A couple of months ago we posted about accessing GroupWise email on an iPhone or iPod Touch. At that time we did not know of a way to sync GroupWise calendars with these devices as well. Since then we’ve found one method to do that and, though not perfect, it might be of interest to you. It should be noted that this is just a tip we’ve discovered and might be of use to some of you and should be attempted at your own risk. This is not to be considered a support document. Let us know if you know of any other tips we should include on the blog for these devices. Thanks! – Ed.
I depend upon my WVU GroupWise account to keep track of my appointments and tasks, but I’m not always at my PC. Until recently, however, my only recourse for a portable calendar was to use PDA Connect to synchronize my PalmPilot with GroupWise.
My latest device, an iPod Touch, appeared to support many PDA-like functions. However, I quickly discovered that getting my GroupWise calendar onto the Touch was going to be expensive, vis-à-vis Apple’s MobileMe or CompanionLink. What’s a penny-pincher to do?
CompanionLink Software used to have a free product called gMigrate, which allowed me to port my GroupWise calendar data over to Google Calendar. This is not a dynamic process: I have to run gMigrate every time that I want to pass my GroupWise calendar over to Google calendar.
The “Eureka!” moment came when Google announced Google Sync (Beta) for the iPhone. This tool lets you synchronize the built-in calendar and contacts on an iPhone (and iPod Touch) with your Google account. So, you can go from GroupWise to Google with gMigrate, and you can then go from Google to an iPod Touch with Google Sync. Although this sounds rather complex, you can manage the entire process in just a few clicks – after the initial configuration, of course.
Ingredients:
Although gMigrate is no longer available directly from CompanionLink Software, you can still download it from a number of software repositories, such as Cnet’s download.com or Softpedia.
Install gMigrate by running the executable setup launcher. When you run gMigrate, configure it as follows:
Successful completion is indicated by a dialog that looks like this:
Google calendar should now be populated with calendar items from your GroupWise account. Remember that you will have to run gMigrate each time that you want any changes in your GroupWise calendar to appear in Google Calendar (i.e., start gMigrate and click on the Migrate button).
Google Sync for iPhone uses the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol to synchronize the data on your iPod Touch with your Google Calendar. It will support synchronization with up to five calendars and the contacts in your My Contacts group.
Setting up Google Sync is a fairly straightforward process, but you should be aware that Sync is a beta product. In addition, the Sync setup will delete the existing contacts and calendar information on your iPhone or Touch. Backup your data first!
It is not necessary for me to reproduce Google’s instructions here. Just point your browser to Sync: Set Up Your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Once you’ve set up Google Sync, the synchronization should begin automatically if you have Push enabled on your device.
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I cannot get the gmigrate software to work for me. Is it limited to GW6.5 ? When I follow the instructions and click on the “Advanced” button, I never get the login dialog. Instead, it tells me I do not have GroupWise installed. I have tried on a Vista workstation and on an XP sp2 workstation, both running GW7.0.3hp1.
No, I don’t think that gMigrate is limited in that way. I have the 7.0.3 client installed on my desktop, but I’m using the “From” setting “GroupWise 6.5.” Are you clicking the Advanced button to put in your GW username and password? Have you looked at the Proxy Settings tab under Advanced? We don’t need to configure Proxy here.
It does work with the 7.0.3 client, though you have to ignore the error message which says that GroupWise is not installed if you are running anything but GW 6.5 client. I guess it is looking for a registry setting or something that is not used for the GW 7 clients.
This seems to work well for the GroupWise Calendar! That’s awesome!
Do you have any information on synching the main WVU calendar “http://calendar.wvu.edu” with gmail?
We’ve tried a few RSS feed conversions but nothing seems to work.
[...] in April 2009, I wrote about Getting Your GroupWise Calendar on an iPod Touch (a penny-pincher’s solution). This trick lets you use a free program called gMigrate to migrate your GroupWise calendar over to [...]
I had some dupes so I clicked purge and replace. It wiped out everything on the google calendar. Now when I run gmigrate it says its completed but there are no updates being made to my google calendar.
I can’t unistall gmigrate and can’t find a way to reset it.
By the way I have it set to run against my works groupwise.
I never had errors like that. Have you checked Google Calendar Sync: Troubleshooting?
This was a great guide. I have found several good open source calender options for the iPod Touch as well, though your iPod needs to be jailbroken to allow access to them. Would you say that installing GroupWise is a better choice than jailbreaking your iPod and using one of the available programs?
Why do do any of this when you can have it done almost seamlessly by having the IT group install the Notify Enterprise Server version 4.5.1 or higher? This provides “standard” mobile phone support for iphones, blackberrys, etc.
Why do do any of this when you can have it done almost seamlessly by having the IT group install the Notifylink Enterprise Server version 4.5.1 or higher? This provides “standard” mobile phone support for iphones, blackberrys, etc.
The one flaw here is relying on gMigrate which is one way and not automatic. My solution is to use Outlook as a bridge between Groupwise and Google calender. Chances are you have Office installed already so you might as well make use of Outlook. Novell provides a very good connector for connecting Outlook to the Groupwise domain. Then use the Google – Outlook sync utility (http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=13948)to sync as often as every 10 min.
This works awesome! I have been looking all over the place for some way to sync my calendar with no success until now. I am running GW 7.0.1 and I don’t get an error or anything it works perfect! Thanks!
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Thank you so much for your post. This was exactly what I am looking for. I am very impressed with the clear instructions and can’t wait to try it on my own.