One of the most annoying things that I had to face when I got my Android phone was the calendars. Android uses Google as the service behind email (gmail) and its calendar. I, like many of you, use Outlook as my primary calendar, since it has all of my meeting requests built-in with it. In Android, the Corporate Calendar app lets you connect to the Exchange calendar, and the regular Calendar app connects to Google’s service. Sure, fine, right? but what happens when you have conflicting appointments across your personal Google calendar and your outlook calendar? What if you want everything all in one place so you can just put up one calendar widget on your Android desktop? Well, the answer my friends is Google Calendar Sync.
Google Calendar Sync allows you to set up one or two-way syncing between Google Calendar and Exchange. Amazing, right? Now you can sync up your accounts all from one place. But wait! There’s more!
Working as a consultant, I found that when I went to a new client, they would set me up with an email and calendar account of my own on their exchange server. UGH! Now I’ve got 4 different Exchange calendars that I have to worry about! Well, just install Google Calendar Sync onto each machine that has Outlook for each account you want to sync. Then, set all of them to two-way sync to the same Google Calendar. Guess what you just did? Now all of your Exchange Calendars have all of your meetings! Now no matter where you are you will never overbook yourself (except if you do it on purpose, you over-achievers)!
Viola, now you know exactly where to go and what to do, on the go, at the office, or at the client. Done. The following is how to get started, straight from Google’s Calendar Sync site:
To set up Google Calendar Sync:
- Make sure you’re using a supported operating system and Outlook version.
- Download Google Calendar Sync (version 0.9.3.5) athttp://dl.google.com/googlecalendarsync/GoogleCalendarSync_Installer.exe
- Once a dialog box appears, click Save File. The downloaded file should open automatically. If it doesn’t, manually open it from your browser’s download window.
- Click OK to confirm that you’re aware this is an executable file.
- Read through the Google Calendar Sync Terms of Service, and click I Agree.
- Follow through the Installation Options and click Install to finish the set-up process.
Once Google Calendar Sync is installed on your computer, the Google Calendar Sync Settings window will appear:
In the Settings window, enter your email address and password and select the Sync Option you prefer. Read about each Sync Option.
You’ll also be able to set the time interval for syncing to occur. Please keep in mind that 10 minutes is the minimum time interval allowed.
After the initial set-up, you can access the Google Calendar Sync Settings window again by double-clicking the calendar icon in your Windows System Tray.
Icon Status
To access the Google Calendar Sync Settings window, just right-click the calendar icon in your Windows System Tray and selectOptions.
When your events are actively syncing between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar, you’ll see arrows in the Google Calendar Sync icon:
When events aren’t actively syncing, your calendar icon will look like this:
Source: Google Calendar Sync