How to sync Zimbra contacts and calendar with Outlook?

How do I import Zimbra calendar and contacts to outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019?

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.

Some of my friends are using Zimbra Network Edition and often compalin that the Zimbra Connector for Outlook ZCO only works with MAPI. I tried Zimbra Network Edition along with some connector softwares on the market. Amazingly, I found that EVO Collaborator for Outlook works! (not the ZCO which only works with paid version of zimbra) All I need to do is to correctly enter the server URL below Hostname (CardDAV/CalDAV) or webcal:// URL within ECO as the following:

https://<servername_or_server_ip>:443/

After fields within the profile have been properly filled out, calendar sync is a breeze. Not only Zimbra platform supports CardDAV and CalDAV, but also EVO Mail Server has native support on ECO smoothly.

How to sync Google Calendar with Outlook 2016 & 2019?

How to synchronize Google calendar to Outlook 2016 & 2019?

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.

On July 29 of 2015, the long awaited Windows 10 was released. Two months following that, Microsoft Outlook 2016 was released on Sept. 22 of 2015. Many of us are looking for good synchronization compatibility between Google Calendar (or shall I say CardDAV and CalDAV) and Outlook. Well, apparently, Microsoft let us down.

Microsoft may have its own reason not to blend in CardDAV and CalDAV. However, I think lots of users around the globe are looking for a solution of synchronizing their contact, calendar, and task items on Google, iCloud, Yahoo, Outlook.com and many more service of the kind with Outlook 2016.

Developers such as gSyncit and EVO Collaborator for Outlook have well prepared for the launch of Outlook 2016 in a Windows 10 environment. While gSyncit released its v4.0 last August, EVO Collaborator for Outlook took a whole year to consolidate itself with compatibility vs. various cloud and on-premises platforms. Yet, EVO has announced the official release of v2.0 to welcome Outlook 2016 with the same ease of use and simplicity of configuring profiles.

If you have not used ECO before, you may refer to my old posts of how to configure contacts, calendars and tasks from various source with Outlook since steps are basically the same and simple.

2018.01.05

Outlook.com contacts not syncing with Outlook 2016 & 2019

Outlook.com contacts not syncing with Outlook 2016 & 2019

outlook.com, formerly known as hotmail

Today I was asked about this question, "Outlook.com contacts not syncing with Outlook 2016", I knew that Outlook should automatically sync with outlook.com contacts once the account is added.

However in real world, this kind of problems happened a lot in Microsoft products, don't try to call Microsoft support, You may end up with spending several hours with some dude, explaining your issue with the software again and again. I know, been there, done that! 

Resolving Outlook 2016 contacts not syncing with Outlook.com issue quickly

Since we don't have the time to explain with some dudes who don't have access to their R&D resources, why wasting time on that, just use something helpful instead.

We'd like to introduce you EVO Collaborator for Outlook. with this handy plugin, your outlook.com is just few minutes away from your Outlook 2016.

The setup is simple, I have written a tutorial for that before, please read sync outlook.com contacts and calendars with outlook here

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

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

How to get Gmail push notification on all of your devices

Being notified on time - How to get Gmail push notification on all of your devices

From time to time, when we log in our Gmail accounts, we see mails that came in hours ago but did not receive any notification. As a result, we may miss some deadline by hours. 

Knowing Exchange mail account and Google Apps have push mail notification for the users, they always get notified on time and this is why most business people use these paid services. Now, we may wonder is it possible for free Gmail accounts to also get this kind of push mail notification benefit?

In fact, there are 4 ways through which we can get notified and they are available on several platforms:

1. Chrome:

Android - Just use Gmail App for Android to achieve email notification as described in next section.

iOS - Just use Gmail App for iOS to achieve email notification as described in next section.

OS X - Log in your Gmail account on the respective device. Then, refer to tutorial on Change email notification. However, the downfall is that Chrome, Firefox, or Safari must be opened at all time if you wish to receive such email notification via Chrome. The notification will pop up in 1 to 2 minutes after the mail was delivered.

Windows - Log in your Gmail account on the respective device. Then, refer to tutorial on Change email notification. However, the downfall is that Chrome or Firefox must be opened at all time if you wish to receive such email notification via Chrome. The notification will pop up in 2 to 4 minutes after the mail was delivered.

2. Gmail App:

Android - Gmail for Android: According to my experiment, Gmail's push notification pops up 2 to 4 minutes after I sent an e-mail from my another Outlook.com account.However, you need to make sure the Notification Center on your Android enables notification for Gmail:

iOS - Gmail for iOS: Like Gmail App for Android, you need to make sure the notification alert for Gmail App is turned on somehow.

OS X - N/A: Currently, there is no Gmail App by Google.

Windows - Google: This is a Windows 10 App gathering all Google services in a browser view. When you click on Gmail icon, a Gmail web-UI session will pop up. Thus, it works the same as how Chrome Gmail Push Notification works. Please refer to what we wrote earlier above.

3. Third-party tool:

Android - Just use Gmail App for Android to achieve email notification.

iOS - Just use Gmail App for iOS to achieve email notification.

OS X -

Aura - Once you install this Chrome extension, Aura will ask you to complete Google OAuth and stay in Status menus at top-right. According to my experiment, Gmail's push notification pops up less than 1 minute after I sent an e-mail from my another e-mail account.There are some other similar Chrome extension utilities such as Gmail Notifier, and they work the same way.

Windows -

EVO Collaborator for Outlook under Outlook environment (Sync Google Calendar with Outlook 2007) - If you use Outlook to send/receive e-mail messages for your Gmail account, then you need to be aware of that Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, or 2019 can only periodically check for incoming e-mail messages according to a pre-defined timer interval. Yet, you need to keep Gmail's INBOX folder selected.However, if you use EVO Collaborator for Outlook to synchronize your Gmail contact, calendar and task, there is an extra feature of monitoring for Gmail push notification. Once deployed, you can browse around Outlook instead of keeping INBOX folder selected and ECO will still remind you of arrival of incoming e-mail messages by playing "ding" notification sound  or a pre-defined wave file.

Gmail Notifier Pro - This is a stand-alone monitoring and e-mail software, in which you configure your Gmail account with username & password.
Then, you can use it for notification purpose as well as e-mail writing. You may close the application and it will go to Windows system tray area at lower-right. According to my experiment, a notification alert 2 to 4 minutes after the testing e-mail was sent from my 
Outlook.com account.

Checker Plus for Gmail - This is a Chrome extension. You can add this extension to your Chrome. Then, open the extension configuring page and put a check mark next to Run in background when Google Chrome is closed.
According to my experiment, the notification alert appears above Windows system tray area within 2 to 4 minutes after the testing e-mail was sent from my Outlook.com account.

4. Third-party mail application:

Android - Just use Gmail App for Android to achieve email notification.

iOS - Just use Gmail App for iOS to achieve email notification.

OS X - , MailTab for Gmail - This is a small mail software utility. Once Gmail OAuth is complete, it will start monitoring incoming Gmail e-mail messages in the background and the notification will pop up in 1 to 2 minutes after the mail was delivered.

Windows - Mail app for Windows 10 (how to enable instant notification on Windows 10?): It is good that Mail app for Windows 10 does not have to be running in order to get notification since Notification and Action will monitor incoming Gmail e-mail messages in the background and the notification will pop up in 2 to 4 minutes after the mail was delivered.