Syncing your work calendar to your personal phone without direct access to the work server.

Many workplaces do not provide access to their corporate exchange server to personal mobile devices - iPhones, Androids, and the like. I experienced this frustration first hand and have come up with a simple workaround that requires minimal technical acumen and no support from network admins (and unlikely to violate any employer conditions for using email - check this of course and follow these instructions at your own risk).


I have an iPod Touch, and iPad, and just recently, an Android phone. These all support Microsoft Exchange for syncing mail, contacts and calendars. Though these are capable of syncing with corporate exchange servers, it is often the case that employers do not want to allow this access. They may have a policy that does not allow personal devices to connect to corporate systems, or they may have other reasons, such as using BlackBerry's own mail servers.


The following outlines a workaround that will allow you to seamlessly pull your work calendar appointments into you mobile device: 

1. You need a gmail account. If you don't already have one head to http://mail.google.com and sign up. My advice is to use gmail as your primary personal email client in any case. It offers the most superior free mail experience I know of and the way it synchronizes data, especially your contacts, is second to none.

2. Once you have you gmail account you need to set it up on the devices you want your calendar to sync with. If you have an Android based phone, then you'll should have already done this by signing in to your google account. If you haven't yet done this then I'm not too sure that Android was the phone for you... but head here to get started. For any other device you needed to set up your gmail via Microsoft Exchange on your device. For iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads, see here. For Symbian devices (Nokias, mainly) see here. For all others, see here and look for Google Sync.

3. Make sure you've set up your device to sync your calendar (and mail and contacts too).

4. On your work email client (e.g. Outlook) you need to set up a rule. (In Outlook, go to "Tools" > "Rules and Alerts".). The rule should stipulate that on the receipt of a meeting request (a calendar appointment), the meeting request is to be forwarded (or redirected, both work) to your gmail address. Gmail will automatically add this meeting request to your google calendar. You mobile device will then sync this calendar appointment seamlessly and almost immediately.

5. The next step is to set up another rule. This time it's a send rule. That is, set up a rule to cc your gmail account every time you send out a meeting request. The same bit of magic will occur as before. The meeting request will automatically be added to your gmail calendar and then will be pushed out to your phone.

6. If you just want to add an event in your calendar that is for you only, you'll have to add your gmail account as an invited guest. Otherwise the rule won't be executed.

Please note the email address that you use will be public to any of the people you have meetings with. This works a treat for me any the growing number of people I've walked through setting this up.  

This blog is about...

I've almost eliminated the need to use paper in my workflow. I tend to only deliberately use paper for proof reading documents. Apart from that the only other paper I use is that which is forced upon me by others.

Everything I do is organised through the use of technology. I've been converted to this way of working since owning my first PDA, a hand me down from my late father Jef (a Compaq iPaq - see my gdgt list). He moved a fair way into the digital realm too. He didn't quite make the total transition, but this was more to do with a love of stationary and the physicality of writing, drawing and painting. He loved all things tech too.

Thanks to the Internet, cloud computing and the increasing affordability of consumer technology, going digital has never been easier. With iPhones, net books, and now iPads, mobile computing has come into the mainstream. Back in 2003 when I had my first PDA, it was anything but.

This blog will endeavour to capture the ways in which I work digitally. I've learned a lot in this time and thought I'd share some of the tech, the apps and the creative workarounds I've come up with that enable me to use technology effectively, to improve my productivity and workflow - to keep the pieces together and in sync.