Exchange Calendar Sync

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See also Getting Email Working and Exchange Global Address Book

UoN Office 365 and Thunderbird 60.0 + Lightning 6.2.2.1

Oct 2018

If, like me, you woke up to find that Thunderbird had suddenly updated and Lightning calender had suddenly disappeared (!), don't panic, here's a fix which should get you going again.

• Go into tools > add-ons, and remove Lightning. Restart Thunderbird, and the 'events and tasks' tab should be back (re-add the calender)
• If it hasn't, run sudo apt install xul-ext-lightning and restart if necessary.
• You'll notice all your exchange calenders blanked out - the Ericsson EWS (exchange web services) plugin does not work with Thunderbird 60.0 (it may in the future). Instead, go to your add-ons and search for Tb-Sync which uses EAS (exchange active sync).
• Once installed, go to edit > synchronization settings (tbsync), click on account actions > add new account > exchange activesync (EAS)
• Select custom configuration, account name = whatever you want, username = firstname.lastname@nottingham.ac.uk, server address = outlook.office365.com
• Select sync, and you should see your calenders and contacts list pop up. They will turn up in Lightning.
• One major caveat - you cannot use shared resources with EAS, which means no seeing other peoples calenders or group calenders. A downside until something better comes along (and works!).

Syncing University of Nottingham Office 365 Calendar to Thunderbird + Lightning

Works under Thunderbird from at least version 45, but definitely earlier versions as well. Lightning version from at least 4.7 onwards. This needs the Exchange EWS Provider at least version 3.8.0 4.0.0-beta4.

From within Thunderbird, go to Tools --> Add-ons. Search for and install Lightning then restart Thunderbird. Get the Exchange plugin directly from the link: https://github.com/Ericsson/exchangecalendar/releases https://github.com/ExchangeCalendar/exchangecalendar/releases (the old code had problems with exchange and renewed passwords, which we have to do, release 4.0.0-beta4 in this fork should solve any issues you may have had with the old exchange add-on). You should download (right click and save as) the latest version unless you have a reason to get an older version. In Thunderbird Tools->Addons, click the Spanner and "Install Add-On from File...". Select the above, let it install and restart.

You should now have an extra panel down the right hand side of your Thunderbird window, with today's date at the top. There is also an extra "Events and Tasks" menu... from there, select "Calendar" and a new tab will open. On the left there is a monthly calendar, underneath that is the word "Calendar" and probably the word "Home". Right click somewhere in the empty space below that, and select "New Calendar..."

• Select "On the Network", click "Next"
• Select "Microsoft Exchange 2007/2010/2013", click "Next"
• Give your calendar a name, e.g. "Work calendar" or "Exchange calendar"
• Make sure the correct email address is shown, e.g. "firstname.lastname@nottingham.ac.uk" and not one of the other email addresses you might have set up Thunderbird for (like gmail). Click "Next"
• Select "Microsoft Office365"
• For "Primary email address" enter your email address, e.g. first.lastname@nottingham.ac.uk
• For "Username" enter: eexzzz@ad.nottingham.ac.uk (but obviously, replace eexzzz with your own username)
• Leave "Domain name" blank
• Leave "Share FolderId" blank
• Click "Check server and mailbox" which should by now have appeared. You will be asked for your username and password (it should already be correctly populated)
• If successful, then straight away a couple more fields will appear, with values already selected: "Folderbase" (which says "Calendar folder") and "Path below folderbase" (which says "/"). Leave these alone.
• Click "Next", then "Finish"
• Your calendar should be created. It may take a short while for any existing events to be loaded.

That's it! Have a play around, it's fairly intuitive.

You can set up a Tasks calendar in the same way but by choosing "Tasks folder" instead of "Calendar folder" for "Folderbase".

A further possibility is viewing calendars belonging to other people. To do this, use the primary email address of the person you want to see, but keep all other fields the same. This will allow you to see when someone is busy, but not what they are doing. It is possible to grant full visibility to another person through outlook, but I don't know how to do that in Thunderbird. ~~ Roger