03 Oct 07 SyncMyCal - the ultimate in syncing calendars
I maintain a calendar on my desktop using MS Outlook; I also maintain a calendar on my PDA using Pocket Outlook, and to top all of it off, I also manage a web calendar using Google Calendar.
Keeping the 3 in sync is a HUGE problem, or at least it was. There are several products in the market which help solve the problem, but none works as well as the product I am going to review in this post.
SyncMyCal is an Outlook-Google calendar synchronization tool which provides two-way synchronization between Google Calendar and Outlook. SyncMyCal allows you to control the direction of your syncing, where you can choose whether you want to upload only, download only, or both.
The tool gets installed as an Outlook add-in. All recent versions of Outlook are supported. The UI is very intuitive and easy to use. It installs a toolbar which lets you access the various settings and operations that are available. It lets you configure which Google Calendar you want to sync with which Outlook calendar, etc. Once configured you can set it up to auto-sync on a prescribed interval (this is not available in the free version). Whenever, a sync is initiated you can monitor progress using the progress UI.
You can define multiple operations allowing you to sync with multiple Google Calendars. There are a large array of options available which allow you to fine tune these operations. Following are some of the key features:
- Auto Sync - automatically synchronize regularly
- External Mode - there is an option to run SyncMyCal from the system tray which allows it to sync the calendars even if Outlook is not running.
- Support for GAFYD - if you are using Google Apps, then it will work for you as well.
- Free/Busy Sync - you can sync only your availability information instead of sending all details for the appointments.
- Filter Private Events - allows private events to be skipped during Sync
- Date Filtering - allows you to specify a sync window.
- Category Based Sync - you can choose to take sync decisions based on category of events in Outlook.
- Color labeling - allows you to map colors to Google calendars. This results in the events in Outlook showing in their respective colors.
There are many other small things I liked which just work (proxy support, time zone management, and an excellent support team).
I strongly recommend everyone to try out the trial version of the product. If it works half as well for you as it does for me, then I am sure you will be more than happy to pay the $25 for the full version.
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