How OggSync Works
Syncronizing Google Calendar with Outlook and Pocket Outlook
At the most simple level, OggSync will synchronize your Google Calendar events with Outlook on your PC and on your Mobile device. This is very useful on it’s own, as now you can have access to your calendar even when you aren’t connected to the internet, because OggSync has stored the the information in your Outlook database for you, so it’s there even if your data service is not.
You may enter new appointments and events into your PC or Mobile Outlook, and next time you are connected to the internet, OggSync will sync up your calendars by updating anything that has changed on your PC/Mobile Device and on Google Calendar. Full two way sync.
The Power of Multiple Google Calendars
For people who need to share calendar information with others, Google Calendar is an excellent tool. You can think of a Google calendar as an Outlook Category, it’s purpose is to contain related events.
For example, you may have a calendar for work events, another for family events and a third for events related to a club you belong to. Different people need to see those different events (but not see events in other categories). Google calendar allows you to do this. OggSync allows you to extend the power of Google Calendar to your Outlook and Windows Mobile environment!
OggSync Enables Multiple Google Calendars in Outlook
Using OggSync, you can now use the power of Google Calendar’s combined view within your mobile device and Microsoft Outlook. OggSync will pull those events into your Outlook calendar and will also keep them separate from one another, but combined in your calendar view. Now you can see immediately if you have conflicts with different aspects of your life, right in Outlook and on your Windows Mobile device.
Outlook Category to Google Calendar Mapping
OggSync brings the power of Google to your Microsoft Outlook environment. By installing the OggSync Add-in for Outlook, you can now use your personal or Exchange account and share Events with your group right from your main personal or Exchange calendar using Google Calendars.
By leveraging Outlook Categories, you can create new Appointments in Outlook Calendars and also see appointments others have assigned to that Category. Categories work as follows:
- For a new Outlook created event, if the Category matches a Google calendar, OggSync will sync that event to that Google calendar on the next sync.
- If there is a new event in a Google Calendar that you are syncing to, OggSync will add that event to your Outlook database with a Category with the same name as the Google Calendar.
- Once this initial relationship is set up, OggSync will no longer look at your Category when it does a sync (so you may add a second category for your own purposes).
By leveraging categories in Outlook, you can use the power of Google calendar sharing. See the Features list in the different sections for more details on what OggSync can do.
Will OggSync work with the Tasks in Outlook??? Does it help sync those to my mobile phone?
Comment by Lyn Erickson — June 18, 2007 @ 11:41 amOggSync works by syncing to Google. (From Outlook to google to your windows mobile device.) Right now Google doesn’t have a tasks feature and the contacts are not opened up to an API. So to sync Contacts and Task Lists, you should use ActiveSync, but be sure to turn off the Calendar sync portion of that.
Comment by OggSync — June 18, 2007 @ 1:10 pmAt the very top of this page the last sentence reads: “Full two way sync.”
This is not necessarily accurate in all cases. I have the MotorolaQ and am using the Oggsync for Mobile Freeware ver 2.20. I am able to enter in an event on my phone without being connected to my PC, push the Sync button on my phone, refresh the PC screen displaying my Google Calendar and the screen will refresh with the new event added.
However!
When I delete that exact same event from my phone, hit the sync button again, hit the refresh button on my PC after the phone is finished syncing, the event on my PC is still listed on my Google Calendar. The only way to remove the event from the PC, is to manually delete it on the PC.
So that statement - “Full two way sync.” - is not absolutely true. You can add an event onto your Google Calendar via the phone and syncing. But you can not remove an event from your Google Calendar via the phone and syncing. That is unless I am missing something. In that case, please enlighten me.
Comment by Bootlegged — June 21, 2007 @ 8:41 amTry version 3.13 for Outlook and 2.21 for Mobile which fixes an issue with shared calendars (OggSync didn’t think they were writeable due to a change/misconception with Google.) This should work for you with this version.
Comment by OggSync — June 23, 2007 @ 9:13 pmFirst, i’d like to say thank you. I am a new user of your product and i’m already sold on it. I’ve installed it and synced my Outlook with Google calendar. Works great.
Secondly, after installing the add-on tool and purchasing the pro version the option “… Sync Settings” on the bottom right of the configuration screen is still graied out. I would like to have it synce both ways (0utlook to/from Google).
Thx.
Comment by YBenya — June 29, 2007 @ 6:28 amI use Oracle Calendar Connector for Outlook 2003 to sync my business calendar. Will Oggsync be able to access that calendar information? The only app I’ve found that can is Pocket Mirror, but it’s so error prone it’s become useless to me. I’m looking for a replacement, and the fact that Oggsync also syncs with google calendar is a huge bonus.
Thanks!
Comment by Greg — August 3, 2007 @ 8:40 amHi, This is a great product and helped me a lot in my day to day activities.
Comment by Arun — May 5, 2008 @ 9:20 amThanks a lot for the oggsync team.