Entourage’s support of Sync Services keeps confusing many users: while the contacts in Entourage show up just fine in Address Book, a number of problems appear with Entourage’s calendar and iCal. A number of users have been creating their calendar entries in iCal and are surprised to discover that, even though they have enabled calendar synching in Entourage’s preferences, nothing seems to be happening. However, this is not the case; Entourage’s calendar does sync to iCal, and vice-versa, but the user needs to understand how this complex mechanism works.
First of all, a crucial distinction needs to be made between the different ways in which Entourage and iCal handle calendars: iCal supports multiple calendars, Entourage does not (except for Exchange). And while Entourage supports categories, iCal makes use of the previously mentioned different calendars to categorise appointments and tasks. This difference is crucial to a proper understanding of why synching does not work the way most users would expect it to work. Categories and calendars are not identical, which is why it is not immediately possible to sync categories in Entourage with calendars in iCal. Instead, the following scenario applies to both Entourage 2004 and 2008:
When you enable Sync Services in Entourage’s preferences (see screenshot above), a new calendar called “Entourage” is created in iCal (see screenshot below). All the items that are in Entourage’s calendar are synched to that calendar; create a new item in Entourage, and it shows up in the “Entourage” calendar in iCal. Similarly, if you use iCal and want the new events that you create to show up in Entourage as well, you will have to make sure that any new item is part of the “Entourage” calendar.
WARNING! If you decide to delete the “Entourage” calendar in iCal, be very, very careful! You will not get any supplementary warnings other than the standard dialogue, and if you do not pay attention, you will have deleted all your Entourage calendar events and to do items in one fell swoop. Do not delete the “Entourage” calendar in iCal unless you are absolutely sure what you are doing!
There are a number of drawbacks to this implementation of Sync Services: Entourage’s categories allow the user to make organisational distinctions which simply disappear when these calendar events are viewed in iCal’s “Entourage” calendar. Similarly, you cannot have calendar events that belong to two calendars at once in iCal, which means that you have to choose between using iCal’s convenient, colourised multiple calendars or the restrictive, monolithic “Entourage” calendar. This restriction is quite noticeable when you sync your iCal calendars with a portable device, such as mobile phones, Palm pilots, iPods or iPhones: iSync and iTunes allow you choose which calendars to sync with your mobile device, but if you use Entourage, there’s only one iCal calendar to choose from, namely “Entourage”. In other words, you only have two choices: either sync all your calendar and to do items, or none at all.
This restriction makes using iCal and Entourage simultaneously rather uncomfortable; sure, it is very convenient to have a built-in feature in Entourage that allows the user to sync his or her calendar with mobile devices, but at the same time, the current implementation is quite rough around the edges and does not allow for any subtleties. An ideal solution, in my opinion, would be a preference in Entourage that would allow the user to associate categories with iCal calendars. In other words, if you categorise an item in Entourage as “Work”, it would show up in the “Work” calendar in iCal, and so on. Such an implementation of Sync Services does not seem to be impossible, but in order to get Microsoft to look into this solution, we will need to get as many users as possible to complain about the current implementation by clicking on “Send Feedback on Entourage” inside Entourage’s Help menu and suggesting alternatives, such as the one mentioned above.
Comments (35)
I am not experiencing the syncing behavior described in this post.
When I turn on syncing between my Entourage Exchange calendar and ical I experience the following results:
- A calendar named "Entourage" is created in ical and the "existing" events and to-dos are synced.
- I can added a new events to ical and they will show up on the Entourage Exchange calendar within Entourage.
- However, after the initial sync, new events and to-dos added to the Entourage Exchange calendar are not showing up in the ical "Entourage" calendar. Which is the most significant type of syncing capability to me.
Any suggestions/ideas as to why this might be happening?
How do I change the priority preference in Entourage 2008 to allow events scheduled on my iphone to sync back to my entourage calendar? Presently, I have set entourage as the priority.
thanks
I began using my iPhone right after Christmas. It seemed to sync with iCal and then Entourage 2004 fine. Since moving to Entourage 2008 I am having the same problems as mentioned above.
At first, I set Entourage sync to delete iCal events because Entourage has always been my primary client. I needed it to populate iCal and Address Book. As I would add things on the calendar on contacts in my iPhone, it would never appear on Entourage. I went back and set Entourage 2008 sync to merge / combine. Now if I edit an event or contact on either application I get two entries.
I like to keep iCal and Address Book included because I sync between laptop and desktop using .mac sync.
@Travis:
Sorry, I have little to no experience with Exchange, so I can't help you.
@pat:
I don't own an iPhone, so I can't give you an exact answer. Can you specify in iTunes that new calendar entries on your iPhone are automatically added to the "Entourage" iCal calendar?
@Sean:
Same as above; the fact that I do not own an iPhone makes it rather impossible for me to help.
If anybody wants me to find more conclusive answers, feel free to send me an iPhone. :-)
I'm running leopard and office 2008.
My issues are frustrating also.
ICAL events created in Entourage ical push over to entourage no problem
However event created in Entourage do not push over to ICAL
If I delete an event in ICAL it remains in Entourage.
I'm syncing with my Exchange Calendar.
Any Ideas
Hi.
1. I just upgraded to Leopard and Office 2008 last week and 'm having so many issues. Every program is taking FOREVER to load. it's been taking 35-50 seconds each for word,excel, entourage to launch. Sometimes more for illustrator, photoshop etc. I'm going out of my mind. it's like someone poured mollasses in my computer's brain and it takes forever to switch between apps too! UGGGH!
Anyone have any ideas? Are they just not compatible yet. I have a G5 POWER PC I MAC
2. Also, in Entourage, i can't seem to switch the way the date is viewed in the received column in my inbox, and sent date in my sent box. For some reason, it's showing up a little screwed up it looks like this - Monday/1231/07
instead of Monday 12/31/07
or even just 12/31/07
Any thoughts?
Thank you.
Amy
I made the mistake of deleting the Entourage calendar in iCal, now every time I activate syncing between Entourage and iCal i lose all my Entourage calendar entries. How can I recover the old Entourage calendar in iCal or tell Entourage to sync with another calendar?
Thanks,
Len
@ Ami:
Office 2008 is said to be slower on PowerPC Macs than on Intel Macs, and it is also supposedly slower than Office 2004 (on PowerPCs). It might be worth doing some troubleshooting, so head over to the Office:mac newsgroups and see if anyone can help you.
As far as the date format is concerned: Entourage picks that one up from the format that's specified in the International section of the System Preferences. Quit Entourage, change these settings, restart your Mac and see if the date is now displayed correctly in Entourage.
@ Len:
In Entourage, go to Entourage>Preferences, disable the Sync Services and click on OK. Then go back into the preferences and re-enable them. You will now be asked what you would like to do, so choose to replace the iCal items with your Entourage items. If you do that, a new "Entourage" calendar will be created in iCal which you will then leave untouched. As for recovering your old Entourage data: I'm afraid that can't be done. Once it's lost, it's lost.
Double Entourage calendars in iCal
While syncing Entourage 2004 and iCal every change in the calendars leads to a new calendar named "Entourage" in iCal. So all my events are events are split in different calendars - but: the unchanged events will be repeated all the time. So iCal fills up in a very stupid way?
In Entourage sync options I choose the third optinon: Sync both calendars ....
Any idea where I am going wrong?
Thanks for any help ...
I've been using Entourage and Office:mac for a couple of weeks and sync my Blackberry through iCal with Missing Sync. This generally works well, but a few times I have noticed that the settings in Sync Servces have been "lost" and Entourage fails to sync wth iCal as a result.
Anyone have any idea what might be causng this? I'm using Leopard 10.5.2 if that matters but I think it was dong this before the .2 update.
@ghj:
There seems to be some problem related to what Entourage stores in the Truth (i.e. the component in Mac OS X which the Sync Services access) and what iCal retrieves from it. In Entourage, disable Sync Services, then switch to iCal and delete all the "Entourage" calendars. Switch back to Entourage and re-enable the Sync Services and, when prompted, choose to replace the iCal data with your Entourage data. See if that solves the problem.
@ Gary:
Which version of Office:mac are you using? 2004 or 2008? There are a few problems regarding Sync Services in Entourage 2008 right now. Apart from that, I can't really help you as I don't know how the Missing Sync works, having never used it before.
I am using 2008. It's not related to Missing Sync. that just takes whatever is in the Cal calendar and Syncs it with the BB.
I'll give the suggestion a go and see f that improves things. It's not so much a problem, as going back n and enabling the elements of Sync services you want solves the problem, t's just really annoying that you have to check ;-)
I'll file a bug report wth Micro$oft (if I can fnd out how) and see if I hear anything.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I use two Macs, one at work, one at home. And I like to sync the two "My day". Would this be possible via .mac or any other solution?
Thanks for your help.
@ Rudy: you could theoretically sync your calendars between your Mac at work and the one at home; however, there are still quite a few syncing-related problems in Entourage 2008, so I would not really recommend doing this for the time being. Also, note that if you sync your calendars via .Mac, the categories used in Entourage will not sync; in other words, you would have to re-apply categories to every single calendar item to get My Day to display the events in colour.
We have 4 MAC's in our office. Two were upgraded to Leopard and the sync services seem to be working just fine. One of the MAC's, the one that had Leopard installed at time of purchase does not display sync services at all in Entourage.
We have been on tech support with Apple a few times. They had us do all the updates which did not resolve the issue. Quite honestly, I think they are stumpped and do not know what to do to help us resolve this issue. Any thoughts or guidance would be very much appreciated.
Thank in advance for your any assistance you can provide.
@ Toby: Try removing Office using the Remove Office application (in Applications/Microsoft Office 200x/Additional Tools/Remove Office) and then reinstalling it. See if that solves the problem.
Thanks a lot for the info.
In switching to Mac from my PC, I transferred all my calendar data to iCal's 'Main' calendar. Of course, of 'Entourage' calendar is empty, so it doesn't sync anything with the Entourage application calendar. Is there a way I can copy and paste all my 'Main' calendar events with my 'Entourage' calendar events in iCal to take care of this? I really don't want to have to manually copy all my events one by one.
@pkhan12858: There is a way. Click on iCal's search field, then enter any vowel (i, u, e, o, a). iCal will then display all the results which contain this vowel. In the search result window, click on the first entry, then scroll down and press shift while clicking the last entry. You have now selected all the events, and you can either drag them into the Entourage calendar or ctrl-/right-click them and assign them to a calendar through the Calendar item in the contextual menu. Note that this method will not work if any calendars that cannot be edited (such as birthdays or online calendars you have subscribed to) are displayed; you will therefore need to disable them first by clicking on the checkbox(es) next to the calendar(s).
I am able to synchronize my Entourage Calendar [On My Computer] but am unable to synchronize my Entourage Calendar [Exchange Server] that is synced with an Exchange server. I read in the Entourage 2004 help that sync services does not sync delegated address books, calendars, etc. Is this why I can't get the Calendar from the Exchange server to sync with iCal?
Thanks
@ byteme: I am not quite sure, as I am not familiar with Exchange. However, you can only synchronise with one type of account, i.e. either "On My Computer" OR Exchange. You can't synch them both at the same time. If you want to synchronise your Exchange account, you will need to set it up as your default account (Tools>Accounts, Make Default).
Michel: Thank you for your help. Making my Exhange account my default Entourage account worked!
Michael (or anyone that can provide some insight) Following the steps, I've not been able to have Entourage create an "Entourage" calendar in iCal. If I create one manually, it does not sync to my current Entourage calendar. I've scoured the net for some hints/solution. Oddly enough, I loaded up the canned calendars that you can subscribe to from one of Apple iCal sites (Birthdays, Jewish holidays, etc.) and each of them definitely do sync to my iPhone. I don't have any issues with the contacts syncing from Entourage, but calendars...well...grr...
Suggestions?
One thing I noticed is that on just-ted's site http://www.just-ted.com/archives/992 one of his screen shots show the Entourage Sync Services preference panel showing a pull-down selection of "Calendar (on my computer)" under the "Synchronize events and tasks with iCal and .Mac". I don't have a pull down menu at all. Could that be related to my issue?
Office 12.0 and OS X 10.5.2
@ Anthony: Creating an Entourage calendar is not going to make both apps synch; you absolutely need to use the one created by Entourage itself. Don't worry about the dropdown menu; that one only appears if you have more than one calendar (On My Computer + Exchange) in Entourage. What happens if you disable the calendar synching, click on OK, then re-renter the preferences and re-enable the synchronisation? Does that change anything? If it does not, try following the method mentioned on this page.
@ Michel: I suspect the iCal calendar "Entourage" (the one with the actual quotes) is the one you mean? It took a couple reboots for it to appear in the list. I had seen it before when I was troubleshooting, yet still would not synch. Toggling the sync services in Entourage did not work. I also did the method you mentioned as well. Still, nothing. Did a fresh OS install as well. No go. Thanks for you tips and I'll continue troubleshooting....
Michel: In SycroSpector I noticed in the pull-down menu "Truth", there are numerous record entries, all with a unique "record ID". Every single "com.microsoft.Entourage2008" entry has the red circle with the line thru it (NO ENTRY symbol) in the full list. When any one of them is selected, nothing appears in the "properties" pane. Unlike all other non-Entourage entries.
Could this be something to dig into?
Hi,
Everytime I change or modify my "entourage" iCal calendar, it creates a new Entourage event in my entourage calendar, so I end up with multiple entries.
Trying to get my wife's iphone to sync with Entourage 2008. I turned on sync services and thought all was swell. A calendar item created in Entourage was copied to the iphone. Now months later, I realize that my wife added lots of calendar items on the iphone, but the items aren't making it back to Entourage. I discovered that the iphone is syncing with the ical calendar called "home". I realized that the iphone is set to sync with "all calendars" and set to put new items into the "home" calendar. The various faqs on how to get sync'ing to work neglected to provide the settings for itunes. What should I do from here to get all of the existing and new calendar items to now show up on both Entourage and the iphone? Thanks.
Hi Stuart,
you simply need to make sure these items are saved in iCal's "Entourage" calendar. See if you can make that calendar the default calendar for events created on your wife's iPhone. As for existing events, simply ctrl-/right-click them and change the calendar from "Home" to "Entourage".
Thanks! That worked great ... items now going both ways between the iphone and Entourage... only problem is that deleting items on the iphone doesn't delete them in Entourage meaning that the items come back to life. Upon syncing, the item is initially deleted in ical, but since it isn't deleted in Entourage, it gets moved back to ical and then back to the iphone. Deleting the item in Entourage does really delete the item. Known problem? Work arounds? This is a big problem as the phone is the place where most of the appointments are created and edited.
Sorry, can't help you with that particular issue. Post your question on the Entourage newsgroup and see if someone who actually owns an iPhone can help you with this issue.
Stuart.
I foolishly deleted my ical Entourage calendar and now I cannot get it back. I have followed your instructions to 'Len' above and they do not work for me. Another calendar is never created, no errors are reported, it just doesn't work! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Charlie
1) Disable calendar syncing in Entourage
2) Quit Entourage
3) Quit iCal
4) Delete:
~\library\preferences\com.apple.iCal.AlarmScheduler.plist
~\library\preferences\com.apple.iCal.helper.plist
~\library\preferences\com.apple.iCal.plist
Next delete the contents of
~\library\application support\iCal
5) Relaunch iCal
6) Relaunch Entourage
7) Enable calendar syncing in Entourage
Diana Ross!!
Thank you very much, this has been troubling me for a while and you have solved it for me.
Yours truly,
Charlie
I always have problems with Entourage / iCal sync as soon as I work with mobile devices such as iPhone or mobile.me server.
Can I just delete the "Entourage" calender in iCal and put all entries back into a new "Entourage" calender from my iPhone?
thanks for help,
Marc
Hi Marc,
never delete the Entourage calendar in iCal; doing so results in a complete loss of data, as all the events associated with the Entourage calendar will be deleted as well. Disable Sync Services in Entourage's preferences, then re-enable them to recreate the calendar. Creating a new calendar called "Entourage" on your iPhone may cause issues as soon as Entourage tries to recreate the calendar in iCal.
Please visit the Entourage newsgroup and ask your question there. Be sure to give as many details as possible (what kind of errors are you experiencing?), and someone is sure to help you.