View Add2Exchange Installation Guide (.pdf)

Recently awarded first runner up in the 2008 Readers' Choice Award for Exchange Mobility and Wireless solution,  Add2Exchange™ is an Exchange server add-on solution offering total 4-way replication & 8-way synchronization of all server-side Outlook Calendar, Contact, & Task folders. Add2Exchange contains three modules Add2Exchange for Calendars, Add2Exchange for Contacts, & Add2Exchange for Tasks. Add2Exchange has been optimized to work with BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). We have a free fully functional 21 day trial version available in our Downloads area.

Using “Information Relationships”, Add2Exchange can copy and sync information unidirectionally or bidirectionally back and forth between individuals or groups. Appointments, Contacts and Tasks are sent to public folders from users, to private folders from public folders and from private to private individuals so teams can access the information easily in Outlook or on the ever ubiquitous PDA and smartphones. Having this information automatically makes the team faster, more productive and more valuable.

Calendar Sync Overview
Add2Exchange has many uses for Exchange, Outlook & mobile device users. Add2Exchange is ideal for managers who need a “master” calendar for all users/employees in their organization. Users and Management can instantly see a composite schedule of their entire organization at a glance. Managers can also use Add2Exchange for any scheduling performed by their assistant. By synchronizing calendars, your assistant will only need to check one calendar to see all users' availability at all times. For mobile professionals, Add2Exchange can sync public calendar items to a private calendar so they can be synchronized to a PDA or Pocket PC like iPAQ or a Blackberry and even Treo Smartphones. 

Add2Exchange for Calendars is great for organizations who have a public calendar and want it populated with private calendar items automatically. Add2Exchange can also be used for resource scheduling as well as vacation scheduling and departmental group calendars without any extra effort by the users.

Contact Sync Overview
Add2Exchange for Contacts is an Outlook contact synchronization solution which can replicate and synchronize Outlook contacts between private and public folders. With Add2Exchange for Contacts, your business can easily share the Outlook contacts which you designate by setting up relationships between contact folders during installation.

Task Sync Overview
Add2Exchange for Tasks is an Exchange Add-on, Outlook task sync solution which synchronizes any combination of Outlook tasks- private (mailbox) and public (group). Add2Exchange for Tasks was created for Outlook and Exchange users who want to collaborate on tasks and to be able to sync their public tasks to their private (or vise versa) so they can view them on their PDAs. In addition, Add2Exchange for Tasks can greatly benefit managers and users by dramatically reducing labor intensive copying and pasting and, therefore, enable knowledge workers to focus more on the tasks at hand.

The Need for Synchronization: 5 Ideal Situations

Ideal for Mobile Device Users - Public to Private Outlook Calendar, Contact & Task Folder Sync
Managers and users can place an item or entry in a public folder which then gets copied to each users private (mailbox) folder without acceptances. Automatically!

• Create this type of relationship if your company or client needs to access public Outlook appointments, contacts or tasks (which reside on Exchange public folders) from their PDAs, Smartphones, BlackBerry handhelds, Pocket PCs or any other mobile device while in the field.
• This type of relationship is usually built One-to-Many but can also be built One-to-One.

Ideal for Managers- Private to Public Outlook Calendar, Contact & Task Folder Sync
Managers can have a centralized view of the entire organization or team. Automatically!

• Create this type of relationship if your company or client needs their Outlook calendars, contacts and tasks residing on their mobile devices to be accessed by others who use Exchange public folders at the office.
• This type of relationship is usually built Many-to-One but can be built One-to-One or One-to-Many.

Ideal for Teams or Administrative Assistants- Private to Private Outlook Calendar, Contact & Task Folder Sync
Managers and assistants or team leaders/schedulers and team members can have access to the same information and update it anywhere.

• Create this type of relationship if your company or client has a team of people who need to know each other's individual schedules, share contacts and share tasks.
• This type of relationship is usually built One-to-One but can be built One-to-Many or Many-to-One

Ideal for Managers and Administration- Public to Public Outlook Calendar, Contact & Task Folder Sync
Managers, team leaders, and schedulers can have access to consolidated information of entire departments or special function calendars, contacts and tasks

• Create this type of relationship if your company or client has management who need a consolidated folder from individual public folders
• This type of relationship can be built One-to-One or One-to-Many or Many-to-One

Creating Calendar, Contact and/or Task Folder Relationships

A relationship is defined by choosing one “source” folder (private/public) and one “destination” folder (private/public). Once created, new contacts, appointments or tasks created in the source folder will be automatically duplicated in the destination folder. The original appointment/contact/task in the source folder & the copy in the destination folder are synchronized or "tied" together. Update the original or the copy item and the updates will be auto synchronized to the "other" item.

For 2-way replication, create a second relationship where the source folder in the 1st relationship is now chosen as the destination folder in the 2nd relationship and the destination folder in the 1st relationship is chosen as the source folder in the 2nd relationship - basically a mirror image of the first relationship.

During initial set up of Add2Exchange™ (A2E), and before synchronization can occur, the administrator makes at least one relationship and specifies the “rules of the relationship”. You must open the Console to configure the relationships with the relationship rules desired. The rules include: a source folder and a destination folder and the options desired for conflict resolutions, deletions, copied resolution, and auto population of the Calendar/Task subject or File As for Contacts.

For Calendars and Tasks, A2E has been designed to include a user selectable date range in the past as well as in the future. This is called the replication timeframe. For Calendars and Tasks, the relationship rules contain the desired replication timeframe for which Add2Exchange should replicate. How often the replication process runs is specified in Add2Exchange for all types of relationships. How often Add2Exchange replicates is called the "replication interval" and defaults to 10 minutes, with the longer the interval between replication cycles the better. Add2Exchange waits until Exchange is available, automatically starts, replicates and waits until the next replication period.

• A one-way relationship is a relationship between one Source folder and one Destination folder.
  
• A two way relationship is actually 2 one-way relationships: one relationship where items created in the Source are copied to the Destination and one relationship where anything made in the Destination (which is the Source in the 2nd relationship) gets copied to the Source (which is the Destination in the 2nd relationship).

• In a unidirectional relationship, the item created in the Source will be copied to the Destination and any changes to the copy will not synchronize back to the original item in the Source. A unidirectional relationship is a one-way relationship.
  
• In a bidirectional relationship, the item created in the Source will be copied to the Destination and any changes to either item (original or copy) will be synchronized to either location, the Source OR the Destination. A bidirectional relationship is a one-way relationship.

Example: In a Public (Source) to Private (Destination) relationship, where the user does not want changes in the Destination to synchronize back to the Source, any changes made in the Destination folder will be overwritten each time Add2Exchange syncs. The master folder will always be the Public folder.

• In a unidirectional relationship, if the user edits or changes the copied item in the Destination, it will not sync back to the Source. The same holds true for deletions. If a user deletes an item from the Destination, the item will not be deleted from the Source.
  
  Normal unidirectional settings would be to "Recopy the Source item if the Destination item is deleted" so the Source and Destination folders are always the same. Another common option is to select the "Do Nothing" option, which would delete the Destination item and never recopy it from the Source again (until the relationship is deleted and recreated). Users often select the "Do Nothing" option if they want to be able to prune their copy of the Calendar, Contact, or Task information from their own folders.
  
• In a bidirectional relationship, if the user edits or changes the original item in the Source, it will sync to the destination. In addition, if the user changes the copied item in the Destination, it will sync back to the Source. The same holds true for deletions.
  A bidirectional relationship will allow the user to edit the Destination item and have it write back to the Source. This can also be true for deletions, but it does not have to be. If a user deletes an item from the Destination, the item could be deleted from the Source.
  
  The relationship can be bidirectional for edits and NOT deletions, as well. Perhaps you want changes to the Destination to be replicated back to the Source but you do not want a user to be able to delete their copy of the item and have it deleted from the Source. This is fairly common. In this example, a typical relationship rule would be to "Recopy the Source item if the Destination item is deleted" so the Source and Destination folders are always the same. However, if you select the "Do Nothing" option, this allows the user to delete their Destination and Add2Exchange will never recopy it from the Source again (until the relationship is deleted and recreated). Users often want the "Do Nothing" rule if they want to be able to prune their copy of the Calendar, Contact or Task information from their own folders.
  
  A word of caution is in order: If many people have bidirectional relationships and they all change their copy of an item all at once, it is likely that someone's changes will be lost. A common training issue is to not open, save and close the item, but just close so it does not trigger a "phantom save”.

Add2Exchange Key Points

Type of replication:

• Private to Public, AND
• Public to Private, AND
• Public to Public, AND
• Private to Private, AND
• OST (Offline Folder) Aware

Number of Relationships: One to Many (tied) and Many to One (tied)

Replicates New Items: 4 ways

Synchronizes Changes: 8 ways

What's New with Add2Exchange

With Add2Exchange, you now can:

• New! Try each module (Calendars, Contacts, and Tasks) for 20 days! Each trial begins when the first relationship is built for that module.
• New! Upgrade the number of relationships for any licensed module. Need to add more relationships for your licensed solution, click here to buy now.
• New! Recopy previously deleted items in the destination folder. The new copy of the item in the destination folder will then function correctly during the synchronization process. 
• New!  Flexible settings for each relationship when creating a two-way relationship. Now, the Add2Exchange relationship wizard does not assume that the second (of the 2-way) relationship’s settings are the same as the first relationship and offers the ability to select the second relationship’s settings as a separate option.
• New! Replicate Outlook reminders from the source folder to the destination folder – once they are dismissed in the destination, they never come up again.
• New! Place Deleted Text before or after a synchronized message’s Subject or File As.
• Improved! For trial users, you can create unlimited relationships during each module’s trial period.
• Improved! Place Auto Population Text “:” before or after a synchronized message’s Subject or File As.
• Improved!  Select Auto Population Text “:” specific to each relationship.
• New! Add2Exchange Relationship Cloning Module- The Add2Exchange Relationship Cloning Module was developed for organizations with many relationships to create but who do not have time to create each entire relationship individually. The cloning module uses the specific settings based on the first relationship you manually create and then all you have to do is pick each user and the destination folder.
  
  The Add2Exchange Relationship Cloning Module works with a one-to-many folder relationship configuration and saves around 1.5 minutes per relationship!  For example, if you needed to create 150 relationships, you would save 225 minutes (close to 4 hours); for 250 relationships, save around 375 minutes (over 6 hours); for 500 relationships save 750 minutes (12.5 hours); for 1000 relationships save 1500 minutes (25 hours).  The module does not create destination folders, the folders have to already exist before the relationship is created.  Because the Module can create relationships to default and non-default folders, it does not create relationships based on distribution lists.  Add2Exchange Relationship Cloning Module is sold separately from any Add2Exchange software license. 

Easier Installation!

• Select from the Microsoft Exchange Server’s name or enter a cluster name manually.
•  If installed before, Add2Exchange takes the previous settings.
•  Automatically capture the current logged in user’s name if the service account name registry value cannot be found or is empty within the registry.
• Add2Exchange Setup Initialize will now create a registry entry for Show Security Page in Microsoft Exchange System Manager (2000 = EXAdmin; 2003 = MSExchangeAdmin) to enable administrative access to the entire store.

Better Exception Handling!

• Add2Exchange initial messages restriction will process fully even if an exception error is experienced/received and will note the exception error in the application Event Log, if one was experienced.
• Add2Exchange will reset messages if the relationship has been deleted and/or if there has been the moving of mailboxes, public folders or disabled or deleted accounts - (access changes.) being deleted. If there is an exception, it will be noted in the application Event Log, if one was experienced.  

Easier Support!

• Add2Exchange export setup feature now includes additional fields of: name of the current machine, name of the current user, product installation location, service startup type and the Windows operating system plus builds and service packs.
• Add2Exchange suppresses any events in the Event Log for terminated relationships.