How-to: Sync your Blackberry and Outlook OTA with Google Calendar
 

There seems to have been a number of people asking questions about how to sync their Blackberries to Google Calendars, or Outlook OTA. So I thought I'd share my experience and write this how-to. I hope someone finds it useful. I use this setup to sync 2 Blackberries and 1 Outlook Calendar with 1 Google Calendar.

I first setup a central Google Calendar account that everything sync's to and from.
If you do not have a Gmail account you can set one up for free at http://mail.google.com/mail/signup
Once logged in to your Gmail account, click the xxx8220;Calendarxxx8221; link on the upper left corner of the page to go to your Google Calendar. If this is a new account the calendar should be blank. (This is just to make sure you have a default calendar set.)

N.B. While you can sync from other calendars in your gmail account, you can only sync to your default Google Calendar from your BB. You can not sync to calendars others share with you.

Next on your Blackberry browse to Google's Mobile site and install the Google Sync client for Blackberry. You can find the full instructions for Google Sync here: Google Sync (BlackBerry Devices): Getting started

Once the BB client is installed you can launch it and walk through the setup process. You will need your Gmail address and password.

The BB client will now sync every 2 hours by default, unless you change something directly on your BB, then it pushes it out quicker.

Now on the home Windows PC, install the Google Calendar Sync client for Outlook.
You can find information and the download here at Google Calendar Sync: Overview


Once you have the Google Calendar Sync for Outlook installed and setup you can modify how often you sync your Outlook Calendar to your Google Calendar. I have mine set for once every 60 minutes. That means my Blackberry, my wife's Blackberry, my Google Calendar and my Outlook Calendar should take no more then 2 hours to sync up.

So now if you add an event on to your BB calendar it will get pushed to the Google Calendar. From there the Desktop sync client will see the event the next time it syncs and will add it to the Outlook Calendar. And because you can sync as many BB's as you like to the Google Calendar, you can make a change to any off the BB's, the Google Calendar, or the Outlook Calendar and they will all automatically sync up, eventually :-) .

Quick addendum to FAQ: Only newly-created events on handheld get pushed to Google Calendar. Appointments pre-existing when Google Sync is installed do not get pushed to Google Calendar, even if they're in the future, or modified subsequently updated. I didn't have a chance to check the reverse. (Thanks hellsop)

I hope others find this helpful.

Kudo's to Bifocals on the Blackberry Support Forum for giving me the initial solution.

Good write-up... but the above statement is not true.

Hi CO_BBTechie,
I was my understanding that you could not use the BB Google sync client to sync to secondary Calendars. I'm almost positive I read that somewhere... I'll investigate and update the how-to:

Thanks...

Ok.. Found it.. I misquoted Google
Google Sync (BlackBerry Devices) : Day-to-Day Use - Mobile Help Center

Should be ...
"Google Sync is configured to synchronize with the default calendar of your Google Account. You can select other calendars to be downloaded as well, but you can't add events to these calendars from the handheld."

I'll modify the the how-to..

Yes, that's been my experience. I have successfully sync'd 4 Google calendars with my default device calendar. Each represented as a different color.

I use Desktop Manager to sync my Groupwise Calendar to my BB Curve so that I can see my work appts (not using BES, just BIS). I just realized that the only events that get synced to my Google calendar are the events that I directly enter into the BB. Is there a way to get the Google sync to also sync my work events?

Thx.

That's a good question.. If you installed the Google sync for Outlook on your work desktop you could sync your work calendar to the same Google Calendar. But unless you make it a one way sync, yiu will get everything from home on your work calendar too. And anything you add at work, will also be sync'd to your home calendar.

Quick addedum to FAQ: Only newly-created events on handheld get pushed to Google Calendar. Appointments pre-existing when Google Sync is installed do not get pushed to Google Calendar, even if they're in the future, or modified subsequently updated. I didn't have a chance to check the reverse.

Thanks hellsop.. I'll update the How-to accordingly.
I actually notice that last night . We had an appointment for next Monday on my wife's BB that was entered before I set up the sync. It did not make to the google calendar, nor the Outlook calendar. The Outlook calendar did sync all it's existing events to the Google calendar, but I do not know if it sync'd them to the BB's because we both already had events in our calendars from DM sync. I don't know if it didn't sync because they already existed and did not dup them, or if it just did not sync, period. I do know all new events since have sync'd fine.

Does anyone know why Outlook to BB appointments don't sync to Google? Or appointments preexisting on BB don't sync (first time sync)?

I keep seeing reports of it, confirmations of it, etc., but no explanation for WHY. Is this on purpose and if so why?

If it's not on purpose does that mean they are trying to fix it?

I'm not sure I follow.. di you mean appointments you sunc via BBDM from outlook to your BB do not get sync'd to Google Calendar?

I get around this by sync'g my Outlook to Google and letting BB pick it up from Google. My how-to above details this.

Dean

I have a big question... I'm on a BES... so everything sync wirelessly..

can I also sync with Google Calendar and Adressbook ?

I think what you're saying is that existing appointments in your calendar are ignored by Google sync, is that right? I experienced that as well when I first tried it months ago, and abandoned it in part for that reason. I don't know if they've changed things since then, and if there is a way around that now.

Problem is this: I have a BES BB (company). I can not load any applications (exe) on my work computer.

I want to get a personal BB for my personal stuff, but would like to still retain access to my calendar as my calendar at work has both my personal and work stuff (which I don't mind 'cause I got nothing to hide). But I'm stuck on how to get my work calendar to Google (or my personal BB).

I can GooSync my BES BB to Google, but GooSync doesn't transfer existing appointments or new/updated appointments that happen through Outlook.

So scenario...I have my BES BB which is synced and up-to-date with Outlook. I accept changed appointments throughout the day on my Outlook computer that update on my BES BB.

But those appointments won't push with GooSync to Google. Therefore, I can't do a GooSync with my personal BB to get it updated.

Yes...that sums it up. I didn't know if this is just a "to come" feature, or if there is a reason for why it can't do it.

I don't know...haven't tried Google Sync since before due to that problem (skipping all existing appointments) and the issue that if you turned off or removed the app from your BB it deleted all appointments it had sync'd. Just not good behavior...

I wanted to clarify something I noticed today...I was reading this to mean that the appointment would have to be created on the BB in order for it to push to Google Calendar.

I had several meeting updates and additions sent to me today that I accepted on my work PC (Outlook). Those sync to my BB via BES, and the BB must have pushed them to my calendar via GooSync because they are now on my Google Calendar.

The updates arrived on the BB and were "new" to the Google Sync client...

Wirelessly posted

Thanks. I don't think I'm understanding the "flow". I now have 2 of the same appointments on my BB calendar. I haven't checked Outlook yet to see if they came over.

I probably don't either...better someone actually using it now tries to cover what's going on. :)