A situation that arises frequently during mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) is that some users, at least temporarily, have accounts on multiple Google Workspace and/or Office 365 tenants. These users are more or less in a never ending cycle of missed and double booked meetings. Here’s how to sync their calendars across tenants process so they can focus on work rather than tending to their calendars.
After a merger or acquisition, some users will need accounts on both domains, resulting in two out-of-sync calendars.
For example, Acme, an Office 365 shop, acquires Spacely Sprockets, a Google Workspace shop. Jane now has both Jane@spacelysprockets.com and Jane@acme.com email addresses. Invites to her Acme.com address end up on her O365/Outlook calendar, invites to her spacelysprockets.com address end up on her Google calendar. Jane now lives in calendar hell for at least three reasons:
- Jane needs to check both her Google and O365 calendars anytime she wants to set a meeting.
- Acme.com users checking the Outlook/Teams Scheduling Assistant have no visibility into her SpacelySprockets calendar. They are constantly sending meeting invites for times when she already has a meeting on her SpacelySprockets calendar.
- SpacelySprockets.com users checking the Google “Find a Time” tool have no visibility into her Acme calendar. They are constantly sending meeting invites for times when she already has a meeting on her Acme calendar.
The result is that Jane is constantly missing meetings and getting double booked.
Native Solutions Such as Google Calendar Interop Don’t Really Solve the Problem
Systems administrators often try to solve this same-user-different-domains problem with complicated cross-tenant configurations suggested by Microsoft and/or Google Calendar Interop. The problem with these solutions (aside from being a hassle to setup) is that they assume it is different users on the different domains. Jane is effectively treated as two different people.
Jane@acme.com and Jane@spacelysprockets.com still have totally separate calendars. Jane still needs to check both calendars. And her colleagues need to remember to check both of Jane’s calendars before booking time with her (which of course they don’t realize or remember to do).
CalendarBridge Sync Between Google and Microsoft Tenants
With a two-way CalendarBridge sync between the jane@acme.com and jane@spacelysprockets.com calendars, both of Jane’s calendars now show her complete schedule. Her colleagues with Acme.com email addresses see an accurate view of her free/busy time in the Outlook/Teams Scheduling Assistant. Likewise, her colleagues with SpacelySprockets.com email addresses see her accurate availability using the Google “Find a Time” feature. Jane can focus on achieving those post-M&A “synergies” rather than constantly dealing with calendar headaches.
Sync Calendars Across Google and Microsoft Tenants with CalendarBridge
If your organization has users with calendars on multiple Google and/or Microsoft tenants, CalendarBridge is the simple solution you and your users have been looking for.
Unlike other solutions, CalendarBridge sync is real-time and not based on a preset polling interval.
With CalendarBridge there is no software to install on end users’ devices, and it does not require any complicated configuration of your O365 and/or Google Tenants. System admins have two options in terms of how they want to manage their organization. Manage Users (see it in action) allows admins to assign licenses and let users manage their own sync connections. Manage Syncs (see it in action) administration enables admins to create sync connections with zero user involvement.
CalendarBridge’s bulk sync creation makes syncing 100s or even 1000s of calendars as simple as filling out a simple spreadsheet.
If you want to learn more about cross-tenant syncing for organizations, contact us. If you want a proof of concept, go ahead and have some of your users signup for the free trial — we can always move them over to the organization’s account later.
