The Entourage Help Blog

A first step that absolutely needs to be made is to enable Sync Services. You can do so by clicking on Entourage>Preferences, switching to the Sync Services section and enabling the options you can see (even though "Notes" is not required; see below for an explanation).

Figure 1: Enabling Sync Services in Entourage

Sync Services synchs your Entourage data to a global data repository called "Truth", which is also the repository that the Mac OS X applications Address Book and iCal (called "iApps" hereafter) synch to. While it may look like Entourage is synching directly to iCal and Address Book, it does not do that.

Figure 2: Sync Services explained

Synching data between Entourage and the iApps

Calendar

Once you have enabled Sync Services, your Entourage calendar data will be synched to an iCal calendar called "Entourage". You can enable calendar synching in iTunes; specify which iCal calendars you want to be synched with your iPhone, but be sure to include the "Entourage" calendar. Any event you now create in Entourage will be synched to the Truth and subsequently the "Entourage" calendar in iCal. The next time you connect your iPhone to your Mac, iTunes will automatically transfer your events to the iPhone calendar application. Alternatively, if you use over-the-air-synching with Mobile Me, the data will automatically appear on your iPhone shortly afterwards, without your having to connect your iPhone via USB.

Please note that if you create calendar entries on your iPhone which you want to synch back to Entourage, you must create them in the "Entourage" calendar; any event created in a calendar other than "Entourage" will show up in iCal, but not in Entourage. Read this article for more details.

Tip: Some users report that if they only sync one item at a time, this results in fewer duplications.

Contacts

Contacts will be synched to the Truth, and, consequentially, to Address Book. As is the case with calendars, you need to connect your iPhone via USB, or use an over-the-air-synching service such as MobileMe or Exchange, to transfer the contacts to the Contacts application on your iPhone. Contact synching is more straightforward than calendar synching, as the synchronisation is automatic, and there is no restriction such as the requirement that calendar events be in the "Entourage" calendar. One downside is that Entourage does not understand groups in Address Book, and Address Book cannot deal with categories in Entourage. As a result, if you use Entourage as your primary contact list manager and make heavy use of categories to arrange your data, this effort will not show on the iPhone. Also, if you create a new contact on the iPhone, you need to apply categories to it in Entourage; there is no way to apply categories on the iPhone.

This article describes a script that will allow you to sync categories in Entourage to the Address Book groups, Sync categories in Entourage with groups in Address Book

That being said, there is a workaround if you do not want all your Entourage contacts on the iPhone. You can instruct iTunes to synch Address Book groups rather than the entire Address Book list. You can therefore create groups in Address Book, add and remove contacts as you see fit, and then only synch those groups to the iPhone.

Notes

Entourage offers the option to synch its notes via Sync Services and MobileMe, which is why a number of iPhone users are surprised when they open the Notes application on their iPhone only to find that their notes appear to be missing. The reason: Entourage notes are not compatible with the Notes application on the iPhone. The Notes application on the iPhone only synchs with the Notes feature in Mail, Apple's own e-mail application.

You may now ask yourself what the point Entourage's synching notes is, and the only explanation is that if you use Entourage on more than one machine, you can keep your notes synchronized between your different databases.

Mail

There is no way to synch mail messages directly from Entourage to the iPhone. The best solution is therefore to use an IMAP account. IMAP accounts store their messages on the server; any modification you make (receive new messages, reply to them, create new messages) is stored on the server, and these modifications appear on any device that connects to this account. Say, for instance, that you use an IMAP account, and you write a message in Entourage. When you send the message, it gets moved to the Sent Items folder on the server. If you now open the Mail application on your iPhone, you will see the same message in the Sent Items folder. Technically speaking, with IMAP, you are not synching any longer; all the devices use the same server-based data.

Alternative solutions

PocketMac offer a product called "PocketMac for iPhone", which allows you to synch your Entourage data directly to your iPhone, and vice-versa. I have not tested this product, and therefore cannot judge how efficient it is. There is a trial version, though, so if you want to try a different approach than the one described in this article, just follow this link to the PocketMac for iPhone website.

For more info see these articles:

• Sync Services still causing problems for some users after SP1
• Warning: Syncing with Entourage 2008
• Sync Services no longer includes conduit.
• Why does syncing play Gossip with my contacts?
• Calendar synching between Entourage and iCal
• Cleaning up duplicated events
• Yes, Virginia, Entourage does sync with iPhone
• Sync-Services and iCal FAQs
• This Automator action will launch ITunes and start sync of Your iPhone, iPod. Sync with one click! iPhone Sync 1.0