Tutorials/Kontact/Office365

How to use Office365.com with Kontact

Scenario: you want to use KDEPIM Kontact - with cloudbased Office365.com (it might work with LAN-based exchange, untested)

This is tested with 4.13.x and 4.14.10 kdepim but might work with earlier versions.

Adding the calendar in read-only mode

Doing this is very easy, as Office 365 can export URLs with iCal files:

• Access the web interface of the calendar on Office 365 and click on "Share". Then select "calendar" and insert your own e-mail address and select to share full details.
• Then click send. IMPORTANT: Do not send the email to an Office 365 address, or this doesn't work.

• When you get the e-mail, look for the link that begins with "webcal://" and copy it.
• Then in korganizer right click on the list of calendars and select "Add calendar…". Then select "iCal Calendar File" from the list.
• In the "Filename" field you need to paste the "webcal://" URL. But you need to replace the initial "webcal://" with "https://".

Get Read/write access

1. Get mail working. This is fairly easy as Office365 supports both pop3 and IMAP4. Instructions for settings can be found here.

   You can also choose to access mail via DavMail, see below for installation instructions. This is said to handle Outlook invitations sent via Exchange better (not tested by the author of this article). In such case when you install DavMail tick setting for IMAP and set up your KMail account accordingly.

2. Get your Office365 calendar and contacts in Kontact. For this use DavMail as intermediary "go-between". So first of all install DavMail, for Debian/(x)Ubuntu users here is a deb package, for others a shell installer.

   Once that is done start DavMail and configure it. In KDE a "systray" should pop up for basic settings. "Untick" the mail settings but leave Caldav and LDAP settings. The other setting you need is OWA URL that for Office365 is https://outlook.office365.com/owa

   All other settings are done in Kontact/KDEPIM.

3. To get Calendar working (shared calendars are not tested, feel free to experiment): System Settings -> Personal Information -> Add -> DAV groupware resource -> DAVical. Put yourid@yourdomain.comorgnet and your password, choose Davical server. For server name and path put anything, you will edit later in any case. Click Finish.

   On next menu set a name for your resource and click Edit on the fictional resource. Leave "CalDav" as protocol but change remote url to

   http://localhost:1080/users/yourname@yo ... /calendar/

   and credentials to

   yourname@yourdomain.comorg

   and your password, then click Fetch and your Calendar should show up. Set a preferred refesh rate and in Kontact do not forget to now tick this Calendar to activate it.

4. To get your Contacts working: System Settings -> Personal Information -> Add -> DAV groupware resource -> DAVical. Put

   yourid@yourdomain.comorgnet

   and your password, choose Davical server. For server name and path put anything, you will edit later in any case. Click Finish.

   On next menu set a name for your resource and click Edit on the fictional resource. Choose CardDav as protocol but change remote url to

   http://localhost:1080/users/yourname@yo ... /contacts/

   and credentials to

   yourname@yourdomain.comorg

   and your password, then click Fetch and your Contacts should show up. Set a preferred refresh rate and in Kontact do not forget to now tick this Address Book to activate it.

5. Finally to access "public address books". They can be found as LDAP via Kontact/Kaddressbook in KAddressbook Settings -> Configure KAddressbook. Then select on the left column LDAP Server Settings and click Add host.

   Set this up as "host:localhost", "port:1389", "DN=ou.people", "authentication:simple" "Bind DN" as "yourid@yourdomain.comorgnet" and password well you should know next time you compose a new mail you can now use Select button and then Search directory service.