HWTK - Work calendar to web calendar, how?

[Hamster]

My company has decided to enforce the use of Airwatch for anyone who wants to access company emails or calendar from their phone. For a variety of reasons I do not want this app on a personal phone (company does not supply me with a phone) and hence my access via anything but webmail is about to cease. Now, I'm not too worried about not being able to easily read my work emails outside of work hours. This is the company's loss, not mine. But I do need frequent access to my calendar throughout the day, so I can see where my next meeting is, get alerts to the next one, see what is happening in days/weeks to come etc. (webmail just gives me the day).

So I'm wondering if there is a smart way of duplicating my work calendar on a web based calendar that I can easily access. I need to be confident that when changes occur on my work account, that this is duplicated on the accessible account, that includes any changes and updates to existing invites. The account I will be accepting/declining/managing meetings on will be the work one, so all I need is reliable mirror of the work account in an easily accessible place. I do not need the functionality to accept, decline, create invites. A couple of us have tried just setting up a rule to forward invites to a Gmail calendar, but when testing, this didn't seem to be working smoothly.

There may well be restrictions on what I can enable on the company account, but I can't really know what these are until I start trying to implement a new solution.

Anyone got any ideas? Whilst not a complete numpty, I am not an IT guru either, so any links to step by step instructions, or at least the correct terms to google would be appreciated.

Cheers
H

[thro]

Explain your requirements to your IT department / manager; anything mentioned here may or may not continue to work as IT close holes to comply with corporate policy.

Essentially you are attempting to mix corporate and public data stores, and from the sounds of it this is exactly the sort of thing your company is attempting to segregate.

(i work on the other side of the fence, as an IT policy decision-maker)


It's possible your company runs Exchange? If so, they may have outlook web access enabled - meaning you can access your calendar via the web.

[Hamster]

Yep, I have web mail access. Requires a login each time, doesn't alert me to an impending meeting, and the only day of the calendar it shows is the current day. Which makes planning a meeting on the spot with a colleague for next week impossible.
Meetings aren't exactly top secret company info so I'll do as you suggest and talk to IT, but so far I've drawn a blank from them. Bear in mind, this is the service provider that lost an entire server worth of data for a region; and didn't have a back up.
May just have to go (kinda) old school and take a picture of my weeks appointments to carry around with me. After all we all survived when paper diaries were the only method.

[thro]

if you genuinely need alerts for meetings, etc. and non-company devices are banned then it sounds like you have a case for a company-issued smartphone.

They probably are banning personal phones from accessing the system due to licensing - every device that accesses exchange consumes a device license for activesync.

[darkfibre]

if you genuinely need alerts for meetings, etc. and non-company devices are banned then it sounds like you have a case for a company-issued smartphone.

They probably are banning personal phones from accessing the system due to licensing - every device that accesses exchange consumes a device license for activesync.

Holy crap, my work exchange server gets hit by my company laptop and phone, and my personal phone, tablet and PC.

Could be a day of reckoning coming up soon.

[thro]

Holy crap, my work exchange server gets hit by my company laptop and phone, and my personal phone, tablet and PC.

Could be a day of reckoning coming up soon.

Yeah, we're going through this sort of thing at the moment.

It used to be 1 user = 1 device = 1 license for exchange.

Now we have people with computer, tablet, smartphone, home PC, etc. all hitting the box.


It would not surprise me to see a shift for most companies from device based licensing to user based, as the days of having more users than devices are over it would appear.

Now it's the other way around by a factor of 2-3x.


At least if they are company issued devices, IT can keep track and know which ones have been decommissioned. If they are random devices owned by user X at some point then it's a bit less clear as to which devices they actually use.

Never mind being notified when they are lost, to remote wipe to protect company IP, etc. It's a legal minefield.



edit:
and yeah, my server gets hit by me from 2 tablets, a phone, 2 personal machines and a work machine

[darkfibre]

I see this as a possible way to get rid of the windows phone they lumbered me with.

[Hamster]

if you genuinely need alerts for meetings, etc. and non-company devices are banned then it sounds like you have a case for a company-issued smartphone.

They probably are banning personal phones from accessing the system due to licensing - every device that accesses exchange consumes a device license for activesync.

Nah, not banned, it's just that if you want to access via a smartphone, whether personal or company provided, then you have to have airwatch installed. So I don't think it's a licensing issue, I've heard it is from a security perspective but also that it was a particular part of the company that wanted it due to their people using their apps on phones.
Call me paranoid, but I don't want to give my company access to all the personal data on my phone (they say they won't be using this functionality and they'll only be able to see the apps I use) the ability to track me via GPS (no mention on whether they'll be using this functionality) and the ability to wipe data (they are unclear on whether they can distinguish company from personal data, or under what circumstances they will do this and are unclear on the level of control they will have). When I asked for clarification on the above, several times, I have been met with silence.

Company phone, fair enough, do what you like. My phone no. I don't particularly want a company phone and won't be trying to justify one since the inconvenience of the calendar accessibility is not that great.

[benlikesbikes]

I recently installed Google calendar sync on my work machine which makes copies of your outlook calendar events in your gmail calendar. It works pretty well. Obviously it requires your work machine to be online in order for you to get new events.

I only sync 1 way but I think you can set it to sync both ways.

[thro]

Company phone, fair enough, do what you like. My phone no. I don't particularly want a company phone and won't be trying to justify one since the inconvenience of the calendar accessibility is not that great.

Well, you have a choice - either deal with airwatch or don't have your work data on your personal phone. Which means petition for a work phone, or do what people did before smartphones and keep a diary or put important stuff in your personal phone manually.

The reason for it will be to control the security of their internal network and control data leakage outside of the company.

I recently installed Google calendar sync on my work machine which makes copies of your outlook calendar events in your gmail calendar. It works pretty well. Obviously it requires your work machine to be online in order for you to get new events.

I only sync 1 way but I think you can set it to sync both ways.

Good luck if your corporate peeps find out about it. Leaking company data to google services = legal minefield.

[Hamster]

For a variety of reasons I do not want this app on a personal phone (company does not supply me with a phone) and hence my access via anything but webmail is about to cease.

I don't particularly want a company phone and won't be trying to justify one since the inconvenience of the calendar accessibility is not that great.

May just have to go (kinda) old school and take a picture of my weeks appointments to carry around with me. After all we all survived when paper diaries were the only method.

They probably are banning personal phones from accessing the system due to licensing

I've heard it is from a security perspective but also that it was a particular part of the company that wanted it due to their people using their apps on phones.

Well, you have a choice - either deal with airwatch or don't have your work data on your personal phone. Which means petition for a work phone, or do what people did before smartphones and keep a diary or put important stuff in your personal phone manually.

The reason for it will be to control the security of their internal network and control data leakage outside of the company.

Typical IT response. Repeats what you already know and have told them, but fails to come up with a solution to solve it.


Cheers, [MENTION=14392]benlikesbikes[/MENTION], I'll give IT support a shout and see if they will allow this to be used, since [MENTION=7023]thro[/MENTION] thinks that might be a naughty.

[thro]

HWTK - Work calendar to web calendar, how?

Typical IT response. Repeats what you already know and have told them, but fails to come up with a solution to solve it.


Cheers, [MENTION=14392]benlikesbikes[/MENTION], I'll give IT support a shout and see if they will allow this to be used, since [MENTION=7023]thro[/MENTION] thinks that might be a naughty.

Typical user : expects a change in policy written to protect the company and then whines that IT didn't fix their problem (which is a specific user "I don't want to comply" issue) when there is no valid solution that will fulfill corporate obligations.

Also: doesn't even talk to IT about it, installs unauthorized software in violation of policy and will no doubt whine that IT are a pack of cunts when they remove it.

IT tells you stuff you already know, because the list of possible outcomes where you are guaranteed not to get fired over it is obvious.

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

Typical user : expects a change in policy written to protect the company and then whines that IT didn't fix their problem (which is a specific user "I don't want to comply" issue) when there is no valid solution that will fulfill corporate obligations.

Also: doesn't even talk to IT about it, installs unauthorized software in violation of policy and will no doubt whine that IT are a pack of cunts when they remove it.

So many times, this.

Next time you feel the need to bitch out an IT department, try and consider for a moment the masters they must keep happy.

They are frequently balancing directly conflicting priorities of service delivery with money savings, increasingly complex demands and supporting every flash-in-the-pan technology that is hip and trendy to upper management that week, stringing together technologies purchased without prior consultation and often a budget of zero dollars to upskill your staff, all the while dealing with folks that have come to expect everything for nothing.

If you need a work calendar and don't want to install airplay, then print a copy of your calendar and carry it with you. You're making a very simple problem very difficult.

Also, regarding the airplay tracking thing, you're paranoid. Your personal info isn't interesting to anybody. We've seen it all before and honestly don't even care to log it. They will care even less to interrogate the data later, because there's enough work already just keeping your corporate shit running day to day without also needing to delve into peoples useless gps logs.

[shmoo]

It's the same old moaning from you IT types. I'm just a simple bloke who wants to watch porn on my work laptop at lunchtime. Am I really asking too much?

[Sunshine & F'n Rainbows]

Protip; Chrisman is coming anf your IT department is almost guaranteed to like beer.

Just the same way as you want delivery men and kitchen staff on your side, greasing the wheels of your IT guys will generally mean some shielding from the political office bullshit if they can do so.