category syncing with Exchange server

D

dano

I have a user who is moving from WinOutlook to Entourage. She has ~3500
contacts on the Exchange server, and she and her group use Categories.

Entourage will accept the contacts (sync) from the server, but the
Outlook categories do not map to Entourage categories and so are left
out when the server-side contacts appear in Entourage.

I can export the contacts from Outlook and import them into Entourage so
as to trap the categories, but then I have two sets of contacts that are
identical except for the Categories which do not match.

When I export the contacts from Outlook, categories are retained in each
contact's notes field and I can then edit Entourage's Categories field
and apply the correct category to each contact.

For 3500 contacts, this is a tedious process. And it begs the questions
of:

1) If categories are applied in Entourage to a contact that resides on
Exchange, what is the effect if that contact is viewed or modified by
Outlook later? Are the categories wiped out?

2) One set of the duplicate contacts contains the category information
in the notes field and is thus easier to modify in the Entourage
Categories field. (That is, it's easier to modify the exported/imported
contact which holds the info, than it is to edit the contact on the
Exchange server. Hard for me to explain without illustration.) If I use
the imported contact and make the edit, then delete the contact of the
same name but which resides on the Exchange server, what effect will
have that on the other users in the group who use the categories?


Is there a way (easy or complex) to make this work?
Is there a better and simpler way to formulate and explain my question?

Thanks,

Dan
 
C

Corentin Cras-Méneur

dano said:
I have a user who is moving from WinOutlook to Entourage. She has ~3500
contacts on the Exchange server, and she and her group use Categories.

Entourage will accept the contacts (sync) from the server, but the
Outlook categories do not map to Entourage categories and so are left
out when the server-side contacts appear in Entourage.
Click to expand...

Indeed! That's a big limitation as faras I am concerned, but Entourage
doesn't sync categories with Exchange.
[...]
Is there a way (easy or complex) to make this work?
Click to expand...

There is no easy way I can think of.
You could export the contacts in different folders (one per category)
and reimport them the same way, assigning the category every time you
import a new folder fo contacts. THat's the only option I can see right
now. (meaning you'll have to clean up the duplicates on Exchange but
that would be easy: they're the contacts that have no group assigned to
them...).


Corentin
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Yes. You can get my "Export-Import Entourage" scripts which export category
information (and _everything_ else) for contacts, calendar events, tasks and
notes. It's at

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
D

dano

Paul Berkowitz said:
Yes. You can get my "Export-Import Entourage" scripts which export category
information (and _everything_ else) for contacts, calendar events, tasks and
notes. It's at

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
Click to expand...

Got them. Script crashes partway through the import - multiple times and
is repeatable. Cannot figure out why.
 
D

dano

dano said:
I have a user who is moving from WinOutlook to Entourage. She has ~3500
contacts on the Exchange server, and she and her group use Categories.

Entourage will accept the contacts (sync) from the server, but the
Outlook categories do not map to Entourage categories and so are left
out when the server-side contacts appear in Entourage.
Click to expand...

Indeed! That's a big limitation as faras I am concerned, but Entourage
doesn't sync categories with Exchange.
[...]
Is there a way (easy or complex) to make this work?
Click to expand...

There is no easy way I can think of.
You could export the contacts in different folders (one per category)
and reimport them the same way, assigning the category every time you
import a new folder fo contacts. THat's the only option I can see right
now. (meaning you'll have to clean up the duplicates on Exchange but
that would be easy: they're the contacts that have no group assigned to
them...).
Click to expand...

I've been able to get the contacts exported from Outlook with categories
in Notes, so after Entourage does the import the Categories end up
appended to Notes and I can manually reset them in Entourage's own
Categories. Unfortunately this is time consuming with >5000 contacts.
 
D

dano

Paul Berkowitz said:
Yes. You can get my "Export-Import Entourage" scripts which export category
information (and _everything_ else) for contacts, calendar events, tasks and
notes. It's at

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
Click to expand...


Have tried again (and again and again) following the directions in the
ReadMe. Results following attempts to "Outlook Contacts to EvX" and
"Contacts Import into X" or simply File > Import have been inconsistent
and have not delivered the desired or specified results.
Repeated emails to the developer (3x) have gone unanswered.

Export-Import Entourage 1.3.6 and 1.3.8
OSX 10.3.9
Entourage 11.1.0 (040913)


All I need this to do is convert Outlook categories (3500 contacts) to a
form that changes the categories into Entourage-compatible, and the file
type into one that is Entourage-importable.
 
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