C
J
Jy77
It seems pretty clear to me that Entourage utilized OWA to gather it's data. I am not sure if you have accessed your OWA recently but as it does not support tasks or categories it is probably unlikely that Entourage will support them.
Although I agree that it is unfortunate it would seem likely that the Mac Office team's hands are likely tied on this matter until the Exchange or OWA team implement the feature on their end.
I am not sure how to get that team interested in doing so but I am hopeful that the Mactopia team are constantly issuing change requests to that team to have said features implemented.
Entourage is a very powerful PIM. I particularly enjoy the projects feature. The application keeps me quite organized and does what is says it will plus a little more as I use it quite creatively.
As I too would enjoy Syncing tasks and such I was going to implement an Applescript to import them from OWA (proactive much?). I quickly realized that would also not be possible because OWA does not have tasks. At least mine does not...It is on Exchange 2007.
So I can certainly understand why the Mac Office team would have a hard time implementing a feature utilizing data that does not exist in the scope of access that Entourage is given. Perhaps we are all barking up the wrong tree. Maybe consider having your Exchange admin request the implementation of tasks in OWA. Once that is done I bet we quickly see it available in Entourage. If not I will create an Apple script to do it
Although I agree that it is unfortunate it would seem likely that the Mac Office team's hands are likely tied on this matter until the Exchange or OWA team implement the feature on their end.
I am not sure how to get that team interested in doing so but I am hopeful that the Mactopia team are constantly issuing change requests to that team to have said features implemented.
Entourage is a very powerful PIM. I particularly enjoy the projects feature. The application keeps me quite organized and does what is says it will plus a little more as I use it quite creatively.
As I too would enjoy Syncing tasks and such I was going to implement an Applescript to import them from OWA (proactive much?). I quickly realized that would also not be possible because OWA does not have tasks. At least mine does not...It is on Exchange 2007.
So I can certainly understand why the Mac Office team would have a hard time implementing a feature utilizing data that does not exist in the scope of access that Entourage is given. Perhaps we are all barking up the wrong tree. Maybe consider having your Exchange admin request the implementation of tasks in OWA. Once that is done I bet we quickly see it available in Entourage. If not I will create an Apple script to do it
M
Mike Hough
Andy, know that there are tradeoffs being made but this lack of sync support needs to be looked at more seriously. I work in software (and was at microsoft for years) and i understand the feature vs quality debate. However shipping a quality product that customers are not happy just doesn't cut it. Although I can imagine the constraints, overall mac office 2008 delivered a bunch of low impact features (smart art etc.) in word and excel where it should have concentrated on the key application - email client. Why weren't those guys working on better exchange sync? Word / excel / ppt are good enough and most people can live with it as long as there is office 12 support. My Day was a good step forward for entourage but you guys are ignoring the key point: most people use windows and user macs as mobile machine. You HAVE to support the mixed mobile scenario. But I guess this is part of the problem. In spite of smart people that work there, Microsoft is incapable of shipping software people get excited about. Every scenario is 80% there but never end-to-end. That's too bad... Mike
D
Disappointed
It looks like the point has been made quite clearly by Mac users, but I am disappointed in Entourage 2008 sufficiently, that I'll add my 2 cents.
We have been using Macs in our company for the past 14 years and have used MS Office. We are currently using Now Up To Date and Contact and were looking to switch to Entourage. I was very excited at the new MS Office for Mac and held off on moving to an OSX server/iCal solution because I thought the new MS Office would be fully integrated with Exchange. Given that this is not the case, my solution is simple. Forget MS and follow the Apple solution.
What Microsoft doesn't seem to understand is that once customers find an alternative solution to MS Office, the customer is unlikely to invest the time and money to switch back to MS Office. The more people that find those alternatives, the easier it is for the next "unsatisfied" customers to do the same. We also reward the company that provides the right solutions for our needs, and they in turn invest more into making their products better.
I encourage anybody who is not happy with Microsofts glaring deficiency to find an alternative and leave MS. At some point MS may figure out that the integration with Entourage and Exchange should be a priority and should have been included in the initial release months ago.
We have been using Macs in our company for the past 14 years and have used MS Office. We are currently using Now Up To Date and Contact and were looking to switch to Entourage. I was very excited at the new MS Office for Mac and held off on moving to an OSX server/iCal solution because I thought the new MS Office would be fully integrated with Exchange. Given that this is not the case, my solution is simple. Forget MS and follow the Apple solution.
What Microsoft doesn't seem to understand is that once customers find an alternative solution to MS Office, the customer is unlikely to invest the time and money to switch back to MS Office. The more people that find those alternatives, the easier it is for the next "unsatisfied" customers to do the same. We also reward the company that provides the right solutions for our needs, and they in turn invest more into making their products better.
I encourage anybody who is not happy with Microsofts glaring deficiency to find an alternative and leave MS. At some point MS may figure out that the integration with Entourage and Exchange should be a priority and should have been included in the initial release months ago.
D
Diane Ross
Disappointed said:
First, please keep in mind that these newsgroups are peer-to-peer. There
isn't much we can do. The best way is to send any feedback to Microsoft .
When working in Office, you can use the ³Send Feedback² option under the
Help menu in all of the Office applications.
J
JustinS
I think there is a lot to be said for the improvements to Entourage and I think the long list of things listed by Andy are of great merit...they have made the product usable in an office setting on a daily basis -by the majority of people.
However, I still think it is amusing that Microsoft went from supporting Exchange server via Outlook (OS 9) to releasing a product that did not support Exchange when Entourage was released. Our Mac users didn't understand (along with the entire MS Office for Mac community) why in the world Microsoft would go backwards. Say what you want about building a product from scratch (as I am sure you had to do with OS X), but it is still a laughable situation.
I've been very happy with the changes -although they take an ungodly amount of time to roll out. Yet with 2008, categories still do not sync (nor tasks)? I thought 2008 would be the end-all-be-all. I guessed wrong.
I still use it and I still recommend Office 2008 to anyone I know, however, I think the problem is that the development model was flawed from the first release.
--- For those that may be trying to sync categories, I noticed that some are coming across after SP1, but they are not accurate (meaning, if you select multiple, it comes into Outlook as one large category). My guess is that a fix for this (along with opening files correctly) is on it's way.
However, I still think it is amusing that Microsoft went from supporting Exchange server via Outlook (OS 9) to releasing a product that did not support Exchange when Entourage was released. Our Mac users didn't understand (along with the entire MS Office for Mac community) why in the world Microsoft would go backwards. Say what you want about building a product from scratch (as I am sure you had to do with OS X), but it is still a laughable situation.
I've been very happy with the changes -although they take an ungodly amount of time to roll out. Yet with 2008, categories still do not sync (nor tasks)? I thought 2008 would be the end-all-be-all. I guessed wrong.
I still use it and I still recommend Office 2008 to anyone I know, however, I think the problem is that the development model was flawed from the first release.
--- For those that may be trying to sync categories, I noticed that some are coming across after SP1, but they are not accurate (meaning, if you select multiple, it comes into Outlook as one large category). My guess is that a fix for this (along with opening files correctly) is on it's way.
F
Fred_Davenport
Justin,
Great message as you explain to all how bad MS 2008 is. With the world changing quickly to PDA's, iPhones and Blackberries, Office 2008 has failed miserably and should consider changing its name to:
"Microsoft Office 1984"
Sincerely,
Fred and Wilma Flintstone
p.s. after three weeks of trying to figure out how to sync/import/export my events/calendars/contacts to and from Entourage/iCal/AddressBook, I have given up and have gone back to iCal/Address Book until someone comes up with a better PIM.
Great message as you explain to all how bad MS 2008 is. With the world changing quickly to PDA's, iPhones and Blackberries, Office 2008 has failed miserably and should consider changing its name to:
"Microsoft Office 1984"
Sincerely,
Fred and Wilma Flintstone
p.s. after three weeks of trying to figure out how to sync/import/export my events/calendars/contacts to and from Entourage/iCal/AddressBook, I have given up and have gone back to iCal/Address Book until someone comes up with a better PIM.
G
gfrieden
Keep in mind that they have managed to implement all these features in
Outlook Web Access. That group has managed to implement all these
features, why not in Entourage? Gee, you think maybe they don't want
us to be able to run Windows free. It's only a matter of time before
someone else develops a client that does all of this and we won't need
to purchase any Microsoft applications. If Microsoft won't do it,
someone else will.
Outlook Web Access. That group has managed to implement all these
features, why not in Entourage? Gee, you think maybe they don't want
us to be able to run Windows free. It's only a matter of time before
someone else develops a client that does all of this and we won't need
to purchase any Microsoft applications. If Microsoft won't do it,
someone else will.
B
Bob Marley
Entourage Dev. History :
Bill Gates
===>
Assign Task ===>Microsoft Office 2008 Entourage Dev Group ===> Entourage 2008 Taks Sync With Exchange
I think the team could'nt see the task as their entourage doesn't sync with exchange
Bill Gates
===>
Assign Task ===>Microsoft Office 2008 Entourage Dev Group ===> Entourage 2008 Taks Sync With Exchange
I think the team could'nt see the task as their entourage doesn't sync with exchange
P
Philip Meissner
By the looks of this thread, there is no reason for me to upgrade. Shame really.