ICal vs. Entourage 08

I have been running my own studio for a year now and I have an ever increasingly busy schedule. I have been doing this for 10 years. 8 of it was on Windows and Outlook was all I knew. I have been on the Mac now for 2. My last employer had IMAP and we used Entourage. Since I left I have been using gMail which has been great, but not very professional. SO last month I switched over to Mail and iCal. Both seem fine but a little "light" in the loafers. Maybe I don't know all the tricks.
My question is the avid Mac users view on Entourage's calendar? Is 08' a better calendar app and should I start using it for mail as well. I have read some stuff about the way it stores email in a single file/db but I don't really get all that. I just feel like the contact organization in Address Book and views in iCal were made for my mom. Are there lots of things you can do to add in more feature rich things that will help when creating tasks, scheduling, sorting and the like? I can't stand that I don't know how to sort on a last name or company in Address Book.
My other question is I want an iPhone this Spring... am I going to regret moving to Entourage for all this when it comes time to sync???

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
While I have not used Entourage '08, I will say that the more you have time to get into iCal and Address Book, the more you will learn how to use them with great agility to do just about anything you need. My recommendation is to look into buying one of the books from the "Missing Manual" series. These are edited by David Pogue (the Mac ones anyhow) and give a lot of hidden insights and useful tips, including websites of note, for everything Mac.
To sort your names in Address Book, Select Address Book>Preferences and select the General Tab and you can organize by first name, last name. Also, look into Smart Groups for grouping individuals in your address book based upon a like characteristic e.g., everyone who works for a particular company, everyone who has a certain last name, etc. This is great because with groups in Address Book you can just type in the name of the group within Mail and it will automatically enter the email addresses for everyone in that group into the field. I use it frequently when I have to send out emails to a large group of individuals.
I don't know if you are on 10.5 or not, but the Mail in Leopard has improved greatly over previous versions with a smart feature much like Yahoo! mail where it culls the message for data such as addresses and phone numbers and allows you, at the click of the mouse, to add a new contact directly to your address book. Plus, now iCal, Address Book and Mail work very well together to keep your To-Dos, contacts, etc. linked.
I'd say, give it a try, particularly if you are going to buy an iPhone; I think once you get a little more time under your belt, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the functionality.
Brian

Similar Messages

ICal with Entourage Syncing

Hi, Can't sync iCal and Entourage calenders. Had this working but upgraded (hah!) to Outlook for Mac and now going back to Entourage won't sync.
iCal external sync is crashing daily according to crash log.
Have tried deleting syncs and starting again. No joy. Entourage shows in iCal as calender but no data.
All software up to date.
Simon

Hello, Julian, original macrat and LizKual ~
I have the same problem as macrat and Liz. Syncing (I'm not talking about iSync; I'm talking about Sync Services) between Entourage 2008 and iCal was working just fine until March 16.
Initially, the Entourage calendar, with all its entries, disappeared from iCal. But with some help from the folks in the Microsoft support forums, I was able to get the Entourage calendar to show up again on the list in iCal's left-hand column but, unfortunately, still without any events.
I've been plugging away in the Microsoft forums ever since. Can you believe this?! I haven't been able to use the calendar on my iPhone since March 16!
See:
http://www.officeformac.com/ms/ProductForums/Entourage/17016/0
http://www.office.mvps.org/troubleshoot/syncservices.html- ss2
http://www.office.mvps.org/syncservices/ical.html#calsync5
http://www.office.mvps.org/faq_topic/duplicates.html
I have done every relevant thing suggested on these four pages. I still don't have any Entourage events showing up in iCal (although Entourage 2 is on the list of iCal calendars) and now I have a massive number of duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates, etc., appearing in my Entourage calendar. The only thing on the above-mentioned pages that I haven't yet tried is Syncrospector. (I bought Xcode and then discovered it was probably included as part of Snow Leopard. Oh well, I'm soldiering on, even though I'm in way over my head.)
Do you know whether someone has already assembled the code needed to get Syncrospector to eliminate the masses of duplicate calendar entries that Entourage 2008 stands ready to send to Sync Services? Such info — or, even better, a link — would be much appreciated. :-) I've been preparing for this undertaking, but at this rate it could be another two months before I succeed.
Of course, even after I get rid of the duplicates, I'll still need to find a way to get Sync Services to communicate between Entourage and iCal — which is its job, after all. Suggestions on that point would also be welcome. Maybe Sync Services is choking on the duplicates and that's why it's not sending anything to iCal. If so, then maybe Syncrospector will take care of both problems. I can only hope.
Thanks very much.

Import iCal into Entourage

I have been using iCal for some time, and have numerous Calendars I wish to "import" into Entourage. I have tried synching with .mac but no joy. I seem unable to "copy" the calendars over. Is there a easy way of doing this?
Justin

Justin,
Searching Apple Discussions with: import iCal into Entourage provides some possible helpful replies.
;~)

Can't sync BB with OS X 10.5.4 using iCal or Entourage

Hello!
I've been a Blackberry user for a couple of years and have recently switched from Microsoft Outlook to the Apple. I cannot get PocketMac sync to work properly with either iCal or Entourage. I can sync from the Blackberry to the Apple, so my device is recognized, but not the other way around (either using the merge or 'overwrite device' options). Pocketmac acts as though sync is occurring and displays no errors, but no changes are made to the Blackberry handheld. Entering everything only on the handheld is a major pain!
I've tried syncing to iCal and to Entourage individually and neither seems to perform sync BACK to the handheld.
PocketMac suggests running a clean sync utility or rebuilding the Entourage database, both of which I have done to no avail.
Does anyone else have suggestions for syncing with an Apple, short of purchasing an iPhone?
HELP and THANKS! K.

I currently do this with an iMac along with EyeTV and Time Machine. There used to be limitations with older versions of iLife, but I think it was just the installer being difficult, but those are no longer present in the shipping versions of Server and iLife. Time Machine might be considered an issue because by default, Time Machine doesn't back up a few directories which would not have any bearing on normal OS X, but is a bit daunting with OS X Server, specifically /var/spool/ as this is where all mail is stored. You can override this behavior by modifying the Exclusion file in /System/ which some would consider a no no.

Syncing ical to Entourage -- only first event syncs!

Hi. I set up Entourage to sync with iCal. This created an Entourage calendar in iCal, so far so good. I created a new event in iCal and put it in the Entourage calendar. Go over to Entourage and it has synced up nicely. Great so far.
Then I go back to iCal and change all my stuff over to the Entourage calendar. Go back to Entourage. Nothing. I go to the Calendar pull-down and select SyncNow. Nothing. The one event that synced ok before is still there, but nothing else. I go back to iCal and create new events and these wont sync.
What happened?! Help!
Thanks.

Can you give a bit more information about what you've done? When you say you have gone back to iCal and changed all your stuff to the Entourage calendar, do you mean that you changed individual events to the Entourage calendar in iCal. Does that mean this is the only calendar left in iCal?
If so, then my suggestion is:
1) back up your iCal calendar - File, Back up iCal
2) ensure the calendar name in iCal is "Entourage"
3) go to Entourage preferences and untick "synchronise events & tasks with iCal"
4) quit Entourage, open Entourage and tick "synchronise events & tasks with iCal" again
5) you will be asked before it syncs how you wish the sync to occur and you should select to have iCal override Entourage.
If I'm right you should end up with a calendar in the Entourage application which reflects your Entourage calendar in iCal.

Sync ical with entourage

i mainly use ical but i have a few things on entourage and i am trying to sync the two using the Sync Services in entourage but it will only move the stuff from entourage to ical it doesnt move or sync any of mt events in ical to entourage i have tried all three setting for the sync services merge, and the replace both ways. i would really appreciate it if someone could help me with this. thanks

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1670
http://www.office.mvps.org/syncservices/ical.html
Regards.

ICal and Entourage Sharing

I've noticed that in Entourage the Address Book in the program is the same as in the Apple Address Book. However, when I add an item to the calendar in Entourage, it is not displayed in iCal or vice-versa. Is this possible? If not, why would one be synched with one another and not another program? Thanks!

Went to Entourage and setup Sync Services in effort to have iCal and Entourage talk to each other, vice versa. iCal will recognize changes in Entourage, but Entourage will not take /recognize changes in iCal. What am I doing wrong?

Ical and Entourage not syncing

When i put a new calendar item on my iphone it syncs with my ical but not with my entourage...which is where i do all my calendar rearranging. From Entourage to ical and to iphone it works great. Just not the other way around. Please help. thanks.

Here's the fix! Go to Entourage and do a file/export and select the radio button "Items to an Entourage archive", then check mark ONLY the "Local Calendar Events" check box. Click the arrow at the bottom left, then check the radio button "Yes, delete items belonging to another project or category". NOTE: All your calendar events are still in iCal, and on your iPhone! Clicke the arrow and go through the process of archiving and deleting events from your Entourage Calendar file - you will settings disappearing from Entourage if you have the calendar open. Do a sync! After this sync check to see if you have two Entourage Calendars in iCal (I did) and delete the one that is empty. The other one remaining is your main Calendar info from Entourage. NOTE: One good thing about this methodology of using Apples iCal and Address book apps to transport data between the iPhone and Entourage is that you always have a back up in those Apps! When I deleted the empty duplicate Entourage calendar in iCal, all the information synced between iCal and Entourage restoring by empty Entourage calendar. Then I synced the iPhone in iTunes and all was back to normal. NOTE: Be sure you have the HOME and Entourage checkboxes checked in your info/calendars section as described in the original syncing with iPhone and Entourage instructions on the Apple website. NOTE: In my case contacts was no affected, only calendar events. Also, syncing was happening between the iPhone and iCal just fine, but not between iCal and Entourage. I'm sure there may be variances of this issue... but it looks like the best overall fix is to export your Entourage calendar event and delete at the same time, then delete that duplicated Entourage Calendar in iCal, and go from there. NOTE: When I did a global sync I ended up with 177 new contacts that were duplicate of two different email messages that somehow got converted to contacts and ended up in my iPhone. The fix for that was to select them all in Entourage and delete them then do another sync, then ALL was back to normal. I am now HAPPY AGAIN! Carl

ICal and Entourage

I've successfully sync Address book and Entourage, but how can I transfer the items in iCal to Entourage?

I no help on your question, but could you tell me how you made the Sync between Address and Entourage - Thanks
Norman

Problems syncing appts on BB Curve to iCal and Entourage

I just got my Curve and amd having problems getting any appointments made on the BB into iCal and Entourage. I'm not sure what the problem is and hope someone can help me. I have two personal emails accounts set up on the BB and some of the appts have one of my email accounts listed up on top, where it says "send using" and the others have "default" listed under "send using". Is that somehow related to my problem? Thanks.

I just got my Curve and amd having problems getting any appointments made on the BB into iCal and Entourage. I'm not sure what the problem is and hope someone can help me. I have two personal emails accounts set up on the BB and some of the appts have one of my email accounts listed up on top, where it says "send using" and the others have "default" listed under "send using". Is that somehow related to my problem? Thanks.

Restoring iCal or Entourage calendar events

Having difficulties with MobileMe creating duplicates of the same calendar event and contacts. Entourage is my application of choice but I noticed ical was creating the same contact and calendar event every time I created it in Entourage. Further, iCAL displayed several Entourage calendars in the calendar list. So I assumed it was iCal that was updating all my devices (2 iphones, imac, macbookpro and ipad. So I deleted all the entourage calendars except one appearing in ical, then synced mobileme and ALL MY CALENDAR EVENTS DISAPPEARED in both ical and entourage on all the devices and at me.com. What's even more strange is that ipad still shows the 8 entourage calendars none of which have any events.
So what has this to do with Time Machine? Since everything was gone I figured I'd restore an earlier ical and/or entourage from Time Machine. But when I did, none of the events reappeared! Do I need to restore a specific file rather than the application? If so, where is that file?
HELP MY LIFE IS IN THE CALENDAR!

It looks like when you deleted the Entourage calendars in iCal you deleted the wrong one, the one with all of your events. If your events are still on your iPad, I think we can get them back into MobileMe, and from there to Entourage. Fortunately for you, your iPad isn't syncing correctly, so it didn't get the instructions to delete everything.
On your iPad, go to the Settings app. click on "Mail, Contacts, Calendars".
Click on your MobileMe account.
Turn Calendars off. When it asks, choose to "Keep on my iPad."
Now the calendar events on your iPad are separate from MobileMe. Turning Calendar sync back on and choosing to merge your events with MobileMe should add them to MobileMe.
In the future, before you delete a calendar in iCal, uncheck all the other calendars so you can see what is in the calendar you are deleting. My guess is you had multiple Entourage calendars with the same color.

Reliability of iCal (and Entourage)?

I am about to need a program like this for very important things, and I'm nervous about relying on it.
I entered a number of things in iCal awhile back (Panther at that time, I now have Tiger), including when library books were due, and discovered that it was randomly deleting events. How reliable is it--have others had problems like this?
Does anyone have any idea whether Entourage is more (or less) reliable than iCal (and Address Book)?
Thank you so much.

of course I can only talk about my experience, and since I have been using ical - now in my fourth year actively - I have never had any problem. I use it with the native mail app, both for work, where we have an Exchange server, and at home, and it seems to be doing just fine. I have many different calendars can send invitations, receive and accept invitations, set alarms, to dos... Of course I back up regularly and also before any software upgrade I do.
hope this helps.

ICal and Entourage - 10 hour time differences - HELP!!

I am using Entourage 2008 and syncing with my Simbian PDA using iSync (and iCal). This has worked perfectly for over 6 months. Not one issue.
Since installing SL, iCal is now synchronising with my phone at GMT rather than GMT+10 (so the comment about the NZ version is not far from the truth!).
Is there a fix for this?
How do I back out of SL and return to my previous untroubled existence?
Thanks in advance

That sounds like a time zone issue.
Go to the main menu of your iPhone->Settings->General->Date & Time and check to see if the time zone listed is the same as your mac.
In that same area, I had to turn the TimeZone support off, sync with my mac, turn it back on again, then sync again. However, BEFORE I synced in that last step, I chose the option to overwrite the calendar on the iPhone with the information from my mac. That option is found in iTunes.

Upgrading to new iCal removes Entourage syncing

I use Entourage at work, and sync the calendar with MobileMe so that I can get calendar info & notifications on my iPhone.
This isn't supported by the new iCal - but rather than let me stay on the old one (which I'm perfectly happy with) I'm being forced to make the upgrade by May 5th or none of my calendars will sync.
Apple support have only said for me to file a feedback form.
Very frustrating!

I think that Apple should've been more explicit that the only real way to update is to unregister all but one main computer, run the update, and then re-register all the other computers. In any case, this is how I downgraded. There may be a more efficient way:
0. Be sure that you have backups of your calendars, which you made before upgrading. If you don't have these, you are in trouble.
1. Unregister all computers tied to the mobile me account except one, called the 'main computer' for lack of a better term.
2. Turn off calendar syncing on all iPhones, each time saying to delete the calendar data
3. Go to http://me.com/calendar/downgrade
4. Click the 'downgrade' button (I think that's its name)
5. Wait a little while until the calendars have been downgraded
6. Delete all the calendars from the main computer
7. Restore all the calendars from the backup
8. Sync the main computer with mobile me
9. Re-register all computers and tell them to replace their data with the data from mobile me
10. Turn on calendar syncing on your iPhone
A bit of a pita, but I found that this worked better than turning off sync for the calendars and then turning it back on.
My problem when upgrading was that floating timezone events had their times shifted, which for me is a big deal.

ICal and Entourage help!!!!!!

I have tried everything to sync Entourage 2008 with iCal. I have even reinstalled iCal but I cannot get any calendar event to show up in iCal after placing them in Entourage. I need this sep to get them to my iPhone. Could it be a conflict with something somewhere and how wold I find it???
Any help would be appreciated, this is how I spent my day!

I have this same problem, did what the last poster suggested and it did not make any difference, my lack of being able to sync Entourage to iCal persists. I don't know what else to do and an original post I made about this on this board and on Mactopia have had not helpful responses. Does anyone have another idea? thanks.

ICal and Entourage - Is it Possible?

Hey all,
So I have recently (as in today) been looking at Entourage as an alternative to Apple's Mail application. I was SOAR when I found out that the 'Sync' feature was NOT going to work properly, and here is why.
From what I understand, ICal uses different CALENDARS to differentiate between items, calendar like 'Personal,' 'Business' and 'Wife Time,' while ENTOURAGE uses ONE calendar (like Outlook) and simply categorizes it. THUS, when I SYNC them, I get all my little calendars in ICal and in MobileMe, including a calendar for ENTOURAGE.
NOW! Here is my question! IS IT POSSIBLE? - Can we EXPORT or SUBSCRIBE my 'Entourage' calendar in ICal to my OTHER calendars in ICal? If so, I WOULD have doubles of EVERYTHING, but could potentially solve the problem. I DOUBT this is likely.
Anyways, just a thought... WHEN WILL THESE DEVELOPERS GET THINGS RIGHT?! haha

I just bought e2sync (It doesn't work on Leopard, however).
The categories of the Entourage calendar are converted to calendars in iCal.
Still getting it to work at the moment...
There's a free 10 day trial.
http://e2sync.com/dl/tiger/e2SyncTiger2.8.dmg

ICal vs. Entourage 08

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