Best way for multiple people to edit Outlook & synch with Pocket PC?

[Ken Forbus]

My department uses Exchange Server, so my life is simple: Outlook is just
operating in client mode, and my PDA's synch using machines at school or at
home. No worries. My wife's department, unfortunately, does not use an
Exchange Server. So I figure that using Outlook in stand-alone mode, with
..PST files, is the best way to synch her Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks.
[Email is being done via a seperate POP-mail service, so that's not an issue
here.]. What we want to do is enable her to add data from an Outlook client
either from her home machine or from her school machine, and synch the PDA
at both places, but also enable her assistant to update this data from his
machine.

I can think of two ways to do this:

1. Put the .PST file on the university's LAN, and use VPN to access it
remotely from home. Count on Outlook being smart enough to do the necessary
locking when there are multiple connections. Kind of annoying, since she's
not a techie, and there are horrid caching problems when there are password
changes (which happen every couple of months, by university policy) with
various automatic mounting schemes I've tried.

2. Keep synchronized copies of the .PST file on the university LAN and on
the home machine, using something like LapLink or SecondCopy to keep the
copies synchronized.

Has anyone had successful experience with either of these approaches? Any
common traps, or better ways to proceed? I've gone over a number of the
standard places for information (e.g., Chris De Herrera's site, Pocket PC
Thoughts, etc.) and didn't find anything that addresses this.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Ken

 

[Rob Borek]

My department uses Exchange Server, so my life is simple: Outlook is just
operating in client mode, and my PDA's synch using machines at school or at
home. No worries. My wife's department, unfortunately, does not use an
Exchange Server. So I figure that using Outlook in stand-alone mode, with
.PST files, is the best way to synch her Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks.
[Email is being done via a seperate POP-mail service, so that's not an issue
here.]. What we want to do is enable her to add data from an Outlook client
either from her home machine or from her school machine, and synch the PDA
at both places, but also enable her assistant to update this data from his
machine.

I can think of two ways to do this:

1. Put the .PST file on the university's LAN, and use VPN to access it
remotely from home. Count on Outlook being smart enough to do the necessary
locking when there are multiple connections. Kind of annoying, since she's
not a techie, and there are horrid caching problems when there are password
changes (which happen every couple of months, by university policy) with
various automatic mounting schemes I've tried.

2. Keep synchronized copies of the .PST file on the university LAN and on
the home machine, using something like LapLink or SecondCopy to keep the
copies synchronized.

Has anyone had successful experience with either of these approaches? Any
common traps, or better ways to proceed? I've gone over a number of the
standard places for information (e.g., Chris De Herrera's site, Pocket PC
Thoughts, etc.) and didn't find anything that addresses this.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

The Pocket PC will work just fine synchronizing with more than one
computer. As for the rest of that stuff, I'll leave it up to someone
familiar enough with Outlook's advanced features to answer them.