tejicles
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Is there are way to sync Exchange 2010 shared calendar with mobile devices?
At our business, we have blackberries, iphones, and android phones. Most of the android phones have 2.2 on them, but a few of them still have a little older version on them. My question is this: can you sync shared exchange calendars to any/all of these devices? if so, does it require third party applications? I have read that iPhone requires third party software for shared calendars. If third party software is available for these devices, does anyone have any suggestions for any of these types of devices? Thanks in advance for any answers/comments.
nwtechdesk
Apple licenses MS Sync which means they work brilliantly with Exchange. Blackberry has its own software for Exchange that requires $2K for the first license and much much more for an unlimited license. Android does not sync at all without downloading some third party app (such as touchdown). None of them want to work with PUBLIC calendars (if that's what you mean by shared). Microsoft itself has stated that they are committed to supporting public folders until 2016 but perhaps not after.
Go here and test if your activesync is setup properly
http://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/
Also you can Test using this tool
https://store.accessmylan.com/main/diagnostic-tools?pos=footer
Please report back results here.
http://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/
Also you can Test using this tool
https://store.accessmylan.com/main/diagnostic-tools?pos=footer
Please report back results here.
ASKER
Using testexchangeconnectivity we found that everything was properly configured. The only warning was that our security certificate wouldn't work with windows mobile devices running windows mobile 5 or lower. Everything else checked out. And I am fairly new to exchange so I don't understand the difference between a public calendar and l one shared between multiple users...... Thank you for your comments
ASKER
I found out a better way to explain what I mean by shared calendar. Essentially, we set up a user whose account is not used by anyone. We created a calendar on that account and shared it to a number of other users by clicking share this calendar. This is the calendar we would like to have show up on the phones. We are aware of the public calendar that is set up to do what we've done, but we could not get that calendar to show up in the calendar tab of outlook, so we went with this solution. Any help would be much appreciated.
a) ActiveSync is configured to sync the resources in a mailbox - calendar contacts mail etc.
I believe it CANNOT sync Public folder elements.
That being said - I am not 100% sure. I've tried this in one of my clients and setup GSync or something just to sync Calendar's.
b) I understand what you are trying to do with a user's shared calendar.
Are you saying that you were able to do this in earlier version of Exchange, and you cant do that in E 2010 ?
Please clarify.
c) There is a software which does Public folder etc. sharing
Chapura Pocket Mirror. Give it a go and see if that's what you want.
http://www.chapura.com/products.php
I believe it CANNOT sync Public folder elements.
That being said - I am not 100% sure. I've tried this in one of my clients and setup GSync or something just to sync Calendar's.
b) I understand what you are trying to do with a user's shared calendar.
Are you saying that you were able to do this in earlier version of Exchange, and you cant do that in E 2010 ?
Please clarify.
c) There is a software which does Public folder etc. sharing
Chapura Pocket Mirror. Give it a go and see if that's what you want.
http://www.chapura.com/products.php
ASKER
We have not been able to do this in any previous version of Exchange. But we have never had Exchange before either, so we have never tried it. I will check out Chapura. Thank you for the advice. Any other suggestions of third party software for iphone, blackberry, and/or android? Thank you in advance.
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ASKER
Thank you very much for your detailed response. I have gone ahead and given you the points, but i will let you know if it works or not. Thanks again
Did it work ?
Thanks for the points :-)
Thanks for the points :-)
ASKER
It does seem to work. Great idea! We haven't tested it fully, but we should be able to sync the calendar we are sharing to a gmail account through google sync and then add that calendar to the phones we want. Thank you for the solution! I will report any problems we come across or any modifications necessary. Thanks again!
ASKER
sunnyc7
Your solution worked perfectly! The only caveat is that it only syncs the default calendar from Outlook.
We have only tested it on the iPhone so far, and we were able to get it to sync, but we synced directly from the user account that we had set up as the shared calendar user. The iphone worked beautifully, but we had to take the following steps:
1. Download google calendar sync
2. Set up a computer with Outlook to connect to Exchange as the shared calendar user
3. Use google sync with this outlook connection to sync the shared calendar to a new gmail account
set up for this user.
4. Shared this google calendar with the other gmail accounts wishing to sync that calendar.
5. Changed existing iPhone gmail accounts to exchange accounts with m.google.com as the server name.
6. visited m.google.com/sync from the iPhone to choose the shared calendars to sync, because the shared google calendar is not selected by default.
If google calendar sync is built into android phones, then adding the account as exchange should not be necessary.....All you would have to do is go to m.google.com/sync and select the Calendars. But we have not tested on Android yet....Thanks again for your helpful solution!
Your solution worked perfectly! The only caveat is that it only syncs the default calendar from Outlook.
We have only tested it on the iPhone so far, and we were able to get it to sync, but we synced directly from the user account that we had set up as the shared calendar user. The iphone worked beautifully, but we had to take the following steps:
1. Download google calendar sync
2. Set up a computer with Outlook to connect to Exchange as the shared calendar user
3. Use google sync with this outlook connection to sync the shared calendar to a new gmail account
set up for this user.
4. Shared this google calendar with the other gmail accounts wishing to sync that calendar.
5. Changed existing iPhone gmail accounts to exchange accounts with m.google.com as the server name.
6. visited m.google.com/sync from the iPhone to choose the shared calendars to sync, because the shared google calendar is not selected by default.
If google calendar sync is built into android phones, then adding the account as exchange should not be necessary.....All you would have to do is go to m.google.com/sync and select the Calendars. But we have not tested on Android yet....Thanks again for your helpful solution!
ok. I am glad this worked out :-)
It will only sync the default calendar - it wont sync sub-folders / calendars in public folders etc.
That's a catch.
But I havent found out any other way to make subfolders work either.
ActiveSync will not at all sync anything other than the default mailbox folders.
Chapura pocket mirror might.
I think the share steps were necessary to enable 2-way sync. Thanks for pointers on that I will use it next time.
It will only sync the default calendar - it wont sync sub-folders / calendars in public folders etc.
That's a catch.
But I havent found out any other way to make subfolders work either.
ActiveSync will not at all sync anything other than the default mailbox folders.
Chapura pocket mirror might.
I think the share steps were necessary to enable 2-way sync. Thanks for pointers on that I will use it next time.