Migration from Microsoft Outlook to Kolab

Fri Mar 14 17:42:32 CET 2014

Hi,
that's a good questions, but I cannot tell you since I have no (real) experience with either one. My guess is, that 3rd party solutions are probably more robust as they are out there for quite some time. On the other hand, using ActiveSync requires less software and I dont know if you can get a trial for the plugins.

You should also consider, that ActiveSync is limited compared to a full Exchange solution. But using Kolab's syncroton/ActiveSync you can sync contacts, events, tasks and emails (but no notes to my knowledge).

Maybe Aleksander can help, as he seems to have experience at least with ActiveSync <=> Outlook 2013.

Cheers, Christoph

-----Original message-----
To:users at lists.kolab.org; 
CC:Christoph Hartlmueller <christoph at hartlmueller.de>; 
From:Thinker Rix <thinkerix at rocketmail.com>
Sent:Fri 14-03-2014 17:30
Subject:Re: Migration from Microsoft Outlook to Kolab
Attachment:inline.txt
Hi Christoph,

Thank you again for your time!

On 2014-03-14 16:32, Christoph Hartlmueller wrote:

From: Thinker Rix <thinkerix at rocketmail.com>
On 2014-03-14 15:13, Aleksander Machniak wrote: 
On 03/14/2014 02:11 PM, Thinker Rix wrote: 
Christoph, thank you very much for this idea of yours! 
I found this: https://kolab.org/about/syncroton and as far as I 
understand, Kolab can accept ActiveSync connections.As far as I know, 
ActiveSync is a MS program, which I can install on windows and it should 
work also with Outlook 2003, isn't it? So with other words: I could just 
connect with ActiveSync and sync all my stuff to Kolab and I am done?!?!? 
If that would be true, it would be wonderful and amazingly easy! 

Is anybody reading who can confirm this/ has already done that and has 
some experience on it to share with us? 
I can confirm Outlook 2013 (not 2003) works with Kolab using ActiveSync 
protocol. You don't need to install any programs for that. 

Great, thank you for the confirmation! 
Unfortunately I made a mistake and wrote Outlook 2003, although we are using 2007. So please allow me to ask again: Do you know if it works with 200*7*, too? Or only as of 2013? 

  I didn't 
however try to move events/tasks/contacts from one account to another. 

I do not understand that; when syncing is done, aren't the data copied to both places, isn't that the very essence of syncing? So that after syncing I would just dump the Outlook and continue accessing my data on Kolab via Roundcube and/or another client such als Kontact? 
Or do you mean that you just connect to Kolab via ActiveSync so to receive your email via ActiveSync - but not the calendar/tasks/contacts which continue to live on your local Outlook? 

You need Outlook 2013. Older Outlook version only sync with a full-blown Microsoft Exchange Servers (The ActiveSync Server the "small" brother of the Exchange Server and is mostly used to sync mobile devices).

Ok!

 So the work flow is the following:

1. Backup your pst file(s) and setup a test Kolab server.

2. Open your pst-files using Outlook 2013. Check if data looks ok, but going from Outlook 2007 => 2013 should be ok

3. Connect your Outlook 2013 to the Active Sync (Syncroton) Server of Kolab (see for example here: https://portal.smartertools.com/kb/a2808/setting-up-outlook-2013-using-microsoft-exchange-activesync.aspx ). You do not need to install anything for this, Kolab comes with the ActiveSync server. Thanks Aleksander, good to know Kolab works with Outlook 2013.

=> you now see your Kolab data in outlook.

4. Now you move all data within Outlook 2013 to the Kolab account.

Christoph, thank you very much for this detailed step-to-step guide!! It will help a lot!

In case you do not have Outlook2013, maybe you can get a test/evaluation version since you only need to do this once. Once your data is in Kolab, you can use any other Client.

Yes, indeed, a quick web search showed that MS has a trial version of Outlook. Thanks for the hint!

Hope that helps,

Christoph

Sure it does, thank you very much!

How do you expect this method that we just described here with the alternative way to go via the third party plugin called Bynari? What do you think will perform better in terms of migration and the non-loss of data during the translation from A to B?

Best regards and again: Thank you!

Thinker Rix

-- *Thinker Rix*, an internet user. Please avoid TOFU in newsgroups and mailing lists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Top-posting) Bitte vermeidet TOFU in Newsgroups und Mailing-Listen (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU)

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