Synching Entourage data across multiple user accounts

[ghostrider]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: imap

Hello, I am migrating from Office 2004 (Student and Teacher Edition) to Office 2008 (Home and Student Edition) on my Apple iMac. This iMac has several user accounts but only two of them will be set up to use Entourage mail. The mail client for each account is Apple's .mac, which is an IMAP client. One user account manages the "master" Entourage contacts. Question: Is it possible to share just the "contacts" portion of Entourage across these two accounts? If not are there any solutions other than occasionally making a copy of the "master" contacts and sending it (e.g., via dropbox) from one account to the other? Thanks.

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Hello, I am migrating from Office 2004 (Student and Teacher Edition)
to Office 2008 (Home and Student Edition) on my Apple iMac. This iMac
has several user accounts but only two of them will be set up to use
Entourage mail. The mail client for each account is Apple's .mac,
which is an IMAP client. One user account manages the "master"
Entourage contacts. Question: Is it possible to share just the
"contacts" portion of Entourage across these two accounts? If not are
there any solutions other than occasionally making a copy of the
"master" contacts and sending it (e.g., via dropbox) from one account
to the other? Thanks.

In theory, you should be able to enable syncing of Contacts in Entourage
with the Apple Address Book. With a MobileMe account ($99.00/annual) the
Apple Address Book will sync with your account online and then you
should be able to do the same on your other Mac.

In practice, however, different syncing problems have plagued Entourage,
Mac OS X and MobileMe. Folks have reported duplications and performance
issues.

If you want to try this approach then be sure to export your master set
of contacts to a text file as a backup or drag them to a folder on your
Desktop as v-card files. Then enable one thing at a time and test.
Enable Entourage syncing and check your Apple Address Book. Then enable
MobileMe syncing and check your account online. Enable MobileMe syncing
on your second Mac and check its Address Book. Then finally enable
Entourage syncing on your second Mac and check that.

I strongly suggest that you designate one and only one place as your
"master" set and always make changes there. Problems occur when folks
try to add/delete/modify contacts from multiple locations.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[ghostrider]

Thanks for the response, Bill! I will tread lightly in this area. Since of the 6 Entourage 2008 categories (mail, address book, calendar, notes, tasks, project center) only the same address book in my environment needs to be shared by both user accounts, I will probably just occasionally export vcards (or use whatever the proper method should be) from the user account having the "master" address book to the other user account.

 

[Diane Ross]

If you want to try this approach then be sure to export your master set
of contacts to a text file as a backup or drag them to a folder on your
Desktop as v-card files.

You can also export as Entourage archive (.rge) file. This contains your
categories where a text file does not.

 

[ghostrider]

Thank you, Diane -- have noted your suggestion.

Today I received Office 2008 H&SE so I know this weekend what I'll be doing. Reading some posts that say you should keep 2004 installed, I'm confused because I would like to completely uninstall 2004 and just run 2008. Apparently there are issues with macros written for 2004 which won't run in 2008 but as I haven't written any, that shouldn't be an issue for me. If you happen to see this post, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thanks!

 

[Diane Ross]

Today I received Office 2008 H&SE so I know this weekend what I'll be doing.
Reading some posts that say you should keep 2004 installed, I'm confused
because I would like to completely uninstall 2004 and just run 2008.
Apparently there are issues with macros written for 2004 which won't run in
2008 but as I haven't written any, that shouldn't be an issue for me. If you
happen to see this post, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

If you don't use VBA, then there is really no need for Office 2004, but
until you are satisfied with Office 2008, I would not delete Office 2004.
Use "Remove Office" when you are ready to delete.

Follow the directions here:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/install.html>

 

[ghostrider]

Diane, OK. And thanks for the ptr to the handy directions.