OggSync reached the 30,000 user milestone today!  The 4.0 beta is proceeding so we expect to release a new Desktop and Mobile 4.0 beta this week.  Thank you users and beta testers!

We thank those users who helped us out during the private beta test of OggSync. We have decided to move the beta to a full public beta. Before installing please backup your data and also uninstall previous versions of OggSync that you are running.

We’ve made a quick presentation that outlines some of the new features in OggSync Mobile 4.0, that is available here.

As mentioned before, the major new feature for OggSync 4.0 is contact sync. OggSync supports all of the Google Contact fields and will sync as many fields as it can to the mobile or office environment. OggSync preserves all data on both Google and Outlook sides. This means that if you have 20 email addresses for a contact in Google, OggSync will sync as many as it can to Outlook or the Device, but preserve the extra information in Google when data is synced back from Outlook.

We also are pleased to announce a major change in the way we support Microsoft Outlook. OggSync now runs as a system tray application in version 4.0 with a start at windows bootup and autosync feature so that you are always in sync.
As always, OggSync supports Multiple Google calendars to multiple Outlook calendars (with either a combined view in a single Outlook calendar or spread or repeated to as many Outlook calendars as you wish). 4.0 also supports contact sync in the Desktop.

We know that contact sync has been the major feature request and OggSync is proud to be the first product with real Google Contact sync. Just like with Multiple Google calendar sync, we very much want to be the innovator for features you want as fast as we can deliver them.

If you have any issues with the beta, please make all report to support@oggsync.com.

Thank you!

Just a brief update.  OggSync reached 25,000 users yesterday and we’ve started the Outlook beta for contact sync.  We are also changing the Outlook support from an Outlook add-in toolbar to a system tray application.  Our biggest support cost is trying to keep the Outlook toolbars happy and available.  Since a system tray application doesn’t run inside of the Outlook process, we think this will allow for much more reliable service with the added benefit of not requiring Outlook to be running to keep in sync with Google.   More to come…

Today Google announced support for Contact access to GMail and Google Apps. OggSync is announcing version 4.0 which will include native sync with Google Contacts. Now, OggSync will keep your contacts in sync with your Outlook, Google Mail and Windows Mobile devices natively. No entering your valuable Google password into 3rd party servers. No data traffic except between your device and Google over SSL. Just you, Google and your contacts where you need them, on your phone and/or in Outlook. OggSync just made it a little easier to run your organization with Google Apps.

As always, this upgrade is free for OggSync subscribers. We should have a beta version available this week and a release version as fast as we get the green light.

If you would like to be in the beta program, please send an email to support@oggsync.com asking to be a part of the contact sync beta.

Quick update:  We are receiving your emails although we haven’t replied (good turnout), don’t worry, the beta hasn’t started just yet, you will be notified when we are ready.  Thanks!

For January 2008, OggSync is headed for another record month of user growth! We have exciting plans ahead for OggSync, and we thank you for helping make us the best choice for syncing Windows Outlook and Windows Mobile to multiple Google Calendars!

OggSync provides direct from your Windows Mobile handset to Google Calendar sync capability directly over your phones internet connection. No PC required, however you can choose to use a cradled connection if you don’t have a data plan.

OggSync also comes in an Outlook version for sycing direct from Windows Outlook. OggSync is the first and best solution to sync multiple Google Calendars to windows Mobile and Outlook. There are never middle servers and your password remains between you and Google! We always keep the syncing logic updated to the latest Google protocols.

Give it a try today!

One common configuration question, which also happens to be the initial design goal of OggSync, is a user with both professional and personal calendars, using Outlook+Exchange at work, Outlook at Home and perhaps a Windows Mobile Phone. This is OggSync’s design target, so this article is an outline for using OggSync in this situation.

The goals of this configuration are:

• Work Exchange Primary Calendar doesn’t have personal information in it.
• Additional Personal Outlook Calendar on work PC has combined view with all information in it.
• Home Outlook Calendar has a combined view with both Work and Personal Events in it.
• Family Calendar is shared with spouse, and doesn’t have work information in it.
• Additional calendars shared with other people is possible which may or may not be included in the calendar.

The engine that makes this all possible is Google Calendars. So we are going to need to do some manual Google prep work. We will need to create a calendar for each of the categories we are talking about:

1. Work Events
2. Family Events
3. Any Additional Category Events (clubs, social/church organizations, etc.)

You can also subdivide the Work events, but Google only has one level of calendars at the moment so if you have say 2 projects at work, you may want to create 2 calendars. If you are already using categories in your Outlook Exchange server to manage your events, you should create calendars whose names exactly match those categories.

The image to the upper right says “Test Two” but this is actual the name of that account, so that is the calendar that Google automatically adds. We will not be using this calendar much.

Work Outlook+Exchange Calendar Setup

Just to be safe, at this point we backup the Exchange calendar by saving a pst file.

Now that we have backed it up, we are ready to install the OggSync for Outlook toolbar by downloading and running the installer. Once OggSync is installed, we launch Outlook, go to the Primary calendar view (make sure the sync button says “Sync Calendar”), then select the “Configuration” menu item from the OggSync Toolbar.

The important things to notice from this (small) screen shot are:

• Default Google Calendar for this sync is set for “Work Project A”. This means that any events from Exchange that don’t contain a category are placed in the Work Project A calendar.
• Also, we have checked the “Unknown Category to Default” checkbox which tells OggSync to put any unknown categories in the default calendar. This is useful if you have some other random categories that you aren’t interested in tracking or making a specific calendar for.
• Since we have some events with the “Work Project B” category, we go ahead and check both the “Work Project A and Work Project B” Calendar.
• Since we don’t want personal events in our primary Exchange calendar, we do not check any of the other Google calendars to sync with.
• If, however, we wanted to block out time in our Exchange calendar based on one of the other calendars, but not share the details of that, we can choose a one way sync from Google to Outlook for that calendar and choose the “Publish As Free Busy” (grayed out in the image to the right).
• Remember each calendar can have it’s own sync style, clicking on the calendar in the list exposes the settings for that calendar.

At this point we are set up, and we can do a sync to publish all the events to Google. Remember this example is set up as a two way sync (so you can enter new events into Google). However, you should be careful deleting events in Google as the delete will be synced to your Exchange calendar by OggSync. If you prefer, you can sync one-way (changes in Google will not be reflected in your Exchange).

Viewing A Combined Outlook Calendar at Home or at Work

Google:Outlook:

OggSync supports syncing multiple Outlook calendars as well. Create a new personal calendar in Outlook, enable the viewing of it by checking the calendar in the left bar, then click it. If you name it “Combined” for example, you should see the google Toolbar change from “Sync Calendar” to “Sync Combined”. At this point, you can bring up the configuration screen for that calendar and check all of the calendars, you can log in again with your same Google account. (Or another if you wish.)
When you do a sync on this new Outlook Calendar, all the events from the Google Calendars will be pulled into the new Outlook personal calendar giving you a unified view of your events. If you have two way sync on for all of the Google calendars, you can Add events to this calendar and the will be synced to Google and all the calendars that are syncing with those Google calendars.

Viewing your Combined View on your Windows Mobile Phone

The exact same process is then applied to your Windows Mobile Device. Once you install OggSync on your device, you will sync with Google which will allow you view and modify any of your calendars by using Categories.

I hope this helps understand the steps and layout for using OggSync at Work, Home and on the move. Please make suggestions in the comment section for areas where this tutorial is vague or confusing and we will improve it. Thanks for reading!

Google Has introduced Group Chat to it’s GMail interface and also a series of translation robots that leverage the existing Google Translate technology.  The world continues to get smaller.

This technology is not fully rolled out into Google Apps for your domain, but I suspect it will be shortly.

Today, Google has announced a Blackberry Sync Client. Now, with the Google client and OggSync for Outlook and Windows Mobile, there is now a very reliable sync solution ready for the enterprise!

One more way your organization can leverage the Google Apps infrastructure in your personal and business life.

If you are interested in considering OggSync and Google Apps for your organization, please contact us at oggsync@oggsync.com and we can help you migrate and leverage your existing client infrastructure.

When your business depends on scheduling, it’s not always a good idea to not have a disaster recovery plan for your calendaring data. Google Calendar doesn’t currently offer a “time machine” or automated backups of your data.

However, OggSync for Outlook can help you in this situation. If you are an OggSync customer, you can use OggSync for Outlook to provide a manual or automatic scheduled backup to your Google calendar. Set up as follows:

1. Install either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 on your backup PC
2. Install OggSync for Outlook
3. Create a GMail or Google Apps for your Domain backup account
4. Share all your calendars that you wish backed up with this account
5. Connect OggSync for Outlook to your GMail or Google Apps for your Domain backup account
6. Set the maximum sync range
7. Set Automatic Sync Mode
8. Install the Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup Tool for Outlook and schedule daily backups
9. Follow the instructions for using the tool.

In general, it will be a good practice to perform a sync, then save the backup at the frequency you are comfortable with.

This will get you into the game with a manual backup process, however, if you wish to take it a step further, you can also look at steps to automate the Outlook backup, however we haven’t done this ourselves yet. Combine the automated Outlook backup, with OggSync’s Automatic Sync, and you have a solution that can backup and restore your Google calendars.