Syncing to Outlook 2003. Any problems?

[tk_421]

Guys,


I am thinking of syncing my TX with Outlook 2003 from now on. I've heard many stories about bugs with events that overlapp two days, or repeating events, etc... So I'm a bit afraid of syncing right now.

Is anybody here syncing with Outlook 2003 without any problems? Is there anything I should be worried about? I know I can get pocket mirror, but I'm hoping I can get away without it for simplicity's sake.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[goonie]

I'm using Outlook 2003. Only suggestion I can make is if you're using a laptop to NOT sync while you are traveling and are located in a different timezone than you normally sync in. (Or, alternatively, never modify the time on your laptop, even while traveling). Outlook keeps track of time zone changes on your computer and re-times all your appointments-- in other words, if you're in the Pacific Time Zone and an appointment is for 11 AM, if you travel to the Mountain Time Zone and move the clock of your laptop ahead an hour, the appointment will then be listed as 12 Noon. The Palm, on the other hand, does NOT "migrate" your appointments in this fashion when you change times.

If you sync while traveling after changing the clock on your laptop, all your appointments throughout the entire Palm calendar database will get messed up. Even worse are the untimed day-long appointments-- if you travel two timezones over, the appointments end up going from 10 PM to Midnight the night before, and then Midnight to 10 PM the day of the appointment.

My strategy is to always schedule things in the Palm for whatever the local time will be wherever I am, regardless of what time zone I'm in.

[tk_421]

Thanks for the hint!

I'm wondering though... Why not specify a time zone for any appointment you enter? I know it can be a chore, but shouldn't it take care of the problems you mentionned?

I hope there's a way around this problem.

[vovka1965]

I have a follow up question to syncing with Outlook. Is there a way to purge old events from the handheld only, but preserve them inside Outlook??

[tk_421]

[QUOTE=vovka1965]I have a follow up question to syncing with Outlook. Is there a way to purge old events from the handheld only, but preserve them inside Outlook??[QUOTE=vovka1965]


I was thinking about a way to do this. How about creating a new calendar in Outlook, and moving the events to that new calendar? As I undersand it, only the original calendar file is synced, right?

[vovka1965]

I dunno.. I am on the exchange server. I often get a lot of duplicate entries and sometimes triplicate and quadruplicate! Even though, for instance, I select an option "handheld overwrites desktop" and I don't have any duplicates on the handheld.
I think the best strategy for me is to purge past events everywhere to keep the calendar small.. Then, I can remove funny entries by hand from the desktop outlook

[pFRANK]

tk_421,

After strugling with Pal/outlook syncing - and giving up a few times due to poor results - I tried the Activesync with my Exchange server in VersaMail. I'm very happy with the result.

This is of avalable if you are using an MS Exchange Server of course...

Without reading the documentation, I didn't realize that it synced my email, Calendar and Contacts, so I never explored this option before.

Anyway, fthere are a lot of benefits:

-Activesync via WiFi is ~3 times faster that syncing via hotsync, at my computer via USB
- I no longer get the conflicts that I had with the Outlook Conduits.
-I'm able to sync from the office, home (with VPN) and Starbucks (with VPN).



I have the suspicion that his is something that Palm has worked very hard to get working properly, much harder than they did on the Outlook 2003 conduits.

I have to come clean, I have palm apps that update my palm calendar, and I have allowed others to invite me to meetings via my Outlook/Exchange Calendar. These thisng have resulted in a number of conflits and duplicaitons. Although I have control over how I enter Calendar events, I don't have control over the invitations that I recieve, and cannot format them to sync well to my Palm.

If ActiveSync was not available to me I'd make the investement in PocketMirror or KeySuite.

Best of Luck
pFrank

Guys,


I am thinking of syncing my TX with Outlook 2003 from now on. I've heard many stories about bugs with events that overlapp two days, or repeating events, etc... So I'm a bit afraid of syncing right now.

Is anybody here syncing with Outlook 2003 without any problems? Is there anything I should be worried about? I know I can get pocket mirror, but I'm hoping I can get away without it for simplicity's sake.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[vovka1965]

tk_421,

After strugling with Pal/outlook syncing - and giving up a few times due to poor results - I tried the Activesync with my Exchange server in VersaMail. I'm very happy with the result.


DO you mean HotSync? I though ActivSync was for Pocket PCs, not for Palms

[tk_421]

When you use Exchange server, can you also sync your other applications?

Having an exchange server is expensive though. I wish I could afford it now.

[goonie]

Thanks for the hint!

I'm wondering though... Why not specify a time zone for any appointment you enter? I know it can be a chore, but shouldn't it take care of the problems you mentionned?

I hope there's a way around this problem.
Can you specify a time zone in an Outlook appointment? I wasn't aware of that capability. I'm not sure you can do so with the Palm either, at least with the built-in calendar (which is what I use). If you specified a time zone in the name of the appointment, how would that help things? I've got my system down, just need to remember not to mess things up-- If my appointment will be 10 AM in the Pacific Time Zone when I'm there, well, I just list it as 10 AM regardless. Usually, if I'm out of town, I'll have a daylong untimed event "In San Francisco", etc. so it should all be apparent to me. Just don't sync your Palm while traveling when the time zone has changed on your computer. Perhaps, if you must, you could change the time back temorarily. I have a follow up question to syncing with Outlook. Is there a way to purge old events from the handheld only, but preserve them inside Outlook??I dunno.. I am on the exchange server. I often get a lot of duplicate entries and sometimes triplicate and quadruplicate! Even though, for instance, I select an option "handheld overwrites desktop" and I don't have any duplicates on the handheld.
I think the best strategy for me is to purge past events everywhere to keep the calendar small.. Then, I can remove funny entries by hand from the desktop outlookI never purge events (like to keep them as a record going back) and I have had some problems with multiple copies of the same event. I know there is an "eliminate duplicates" function in Palm Desktop, but if you're syncing with Outlook, I don't know if that would solve the problem. I also know that there are software apps to eliminate duplicate records, but none of them seem to work right for me. I usually just manually delete duplicates as I find them.

[tk_421]

You can definitely specify a time zone in the Palm Calendar app (on the Palm TX at least.) If you tap details you should see it.

I tried looking for it in Outlook, but just couldn't. I'll Google it and let you know.

By the way there is a new thread on the TX forum about syncing with Outlook 2003 and time zones.

[tk_421]

http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/timezone.asp

This really sucks. From a company like MS focused on business applications, it is really weak. Fortunately the problem is gone with Outlook 2007.

[pFRANK]

DO you mean HotSync? I though ActivSync was for Pocket PCs, not for Palms

Microsoft reused the term ActiveSync (or maybe it's the same technology?)

You will see it when you create a new VersaMail account under the 'Mail Service' pulldown. I needed to ask IT to enable this for my account in the Mail server.

Other applications cannot be synced this way. Email, Contacts, Calendar are the most active for me, and the occasional sync to the desktop is still required for my other apps.

pFrank