[turba] Re: Contact Management

James Tavares jtavares@loa.com
Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:13:25 -0400


I had another idea about groups in SQL (my original notion for groups in
LDAP is still unmodfied)...

Turba_RelationshipMap (
 Parent_ID
 Child_ID
)

Turba_Objects (
   ...existing object table...
)

It's not unlikly that a group could need similar information as to what is
stored in a regular object. For example, if a group represents everyone a
local organization:

Group: thatBusiness, NO TITLE, Coporate Headquarters, 300 Park Drive,
Woonsocket, RI 02222, NO EMAIL
Group: thatBusinessVicePresidents, NO TITLE, The VP Building, 400 Park
Drive, Woonsocket, RI , NO EMAIL
Contact: Jim, President of thatBusiness, 300 Park Drive (Or home address?)
jim@thatbusiness
Contact: Joe, Vice-President of Down Market Lay-offs etc...
joe@thatbusiness
Contact: Terrance, Vice-President of Some other Thing...
terrance@thatbusiness
Contact: Jane, COO etc...  jane@thatbusiness

They do share alot of the same type of information.... Except for like TITLE
and EMAIL...

In the relationshipMap we would see:
ParentID    ChildID
thatBus    Jim
thatBvp    Joe
thatBvp    Terrance
thatBus    Jane
thatBus    thatBvp

Such that, mail to each individual contact will is a normal expansion. Email
to "thatBusinessVp" will go to JOE and TERRANCE, that VPs, and
"thatBusiness" will go to JIM, JANE, and the group "thatBusinessVP" which
contains JOE and TERRANCE.

Of course, the table would be based on the ID and not their names, but, you
get the idea.

I guess there is no reason why a group couldn't have its own email address
either. It would just be included in the list of email addresses that the
group name expands too. Groups have phone numbers, fax numbers, addresses,
and notes... Just like people do.

It's all just an idea... This all would fit just fine with my LDAP
definitions in my previous email as well, since there was only one tree
(cn=OBJECTID, ou=username@domain, o=myOrg  --OR--  cn=OBJECTID, ou=objects,
o=myOrg with an ownerID: attribute in each entry) for all objects.. An
object that is currently a contact could at any time be turned into a group
as well.

Let me know.
-James

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Hagenbuch" <chuck@horde.org>
To: <turba@lists.horde.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: [turba] Re: Contact Management


> Quoting James Tavares <jtavares@loa.com>:
>
> > I'd like to move progess along on turba's group support. It's important
to
> > me (I hacked it into 2.2.4 in the worst way.)
>
> Great! :)
>
> > I'd like to make one suggestion...If I'm to code this, I'd like to add a
> > table so as I could support Groups within Groups.. Basically:
> >
> > CREATE TABLE Turba_Groups_Groups (
> >     parent_grID varchar(32) NOT NULL,
> >     child_grID varchar(32) NOT NULL
> > );
>
> Sure - or we could just add a object_type field to Turba_Groups, so:
>
> Turba_Groups {
>   group_id,
>   owner_id,
>   object_id,
>   object_type
> }
>
> (groups _are_ objects, after all).
>
> > What is the contents of object_ID and owner_ID?
>
> object_ID is just a unique identifier - it's the "key" field for the
object
> (like DN is in LDAP). owner_ID is the Horde username of the person who
owns
> that object.
>
> > Do you guys have any reservations about using Auto Increment columns?
> > Personally, I think they would make perfect _ID's to link all these
> > tables.....
>
> Yes: they are rather specific to mysql. We can use PEAR's sequences if
> necessary. Also, try not to think too specifically to sql; LDAP isn't a
clear
> fit for groups, but it should be possible to have dbm-based groups, for
example.
>
> Speaking of which, it seems like it might make sense to have a seperate
> Turba_GroupDriver:: hierarchy, since there's no particular reason to say
that
> they have to be stored in the same place as the actual contacts (and since
LDAP
> groups seem a bit hairy, it'd be nice to let people make groups of LDAP
> contacts). So that gets us to:
>
> Turba_Groups {
>   group_ID,
>   owner_ID,
>   object_ID,
>   object_Type,
>   object_Source
> }
>
> ... for SQL, anyway.
>
> -chuck
>
> --
> Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck@horde.org>
>
> Taurus:
> You will receive an urgent transmission from the Martian government
informing
> you that Mars does not, in fact, need women, so please stop sending them.
>
> --
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