Entourage 2004 Calendar Invites TO Outlook (PC)

[Michael Brown]

Hey All,

I am using Entourage 2004. When I create a calendar event and invite
Outlook 2000 users, these users receive my invites as emails without accept
or decline buttons. They are arriving as emails, not meeting requests.

Is this this an Entourage bug? Is this even supported in Entourage? Has
anyone else experienced this and (hopefully) found a workaround?

Thanks,

Michael

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I am using Entourage 2004. When I create a calendar event and invite Outlook
2000 users, these users receive my invites as emails without accept or decline
buttons. They are arriving as emails, not meeting requests.

Is this this an Entourage bug? Is this even supported in Entourage? Has
anyone else experienced this and (hopefully) found a workaround?

I believe that if the Outlook users are on the same Exchange server as you
are, they will get them as invitations, but I'm not certain (I don't have
Exchange). I'm pretty sure it does work that way the other way around (from
Outlook on Exchange to Entourage on same Exchange). Someone with Exchange
will clarify. I'm sure. If one or more of you is not on (the same) Exchange,
you'll all get them as attachments in email messages. At least in Entourage,
you can double click the .ics attachment to have them open as events in your
calendar. (If they appear as iCal attachments, not Entourage, that can be
fixed.) I think it ought to work the same way in Outlook. Can they
double-click an .ics attachment in the email to appear as calendar event? I
don't think they will have the Accept, Decline. etc. invitation links,
however, (unless on the same Exchange server).

The problem is that Outlook does not use the standard internet protocols for
..ics invitation attachments, even though Microsoft was one of the
signatories to that protocol. They use their own proprietary version, which
does not work with non-Outlook versions. Entourage uses the internet
protocol, and would not be caught dead doing otherwise. Getting Outlook to
change is a bit like trying to get the tail to wag the dog. I don't think
that Outlook cares too much about what other programs do, ad changing now
would make all earlier versions of Outlook break. Maybe someday, they'll put
in conditional code, but until then...

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

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

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I believe that if the Outlook users are on the same Exchange server as you
are, they will get them as invitations, but I'm not certain (I don't have
Exchange). I'm pretty sure it does work that way the other way around (from
Outlook on Exchange to Entourage on same Exchange). Someone with Exchange
will clarify. I'm sure.

I have Exchange... but I send very few calendar invitations to PC users
:-\ (people around me slowly migrated to the Mac :-> ).

I don't remember problems with the appointments to anf from Windows
users (but we're all on the same server).

Corentin

 

[Michael Brown]

Thanks for the feedback, however, I should have clarified that I am not
using an Exchange server. The meeting invites are simply me creating a
meeting and inviting others - others that happen to use Outlook 2000 and
2003.

Outlook is reading my invites as plain text emails, however, I can receive
invites from others (the same Outlook users).

Thanks again and any additional feedback would be great.

-Michael

 

[Prometheus]

Actually, I believe this is a bug introduced in Entourage 2004.

We use IBM Domino on our back-end. In Entourage X, whenever a Notes user
would send me an invitation (to my .Mac account, for example), Entourage X
would correctly show the accept, decline options. However, Entourage 2004
doesn¹t work as expected consistently. Now, whenever I receive a calendar
invitation from a Notes user, it just comes through as plain HTML with a
..ics attachment. I have even experienced this with Outlook 2000 users
sending from their personal accounts to me. I did alert Microsoft back in
2004 when Office Œ04 was released, but I never got any official response. I
did some extensive in-house testing, and an Entourage X client still
receives calendar invitations properly.