Entourage on two clients/Rules/Folders

[Saurabh]

Hello,

I have MS Entourage 2004 installed on my office Mac and my home Mac.
Both the computers are running OS X Tiger. I use the exchange server
at my office to access my mail. I created the account first on my
office Mac and then on my home Mac. I set up a few rules on my office
Mac for filtering my email. I then copied the "Rules", "Mailing Lists"
and "Signatures" files from the 'Documents\Microsoft User Data\Office
2004 Identities\Main Identity' folder on my office Mac and put them in
the same folder on my home Mac.

The incoming messages in my inbox are filtered according to the rules
on my office Mac. But when I go home, the filtered messages end up as
new unread messages in my inbox. The same happens the other way round.
If I check my email at home, a message gets filtered to the correct
folder. But the next day, the same message ends up as an unfiltered
unread message in my inbox. Even messages that are manually moved to a
particular folder while working on one client show up as unmoved on
the other client. Sometimes, it depends on how long I'm connected to
the mail server. If I'm connected for a long enough time (say about an
hour), then the messages that I delete stay deleted. But if I connect
for only 5-10 minutes on one client, and delete a message, that
message shows up as new and unread on the other client. Apparently, my
folders don't synchronize properly. I have to schedules set up on each
client. One is a "Send/Receive All" that is supposed to run every
minute. The other is an "Empty Deleted Items folder" that is supposed
to run every time I quit the mail client.

Sometimes, the messages don't show up as unread, but the client still
seems to be fetching it as if it's new. I head the message
notification 'ding' even for messages that have been sorted into their
proper folders.

This is driving me crazy. I receive a lot of messages at work, and I
can't sort/re-sort all of them every day.

-Saurabh

 

[William Smith]

The incoming messages in my inbox are filtered according to the rules
on my office Mac. But when I go home, the filtered messages end up as
new unread messages in my inbox. The same happens the other way round.
If I check my email at home, a message gets filtered to the correct
folder. But the next day, the same message ends up as an unfiltered
unread message in my inbox. Even messages that are manually moved to a
particular folder while working on one client show up as unmoved on
the other client. Sometimes, it depends on how long I'm connected to
the mail server. If I'm connected for a long enough time (say about an
hour), then the messages that I delete stay deleted. But if I connect
for only 5-10 minutes on one client, and delete a message, that
message shows up as new and unread on the other client. Apparently, my
folders don't synchronize properly. I have to schedules set up on each
client. One is a "Send/Receive All" that is supposed to run every
minute. The other is an "Empty Deleted Items folder" that is supposed
to run every time I quit the mail client.

Sometimes, the messages don't show up as unread, but the client still
seems to be fetching it as if it's new. I head the message
notification 'ding' even for messages that have been sorted into their
proper folders.

Hi Saurabh!

This sounds like you're not giving Entourage enough time to synchronize
your changes back to the server. By default, you can't change the
synchronization schedule for Exchange Server but it will sync
automatically after about one minute of inactivity in Entourage.

Before you shutdown Entourage, right-click or Control+click your
Exchange account in the folder list on the left and select "Synchronize
Now". You may want to open the Progress window from the Window menu to
view the synchronization's progress. Once everything has been
synchronized on the server then it should be synchronized when you
connect your other Entourage client.

As a test, connect to your Exchange Server's Outlook Web Access (OWA)
address and verify that messages have been moved into the appropriate
folders there. If so, then that's how they should appear in Entourage.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Saurabh]

Hi Saurabh!

This sounds like you're not giving Entourage enough time to synchronize
your changes back to the server. By default, you can't change the
synchronization schedule for Exchange Server but it will sync
automatically after about one minute of inactivity in Entourage.

Before you shutdown Entourage, right-click or Control+click your
Exchange account in the folder list on the left and select "Synchronize
Now". You may want to open the Progress window from the Window menu to
view the synchronization's progress. Once everything has been
synchronized on the server then it should be synchronized when you
connect your other Entourage client.

As a test, connect to your Exchange Server's Outlook Web Access (OWA)
address and verify that messages have been moved into the appropriate
folders there. If so, then that's how they should appear in Entourage.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Hello William,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try it out though I'm doubtful if
that is the cause. Sometime I'm logged into Entourage at work all day.
That should be enough time for Entourage to sync with the server. But
when I go home at night, even messages from the early morning show up
as unread. I'll see if I can reproduce this behavior.

-Saurabh

 

[Saurabh]

Hello William,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try it out though I'm doubtful if
that is the cause. Sometime I'm logged into Entourage at work all day.
That should be enough time for Entourage to sync with the server. But
when I go home at night, even messages from the early morning show up
as unread. I'll see if I can reproduce this behavior.

-Saurabh

Hello William,

This solution did not work. I left the Entourage client idle for 15-20
minutes. I also manually synchronized by account with the Exchange
server. Yet, the messages that I'd manually moved from one folder to
the other ended up again in the old folder. I think it's because
Entourage on one system treats as new messages which have already been
viewed in Entourage on another system. It applies rules on the
messages it treats as new and puts them in folders from where they've
already been moved.

-Saurabh

 

[Jolly Roger]

I think it's because
Entourage on one system treats as new messages which have already been
viewed in Entourage on another system. It applies rules on the
messages it treats as new and puts them in folders from where they've
already been moved.

That's not my experience. When I open my work Exchange account at
home, any messages that are marked read at work are already marked read
at home.

So I would just add a couple criterion to the rule If section that says:

Folder Is Inbox
Status Is Not Read

That way the rule will not touch messages that are not in the InBox
folder, or messages that in the InBox folder that have already been
read.

--
Please let me know if you send email to this address so that I can be
sure your email doesn't get eaten by pobox.com's ultra-aggressive SPAM
filter.

Help improve usenet. Kill-file Google Groups:
http://improve-usenet.org/

JR

 

[Saurabh]

That's not my experience. When I open my work Exchange account at
home, any messages that are marked read at work are already marked read
at home.

So I would just add a couple criterion to the rule If section that says:

Folder Is Inbox
Status Is Not Read

That way the rule will not touch messages that are not in the InBox
folder, or messages that in the InBox folder that have already been
read.

--
Please let me know if you send email to this address so that I can be
sure your email doesn't get eaten by pobox.com's ultra-aggressive SPAM
filter.

Help improve usenet. Kill-file Google Groups:http://improve-usenet.org/

JR

What about those rules which are of the form "Execute if any criteria
are met"? If I add the two criteria above, all the messages will get
filtered according to one rule. I could move the rule down in the
list, but I have multiple such rules where messages get filtered even
if one of several conditions is met.

 

[Jolly Roger]

What about those rules which are of the form "Execute if any criteria
are met"? If I add the two criteria above, all the messages will get
filtered according to one rule. I could move the rule down in the
list, but I have multiple such rules where messages get filtered even
if one of several conditions is met.

You could break those out into multiple rules, one for each condition,
I suppose.

--
Please let me know if you send email to this address so that I can be
sure your email doesn't get eaten by pobox.com's ultra-aggressive SPAM
filter.

Help improve usenet. Kill-file Google Groups:
http://improve-usenet.org/

JR

 

[William Smith]

Hello William,

This solution did not work. I left the Entourage client idle for 15-20
minutes. I also manually synchronized by account with the Exchange
server. Yet, the messages that I'd manually moved from one folder to
the other ended up again in the old folder. I think it's because
Entourage on one system treats as new messages which have already been
viewed in Entourage on another system. It applies rules on the
messages it treats as new and puts them in folders from where they've
already been moved.

Hi Saurabh!

Although you're using Exchange Server at work, can you please verify
that you're connecting as an Exchange client rather than a POP client?
If you go to Tools --> Accounts --> <your server account>, do you have
POP and SMTP server fields? Or do you have an Exchange Server field at
the bottom?

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Saurabh]

Hi Saurabh!

Although you're using Exchange Server at work, can you please verify
that you're connecting as an Exchange client rather than a POP client?
If you go to Tools --> Accounts --> <your server account>, do you have
POP and SMTP server fields? Or do you have an Exchange Server field at
the bottom?

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

William,

I'm connecting as an Exchange client.

Jolly Roger's suggestion seems to have worked. I still haven't changed
all my rules, but last night my Entourage client at home showed the
messages in the correct folders. I don't know why the rules are not
applied by default to unread inbox messages, but it seems that that is
the solution to this problem.

I'll monitor for the next few days and see how it goes.

Thanks,
Saurabh