Shared calendar across domains/devices

Question

I'm trying to set up a shared calendar for my family, but it's harder then it seems.

The requirements are:

• Private calendar: noone else can edit it.
• It should sync between devices and be available in work/home/phone/tablet calendars.
• Everyone that shares it should be able to add new events and such.
• Noone should have to set up a new account/join a service just to be able to access the calendar.
• They should have the calendar available both at work and in their devices.

This is the environment:

• Mom: Exchange/outlook at work (no smartphone).
• Dad: Apple computer at work, ipad at home, Exchange/iOS calendar at work.
• Sister 1: Ipad at home, exchange/Outlook at work.
• Sister 2: Iphone at home, Iphone at work.
• Me: Google tablet and android phone at home, outlook/Exchange at work.

Google, Microsoft and Apple requires all users to have accounts on their servers to be able to edit the calendars. It is of course possible to share a public calendar, but then they wont be able to edit it.

This post was from 2009: Hosting our own calendar, to be shared within a team? but I did not find it very helpful.

I don't have a home server where I could host a custom solution.

Answer 1

I've spent weeks trying to set somthing like that up for my company, but with no luck. If you have different platforms it's a pain to setup.

In theory you can register a domain name and instal CalDAV php app on it which is supported by majority of platforms. One of those apps would be OwnCloud, which also has some other goodies that come along with it.

However, you will have to test your Android devices with it, as support will vary depending on make, model, and even OS version. There are apps on play store that help you sync CalDAV but as I said it may or may not work.

iOS/OSX always worked for me.

For Outlook you would need to install CalDAV extensions, as it doesn't work out of the box.

As an alternative you could access it using a web browser on unsupported devices, but then there is no notifications, and interface might be hard to use.

After weeks of trying I've decided to setup joint exchange account on every device plus personal and business accounts as needed. Exchange works on every device I tested, being an enterprise solution and you can probably get one for 10$ per year.