Calendars - SmarterMail vs Exchange

Calendaring in SmarterMail is highly efficient, regardless of the types of appointments and events you're creating. Whether all-day events, recurring events, single occurrence or more, SmarterMail calendars just work. And, in several cases, work much better than calendars in Exchange.

We know this because we test. We create scenarios and test those against SmarterMail and Exchange, and also against various mobile and desktop clients. We see how those clients react when, for example, you change the day and time of a single instance of a recurring event. Or, you change the time zone of your client compared to the time zone used by the mail server. EAS, EWS, MAPI -- they all seem to handle things just a little differently, and we have to understand those differences and account for them.

And, as much as possible, we build SmarterMail to handle things better than Exchange does. In fact, in our testing, we've found that SmarterMail handles events and event changes much better than Exchange in a number of different circumstances. For example, let's say you're in Rome, so you have your Outlook client and your operating system set to Rome's timezone. (Central European Standard Time, or GMT +1) However, your company is in Dallas, and so your mail server is using Central Daylight Time. (GMT -5). SmarterMail can handle any changes to any types of appointments in this scenario. However, Exchange has issues across different clients and different protocols. A few of these issues include:

  • Using Windows Mail (EAS), creating a single standard appointment didn't sync to Exchange.
  • Using Windows Mail (EAS), creating a single weekly recurring meeting didn't sync to Exchange.
  • Using eM Client (EWS), deleting instances of recurring appointments didn't sync to Exchange.
  • Using Mac Mail (EWS), deleting a single instance of a monthly recurring appointment didn't sync to Exchange.
  • Using Mac Mail (EWS), creating all day appointments spanned more than one day when syncing to Exchange.
  • Using Outlook for Android (EAS), all day appointments spanned more than one day when syncing to Exchange.
  • Using iOS calendar (EAS), adding an exception to a recurring appointment didn't sync to Exchange.

In EACH of these situations, and several more, changes in the clients synced perfectly to SmarterMail!

Having reliable access to your calendar, and trusting SmarterMail to handle any changes you make to your calendar, is paramount to SmarterTools. We've invested a ton of time and money into making sure our calendaring system is as robust as Exchanges and, as demonstrated above, even BETTER!