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Background
The Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GWSMO) enables users in an organization to synchronize their email, calendar, and contact data between Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook. Its primary purpose is as a tool for organization that have switched to Google Workspace from Microsoft Enterprise environments, but where there are some users who would like to keep using Microsoft Outlook.
Issues
The Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GWSMO) is designed primarily to provide a bridging service post-migration to a Google-based environment. It is not intended to be a tool for maintaining synchronization between personal and business accounts in different systems, and for a number of reasons is not a workable solution for our campus at this time for the following reasons:
- The downloadable application is only available for Windows users, making it of potential use to only a small percent of our campus users.
- The solution is not compatible with Outlook from Microsoft 365 (web, Android, macOS, and iOS versions) and Outlook from the Microsoft Store.
- In particular, the option to allow users to be able to query availability information for Exchange users, a desired calendaring feature, is unavailable if the Exchange environment is part of Office 365, which is what we use at Dartmouth.
- The solution requires each user to configure registry keys on each machine using the Calendar Connector Web Service. From a support perspective, we tend to avoid having users edit their Registry due to the potential risks.
- It also appears that the tool has not been updated since 2022, which calls into question Google's continued support for the tool. This is not surprising, however, since the need for the tool was to support transition to Google Workspace for organization using older Microsoft Enterprise solutions.
Beyond the technical issues, it is the general understanding that for faculty and staff, work-related communications and files are the property of the College. Tools that would enable syncing or merging of personal and work files could potentially subject an individual's personal and private files and communications to claims of ownership by the College, and would be even harder to dis-entangle should there be a separation event when someone leaves.
We do understand the challenges users face when managing accounts on multiple systems. Unfortunately, we have not found easy and reliable solutions to bridge the gaps between these two systems at this time.