Solution needed... already!

[thefollans]

Ok, so I didn't realise that Google doesn't play well with Surface Pro 3's (unless I am missing something?). So here is the thing.

Currently we have the following devices:

Surface Pro 3's
Android Phone
Window's Phone
Mac Book Pro

We want all our calendars, contacts and documents to be available on any of the devices.

We currently use Google for contacts and calendars and Google Drive... along with OneDrive for one notes.

What is the best solution here for us to have everything sync?

Sorry if this has been covered before. I am a long time mac user and only recently (slowly) moving to Android and Windows as well.

Cheers!

 

[thefollans]

BTW - I did connect Google to my Microsoft account, but that does not seem to have done anything?

 

[thefollans]

Oh hang on... maybe it is working, my contacts are (slowly) synchronising. But nothing happening in the calendar world though?

Sorry for talking to myself!

 

[wertzius]

Best solution would be an Outlook.com account or another Exchange based solution, because all platforms handle Exchange pretty well.

 

[malberttoo]

+1 for @wertzius suggestion. I'm not super familiar with it, but when I tried to get a co-worker's Google stuff to sync across multiple devices it was kind of a mess.

Outlook.com, or a hosted Exchange account from Microsoft, $4/month. Exchange is awesome.

 

[gdir]

Ok, so I didn't realise that Google doesn't play well with Surface Pro 3's (unless I am missing something?).

Can you explain what you are missing? You can use Google services on the SP3 like on any other Windows PC.

Google Mail, Contacts and Calendar run without problems in all current browser. For some browsers there are even desktop notifications available - although they probably cause some battery drain. I have them turned off.

I have pinned tabs in my browser for Google Mail and Calendar.

Google Drive can be used in browser or integrated into the Explorer like OneDrive. I rarely use Google Drive and access it only from the browser.

 

[thefollans]

Can you explain what you are missing?

At the moment I can't seem to work out how to get my Google calendars to show in the calendar. I have tried to add the google account but there does not seem to be an option for that in calendar.

The contacts seem to be there but no photos (even though I have also linked my Facebook account to contacts)?

 

[thefollans]

Best solution would be an Outlook.com account or another Exchange based solution, because all platforms handle Exchange pretty well.

Wertzius - Is outlook.com seperate to Office 365 subscription? If I get this can I still get my business emails and folders that we host elsewhere in outlook (is there a better email solution than outlook btw?)

 

[daniielrp]

Wertzius - Is outlook.com seperate to Office 365 subscription? If I get this can I still get my business emails and folders that we host elsewhere in outlook (is there a better email solution than outlook btw?)

Yep Outlook.com is there consumer re-brand of Hotmail. It's free but supports Exchange ActiveSync, which will work on pretty much every device you could ever think off.

GMail, whilst again being good, implement their contacts and calendar sync through a proprietary and still unique to them IMAP method, which is afaik why it does not work on Windows/Windows Phone.

Contacts you can "link" like you have done, but I do not have a solution for the calendar other than subscribing to the calendars on the different devices, but this would only give a read-only copy.

 

[DeltaXray]

Another vote for Outlook.com , we have shared calendars etc across several devices.

 

[Gadigo]

Hi,
i use "OneCalander" from the windows appstore. Works flawlessly with google calander, just like on an android device.
For Gmail and Google Contacts the build in apps from the surface worked fine for me.

gadigo

 

[thefollans]

If we use outlook.com do we set up separate accounts for me and my wife and can still share contacts and calendars?

Also can we import our existing calendars from google and contacts?

Sorry for the questions... As I said long time mac user so have not used windows since XP was released!