Step 1) The first step is to download the Office Calendar server and client software (in one file) at the Office Calendar website. Before doing this you should have a Windows desktop, laptop or some other PC where the Office Calendar Server software will be installed. This PC will act as the Office Calendar "server" - it does NOT have to have Outlook or any email software on it, it simply acts as a database/data repository where your outlook contacts and calendars are stored.

Step 2) Install the Office Calendar server software on the server itself. Once the Office Calendar software is installed on the server, you may need to reboot. The Office Calendar software will start automatically each time Windows starts.

Step 3) Once you get the Office Calendar server software installed, you need to configure the server by adding an administrator account, and user accounts. See the screenshot below which shows the admin account and 2 users accounts. For more details on office calendar server configuration please see the Office Calendar website for documentation on setting up admin and user accounts.

The Office Calendar Admin console shows each user and their permissions (Click to enlarge)

Step 4) Now that you have added your admin and user accounts to the Office Calendar server, you are finished with Office Calendar configuration, and you can move onto the next phase which is your network itself (router/firewall).

Your router/firewall acts as a secure barier to prevent access to your internal network. Therefore you must make changes to allow outside Internet access to the server.

In your router (and possibly your firewall), you must 'port forward' TCP port 1802, directing it to the LAN IP of your server. In our example the server is set to a STATIC LAN IP address of 192.168.1.87.

The basic steps are covered here (please contact your router technical support for help on these generic instructions):

• log into your router
• Look for the Virtual Servers or Applications and Gaming/Port Forwarding screen.
• FORWARD TCP port 1802 to the internal LAN IP of the server (ex: 192.168.1.87).
• If you are using someone outside your network to help you test, have them try the first connection using your WAN IP address (found on your router's STATUS page). Your domain name just points at your IP, so be sure you really have your WAN IP unblocked. Note that Internet providers in general never block this port, so a failure here should suggest there is blocking somewhere on your network.

Step 5) We now want to get started installing and setting up the clients. In order to get the Office Calendar client software, we need to go into the Office Calendar server and in the folder C:\OCACLIENT you will find 2 files. Copy these 2 files from the server and the use these 2 files to install and setup each client PC that is going to be connecting to the Office Calendar server.

Step 6) Now that you have installed the client software on each system, you need to configure each client to access the Office Calendar server. If you are running the server on the same network as each client, then there should be no other configuration needed other than setting up the proper permissions on the server and setting the client to synch the proper datasets. See the Office Calendar documentation for details on synching data and configuring server and client details.

If you are running the Server on a network with a Dynamic IP address (Such as a cable or DSL line) you will need to setup TZO at the server location only. In order to setup TZO, you download the software for Windows and install it on the same PC that runs the Office Calendar. Once the TZO software is loaded and you have setup a domain name to use (Something.tzo.com) you can continue to step 7 to configure each Office Calendar client to use this domain name to connect.

Step 7) In our example below, we downloaded the TZO software and installed it on the same system that runs our Office Calendar server. We called our Server MYCALENDARSERVER.TZO.COM. In order to configure each Office Calendar client, you must start MS Outlook and then click the CONFIGURE OFFICE CALENDAR toolbutton as shown in the screenshot below:

The Office Calendar Client Toolbar, installed on each client PC using Outlook

The configuration button for Office Calendar is the button on the left side, showing a hammer and wrench icon. Click this Icon to configure the server settings for the Office Calendar client. Once you click this button, you will see a screenshot similar to below. First set the synch properties (what gets synched, what doesn't) and then you can configure the server domain name that you setup in TZO.



Office Calendar Client - Configure each client synch settings, and then configure the server connections

Office Calendar Client - Configuring the server domain - here shows our domain name we used for the example.


That's it! You need to configure each client to connect to the proper server name. Once you configure all the clients and the server, you can attempt to synchronize all clients with the server. This will then populate everyone's MS Outlook with a link to each other's calendar and contact information (depending on what you synch)

For a 14 day FREE TRIAL of Office Calendar, or for more detail on Office Calendar, or for support on using the Office Calendar, please visit the Office Calendar site at http://www.OfficeCalendar.com

NOTE:It is NOT POSSIBLE to 'test' your port forwarding from inside the router's LAN. This is because your domain's IP actually points at the Internet device (not the LAN IP server). This can be disorientating but is a fact of how most shared Internet connections operate (NAT loopback). Be prepared to run an outside test using another Internet connection (not wireless on the same network). It may help to have someone outside the network who can attempt to connect to you (for testing, have them connect onc each using the domain name, and again using the WAN/Connection IP found on your router's STATUS page).