Hello everyone,



I'm new to this forum but I have an interesting situation that I have been unable to solve or find the answer anywhere else.

I started interning for a company this summer and they want me to continue to work some hours there during the rest of the year while I attend school full time. I know that to undertake this task, time management and scheduling will be very important. My company uses Microsoft Outlook in the office and I have been growing accustomed to using it all the time everyday. So it made sense to me to try and use that same system outside of the workplace.

I have spent many many hours trying to simply connect to the exchange server at work from my laptop at home, but when it comes down to it, their security policy just won’t allow me to do a direct connection even if I did the process right.

My second thought was to try to do “outlook anywhere” by connecting through html. Again, I have spent many hours trying this, and keep receiving the same errors that ultimately tell me that this is against my company’s security policy.

I can live without the mail feature showing up at home, although that would be ideal. The main thing I want to accomplish is to find a way to get my calendar at work on my laptop at home. I have read throughout the web that I can send a snapshot of my calendar to myself, but I don’t want to have to do that every few days. I want to be able to see my calendar from work at home, and hopefully find a way for this calendar to update itself automatically.


Some other facts/complications:

I am using Outlook 2010 at home and Outlook 2007 at work. I cannot bring my laptop into work to try any solutions because the company does not allow outside computers to connect to the network so trial and error could be a tedious process. Our company does allow our exchange server to be synced with mobile devices. I have an iphone and the calendar and mail features sync wonderfully with exchange. I have general knowledge about server names, domain names, and port numbers. I am also in a position where I can install Microsoft exchange server on my own computer and potentially set up my own network.

Thanks in advance for any help!
- creevert

You stated that your company does not allow outside computers to connect to the network. This is most likely what is causing your laptop not to connect to Exchange. You may need to get some kind of special permission from your IT person to be able to connect to your network.

Shawn76,

First, thanks for the reply. Any help or ideas is appreciated. I have already spoken to IT. They were the ones informing me that it was company policy that I cannot connect to the server in that manner. This is a "top-bottom" policy that applies to everyone, even those higher up.

I've arrived at a situation, where my objective isn't to connect their server, but to find a way to share my calendar with myself if that is possible.

I have already tried to share the calendar with simply my school email address but I receive a notice saying that this is against the security policy.

I have thought about the following possibilities:

1) Could I set up an exchange server at home, and could that allow me any leeway with security.
2) Can I publish my calendar online and then download it on my laptop at home? If so, will this update my calendar even if it is just periodically?
3) Can I sync my iphone to my laptop in such a manner that it picks up, not just the manually entered items, but the exchange calendar as well?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated!!

Thanks

You should be able to share your calendar by publishing it to Office Online. This essentially allows you to publish it to anyone, regardless of whether they're on Exchange or not. You'll need to set up a Microsoft Live account (doesn't cost anything). Once you have an account, you can public the calendar by simply right-clicking it and selecting Publish to Internet and Publish to Office Online.

Be aware that it is possible to block Internet sharing in both Exchange 2007 and 2010, so if your Exchange admins have chosen to block it then this wont work for you either.

I've never tried syncing the Exchange calendar on my iPhone with a desktop Outlook (as my hosted Exchange provider lets me access my mailbox anywhere), so I can't really offer any insight there.

Hope this helps though.

-SW