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Share Calendars, Contacts, and Tasks!
Sync across any combination of Outlook, Address Book/iCal, Entourage, or Evolution.
Even use a Web-Browser!
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Setup and Synchronization - What to Expect
Ok, so you are interested in our hosted version of XC Connect, but you want to know what to expect... What follows is a series of simple steps that you will go through to set up your account and to synchronize. If you need clarification on any of the steps, or have a "what-if" type question, just let us know - we promise to answer and to help! Email us at customerservice@xcnetwork.com.
1. Setting up your Account:
- It all starts by selecting the "Try it now" link or by going to this url: https://asp.xcnetwork.com/xcnetwork/asp/startevaluation.jsp.
- You will have the opportunity to enter your company or organization's name and then your name and email address. The name that you enter will become the "administrator" for the account. The "Try Now" sign up page looks like the image below
- The evaluation is FREE and will allow you to try XC Home/Small Office with a total of 5 users for 30 days.
- You will then be taken through a series of 5 steps to setup your account. You will:
1. Create an administrative password for yourself,
2. Add your other users,
3. Create any desired shared folders,
4. Download an XC 'connector' for your desktop application, and finally,
5. Wrap up...
The whole process should take you no more than just a few minutes!
2. Getting your other users setup:
When you setup your users, if you used their actual email addresses, they will automatically receive an email with instructions on how to download and install the necessary XC Connector for their desktop. They will:
- Go to this url: https://asp.xcnetwork.com/xcnetwork/admin
- Login with the email address and password that you had assigned for them,
- Click on the 'connectors' link to select the appropriate connector for their desktop application,
- Install the connector
A couple of things to take note of:
- Outlook connectors will automatically be configured to synchronize to the XCN Server
- Mac users will be prompted to configure the "Host" address - the Host is "asp.xcnetwork.com"
- Mac Address Book/iCal users will need to select an Address Book "group" and an iCal calendar that they consider to be their "personal" data.
- Mac Entourage users will find that synchronization is slow - unfortunately this is a feature of Entoruage - Entourage processes events very, very slowly and has nothing to do with XC Connect.
Ready to try it out? Click HERE to begin your Free 30 day evaluation!
The sync process - what happens?
When you synchronize your data many things happen:
- The XC 'connector' on your computer scans your Calendar, Contact, and Task data store, both personal and 'shared group data' for new or modified records.
- It also queries the XCN Server for new or modified data records that have not yet been synchronized to you.
- The 'connector' then encrypts and transmits that new or modified data to the XCN Server and receives, un-encrypts, and posts the data that it has received from the XCN Server to your desktop application's data store.
- Every record that XC Connect synchronizes is tagged with a unique identifier, and each record is reconciled to make sure that it does not synchronize a duplicate item.
Across the different applications, data is presented slightly differently (because they are, after all, different applications designed by different companies):
Outlook 'folders' <- map to -> Entourage 'categories' <- map to -> Address Book 'groups' <- map to -> iCal 'calendars' <- map to -> Evolution 'folders'
An Example Sync:
This example will reference synchronizing a Calendar event across the shared "company" Calendar. We provide you "out of the box" capabiltiy to have a shared "company" Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks (you can turn these 'on' or 'off' at any time).
For the sake of simplicity, we're going to reference only two computers here ("computer #1" and "computer #2").
Step #1 - Creating and synchronizing a new event on "computer #1":
Step #2 - On "computer #2" - Receiving the event that you just created:
And that is it!... You can modify, copy and paste items into those Calendar, Contact, and Task areas and allow them to sync between your various users. Note that you can create additional "shared" folders and allow selected users access to them.
To share your Personal Calendar:
As mentioned above, remember that you can also set up additional folders and allow selected users access to them. Just go to the XCN Server Administrative screen, login as the administrator, and select the 'folders' link.
Web-Browser Interface:
You can also access your information via any web-browser. Just point your web-browser to
https://asp.xcnetwork.com/xcnetwork/xcconnect and login with your username and password.
Need Help? Please let us know!
XC Connect provides you with a great deal of flexibility! If there is something in particular that you would like to do, but are not sure how to do it, please ask us - we would be happy to help you. Just contact us at customerservice@xcnetwork.com.
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