Getting Started - My First Sync

My Setup

The first time you click on the “Calendar Sync” tab you will be asked to re-enter your Salesforce.com and Google Apps usernames and passwords. This information lets Appirio Sync for Google Calendar access and connect information from your Google and Salesforce.com calendars.

Note: If after entering your Salesforce username and password you receive an error indicating you are locked out, you can contact your Administrator to whitelist Appirio’s server (75.101.148.153), or you can place the Salesforce security token on the end of your password. Click here for more information on security tokens.

Login Requirements

We require your Salesforce and Google username and password to enable the Calendar Sync process to occur in the background, without user intervention. This is not possible to do with sessions (since they expired after a few hours) or any other mechanism. Your passwords are always encrypted (RSA, 1024 bits) on our server, never sent or received in the clear, and never shared with other applications or companies. Our applications have passed Salesforce certification, providing independent verification that they are safe for use.

New Calendar Sync

After successfully entering your user information you will see the main synchronization screen.

Click the “New Calendar Sync” button
Select a direction for the synchronization (Bi-directional, Salesforce to Google, or Google to Salesforce)
Choose how often information should be synchronized
Choose a Google Calendar to synchronize information with (normally your default calendar)
Choose if you would like to be notified of any issues with synchronization via e-mail
Click “Save” or “Save and Start Sync”

At this point you will be returned to the main page. This page will give you the status of the synchronization, when it was last run, and a link to see the synchronization log.

If you did not “Save and Start Sync” you will need to “Start” your synchronization. Once a synchronization is started it runs in the background. You only need to return to this page if you wish to stop the synchronization, change settings, or view its status.

That’s it! With this one-time setup, calendar events from your Google and Salesforce calendars will seamlessly flow back and forth without any intervention.

Synchronization Options

Several synchronization options are available:

Direction – The default is to synchronize information bi-directionally so updates made to one calendar automatically update the other. In some circumstances you may wish to only have information be updated in one direction (e.g., updates only flow from Google to Salesforce).
Frequency – How often a background synchronization is run. More frequent synchronizations will result in more up to date information.
Google Calendar – Google allows you to setup multiple calendars (e.g., my work calendar, my class schedule, etc.). You must choose one of these calendars to synchronize information with.
Notifications – The Google and Salesforce calendars have a number of incompatibilities (see Known Issues). For example Google support class schedule recurrences (occurs every Tues/Thurs or Mon/Wed/Fri) and Salesforce does not. Calendar events that utilize any of the incompatible features will not be synchronized. Receiving notifications sends you email when events cannot be synchronized. Notifications can be turned on and off at your discretion without interrupting the synchronization process.
Conflicts – These settings determine how conflicting event updates are handled. A conflict happens when the same calendar event is changed in both Salesforce and Google within the same synchronization period. If Most recent update is selected, the last change is synchronized, the other change discarded. Selecting Salesforce or Google means that the selected system is always used as the synchronization source in a conflict. Note that if the same event is deleted in one system and updated in another, the event is deleted from both systems.

Multiple Synchronizations

You can create up to 3 independent synchronizations. This can be used to merge multiple Google calendars into Salesforce, or to publish a Salesforce calendar into multiple Google calendars.

The product prevents the creation of synchronization “loops” - defined as a calendar that is used as both a source and target. For example, you cannot create a synchronization from Salesforce to Google Calendar 1, then from Google Calendar 1 to Salesforce again. Instead you would create a single bi-directional synchronization between the two.

Understanding the Calendar Sync Activity Log

After setting up a synchronization you can always view its latest status and in the activity log, information about which calendar events were recently synchronized. The activity log is viewed by clicking the link in the Last Sync column. The activity log includes the calendar event start time, title, which system (Salesforce or Google) received the updated event, and any errors that may have occurred.

Known Issues and Limitations

There are significant differences in the capabilities of the Salesforce and Google calendars. In some cases, it is not possible for an event in one system to be accurately translated to the other. It is important to be aware of these limitations when relying on synchronized calendars for accurate information.

The table below describes all known limitations. The Activity Log and E-mail Notification features are helpful in pointing out the impact of limitations when synchronizing your calendars.

Support	Issue	Impact on Calendar Sync
License Restriction	The Standard Edition of Calendar Sync limits its synchronization to 14 days prior and 30 days following the current date.	Events starting outside this time range cannot be synchronized.
Not Supported	Salesforce does not allow updates to EventAttendee.	Information about who is attending events is not synchronized.
	Salesforce does not expose recurrence exception information.	Recurrence exceptions (changing or removing one instance of a weekly meeting) cannot be synchronized.
Limited Support - Reminders	Google supports multiple reminders, Salesforce does not.	Only the first reminder will be synced with Salesforce. If the Google event contains multiple reminders and the Salesforce event is changed, the first reminder in the Google event is replaced with the reminder from the Salesforce event.
	Salesforce events which are all-day and contain a reminder cannot be directly mapped to Google. Google doesn't support absolute time reminders, and this is required for all-day event reminders.	When an all-day event with a reminder is synchronized, the reminder is ignored. The original event's reminder is untouched, but the synchronized event will not contain the reminder.
	Events in Salesforce cannot exceed 12 hours 45 minutes in duration (with Multiday Events disabled for the organization), or 14 days in duration (with Multiday Events enabled for the organization).	Events in Google that exceed 12 hours 45 minutes or 14 days in duration (depending on the Multiday Event setting in Salesforce) cannot be synchronized. (To enable Multiday Events, go to Setup > App Setup > Activities > Activity Settings).
Limited Support - Recurrences (Series)	The following Google recurrence pattern is not supported in Salesforce: Yearly Every n Years where n > 1.	Google events using these patterns will not be synchronized to Salesforce.
	The following Salesforce recurrence patterns are not supported in Google: Yearly On The 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/Last/Day of Month, Daily Every n Days (where n > 14), Weekly Every n Weeks (where n > 14), Monthly Every n Months (where n > 14).	Salesforce events using these patterns will not be synchronized to Google.
	Salesforce limits the number of recurrence instances for an event. The limits are 100 for daily, 53 weekly, 60 monthly, and 10 yearly. For example, an event beginning on Jan 1, 2008 recurring daily until Dec 31, 2008 is not allowed - 365 instances would be required but the limit is 100.	Google events with more recurrence instances than Salesforce allows will be truncated to fit within the Salesforce maximums. This does not modify the original Google event.
	Google's Calendar user interface supports a subset of the iCal specification for recurrences.	Events that contain BYMONTH, BYMONTHDAY, or SETPOS cannot be synchronized. This typically occurs in events that are published into Google from outside sources, such as Microsoft Exchange. In general, recurrence patterns that can be created directly via the Google Calendar user interface are fully supported - with the exception of those covered in this documentation which are unsupported by Salesforce. We are investigating ways to support additional patterns.
	Salesforce User Profile and/or organization may not have access to all of the required fields, preventing use of the product. The product requires the following fields of the Salesforce Event object to be Visible: All Day Event, Created By, Date, Description, Duration, Location, Subject, Time. For bi-directional and Google to Salesforce synchronization, these fields must not be Read-Only. Support for Reminders and Private events is optional.	Based on user feedback we may relax the field requirements in the future.