How to sync Bitrix24 calendars, contacts and tasks with Outlook?

How to sync Bitrix24 calendars, contacts and tasks with Outlook?

My friend opened a small company and he was looking for a decent collaboration platform that comes with CRM. He found Bitrix24 is a nice solution for a starter like him since it has its own cross-platform applications or APPs for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. 

Now, he is looking for a way to sync his contacts, calendars and tasks with his newly installed Outlook 2016 on his Windows 10 machines as well as other computers installing Outlook 2007, 2010 2013 or 2019 under Windows 7 or Windows 8 in company. I suggested him to try some CardDAV & CalDAV compatible Outlook connector software plug-ins on the market because Bitrix24 is compatible with both CardDAV and CalDAV protocols. 

He found and installed several add-ins. However, he realized it is tough in finding server’s CardDAV URL and CalDAV URL. Not until he tried EVO Collaborator for Outlook, life was a lot easier because ECO is able to auto-detect the address book URL and calendar URL with a single mouse click. 

He said it is quite easy. What he did is downloading ECO from its official website, installing the outlook add-in, entering the following information and clicking on TEST button to verify configuration. That is all:

1. Server URL:
   According to Bitrix24’s support document, the URL should look like the URL in step 4.
   
   
   
   
   With ECO’s server auto-detect feature, all you need to enter is:
   
   <servername>.bitrix24.com
   
   
2. Your username and password

After the phone call, I actually tried out but I found that Bitrix24 only implements one-way synchronization from server to outlook for both address book and task.  I did some research on Bitrix24’s forum and found that Bitrix24 made this one-way sync limitation https://www.bitrix24.de/support/forum/forum5/topic435/ on purpose for their own concern. So, this one-way sync situation is normal and not an issue.

2018.01.05