Even More Outlook to Google Calendar

Posted on April 30, 2007 3 Comments

Last week I had an article about syncing Google Calendar to Outlook. While it didn’t detail a lot of success on my end, it did generate a lot of interesting comments. One of the comments suggested I give OggSync a look, and since then I’ve spent a few days with it.

I’m playing with version 3.0 of OggSync Google Calendar for Outlook — based on the name, I bet you can figure out what it does… while the name is a mouthful, this is the one I’ve had the most success with yet. It actually works!

Like some of the competitors, you’ll need to have .NET 2.0 Framework and the VSTO Tools installed. Both are available from Microsoft or via links on the front page at OggSync. Then grab the installer and run it. You’ll get a new simple toolbar when on the calendar view in Outlook. While it’ll show up as a floating toolbar, I’d suggest dragging it up top and just docking it to keep things clean.

Setup is pretty simple and it had no issues working with my “Google Apps for Your Domain” account (thankfully!). Just feed it username and password, click Login and then the calendars associated with the account will show up in the lower half. From there I checked the ones I wanted. In this case, there’s only two and I wanted both.

Other than that, there’s not much that needs to do be done with the free version. Or can be done. As you can see by the disabled options in the picture (bottom of the article), there’s a bit more that can be done with the Pro version. Which is ok, so far the only thing I’d like from Pro would be the Auto-Sync option.

But, it appears that if I want to pay for the Outlook Pro flavor, I need to also pay for the Mobile version as well.

I don’t want the mobile version!

The way I use my old iPAQ, I still sync it directly with Outlook. Getting my GCal stuff on it (especially those Vitalist items!) works great as it shows up on with my Today screen calendar plugin (link later, I forget where I got it). So, for now, I’ll just stick with the free version.

I did have some bobbles when I first started — especially with long-running repeated appointments. If I had to guess, perhaps I wasn’t syncing the original one? Anyways, I killed the appointments and rebuilt them and now everything is fine there. I also had a dentist appointment that got moved in Outlook. After the sync, it was in both the old and the new places in GCal. I deleted the old one (in GCal) and resynced. Then it was doubled at the new place, just in GCal. Weird… Deleted the dupes in GCal synced yet again and it was fine.

For perspective, a lot of other appointments have come over just fine. But those little glitches are something I need to keep an eye on for a bit before I get too confident.