Ted » How to Sync Entourage, iPhone, and iCal

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28 Jul 2007Technology/iPhone

How to Sync Entourage, iPhone, and iCal

The iPhone has definitely been successful in causing me to take another look at a few iApps I haven’t really used very much, namely iCal. iCal is pretty good, but I don’t like that it sends invites from only one account (I know you can hack this, but still…), and of course the issue that iCal doesn’t connect to Microsoft Exchange natively (and there’s a way to do this too, using Snerdware’s Groupcal). These are all fixable, however, Entourage does this out of the box, so path of least resistance. Entourage, though is Rosetta-ware, until the new version of Office comes out and it’s a little bloaty, but it does work well.

Enter iPhone - it’s set up to sync with iCal, and it says in the documentation, Entourage, and lo and behold, it works. People have been asking about it, so I’m posting my experience here.

Here’s a gallery of relevant screen shots, click to view:

Here’s what I did:

1. In Entourage, Go to Preferences, Sync Services, and check the box for the calendar you want to sync to (I’m choosing to not bring Exchange into this right now)
2. In iCal, create a Calendar named “Entourage”. I think if you don’t create this, it will be created for you anyway.

Voila. Entourage and iCal are talking. And they like each other too.

3. In iTunes, with your iPhone connected to your Mac, click on the Info Tab, and scroll down to Calendars
4. Note the setup here is a little goofy. Click on “Sync Selected” Calendars, and both Entourage and Personal
5. Change the “New events” setting to Entourage

4 and 5 I figured out because when I only had an “Entourage” calendar and added a new even from iPhone, it created a “Personal” calendar, which did not sync back to Entourage. When I clicked on “Sync Selected,” it allowed me to change the “new items” setting to Entourage

So…it works now. iPhone talks to iCal which talks to Entourage.

As I said in #1, I’m not interested in syncing all the way back to Exchange right now, but this should get anyone started on that path.

And the iPhone is an incredible device. It will be that much more incredible when it can do MMS. Thank you, Apple, Inc!

Popularity: 100%

joe - 31 Jul - 6:18 pm,

Thank you. I have been trying to figure this out for a while. I use Outlook/Exchange at work on my windows PC and of course want to sync with my MacBook. So I will forward my meeting notices from Outlook to Entourage.
One question… I have all of my contacts in my Palm, will Entourage sync with Apple’s contact list? I only need to do this once to get all of my contacts from my Palm and into Entourage and then into Contacts.
Thanks again. I tried the iPhone the other night and frankly I was very clumsy with it. I am taking your word on how great it is.
Joe DeFlorio
joedeflorio@gmail.com

Ted - 31 Jul - 10:03 pm,

Well - a few things - you don’t have to forward anything to Entourage. It will natively connect to Exchange (hooray!) depending on your I.T. setup.

On the preferences pane, you’ll see that there’s an option to sync contacts to address book. You can do this here, or directly from Address book (there’s a setting in the preferences there to sync directly to Exchange).

There’s a plethora of options for you to choose from…

I love Apple’s New iPod Touch - 29 Oct - 5:07 am,

[...] can also Sync Entourage, and iCal with the ‘touch with no trouble at [...]

Lana - 01 Jan - 1:04 pm,

My Iphone syncs with Entourage’s calendar for all general entries. I have most of my entries as a Category in my Calendar. Meaning, they show up in my Entourage Calendar, however, the entry is listed as a category when you open that particular entry. Not sure if that makes sense. Iphone won’t sync all the calendar entries, only the ones that aren’t categorized. Can you help?

robin - 16 Mar - 2:40 pm,

Just got off the phone with Apple support and they too have no answers to why phone numbers aren’t recognized/active in entourage appointments. Basically i have a Macbook Pro and iphone, I’m a recent convert so I using Office 2008. When i schedule an appointment “RJ to meet w/ Becky 213-555-5555″ then sync it with my iphone the appointment and all the info is there but the number is not recognized as a number. I’ve tried putting the number in notes and all other options with no success. This is a major problem that you’d think someone would fix, do you have any advice???

Petra Franklin Lahaie - 11 Jun - 4:26 pm,

Great! THANK YOU!

Bonnie - 08 Aug - 9:34 am,

Well I followed your instructions but nothing happened. I have never been able to sync Entourage with iCal but thought that by upgrading to Office 2008 and Leopard I would be. Nothing happens. In your case do they just start working together when you open the programs or is there something you do to make them sync? Since I upgraded, I’m even having problems with importing Entourage into iCal which at least used to work.

Ted - 17 Aug - 7:20 pm,

Hi Bonnie,

I’m afraid that I’ve since become “post-Exchange” which means I’m not using Microsoft-based mail anymore. So the instructions here are for last generation iPhone/last generation Office. I believe there are some new fixes in Office 2008. If you discover the answer, feel free to post here for others. As you can imagine, this link was very tenuous as it is…

Best,

Ted

Craig Melnick - 01 Sep - 6:57 am,

Hi,

I tried the above, and my iphone now syncs with entourage but not with ical. strange but entourage and iphone is all i need to sync which is perfect. thank you to all parties that helped.

Craig Melnick