Sync Outlook with Horde Groupware Server

Sync Outlook with Horde Groupware Server 

In this year of 2020, more and more jobs require people to work from home due to COVID-19 pandamic. Syncing calendar, contact and task remotely from home in order to cope with colleagues has become an issue for those who have not done this before.

Horde Groupware Server is an popular open-source solution in United States and Europe Union. Many companies use them for address book, calendar and task sharing and synchronization.

A decent Exchange alternative

horde groupware

Since it is an open-source software, we can treat it as one of the alternatives to implement over Exchange Server or Office 365. Yet, it is well maintained that updates are released now and then.

CardDAV and CalDAV implementation

Horde Groupware serve is using CardDAV and CalDAV as backbone for contact, calendar and task. Users are able to connect to the server and synchronize data items across platforms such as Windows, Linux, iOS, OS X, BB, and Android...

What about Outlook 2016 & 2019?

Thanks to CardDAV and CalDAV webdav protocols, it is common to sync under all above platforms except Windows. For Outlook does not support these open-source standards, we need an add-in as bridge to interconnect the server and Outlook. Here, I found EVO Collaborator for Outlook handy and it works:

1. Download and install EVO Collaborator for Outlook from the official website
2. Open Outlook and go to Configure profile(s)
3. Click on a Profile #22 or any not-configured entry to the left.
4. Enter Horde Groupware server URL in Hostname (CardDAV/CalDAV) or webcal:// URL like this:
   
   
   https://<Server_IP>/horde/rpc.php
5. Enter username and password. Then click on TEST, Apply and Quit.

How to sync SOGo Groupware Server with Outlook?

How to sync SOGo Groupware Server with Outlook?

In this year of 2020, more and more jobs require people to work from home due to COVID-19 pandamic. Syncing calendar, contact and task remotely from home in order to cope with colleagues has become an issue for those who have not done this before.

A scenario from my client:

“Our CIO told me to migrate company’s Exchange Server to some other open-source solution due to an IT budget cut. After evaluation on different solutions of free mail servers like SOGo, Zimbra, Kolab and Zarafa, I chose SOGo Groupware Server. Why? Not only SOGo has a sturdy groupware but also has a seamless integration with Thunderbird. For mails, users can connect through IMAP, which I do not have much trouble with. What about contact and calendar? I went through SOGo website’s Native Microsoft Outlook Configuration Guide but it seems too much hassle. Is there any easier out?”

As far as I know that SOGo supports CardDAV and CalDAV, I told my ex-colleague, “Why don’t you try EVO Collaborator for Outlook?” They do adapt their product to fit in various CardDAV/CalDAV servers. 

After a few days, my ex-colleague told me EVO Collaborator for Outlook is now compatible with SOGo. Here is his experience sharing below:

“Nothing complicated! All I did is entering server URL, user’s e-mail address and password. All that left is auto-discovery’s job. It is amazing!” 

He show me a screenshot of ECO’s Configure profile:

By looking at the screenshot, the server has a URL structure like:

https://<servername>/SOGo/dav/

If you happen to synchronize SOGo groupware's calendars and address book with Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019, then you can give it a shot. It will save you lots of time to manage configurations on both server backend and Outlook parameters.


2017.11.01