This came up in a conversation and I realized my methods might be helpful for someone. I figured I can write it up with step-by-steps here.
Background / Goals
- I have a work calendar, via Outlook
- I have a personal calendar, using Google
- I want to overlay my work calendar in google so that I see work obligations when considering personal plans
- Similarly, I want to have access to my personal calendar from work so I don't agree to teach a training class during a family visit, etc.
Getting Work Events into Google Calendar
The easiest way I've found so far to do this on Windows is to use Outlook Google Calendar Sync -- a free, OSS app. It sits in my system tray and does a sync from Excella --> GCal since that's how I have it set up. I sync my Excella calendar to a Google calendar called "work" that I the overlay with my personal calendar in Google Cal.
NOTE: This app has to be open and running somewhere in order to sync the changes. I have an idea of porting ame of this code to use Azure functions on a timer so that it won't be tied to a machine / tray app.
Getting Personal Events into Outlook
If you want the reverse and want to overlay your personal calendar in your outlook, you can do that with google calendar too.
- Go into google calendar settings
- Scroll into "Integrate Google Calendar" section
- Copy the "secret address in iCal format"
- Go into your outlook account settings
- Go to the "internet calendars" tab
- Hit new & paste the URL
How do You Accomplish This?
Your turn, dear reader! I'm very interested to hear other ways you've solved this problem, and whether you'd find a free/OSS cloud sync project beneficial. Sound off in the comments!