Will I lose my entourage contact categoriesif I sync with address book?

[Rew]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

I use Entourage for contacts, calendar, and mail, however I want to sync my iPhone with my Mac. From what I can find it looks like it is not possible to sync the iPhone directly with Entourage, but instead I have to sync via iCal and Mac Address Book. My concern is that if I do that and select the option to merge my entourage contacts with Mac Address Book I might lose the categories. The other option would be to select the option to overwrite iCal and Address Book each sync, but that seems cumbersome.

Appreciate all assistance.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi,

I use Entourage for contacts, calendar, and mail, however I want to sync
my iPhone with my Mac. From what I can find it looks like it is not
possible to sync the iPhone directly with Entourage, but instead I have
to sync via iCal and Mac Address Book. My concern is that if I do that
and select the option to merge my entourage contacts with Mac Address
Book I might lose the categories.

Categories wil lnot sync indeed. If you create a new contact in the
System Address book, it won;t have a category in ENtourage, but items
already in Entourage should not lose their categories.

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

Categories wil lnot sync indeed. If you create a new contact in the
System Address book, it won;t have a category in ENtourage, but items
already in Entourage should not lose their categories.

If you do want Entourage categories to sync to the Address Book for example,
your iPhone contacts set as a category iPhone, see this script.

Sync categories in Entourage with groups in Address Book



<http://tinyurl.com/b2p29h>

 

[Rew]

Thanks very much Corentin and Diane. The script works like a dream. In fact it is still working like a dream - with 4000+ contacts it is taking a while to slot each into the appropriate group/category.

Just a thought, and possibly I am rather naive as I have only just converted to a Mac . Why would Microsoft not incorporate this script into their base product? I am sure that many users would appreciate the ability to have categories recognised in Entourage?

 

[Diane Ross]

Just a thought, and possibly I am rather naive as I have only just converted
to a Mac . Why would Microsoft not incorporate this script into their base
product? I am sure that many users would appreciate the ability to have
categories recognised in Entourage?

It's probably a license issue. There are tons of scripts and most are free
for Entourage. Script builders is the best place to look. I have a favorite
script page you should check out.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html>

-------------To get you started with using scripts-------------

Using AppleScripts with Entourage Part 1

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/07/using_applescripts_with_entourage.ht
ml>

Favorite Scripts to use with Entourage Part 2

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/07/favorite_scripts.html>

Assign a category with a keyboard shortcut Part 3

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/08/assign_a_category_with_a_keyboard_sh
ort.html>

Create a TinyURL-no more broken links Part 4

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/09/create_a_tinyurl.html>

Enjoy!

 

[Rew]

Thanks Diane. You have opened a whole new world to me. I haven't done anything with scripts since the dark days of DOS, as I have just lived with whatever came out of the box from MS.

Looking at the sites you suggested I see there are solutions to thousands of issues. Computing could be fun again!

My contacts are working great and for the first time I now have my contacts on my iPhone stored in groups/categories. Excellent!

Thanks again. Andrew

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks Diane. You have opened a whole new world to me. I haven't done anything
with scripts since the dark days of DOS, as I have just lived with whatever
came out of the box from MS.

So many people are afraid of AppleScripts, but I try to emphasize that you
don't have to know how to write them to use them. Glad you found the secret
weapon for Entourage. Enjoy!

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Just a thought, and possibly I am rather naive as I have only just
converted to a Mac . Why would Microsoft not incorporate this script
into their base product? I am sure that many users would appreciate the
ability to have categories recognised in Entourage?

The script is not made by MS and that's an issue.
In addition, it could all be done through SYncServices, but there is one
issue. Entoruage supports categories, but the System address book
doesn't. You are synching to groups. Well the official position (I
believe) is that MS didn't want to sync together two things that are
actually different.

I would have LOVED an option to allow users to decide to sync entourage
categories to the system groups through...

The same goes for events. Sync Entourage categories to iCal calendars.

Corentin