In a blog written by Kentc, the author has brought up the subject of Outlook Connectors and their role in allowing email users to synchronize their personal email tools with Outlook. It can be used to synchronize an end-users’ email, calendar, and contacts with Outlook using a technology called DeltaSync.

The Wikipedia definition for DeltaSync is listed as follows:

“DeltaSync is a proprietary Microsoft communications protocol for synchronizing web services with offline clients.[1] Windows Live Hotmail is exposed to offline clients using DeltaSync, and Outlook Connector and the Windows Live Mail client use it for offline access. Microsoft is pushing for this protocol instead of POP3 or IMAP4 for supporting various advanced features like contacts, calendar, notes synchronizing. Using the DeltaSync protocol, Microsoft intends to provide a common platform for any compatible device to implement a client which can two-way synchronize mail, contacts, calendar and notes.”

Kentc has written that many users would like to be able to easily respond to emails from their Outlook application but at the same time indicate that the email they are sending is coming from a personal email application such as Hotmail.
I think that it’s great to have that kind of flexibility but the downside is that it makes it easier for users to be able to slip into spending time on personal email matters at work when they are being paid by their employer for time spent working on matters related to the employers’ business rather than on personal email matters.

Be that as it may, from a pure technology perspective I can definitely get excited about the pure technology and work involved in writing a software tool such as an Outlook Connector.

On the flip side, the author does point out an advantage of this Outlook Connector such as being able to drag an appointment from an employee’s work calendar to their Hotmail Calendar using Outlook’s side by side Calendar support. This can be very helpful for employees in that they can avoid the scheduling conflicts that can happen in the very busy lives that we all lead. And for the employer the same advantage also applies to help reduce scheduling conflicts and miscommunications.

Some of your end users may not want to synchronize all of their folders so administrators can configure the Outlook connectors to support synchronizing only specific folders to Outlook. The steps below outline how to configure the Outlook Connector for sending and receiving emails.

For Outlook 2002 or Outlook 2003 here are the steps to follow:

1. From Outlook, click on Tools and then click on Email Accounts.
2. Click on View or “change existing email accounts”
3. Click the Next button.
4. Click on“Software602 Groupware Server” account and then choose “Change”.
5. Click on the More Settings button, and then the Folders tab.
6. Click on the “Show Only Subscribed Folders” radio button and then select the folders to be downloaded by placing a check mark in the checkbox to the left of the folder name. If you do not want to download email from a folder, click on the check mark to remove it from the corresponding checkbox.
7. Click on the Ok button, then Ok again and then select Finish to save the configuration

Make sure you do not unsubscribe the default Outlook folders such as: Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, Drafts, Journal, Sent Item, Notes, Outbox and Tasks. Outlook will automatically recreate these folders on the server if their status changes to unsubscribed.

For Outlook 2007 here are the steps to follow:

1. From Outlook, click on “Tools” and then click on Account Settings.
2. Click on the “Software602 Groupware Server” account and then choose Change.
3. Click on the More Settings button, then the Folders tab.
4. Click on the “Show Only Subscribed Folders” radio button, then select the folders to be downloaded by placing a checkmark in the checkbox to the left of the folder name. If you do not want to download email from a folder, click on the check mark to remove it from the corresponding checkbox.
5. Click on the Ok button, then Ok again, and then select Finish to save the configuration.

Likewise, for Outlook 2007, make sure you do not unsubscribe the default Outlook folders such as: Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, Drafts, Journal, Sent Item, Notes, Outbox and Tasks. Outlook will automatically recreate these folders on the server if their status changes to unsubscribed.