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AppleScript: Entourage's Secret Productivity Weapon

One of the best resources for Microsoft Entourage customers is MacScripter.net

 

Here are two excellent downloads that I'd like to highlight from MacScripter.net:

 

1. Sync Entourage-Address Book 2

Sync Entourage-Address Book synchronizes Entourage and Apple's Address Book in OS 10.3 (Panther)*. It has been upgraded to use the new features of Entourage 2004, but will continue to work as an update in Entourage X as well. It allows you to maintain Entourage as your centralized Personal Information Manager while at the same time taking advantage of the direct access provided to Fax programs, iSync, iChat, iPod, the new .Mac Address Book, and more by OS X's Address Book.

 

2. ScriptBuilders: Sync Entourage-iCal 1.0.8

Sync Entourage-iCal synchronizes Entourage 2004 and iCal. It allows you to maintain Entourage as your centralized Personal Information Manager while at the same time taking advantage of the direct access provided to iSync, iChat, iPod, .Mac online, and more by OS X's iCal. Almost all Entourage fields sync to iCal and back, with any unmapped fields recorded in event Notes.

 

You can also sync Entourage reminders to iCal alarms, including Email alarms. You can keep both applications in constant synchronization by running the script at any time, or automatically every night if you wish. Version 1.0.8 fixes a rare bug which could error "The variable iCalendar is not defined" and quit when Checking for Deletions.

 

These two scripts highlight one of the best aspects of Entourage that sets it far apart from its competition: its incredibly rich AppleScript support.

 

We spend a lot of time making sure that Entourage has a rich AppleScript dictionary so that you, our customers, can extend its functionality in ways that we would never imagine - and be able to automate activities to improve your personal productivity. We envision Microsoft Entourage to be your hub for communications, and making it a bit of a platform, there is simply more value.

 

So check out those two scripts -- they've been found to be quite useful by those who need that functionality.

Published Tuesday, July 20, 2004 11:00 AM by decheung
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Comments

 

thmexican said:

While it's great that this is possible via applescript it would be better if it were built in with a "sync on change" option.

Right now I sync:

Entourage<->Address Book
sBook<->Address Book
Entourage<->iCal
Address Book<->isync<->T616
iCal<->isync<->palm

It's starting to bee too much darned syncing! Better for it to be automatic and invisible.

Ideally all the local apps would access the same pool of data.

While these applescripts are very good, but the best I've found is GoBetween ( http://www.pocketmac.net/products/gobetween/ ) which sits in isync and treats entourage as an external device.
July 20, 2004 12:13 PM
 

Corentin said:

I've tested GoBetween as well. The idea is very promising but I've run into nasty issues with synching entries that had accented letters and syncing to iCal. The application doesn't seem to be ready (for my type of data) yet. I'll wait for a future release to test it again.

On the other hand, Paul Berkowitz's scripts really deal with the synchronization in a nice way. The scripts even create a workaround for you in order to be able to sync fields that are not present in both apps (eg: Yahoo, iChat, MSN... when Entourage only offers a generic "IM" field). For now, I'll happily stick to Paul's scripts.


Corentin
July 20, 2004 12:46 PM
 

AppleScript: Entourage's Secret Productivity Weapon said:

November 26, 2007 11:26 AM
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