Synchronize your Google calendar with Outlook Mac 2011

Managing my family's schedule can be a full-time job. Google calendar helps me clearly see and share events in one central location, reducing the likelihood of unexpected conflicts and scheduling mistakes.

My company uses Microsoft Exchange for emails and calendars. It's very important for me that my job schedule can be seen by my family. It would also be nice if I could see my family's schedule from Outlook.

If your company is running Outlook 2010 (not sure about Exchange version), there is a way to synchronize with Google Calendar Sync. Unfortunately, it only runs on Windows. If you are willing to run a virtual machine in the background all the time, or if you have a spare Windows computer that is always on, you might took this way. This is a free solution, assuming you have a licence for Outlook 2010 for Windows, because it needs Outlook to run on the same computer.

There is currently no way Outlook Mac 2011 can synchronize directly with Google Calendar, and I don't think Microsoft will ever offer this feature. After few hours of trial and error, I think I've found the best way to synchronize my Google calendars with Outlook Mac 2011. Just follow these simple steps :

1. You will need to update Outlook Mac 2011 to Service Pack 1 (version 14.1.0).
2. From your calendar in Outlook Mac 2011, click on Tools, than Sync Services...
3. Check Calendar on the left, and make sure the calendars you want to sync are checked on the right. This will sync Outlook data to iCal, and turn on the Outlook Sync Services.
4. Open iCal, you should see the calendars you selected back in Outlook.
5. If you decide that iCal is the tool you're gonna use from now on, you could subscribe to your Google calendar using this tutorial. But this wasn't enough for me. The family calendar has to be available from multiple locations (from my smartphone, my personal computer, other family member's device).
6. If you are reading this step, it means you decided iCal wasn't the right solution for you. Close it, remove it from your dock, etc. You don't really need it running, but keep it installed.
7. Download BusySync and install it.
8. In BusySync preferences, go in the Google tab, and enter the Settings. Setup a Google account that has read/write access to all the Google Calendars you want to sync.
9. Back in the Google panel, in the left pane, check your iCal calendar you want to publish to Google (remember, this calendar is pushed in iCal by Outlook). In the right pane, check the calendars you want to be retrieved in iCal. These calendars come from Google.
10. Press the "Sync Now" button (not necessary).

Et voilà! In Google Calendar, you should now see a newly created calendar you can share with your family members. This calendar is your job calendar, I find it useful that it is separated from my family calendar. This way everyone can make sure family events are not conflicting with your job schedule, and vice versa. Back in Outlook Mac 2011, your job calendar should have a new category for each Google calendar you subscribed in BusySync.

From Google, adding an event in your new job calendar should be reflected very fast in Outlook. If you add an event in your family calendar, you will also see it in Outlook (under a category). If you add an event in Outlook (in the right category), you will see your event synced in the right Google calendar. Isn't that cool?

I didn't expect my problem to be solved with a transparent solution. Sure all events go through iCal, but I don't care since it works even if iCal is closed. Now everything is perfectly synchronized and well split in my calendars. BusySync is not free, but it has a 30 days trial to convince you it worths the 40$.

Edit: You might want to turn off alarms in iCal Preferences -> Advanced.