Last updated on: April 02, 2020
Do you use several email accounts, each with their calendars, contacts, notes and tasks? It can be hard to stay on track when you have more than one account. That’s why we'll look into how you can integrate accounts within the most business-popular service, Microsoft Exchange Server.
Exchange Server is behind the most popular email clients such as Outlook and Office 365. Whether you want to sync two Office 365 calendars, sync two Exchange calendars, sync two Outlook calendars… or even sync something else like the contacts or tasks, if you are an Exchange account user, read on!
4 ways of Exchange server synchronization
Imagine this situation: you’re working for company A but also for company B, both have their own Exchange servers leaving your email folders, contacts, calendars and notes separated into 2 accounts. This is the case of many consultants, external employees and even university professors who struggle to manage their multiple email accounts.
Which leads to some questions we get a lot: “Is there any way of simply synchronizing two Exchange accounts?" or "How can I sync my two Exchange calendars?” If you think about it, you only have to synchronize, somehow, two separate accounts from the same provider. Piece of cake, right? Well, not really, as you may already know.
At Connecting Software, we decided to solve this issue ourselves. I will show you how in a minute. But first, let’s look at other options. Let's start with one option that allows you to synchronize your Exchange accounts mainly used when you have Exchange in combination with Outlook.
1. One-way migration
This is ideal if you no longer want to use one of your Exchange accounts (or if you will use it seldomly). You can simply set your A account to forward all emails to your B account using the Rules Wizard . That can include meeting requests, so you can have your calendar updated as well.
Specify account A:
Indicate account B:
You can use this for one-way sync of the inbox folder, but this option doesn’t allow for syncing any other folders, like sent items or drafts. This is a good solution for one-way syncing of an old exchange account to a new one, but really nothing more.
2. Outlook synchronization
From Outlook 2010 onward, you have the option of signing in for up to 10 Exchange accounts simultaneously within one Outlook. That means you will have access to all your emails, calendars, notes, etc., without the need for continuously signing in and out among several accounts, as in previous versions.
Still, unless you use 2 accounts on a single domain, your properties will remain separated. It is not that you synchronize outlook, but rather that you can view the information of the several exchange accounts more closely. That means you will need to click through your accounts to see their appointments, contacts, tasks, etc., which is not very convenient.
That is a lot of trouble for you, but not only. External viewers who want to check your availability on a calendar will have to go through the same ordeal. You might have free time in one calendar, but an event in another, making it very hard to assign tasks or find time for a meeting.
3. Synchronizing properties on mobile devices via Exchange ActiveSync
Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) is a protocol used to sync emails, contacts, calendars and tasks on mobile devices. However, all of these are only synced on your device, not the Exchange server itself.
This means it is quite useful to keep track of things on your mobile device, but it also means this synchronization only works on your mobile. It cannot be used in Outlook Online, Hotmail or desktop versions of Outlook, Thunderbird or Mail OS X.
4. Synchronizing contacts, calendars, emails etc. via multiple domains and Exchange servers
For some people, these options can be a solution… However, for those who want to have full control and flexibility, and save time while they are at it, we’ve created a powerful tool - CB Exchange Server Sync.
CB Exchange Server Sync enables you to do:
- Email synchronization,
- Folder synchronization - you are not limited to synchronizing the Inbox folder, you can sync Sent items, Drafts, subfolders… everything!
- Calendars synchronization - including tags, reminders and even for recurring events
- Contacts synchronization,
- Tasks synchronization
- Notes synchronization.
After CB Exchange Server Sync is setup and the sync pairs defined, everything is automatic. Entering, for example, a new appointment in account A, will make the same appointment appear for account B and even the smallest details about it (like the category) will be identical.
All of that within multiple Exchange accounts, domains or servers, and also in different Exchange server versions.
Yes, this means we are not limited to answering "How do I synchronize exchange calendars?". This is finally the answer to "How do I sync two Exchange calendars with different domains?". The same goes for if you want to sync multiple calendars (there is no limit on the number of accounts) and also for all the other data like email messages, folders, contacts, calendars, tasks and notes.
Learn more about how to sync Calendars:
Learn more about how to sync Contacts:
Learn more about how to sync Emails:
You can visualize all your data in an email client of your choice, for instance, Outlook, Outlook for mobile, Exchange Online, Mail OS X. Do you know why the type of email client doesn't matter? It is because the data is automatically synchronized on the server, not in the client's device.
Where else can I use CB Exchange Server Sync?
An excellent example of another kind of application for this synchronization are mergers and acquisitions when the different entities certainly have separate Exchange servers, and probably even different versions.
Still, all you have to do is simply to choose which accounts you want to synchronize and that is it. The rest is done for you.
Takeaway
If you´re not satisfied with the possibilities of Microsoft´s default options, you can always let the synchronization be done by an external application that will do the work for you.
CB Exchange Server Sync provides fully customizable, automated, safe, synchronization of data from your multiple accounts, no matter where they are hosted and on whatever device you use. This versatile and flexible Exchange sync solution provides you with permanent awareness of all your information and commitments, allowing you to focus on productivity knowing all your information is always up to date.
Article last updated on: April 02, 2020
Ana Neto
technical advisor at Connecting Software
Author:
I have been a software engineer since 1997, with a more recent love for writing and public speaking. Do you have any questions or comments about this post or about Connect Bridge? I would love to have your feedback!
Contributor: Milan Tibensky
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Comments 10
Good evening, Question… I am a 50/50 business partner, we have obe business email but obviously two email addresses my name and my business partners name, but the same company name example.. dino@howles.co.uk. & calum@howles.co.uk… We both need to access our sent/ received business emails so we would like a synchronised email system… Is this possible please?. Dino
Hi Dino, yes, it is possible, if you have an Exchange Server 2010 or later or O365 accounts. Simply try and use our SaaS offering, you can find access to our webpage under Shop and products.
Is the interface used by your product ActiveSync? I don’t really care about anything other than the calendar – I use 3, sometimes 4 different exchange accounts on different servers/domains. Outlook Desktop and Mobile do good enough job for mail – everything pretty much stays where it is – the only real issue is calendaring. Ideally I would like each calendar to have meetings etc be specific to the respective business, but show periods as busy that have a meeting in any of the other calendars. That would be ideal from a privacy perspective, though I could live with every meeting/appointment copied across all calendars – assuming that if I removed the original meeting, the system would also remove the other instances (without that triggering a notification to the respective organizer) – does that work? And if so, how would you configure the sync relationships across 4 accounts?
Hi Mr. Musgrove,
Thanks for your comment.
Our product “CB Exchange Server Sync” is different than Microsoft’s “ActiveSync”:
While ActiveSync is responsible to synchronize ONE account over different devices, our CB Exchange Server Sync can synchronize between DIFFERENT accounts, which seems to be what you are looking for.
And it works like this:
You can define “Sync Pairs” of Exchange accounts that will be kept synchronized at any time.
So, if you have for example 4 accounts you define 3 sync pairs A<->B and B<->C and C<->D.
You can set them up easily on our online SaaS platform and you do not need any local installation.
You can explicitly choose which items to synchronize: mails, calendar items, tasks, contacts
When calendar items are synchronized and therefore created or deleted in all other calendars, it does NOT notify the meeting organizer multiple times of acceptance, or deletion.
Hope that helps… How about going for a free 30-day trial? https://shop.connecting-software.com/product/free-trial-cb-exchange-server-sync/
Hello,
Here is my scenario.
Exchange Server A (Domain A) All email accounts here. MX Records for @domain come here
Exchange Server B (Domain B) on a different site completely seperate network, domain dns etc.
AD user accounts created on Domain B we need Exchange B to sync email with Exchange A 2 way sync including all folders.
I am trying to integrate two calendars: my primary calendar (that I use for everything) under my Office 365 subscription, and a university account under enterprise Exchange. Can I assume that everything on each respective calendar would be duplicated on each side? And that meeting requests accepted by one calendar would also be duplicated? If I give delegate access to a university administrative assistant to that calendar I assume that person would see everything? I want to continue to be able to manage things from both sides.
Hi Mr Bernstein,
Thank you for your comment. Addressing your questions:
Your primary calendar would be replicated to your university account calendar, and your university account calendar would be replicated to your primary account.
Thus, your appointments on both calendars would look the same. For example, if you accept a meeting in your primary account, it will be replicated in your university account and vice versa.
Also, you’re correct: if you give delegate access to another person, they will see everything. And, you can manage everything from both sides.
I hope that answers your questions. Why not go ahead and try it out? Feel free to let us know how it goes.
Hi @Hidden to Protect,
The scenario you described is covered by our solution.
I suggest trying the SaaS free trial and letting us know if you need anything else. Happy synchronizing!
Hi. Similar to the other folks on this thread, I have 4 different accounts that stems across different domains. I need a tool to sync/merge all of the calendars in one centralized location. In other words if someone sends me a calendar invite from account 1, it will be indicated on the ‘central’ calendar and similar to other other accounts sending invites. Basically everything showing up on a ‘centralized’ calendar. Is this possible? For example, 1 is from @cox.bet, 2 is from @microsoft.com, etc. Thanks for answering
Hi and thanks for your comment. Apologies for the late reply. To answer this question for everyone:
In the case you have 4 mailboxes: @a.com, @b.com, @c.com and @central.com.
You would need 3 synchronization pairs with one directional sync:
@a.com -> @central.com
@b.com -> @central.com
@c.com -> @central.com
So, everything from @a.com will be replicated into @central.com, etc.