ZIOS UPDATE v4.0 Office Communication Tool

ZIOS has been updated! ZIOS (Zulu Integrated Office Suite) was created to supply information to the Zulu users desktop to notify them of new messages and tasks. It has expanded to include synchronising with Microsoft Outlook (2000 or Greater including 2010).

The challenges facing this project were vast. To get the information in the MySQL database to be accessible without being invasive and so forth. Admittedly the first version of ZIOS was very basic and started off using the MySQL .NET Connector provided by MySQL to communicate between ZIOS and the Zulu system. Numerous problems resulted in this method as the connection was slow and you needed to be able to allow remote access via the wildcard (which not all servers and system admininistrators allow). It worked well for specific cases but generally a better method was required.

Version 2 reflected the change from using the MySQL .NET Connector to the a in house built system of CSV via HTTP. That is we were sending requests via Post to PHP file on the server, results were returned via a CSV format. You might ask, why would we do this? this lasted a whole 3 days. The method proved to be very fast but inconsistent and as soon as we upgraded Zulu the CSV system failed miserably. This led to the 2.1 change of doing something similar, however instead of CSV we introduced XML to control the data in and out. In this version we also introduced sending the data over HTTPS. This system was fast and worked well.

Version 3 saw that the user interface changed from a multi-form design to one view with tabs. Additionally created was the interaction between ZIOS and Microsoft Outlook for swapping Contacts, Tasks and Appointment. 

After the creation of the ZULU Web Service API, ZIOS was upgraded to work off the Web Service both for Security purposes and as a test to see how the Web Service performs. This proved to enhanced the reliability of ZIOS and fixed numerous bugs within ZIOS including:

• Duplicates when Syncing Outlook Data.

• Error occurring when display tasks not belonging to a project.

• Error with saving Settings when first loading ZIOS.

• Error with exiting the Settings Dialog via Red X instead of the button "Save".

• Comparing Phone numbers between ZULU and Outlook. Characters added by Outlook making the records not synched.
  Recurring Appointments Synching fix. The method of communication is done via SOAP. The web service is publicly available to any developer who has access to a Zulu System. Additionally a test Zulu is operational for testing your applications using the web service.

The version released with all Zulu's is now v.4. Those with older ZIOS systems are advised to upgrade.

 It is easy to program a Web Service for communication between PHP and any other language that supports the development of a SOAP Client. .NET made this extremely easy because of its ability to build a class based off a WSDL file. The WSDL file however is a little more difficult to understand. Look out for a future blog detailing a step by step process for creating your WSDL file.