Via email, I got this question:
entourage used to sync directly with mobile devices like the palm, but replaced it in ent2008 with apple’s sync services. outlook does this too. why don’t you sync directly with mobile devices instead of doing through ical?
There’s two major reasons for supporting Sync Services instead of writing our own support: time, and being a good Apple citizen.
Today, there are dozens of mobile device manufacturers out there, and hundreds of different mobile devices. Before the introduction of Sync Services, we had to write our own support for each of those devices. There’s little commonality between the APIs that devices from different manufacturers use, so it’s a big investment in development time to support various multiple devices. Further, as devices evolve, updates to the devices require updates to sync support. Devices come out whenever they come out, which means that we had to be prepared at any time to start working on support for a new device.
The introduction of Sync Services in 10.2 offered up an opportunity for us to reduce our development costs, since we would only have to support a single sync instead of a myriad of different syncs. Additionally, it gave us the chance to continue to be a good Apple citizen. One of the major changes that Sync Services introduced is a back-end database called The Truth. Apple’s own apps write to The Truth, and other clients can also read and write to this central database too. That allows us to share our data with other clients, and to view data from other clients as well.
For more information about our Sync Services support and where we’re going from here, you can read this earlier blog post of mine: Q&A: Can I sync my Outlook:Mac 2011 calendar with Sync Services?
I saw Office 2011 running on a computer the other day. In Sync Services prefs, both the option to enable Sync, and to Sync contacts were selected but grayed out, no way to disable it (them). Additionally, contacts actually weren’t syncing. Is this normal for the releases prior to the calendar patch coming out?
Overall – looks like a slick Office suite, can’t wait to actually get my hands on it.
Contacts do sync. I wonder if you saw an earlier beta of Office 2011, before contact sync was added.
I may have, thought it was a bit suspicious that one couldn’t even de-select the option to sync.
I too have seen it greyed out .. and it doesn’t seem to work.
I turned on Sync Services in Outlook (Office for Mac 2011), and I can not now turn it off. It is now “grayed out” and I’m unable to uncheck any boxes.
This is a brand new copy of OFM 2011 — arrived Tuesday.
Outlook has already crashed once. Even though syncing services for contacts is turned on, it doesn’t seem to be working — contacts are not modified, deleted or recategorized in address book when they are changed in Outlook.
Please contact tech support to talk about this. I haven’t heard any reports of this, and I’d like for them to troubleshoot this issue with you to understand what’s happening. With your purchase of Office 2011 Home and Business Edition, you get a year of tech support.
I have got a copy of Office 2011 Home and Business Edition installed on my both Macs.
Syncing is working fine on the first Mac, but Contacts don’t sync on the second. Syncing panel remains grayed out and I can’t change it.
It seems that this issue comes from a conflict with syncing in Entourage that I used previously. I tried everything : installing and uninstalling Office 2008 and 2011, canceling syncing in Entourage.
And some more users complain about this issue. This is a bug in Outlook 2011.
http://www.officeformac.com/ms/ProductForums/Outlook/138
I tried again and I made a huge search on my Mac to find every element including microsoft, entourage or office, in name or content. I deleted thousands of files and folders.
And it is working fine know.
This confirms my previous opinion about the origin of this troubleshooting.
Hi Nadyne,
Thank you for all the support that you provide. Your blog is a good lighthouse for us. I am an Office 2008 (with Entourage) user. I loved Outlook (from my PC years…) and would like to upgrade to it for better professional compatibility (invitation to PC Outlook from Entourage does not work here). I have a simple set-up: Mac OS 10.6, no Exchange server, but an Iphone, MobileMe, and … an imperative need to be synchronized with my iPhone. I read through the blogs and postings, and I am confused with Outlook 2001 sync issues.
Could you tell me, based on this simple set-up, if my understanding, is right ?
– Outlook 2011 syncs Contacts through MobileMe. OK?
– Outlook 2011 DOES NOT sync Calendar, for the moment, with MobileMe or through iTune. OK? If so, is there a simple alternative way to sync Outlook 2011 Calendar without Exchange to iPhone (4.1) ?
Thanks in advance for your support.
Thanks for this informative post, I have also found this very useful info regarding in this issue. Hope this also helps. =)
With the introduction of Outlook 2011 for Mac, many Mac users are asking the burning question around how to sync Outlook 2011 for Mac with the native Mac Address Book. This is especially relevant as many users now sync their mobile phone contacts (Blackberry, Android, iPhone) with the native Address Book contacts manager. For example, RIM’s Desktop Manager for Mac syncs with iCal and the Address Book and relies on Sync Services to sync with Outlook 2011 contacts. If you will now be managing your contacts inside Outlook, you will need a way to sync these contacts back to the native Address Book.
This is also true if you are using Scrubly to clean up your Address Book contacts. You will need to turn on Sync Services inside Outlook to sync your newly cleaned up contacts from Address Book to Outlook Contacts. Follow the steps below.
Before we begin, you should note that Outlook 2011 will sync contacts from Address Book, and you can sync e-mail accounts with Mail. However, Outlook 2011 won’t sync events or tasks from iCal (in part because Microsoft’s primary design goal with Outlook was to make it work with Exchange). Outlook 2011 also does not support CalDAV.
Setting up Sync Services for Mac:
1. Before turning on Sync Services inside Outlook 2011, be sure to turn off all other 3rd party sync services you may be running in the background. Once Outlook 2011 has completed its initial sync with Address Book, you may turn these services back on again.
2. As a precaution, make a backup of your Address Book contacts. File > Export > Address Book Archive. It’s important to make a backup of your data after you clean it up and before you sync. This way if there are problems you can erase and import the clean backup file.
3. In Outlook 2011, open Outlook Preferences by clicking Outlook > Preferences
4. Click Sync Services and select Turn on Sync Services for Contacts. Outlook 2011 does not yet support sync for iCal.
5. Select the accounts you would like to sync, (i.e. Address Book or MobileMe). Note that Outlook 2011 does not support MobileMe calendar or tasks sync at this time.
Troubleshooting Sync Services for Mac:
The above steps are really quite easy, however, many users have complained that syncing does not occur after following these steps. Here’s a few troubleshooting tips you can follow in the event this happens to you.
Important: Be sure to back up your Address Book and Outlook Contacts before testing any of these Troubleshooting steps.
Turn on iSync
1. Launch iSync, located in the Applications > Utilities folder
2. Open preferences window in iSync Application Menu
3. Check “Enable syncing on this computer”. Sometimes this option seems to be disabled or you can’t check or uncheck this option after starting iSync. In this case, wait for iSync to complete the sync process and then the option will be available again.
4. Reset Sync History. Important: If you are using the new MobileMe Calendar, resetting sync data is not an appropriate troubleshooting step to solve calendar sync issues. Instead, please see Troubleshooting new MobileMe Calendar issues. If you’re not sure how to tell if you’re using the old or new MobileMe Calendar, see this article.
Delete Plist Files
1. Force quit all applications currently running.
2. Go > Home > Library > Preferences
3. Search for all files containing “com.microsoft.outlook.XXXXX.plist” drag these files to the Trash
4. Search for the file “com.microsoft.SyncServicesAgent.plist” and drag this file to the Trash
5. Start Outlook
6. Tools > Sync Services and confirm that “Turn on Sync Services for Contacts” is checked on
Close and Re-Start Sync Services Agent
1. Force Quit Outlook
2. Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor
3. Look for the Sync Services Agent under Process Name
4. Highlight this process and click Quit in the upper left
5. Close Activity Monitor
6. Re-Start Outlook
I guess this is way to lengthy now. Hope this helps
Chris Smith