E
EditFactory
As pointed out in many discussions the synch between Entourage and
iCal is fundamentally flawed. Again and again calender entries
multiply like rabbits and you end up with multiple duplicates of every
event.
Just last night one of our notebooks went astray and created 50000
duplicates !!! No chance to remove those manually.
Apparently Microsoft and Apple are unwilling to solve the issue.
However all iPhone users need to synch or else they do not have their
calender with them. So here is a workaround of how to clean up your
system if the disaster happens (and it sure will):
A. Preparation:
For ALL events that you create in Entourage assign a category to them!
If you created it on your iPhone or in iCal assign a category after
synching with Entourage.
Why: events coming from iCal to Entourage don't have a category
assigned so this is the lever to identify false duplications.
B. Repair
1. Create a custom view in Entourage calender that shows all events
with "category-is-none".
2. As soon as duplication happens switch off synch to iCal in
Entourage
3. go to no category view. Wait until view does not refresh any more
(may take time)
4. Select all, delete, confirm.
5. Switch on Synch to iCal in Entourage. Setting: overwrite iCal. This
removes all duplicates in iCal
6. Switch off synch to iCal in Entourage again.
7. Switch on Synch to iCal in Entourage again. Setting: synch both
ways iCal.
Not elegant, but the only way known to me to keep bidirectional synch
of calenders and get rid of duplicates efficiently.
(There is a script available by Jolly Rogers but it proved much to
slow: about 1 removal per minute while our method achieves 1000
removals per minute)
iCal is fundamentally flawed. Again and again calender entries
multiply like rabbits and you end up with multiple duplicates of every
event.
Just last night one of our notebooks went astray and created 50000
duplicates !!! No chance to remove those manually.
Apparently Microsoft and Apple are unwilling to solve the issue.
However all iPhone users need to synch or else they do not have their
calender with them. So here is a workaround of how to clean up your
system if the disaster happens (and it sure will):
A. Preparation:
For ALL events that you create in Entourage assign a category to them!
If you created it on your iPhone or in iCal assign a category after
synching with Entourage.
Why: events coming from iCal to Entourage don't have a category
assigned so this is the lever to identify false duplications.
B. Repair
1. Create a custom view in Entourage calender that shows all events
with "category-is-none".
2. As soon as duplication happens switch off synch to iCal in
Entourage
3. go to no category view. Wait until view does not refresh any more
(may take time)
4. Select all, delete, confirm.
5. Switch on Synch to iCal in Entourage. Setting: overwrite iCal. This
removes all duplicates in iCal
6. Switch off synch to iCal in Entourage again.
7. Switch on Synch to iCal in Entourage again. Setting: synch both
ways iCal.
Not elegant, but the only way known to me to keep bidirectional synch
of calenders and get rid of duplicates efficiently.
(There is a script available by Jolly Rogers but it proved much to
slow: about 1 removal per minute while our method achieves 1000
removals per minute)