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

How to sync with DAViCAL calendar server?

How to sync with DAViCAL calendar server?

After I posted the article about EVO Collaborator for Outlook syncing with ownCloud server, I started to receive many feedbacks wondering if EVO Collaborator for Outlook is able to support other services such as Kolab, SOGo or DAViCAL too? One of the special case is DAViCAL. They tried their luck if they can connect to DAViCAL but they failed. These audiences are running DAViCAL calendar server for company mostly. Let’s find out if EVO Collaborator for Outlook can handle the job?

Since DAViCAl is also an open-source server like ownCloud and both of them are based on CalDAV, there should be less complication to sync. However, before I test, I wrote EVO staffs and wonder if ECO supports sync with DAViCAL? They replied that "yes", so I wil give this add-in for Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019 a try if want. Why not, right? However, since 

Once I received the beta release, I quickly installed it and configure it following instruction given by EVO staffs as below:

1. As usual, select Profile 15 – not configure or below
2. Since DAViCAL seems like not being to support server auto-discovery, we need to manually enter generic DAViCAL calendar URL in space next to Calendar URL:
   
   
   
   
   http://<server_hostname>/caldav.php/<username>/calendar/
3. Click TEST and Apply when authentication is complete
4. DAViCAL calendar will start sync

I am quite impressed that EVO staffs have done a good job on picking up almost every popular CardDAV/CalDAV services either cloud or on-premises within eight months as of early march of 2015. This is an outstanding report card I should say. 

Three Exchange Calendar Alternative based on SabreDAV

Three Exchange Calendar Alternative based on SabreDAV

When your company is short on funds to run an Exchange Server, there are cheaper options to host your email part.

However, there are not many free mail server or affordable solution for hosting contact and calendar services for your company. There are a few options that run based on SabreDAV. You may want to try them out.

1. Kolab –
   
   A Unix-like groupware offering mail, contact, calendar services. It is free and has support forum community. If you are running Unix-like environment, go for it.
2. OwnCloud –
   
   A cross-platform contact/calendar/task/webdav server. It is also free based on AGPLv3 license. Many people run it at home or in office. It is a good choice if you already have a preferred email solution.
3. Baikal –
   
   A very light-weight CardDAV/CalDAV server running on Apache2 with running PHP environment. Same as OwnCloud, it is free and worth a while to try if you already have an email solution.

The above are the serverpart, what about client software? There are a wide variety of choices out there. They require many steps to configure. Here is a client software called EVO Collaborator for Outlook. This Outlook add-in for 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 compatible with many public contact/calendar/task services such as iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo! and fruux. Yet, some of the on-premise ones are also supported such as OwnCloud, Zimbra, Baikal, EVO Mail Server, Mac OS X Server and many more.