP / Active directory servers, IMAP servers, SyncML server, etc.

Therefore, running a public demo wouldn't be a good solution for completely testing and evaluating Simple Groupware.

Is there a virtual machine (VM) of Simple Groupware ?

No. Installing Simple Groupware directly on your favorite system is much faster (normally 10 minutes) than downloading a big VM that does not fit into your environment.

How can I integrate Simple Groupware into my LDAP / Active Directory infrastructure ?

This is part of the administration documentation, go here.

Is it possible to turn off the creation of a "home" folder ?

Yes, you can edit "<sgs-dir>/bin/modules/schema_sys/users.xml", remove:
trigger_new="runxml:modules/core/users.xml:home|createuser" trigger_delete="deleteuser"

The setup stops with: Please modify your php.ini or add an .htaccess file changing the setting "register_globals" to "0"

Older versions of Simple Groupware require to disable "Register globals" in php.ini. Therefore, it is recommended to install the latest version.

How do I customize Simple Groupware ?

The customization tutorial can be found here.