Outlook 2003 and Google Apps

[YOCS]

I just setup my first customer with Google Apps which I moved from Exchange 2003. They still want to use Outlook which is fine. I got their personal email contacts, and calendar to sync up with the GApps sync tool.

The issue is with the public or shared contacts

In Exchange they had Public folders and all had access to the Company Calendar and Contacts

Is there a way to still share their Company Contacts and Company Calendar in Outlook so all can access and ideally sync up with Google?

I've been looking around and am struggling to find a solution. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[14049752]

Do you have contacts enabled on the domain in Google Apps? (It wasn't on by default on mine.) Each login will have their own contacts without it, but sharing is available after you enable that in the domain settings.

 

[YOCS]

I have enabled Contact Sharng in the GApps Control Panel. The contacts don't seem to be syncing up in Outlook though. If one user adds a new
Public contact folder in their Outlook they would like that new contact to show up in everybodys Outlook Public Contacts

 

[PBComputer]

Google Apps Sync for Outlook does not sync shared contacts, only the Global Address Book (addresses inside your domain) you can only view shared addresses via the web interface.

 

[YOCS]

Google Apps Sync for Outlook does not sync shared contacts, only the Global Address Book (addresses inside your domain) you can only view shared addresses via the web interface.

If I could get it to work as it did in Exchange that would be perfect. It doesn't have to sync up with GApps just the 5 users/Oulook in the office.

Is there a 3rd party program out there that will sync contacts and calendar among users in Outlook. It would have to be MAPI compatible which is what GApps uses?

I looked at Sync2 http://www.sync2.com/ which would be perfect but the tech said it wouldn't work because it doesn't support MAPI

 

[14049752]

What about exporting/importing all contacts into one account, then syncing (just contacts) from that user account to each machine?

Maybe not ideal...


I always tell my customers that Google Apps are meant to be used in the web browser. If they want to use a mail client, they may be losing features they would otherwise like.

 

[altrenda]

If you are using the paid google apps, then google apps sync https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync should do what you want.

 

[colonydata]

If you are using the paid google apps, then google apps sync https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync should do what you want.

i believe that is what he is doing, the outlook sync tool does lack some features that are available in the web interface.

 

[lcoughey]

As a Google Hosted user, myself, there is no public folder equivalent.

 

[YOCS]

i believe that is what he is doing, the outlook sync tool does lack some features that are available in the web interface.

Yeah, That is the way it is setup but, I think I have a way to make it do what I want though.

Not sure why that Sync2 tech told me it wouldn't work but, I installed Sync2 on 2 test PC's and created a Sync Folder on the server and it works great so far.

Create 1 user in Sync2 configure it to only sync public contacts & calendars for that user to the Sync Folder on the server. When you finish the wizard you'll get a code that you can use to install/configure on all the other PC's that you want to sync with and that's it.
Public, contacts and calendars are availble to a both test PC's. Update/delete on one and changes are reflected on the other.

I still need GApps sync to pull in email to Outlook. The issue with that is that it's also syncing the contacts & calenders which for some reason is duplicating the contacts and calender in Outlook. There's no way to turn it off in the program.

The workaround for this is to disable GApps contacts and calender sync in the registry for the Sync2 user you just setup. (Not a big deal for this user) http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1041455

I'm going to complete the setup today...I'll post back if there are any issues. Thanks for the help and suggestions!