As I am sure you are aware there is a lot of hype, especially from the media that Google Apps has a plug-in for Outlook. What is frustrating is that there are comparisons being made that Google Apps replaces Exchange, or it is “A Lot” like using exchange as described on Google’s website. While there is some functionality that is similar to exchange, there seems to be more that you cannot do, than you can do. There is nothing ground-breaking here that has not been available from other competitive platforms, it is a “Plug-In” or connector for Outlook.
Take a look at the FAQ from Google's website:
Google Apps Sync FAQ
What data is synchronized between Outlook and the Google Apps cloud?
All your mail, your primary calendar, your Outlook contacts, and anyone listed under My Contacts in Google Apps Email. For details, see Using Google Apps Sync below.
What data is not synchronized?
Data that isn't currently supported by Google Apps, including Outlook tasks, notes, journal entries, follow-up flags, distribution lists, rich formatting in contacts, and more. You can continue to use these features in Outlook, but they aren't synchronized to Google Apps. For a comprehensive list of features that aren't synchronized, see What's Different from Exchange below.
What Outlook features aren't supported by Google Apps Sync
Mail and calendar delegation, public folders, multiple calendars, some Contact fields in your domain's Global Address List, and more. For a comprehensive list, see What's Different from Exchange below.
Can I use Google Apps Sync to import Exchange data to Google Apps?
Yes. If your Exchange account is available, you can use Google Apps Sync to import the data directly into your Google Apps account. Otherwise, you can save your Exchange data as a PST file and import that. The data is imported to Outlook then synchronized with Google Apps Mail, Calendar, and Contacts in the cloud. For instructions on importing, see Importing my Exchange data below.
What does my imported data look like?
Your imported email messages, folders, calendar events, and contacts all look very much like they did with Exchange, as do tasks, notes, and journal entries. However, a few things look different. For example, categories don't import for email messages and some types of calendar events display differently. For details, see What gets imported? below.
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Will my existing Outlook plug-ins work?
Most plug-ins, such those for Salesforce.com or WebEx should continue to function as usual. Some plug-ins are disabled during the installation process due to incompatibility with Google Apps Sync. These plug-ins include:
- Microsoft Office Outlook Connector
(registry key: HKLM \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\MSNCON.Addin.1 ) - Acrobat PDF Maker Toolbar
(registry key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\PDFMOutlook.PDFMOutlook) - Outlook Change Notifier
(registry key: HKLM \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\AddinsOutlookChangeNotifier.Connect)
If you would like to continue to use the above plug-ins, uninstall Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, and the uninstaller will re-enable the plug-ins.
How about Windows Desktop Search and Google Apps Sync?
Because of a compatibility issue, Google Apps Sync disables Windows Desktop Search for all Microsoft Outlook files (also known as "Instant Search" within Outlook). You can continue to search your data within Microsoft Outlook through the standard Outlook search fields.
If you need to use Windows Desktop Search to search your Outlook data, we recommend that you uninstall Google Apps Sync through the Add or Remove Programs panel in the Control Panel in Windows. If you are using Google Apps Sync version 1.0.22.1945 or lower (to find the version number, click the Google Apps Sync icon in the system tray and choose
About...) you must first download and install
the latest version and then uninstall Google Apps Sync to re-enable indexing.
Does your SLA apply to this product? What about your response time to Windows patches or Office hotfixes?
Our SLA applies specifically to our services. Client software, which runs on desktops, is a fundamentally different support problem because of the widely divergent desktop environments. However, we will respond to support requests in the same manner that we do with our hosted services. And we will maintain the product, especially with regard to security patches and other changes from Microsoft.
What's Different from Exchange
Overview
Cloud computing with Google Apps and Outlook
In general, using Outlook with Google Apps is just like using it with Exchange. This is because most features supported by Outlook, such as sending and receiving mail, scheduling events, looking up contacts and so on, are supported by Google Apps, too. This information is easily synchronized between Outlook and your Google Apps account in the cloud, meaning you can access it equally from either Outlook or the Google Apps interface.
However, there are a few features normally available with Outlook that Google Apps doesn't support. Some of these aren't available at all when using Google Apps Sync. Others, such as Tasks, Notes and Journal entries, are available, but only from Outlook (not from the Google Apps interface). These features aren't used in Google Apps and therefore can't be synchronized with the cloud. Instead, they're stored locally on your computer.
General Differences
The following differences apply in general when using Google Apps Sync:
Public folders aren't available. You can't make a folder public to share its contents with other users. This is because folders in Outlook map to email labels in Google Apps, which don't have permission properties. With Google Apps Sync, the Permissions settings in folder Properties (which you use to make folders public) aren't available.
Can't delegate access to your mailbox or calendar. You can't use Outlook's Delegates option to let an assistant manage your mailbox or calendar. (This feature isn't available when using Google Apps Sync.)
Tasks, Notes, and Journal entries aren't synchronized with the Google cloud. You can still use these features from Outlook, but only for personal work, not for multi-user interactions (so you can't do things like assign tasks to other users or share your Notes). Also, this data is stored locally on your computer and available only from Outlook, not from the Google Apps interface.
Posts and other non-mail items in folders aren't synchronized: You can keep storing posts, contacts, and other non-mail items in folders. But these items don't appear with the corresponding email label in Google Mail (because labels in Google Mail apply only for mail messages).
See topics below for differences specific to each application.
Mail
Differences using Mail
Using Outlook with Google Mail is a lot like using it with Exchange. However, there are a few features Google Apps doesn't support, as well as some more subtle differences.
What's not supported by Google Apps Sync
Delegating access to your mailbox: You can't use Outlook's Delegates feature to let an assistant manage your Inbox, responding to mail on your behalf. This feature isn't available when using Google Apps Sync.
Multiple types of flags in Google Mail. You can use different types of flags in Outlook, for example, to schedule follow up tasks, and you'll still receive reminders. But this additional information isn't synchronized with your Google account in the cloud (since Google Apps only has a single type of star), and therefore isn't available from the Google Mail interface.
Recovering deleted items: After emptying your Deleted items folder, you can't use "Recover Deleted Items" in Outlook's Tools menu to get the messages back as you can in Exchange. This option isn't available with Google Apps Sync.
Specifying a delay for emailing calendar invitations: In Outlook, you can specify a delay for emailing calendar events, after saving the event (using the "delay email by X minutes" option). However, Google Apps Sync synchronizes attendees' calendars right away, inviting them immediately regardless of any delay you specify.
Importance levels in Google Mail: Using Outlook with Google Apps Sync, you can send mail marked as "Important" or Low Priority," but these values don't show up for Google Mail users (since Google Apps doesn't support these properties). They do, however, show up for other Outlook users.
Other Differences in Mail
Messages can have multiple labels: In Google Apps, a message can be associated with more than one label. A message with budget information for a project, for example, can have both the Budget label and Projects label. In Outlook, this message therefore appears in both your Budget folder and Projects folder.
Note that deleting the message from one folder in Outlook also deletes it from the other.
Folder names are limited to 40 characters.
Clean reply headers may look different. Clean reply headers in email threads between Google Mail users and Outlook users look different than in threads between Outlook users. This is because Google Mail sends slightly different headers than Outlook.
Receiving POP vs. IMAP mail: Using Google Apps Sync, email sent to a POP3 account appears in your Inbox (just as it does with Exchange). Email sent to an IMAP account goes to that IMAP account.
Receiving web pages from IE or Office: If someone emails you a web page from Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office using the "Send > page by mail" option, the message is sent immediately if Outlook is open. Otherwise, it's sent the next time you start Outlook.
Calendar
Differences using Calendar
Your Outlook Calendar also continues to work with Google Apps much as it did with Exchange. However, there are a few features not yet supported by Google Apps, some differences in behavior to watch out for, and a number of minor differences that hopefully won't be a bother.
What's not supported by Google Apps Sync
Multiple calendars: You can't create multiple calendars in Outlook, such as one for work and one for home. Instead, all your events are stored in your primary calendar.
Share my Calendar feature: You can't share your calendar in Outlook using the Share my Calendar option in the left navigation pane. However, you can share it as an Internet calendar. For details, see above under "Using Google Apps Sync."
Delegating access to your calendar: You can't use Outlook's Delegates feature to let an assistant manage your calendar, creating, accepting, or declining your meeting invitations. This feature isn't available when using Google Apps Sync.
Optional attendees: Google Calendar doesn't differentiate between Optional and Required attendees. So even if you mark an attendee as Optional when inviting them to a meeting, they will appear as Required to everyone else.
Accepting new meeting time proposals: You can propose a new meeting time in Outlook, and the organizer receives the proposal in email as usual. However, the organizer can only accept the proposal (by clicking Accept in the email) using Outlook 2007, not when using Outlook 2003 or the Google Apps web interface. Also, clicking "View all proposals" in the email using any version of Outlook, will not display other attendees' proposed times.
Calendar attachments: If you add a document, contact, or other attachment to a calendar event in Outlook, you see the attachment in your calendar, but other attendees don't see it in theirs. This is because attachments aren't synchronized with the Google Apps cloud and therefore don't update to other people's calendars.
Conversely, if a Google Calendar user attaches a Google Docs document to a calendar event, Outlook users don't see the attachment. For Outlook users to access the document, Google Calendar users should paste the URL to the document in the event's description.
Differences to watch out for
You can't save without sending: In Outlook, an organizer can create or update an event, such as with a minor change, and choose not to send the update to attendees (by closing the event window and choosing "Save without sending"). In Exchange, attendees would not learn of the update, either by email or in their calendar. Google Apps, however, synchronizes all calendar data with your domain in the cloud, whether or not you send updates from Outlook. Other attendees won't get an email, but their calendars are updated.
Similarly, if you create an event and save it without sending (say, because the event isn't yet fully drafted), attendees you've already added will still see the event on their calendars.
Forwarding meeting invitations: If an organizer creates a meeting in Google Calendar and unchecks the "Guests can invite others" option, then an attendee forwards the meeting, the recipient gets the forwarded invitation, but clicking Accept doesn't add the event to the recipient's calendar.
Requesting invitation responses: If you create a meeting in Outlook and choose not to receive responses from attendees (you don't select the Request Response option), you might still receive responses. This happens if you have enabled Notifications for your calendar in your Google Calendar settings.
Event replies aren't stored in Calendar: When you reply in Outlook to a meeting invitation, you can edit your reply before sending. Your reply is indeed sent via email. But it's not stored as a note in the calendar event itself.
Google Calendar users don't see links or formatting: You can add rich content such as links and formatted text to a calendar description in Outlook, and other Outlook users see it. Google Calendar users, however, don't see the links or other rich content.
Invitation emails from Google Calendar don't show all attendees: If you receive a meeting invitation in Outlook from a Google Calendar user, you won't see all attendees in the invitation email. You will, however, see all attendees in your calendar.
Recurring Events
Maximum number of recurrences: With Google Apps, a recurring event is limited to 365 recurrences. If you import a daily recurring event from Exchange that was scheduled January 1 2005, the event will stop recurring January 1 2006.
Scheduling a recurring event: If a Google Calendar user schedules a recurring event that begins on a different day than the meeting recurs, Outlook users don't see the first event. For example, if a Google Calendar user schedules a weekly meeting for Monday that recurs every Tuesday thereafter, Outlook users will miss the first meeting. (This is because in Outlook, you can't schedule a recurring meeting that begins on a different day than the remaining series.)
End-of-month recurring events: If a Google Calendar user creates a recurring event on the 31st of every month, Outlook users will see events on the last day of every month (even those with only 30 days). Google Calendar users, however, will see events only in months with 31 days, as the organizer likely intended.
Modifying recurring events doesn't delete exceptions. If you modify a recurring event in Outlook, existing exceptions aren't necessarily deleted even though a dialog says they will be. So if you schedule a weekly meeting at 2pm, move this week's meeting to 1pm (creating an exception), then reschedule the entire series to 3pm, this week's meeting will still be at 1pm. (In Exchange, this week's meeting would be moved to 3pm.)
Google Calendar users can't schedule First Weekday or First Weekend Day recurrences. Outlook users can schedule a recurring meeting on the "First Weekday" or "First Weekend Day," just as you can with Exchange. The meeting is properly scheduled for everyone in your domain, Google Calendar and Outlook users alike. However, you can't schedule such a meeting from the Google Calendar interface.
You can't remove attendees from an exception. Removing an attendee from an exception to a recurring event, doesn't always remove the attendee.
Declining a recurring event from Outlook 2003: If an attendee using Outlook 2003 declines an invitation to a recurring event organized by an Outlook 2007 user, the 2003 user is removed from the organizer's attendee list, rather than just listed as declined.
Moving an all-day recurring event: If you schedule a recurring all-day event, such as a daily Out of Office event for a week-long vacation, then move one recurrence to another day that's part of the series (say, you move Monday's event to Tuesday), Outlook will still allow only one event on Tuesday. A Google Calendar user, however, sees two all-day events on Tuesday.
Other Differences in Calendar
Organizers in Google Calendar can decline their own meeting: When using Outlook, you can't organize a meeting without being listed as an attendee. If you schedule the meeting in Google Calendar, however, you can remove yourself from the attendee list.
Resource names don't update for previously scheduled events: If your domain administrator changes the name of a conference room or other resource, Outlook users don't see the new name for meetings that have already been scheduled. They will, however, see the new name when attending or scheduling any future meetings.
New time zone rules can affect meeting times: Google Apps uses current time zone rules to do UTC-to-local time conversions, not those that apply when the event is originally created. This can affect meeting times in regions where time zone rules tend to change. For example, if you create a 2pm meeting in New Zealand when the time zone is GMT +13, and New Zealand's time zone subsequently changes to GMT +12, the meeting will now show up at 1pm.
Choosing a new time zone affects all-day events: Unlike in Exchange, if you have an all-day event on your calendar in Google Apps, then change your time zone, the event is still shown as an all-day event. In Exchange, by contrast, the event becomes a 24-hour event that crosses day boundaries.
Minor event updates are marked as exceptions: If you update an event in Google Apps without changing the time or location, for example, by adding a comment, the event in Outlook appears as an exception (the exception icon is shown), even though it really isn't.
Contacts
Differences using Contacts
As with Mail and Calendar, there are a few features of Outlook Contacts that Google Apps doesn't support, as well as some other minor differences.
What's not supported by Google Apps Sync
Global Address List data other than names and email addresses: The Global Address List created by Google Apps Sync's GAL Generator currently shows any Names and Email Addresses (Phone Numbers will be available soon). Other information, such as Job Title and Company aren't shown in global addresses (but they are in your personal contacts).
Follow-up flags in the Google Apps interface: You can flag a contact for follow-up in Outlook and the information is stored with your account in the Google Apps cloud. However, contact flags don't appear in the Google Apps interface.
Distribution list synchronization: If you create a distribution list in Outlook, it's available in Outlook but not from the Google Apps interface. This is because distribution lists work differently in Outlook than in Google Apps and therefore don't synchronize with the Google Apps cloud. (Outlook lists can include addresses that aren't in your Contacts, while Google Apps lists can't).
Updating Contacts from Google Apps: Currently, updating a contact from the Google Apps interface can cause unexpected results in Outlook. For example, a full name in Google Apps might appear as a first name or last name in Outlook. Also, if you update a Notes field in Google Apps, your updates don't appear in Outlook, and subsequent updates in Outlook overwrite changes made in Google Apps.
We'll be removing some of these limitations soon. But for the time being, we recommend updating contacts only from Outlook, not from Google Apps.
Rich formatting in Google Apps Contacts: Links, bolding, and other rich content added in Outlook to a contact's Notes field, appear as plain text in Google Apps.
Long Notes in Google Apps Contacts: A long Note entered in an Outlook contact is truncated in the Google Apps interface. The full Note, however, remains available in Outlook.
Other Differences in Contacts
Google Apps supports contact information that Outlook doesn't, such as "Google Voice." In Outlook, this information appears as a read-only attachment to the contact.
If you have pre-existing contacts in Google Apps (created before installing Google Apps Sync), their Full Name might appear as the Last Name in Outlook. This is because Google Apps doesn't have separate fields for First and Last names.
Hopefully, now you can see that this really is not a good comparison to Exchange Server, with all the “Few” things that don’t work. What is the connector in my opinion; it is a great offline solution to those users that have been asking for one that happen to be on the consumer side of Google apps. Will Google eventually have something to compete with Exchange, as well as other platforms besides Microsoft, I suspect so, but this current offering has a lot of shortcomings.
Google page with FAQ and What’s different from Exchange - http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=147751
Interesting Articles related to post since announcements:
The Industry Standard - Google warns of issues with its Outlook sync tool for Apps
TechWorld - Google retreats on Gmail Outlook app promises
By the way I did correct a couple spelling errors on there webpage for my post “Anly” and “Recipent”, using Microsoft's spell-check. ;)