So does Entourage 2008 sync Exchange tasks and categories?

[Art Shotwell]

By Golly, you¹re right... I¹m assuming you¹re with MS. Doesn¹t show (at
least to me).

 

[MacMac]

Andy is right about several things:
- Entourage 2008 has improved Exchange functionality
- MS did release copious updates to 2004, improving its functionality as time went on.

2008 does most of what I need it to do, but still there is room for improvement (starting with note and task Exchange synch for one) that I trust MS will provide as free updates when they get it worked out.

I have met a few of the MacBU guys to know that they love the Mac platform and are trying to do their best withing the "belly of the beast" so to speak to deliver the goods.

 

[lamer]

it's just hard to stomach that outlook 2001 in OS 9 had more feature parity with the windows side than entourage 2008! MBU gets a big WTF from me for the past 5 or so years!

 

[Steve]

Well, for me the decision is now clear... It will be all apple all the time. Goodbye MS.

Complaint:

No 2008 Entourage sync with Palm. Categories do not export.

 

[Adam Bailey]

it's just hard to stomach that outlook 2001 in OS 9 had more feature
parity with the windows side than entourage 2008!

Outlook 2001 was developed by a different team with a different agenda and
different goals. And let's not compare the feature list between Outlook 2001
and even Entourage 2001.

The two products simply don't compare. If there are *specific* Outlook
features you're missing, suggest them to Microsoft. Microsoft is not going
to implement Outlook on the Mac, but they will continue to add specific
features that people request (such as Out Of Office).

 

[Guest]

Can't say strongly enough that the lack of "category" support when syncing with a Palm PDA or phone is absolutely pathetic. I bought Office 2008 for no other reason than the promised improvements from 2004 in Entourage. Unbeknownst to me that such a logical feature would be so "screwed-up" by your development team.
Why would anyone want to upgrade to Entourage 2008 and not be able to sync ALL it's lovely features with a Palm device (for that matter Blackberry etc).
To tell you the truth, unless I hear that this will be "fixed" in the very near future I plan on removing 2008 in favour of 2004 and deal with the loss.
Additionally, the "fix" of forcing the use of iCal and the Mac sync feature is completely inadequate... What were you thinking?

 

[Lance - Cross Platform Systems Engineer]

While I appreciate that a lot of hard work has undoubtedly been put in Entourage 2008 I simply cannot see how CORE PRODUCTIVITY FUNCTIONALITIES such as task and category syncing with exchange was completely overlooked. I believe this to be a symptom of the core underlying issue with the Mac Office product - Microsoft does not appear to take it seriously as a productivity tool. Instead they are more interested in making Office for Mac "flashy" or "creative".

I work for a company that provides outsourced IT solutions for several all mac and cross platform businesses and due to Microsoft's inability to include this functionality my recommendation will have to be to not bother upgrading to Office 2008.

I have been impressed with the improved multimedia aspects of Office 2008, however, Office is a PRODUCTIVITY tool. Very few users I have had discussions with, including myself, are concerned about whether or not they can make an attractive poster in Word. There are several applications for macs that already do a far better job with those kinds of creative projects.

Microsoft please address these issues. I have been running Entourage 2004 since exchange support was available and have not had any major reliability issues. What I have had to deal with was the fact that I could not get away from running a pc because Entourage was not a fully functional exchange client.

Thanks in advance for your consideration of my comments,

- Lance

 

[doughlaundry]

While I appreciate that a lot of hard work has undoubtedly been put inEntourage2008 I simply cannot see how CORE PRODUCTIVITY FUNCTIONALITIES such as task and category syncing with exchange was completely overlooked.
I believe this to be a symptom of the core underlying issue with the Mac Office product - Microsoftdoesnot appear to take it seriously as a productivity tool. Instead they are more interested in making Office for Mac "flashy" or "creative".

Your SUDDEN CAPS USE, notwithstanding, I think you're halfway there!
Microsoft does take the platform seriously, but not as a business
platform: If we were to compare how many Macintosh systems are used in
business ops, compared to how many are used in small offices/home
offices, I think we'd see the vast majority in the latter. So, with
this in mind, is Microsoft's Mac BU going to concentrate on serving SO/
HO or the corporate world? They're in it to make money. Where's the
most cash going to be generated?
Personally, I think a dual development strategy would be the best one,
from here. At the moment we have three (or is it four?) boxed products
for O2008 with marketing guff being the primary differences, as far as
I can tell; it would be better to have two distinct products; one with
all the bells and whistles and one with O2007 (or 2009, whatever)
compatibility being the driver.

Pw

 

[Adam Bailey]

While I appreciate that a lot of hard work has undoubtedly been put in
Entourage 2008 I simply cannot see how CORE PRODUCTIVITY FUNCTIONALITIES
such as task and category syncing with exchange was completely overlooked.

Your definition of "core" and others' differs. I, for example, do not use
categories or tasks on the Exchange server. The Entourage ones work fine.

I can't say this enough - send feedback to Microsoft (Help menu). Everyone
thinks their issue is #1, but Microsoft acts on the ones actually submitted
to them. Crying about it here does little.

 

[Fred]

All I really want as a Mac Admin, is a fully functional Exchange client, ala Outlook for Mac from OS9.

That is all.

Please do this for your Corporate clients.

Fred

 

[Jon Lowy]

It would be fantastic if someone at Microsoft please give us a target date when we can expect Task and Notes syncing to be ready? Even a date by which you will have a date would be useful. Currently we have no answer to our issue. I certainly requested that feature using the official form several years ago so I think it's clear I am in good company. It may not seem to meet the required effort/payoff ratio, but maybe MSFT should give this request a higher weight. My thinking would be that the folks who are whining about this particular feature are likely to be the most serious groupware users and experts. We really use the product and benefit from it the most and we're the trusted "mavens" that people depend on to tell them what are the best products in this space. When I talk about Entourage it's about Exchange and I always have to mention the two key pieces that don't sync to Exchange, Tasks and Notes. That's why I run Parallels on my Macbook with Outlook 2008. I would love to stay in OS X, but too much information is out of sync that way.

Please tell us when you can commit to get this piece working. That's what I think people really want to know.

Thanks!

 

[Lance - Cross Platform Systems Engineer]

Jon Lowry <> wrote:

      It would be fantastic if someone at Microsoft >please give us a target
      date when we can expect >Task and Notes syncing to be ready? Even a date
      >by which you will have a date would be useful.






I completely agree with Jon and have also repeatedly made this request through the conduit provided in the software.

I also find it very interesting that in his Keynote a few weeks ago Bill Gates discussed that in the very near future Microsoft products will allow your data to follow you from device to devices wirelessly including your tv and potentially even your fridge. I find this interesting because Microsoft's flagship mac software doesn't even allow my tasks and notes to follow me from my macbook to my mobile device (a windows based smartphone). Their other comparable windows product has had this feature for years.

Microsoft, can you provide a valid explanation for this inconsistency?

 

[Richard Gill]

Well, I raced out and purchased Office solely because I assumed that Entourage would work properly with exchange, and I could do away with Outlook under fusion.

Since the iPhone came out, our users all want Macs. In fact, we're purchasing far more macs than PCs now. I had hoped that O2008 would play nicely with exchange so that we could give our users choice. Whats going to happen now is that exchange is now seen as the bad guy because it doesn't play nice with Macs. I have to report to the board on our strategic IT direction soon. If this isn't resolved quickly, then our entire windows server infrastructure is under threat. Our users are demanding Macs, iPhones, BBs, and other devices.

We will change our infrastructure to meet our users wants, because after all, our people are our biggest asset - not technology. We need to keep people happy and enthusiastic about working for us - how can we do that if the tools we provide are painful to use?

Come on MS Mac guys, we know you can do better. I think the biggest thing to remember is that what companies actually need is for the mac email client to be as close to Outlook on the Mac as possible - not something very different that kind-of does something similar...

Can you give us a roadmap for this functionality? timeframes? anything to go on?

 

[VS]

I need to agree with virtually all the requests and comments above. It's simply lame that an organization with the resources you have cannot overcome problems with tasks and syncing of categories. A very small company that makes a mac pim (contactizer) has about 3-4 programmers and they have recurring tasks and iCal category syncing.

If these guys can do it why not Mac Business Unit which is always priding itself on how many programmers it has?

 

[superp72]

SYNC is the problem but can anyone give me a solution.

If I was to dump MAC 2008 ENTOURAGE:

Is there a solution to SYNC, Calender, Categories, Colours, Tasks, Email, etc from my MAC running Leopard 10.5.1 to a MS Mobile Windows 6.0.?

I have a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.

Can get this capability to SYNC through Outlook in Parallels, Virtual PC or any other products like this? Anything??

For that matter does this SYNC even work in the PC world – I wouldn’t know – again, this is still only an assumption of mine as I have been a Mac person for most of my time.

I am a Mac user for 18 years, but new to MS Windows Mobile.

Unfortunately I set-up Mac Entourage 2008 on my computer – had it looking fantastic on the computer – most organised I have ever been – was using ‘my day’ etc – and I was really impressed with the functionality of the package.

We don’t have an official IPHONE release in Australia, and I was so impressed with my organisation in Entourage 2008, that I wanted to go that one step further, so I purchased my first ever MS Mobile Windows assuming that because we are in the 21st Century, and all the hype of marketing materials that I read, that the latest MS Mac Office has got to work with the latest MS Mobile Windows. Obviously my mistake was to assume and it is costing me too much time and money to keep assuming.

The process of trying to SYNC has now stuffed up my entire work in organisation of calenders, contacts etc throughout my Entourage, ICAL, Address Book and even the MS Mobile Device. You all know the story…

Now I am at the point where I need to function is there a solution?

I am even happy to dump the phone, if there is another mobile device that actually works with MAC Entourage 2008

I will appreciate any solution.

 

[Diane Ross]

Is there a solution to SYNC, Calender, Categories, Colours, Tasks, Email, etc
from my MAC running Leopard 10.5.1 to a MS Mobile Windows 6.0.?

It's a Leopard bug:

When syncing calendars on Leopard using any sync software it's possible for
the iCal sync program ("iCalExternalSync") to get confused and stop syncing.

The primary symptom of this bug is that updated events stop appearing in
iCal, but continue to show up in other synchronized devices and
applications.

For example, if you use Spanning Sync to sync Google Calendar with iCal and
also use iTunes to sync iCal with your iPhone, events from Google Calendar
will sync to your iPhone but not to iCal. The bug is fairly rare but can
affect any user at any time. And when it does strike, it continues to
happen, making it appear that nothing is syncing to iCal at all.

This bug is more likely to happen when you've enabled the "Show Birthdays
calendar" option in your iCal preferences. If you are affected by this bug,
you may be able to solve the problem simply by disabling this option in
iCal. Note that once you do so, you'll still need to "reset info on this
computer" in the Spanning Sync pref pane in order to force events to
re-sync.

Another fix (although potentially only temporary), is to reset Apple Sync
Services:
€ Open iSync (in /Applications)
€ Select Preferences from the iSync menu
€ Click "Reset Sync History..."
€ Wait for the reset to finish
€ Try syncing again

<http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/01/update-on-the-l.html>

 

[gerrievanzyl]

Andy,
I won't give you the (uncalled-for) abuse that some of the other
people have given. But, this is quite a major issue. I purchased
Office 2008 today on the premise that Exchange integration has been
improved. I was really surprised to find that tasks have not been
addressed. I am also wondering why I spent the money.

Please prioritise this!!!!

Having said this, I must compliment you on what is otherwise a much
better application. (I still don't think it is worth paying for given
the big issue with tasks.)

Gerrie van Zyl

 

[Victor]

I am trying to create a sub-folder within a sub-folder so that I can arrange my incoming email by company then sender. So if I have more than one contact from a company or domain i would be able to set up a filter for each sender. I am able to do this on out-look but can't find the filter on Entourage. The filter would look like this (inbox, subfolder(company name),sub-subfolder (senders name). I want to be able to create as many sub-folders within a subfolder.

 

[Adam Bailey]

First, please start a new thread with a new subject. Your question has
nothing to do with Exchange tasks and categories.

I am trying to create a sub-folder within a sub-folder so that I can
arrange my incoming email by company then sender. So if I have more than
one contact from a company or domain i would be able to set up a filter
for each sender. I am able to do this on out-look but can't find the
filter on Entourage. The filter would look like this (inbox,
subfolder(company name),sub-subfolder (senders name). I want to be able to
create as many sub-folders within a subfolder.

Create all your subfolders (File > New Folder) and arrange them as you wish
with drag-and-drop. Then create rules (Tools > Rules) to file messages into
the appropriate folders. You will need one rule per sender whose messages
you wish to file.

More information about creating rules can be found at
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/index.html>.

 

[Patrick Jankun]

I don't get it, i was happy to buy Office for Mac 2008 for our in house activities and get things finally synced between mac and pc's, and finally forget all the problems. Now i must search for an another solution, because i really don't want to wait another 2 years to get my information synced.

I still can't believed that those features aren't implemented, i sent an Sharefolder Notification to an Entourage 2008 client and was amazed when it didn't recognized it, started to read this forum and now im really angry and frustrated.

I hope that Evolution from Novell would be ported natively to Mac so i can start using Exchange features that i need.

Dear Andy,
No disrespect, but as you may know, Evolution is an open-source application now developed by Novell, and it's free, from what i know, it has all the functionality that Entourage lacks and we cry for! How can it be, than an not Ms based team, makes an Exchange Client more compatible and more capable then their own in-House developed product with their own services? I still can't get it how this is possible!