Problems syncing with Palm device

[anonymusic]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I use the Entourage Conduit to sync all of my Entourage data to the Calendar, Contacts, Memos, Tasks applications on my Palm Treo 700p. Occasionally I notice a troubling problem: The information for certain contacts on my Treo won't match the info for the same contact in Entourage. For instance, I may have a phone number for John Doe on my computer, but there is no phone number for John Doe on my phone. There will be a website for John Doe on the phone, but not on the computer. It's as if certain pieces of info are only saved to either the computer OR the phone, not both. I have noticed this problem immediately after syncing, so there's no possibility that I've changed info in one place prior to having that info synced to the other. I have attempted to rebuild the Entourage database to no avail. Any suggestions?

 

[Mickey Stevens]

The Entourage Conduit was written for an old version of the Palm organizer
applications before it had a lot of the fields that it has now.
Consequently, some fields do not synchronize between the two, including
website. Also, at least on my Palm, only five phone numbers and e-mails
combined are supported, so only five total will synchronize between the two.
Sorry about that.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

The Entourage Conduit was written for an old version of the Palm organizer
applications before it had a lot of the fields that it has now.
Consequently, some fields do not synchronize between the two, including
website. Also, at least on my Palm, only five phone numbers and e-mails
combined are supported, so only five total will synchronize between the two.
Sorry about that.

You can have some of the extra fields map to custom fields on your Palm. On
your computer, go to /Applications/Palm/, and launch the "HotSync Manager".
Then, go to "Conduit Settings" under the "HotSync" menu, and double click
the "Entourage Conduit". Next to "Address Book", click the "Settings"
button. On the bottom half of the screen, you can choose to have four
custom fields on the Palm map to Address Book fields on your computer.
Then, when you synchronize, that data will be added to the Palm custom
fields. Note that if you want that data on your Palm to sync back to your
computer, you'll need to remember to use the custom fields to enter the
information instead of the default ones.

 

[anonymusic]

So is that why contact info (a phone number for example) that was once on my Treo suddenly disappears? Could this be caused by changing a field for a phone number from "work" to "mobile"? I notice that when data just vanishes from the Palm, all of the fields will say "Work". Normally, each field is different (Work, Home, Mobile, Email, Main). BTW, this happens even when I only have 1 or 2 numbers for a contact.

 

[anonymusic]

So is that why contact info (a phone number for example) that was once on my
Treo suddenly disappears? Could this be caused by changing a field for a
phone number from "work" to "mobile"? I notice that when data just vanishes
from the Palm, all of the fields will say "Work". Normally, each field is
different (Work, Home, Mobile, Email, Main). BTW, this happens even when I
only have 1 or 2 numbers for a contact.

 

[anonymusic]

Is this a proble, that has been solved in Entourage 2008?

 

[Mickey Stevens]

The problem only *exists* in 2008, so the answer would be "no".

2004, on the other hand, synchronizes perfectly with Palm devices.

No, this issue exists in 2004 because the data that the conduit synchronizes
is not perfectly aligned with the fields that the current version of the
Palm organizer applications use.

I don't believe 2008 includes a conduit like you see in 2004; instead, it
uses Sync Services to synchronize. Someone else who has tried it will have
to report what synchronizes arnd what does not.

 

[anonymusic]

Thank you all for your replies. I am having this problem with Entourage 2004 so clearly it doesn't sync properly with Palm but it sounds like upgrading to 2008 would potentially be even more problematic.