.KEYWORD desktoptogo
.FLYINGHEAD OUTLOOK SYNCHRONIZATION
.TITLE Desktop To Go: A simple and intuitive way to synchronize with Outlook
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Continuing his quest to show you how to synchronize your Palm device with Microsoft Outlook in every conceivable way, Bob Draper now turns his attention to Desktop To Go. Once again, he goes in-depth to give you the complete scoop on what’s possible with this robust piece of software that features the added bonus of providing synchronization with Microsoft Schedule+ 7.x as well.
.AUTHOR Bob Draper
For many people, deciding to synchronize their Palm device with Microsoft Outlook is a simple choice; after all, a number of Palm devices ship with the ability to synchronize with Outlook right out of the box (via the bundled PocketMirror conduit at http://www.pocketmirror.com). Additionally, synchronizing with Outlook can, in many cases, makes managing your personal information much simpler.
As I discussed in my December 2000 article, "Palm Desktop and Microsoft Outlook go head-to-head" at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200012/outlook001.html, there are a number of advantages to synchronizing with Outlook. You just need to look at the relative strengths and weakness of each program to see which will best fit your needs.
Of course, PocketMirror isn’t the only game in town. If your Palm device didn’t come with PocketMirror, you still have a number of options if you’d like to synchronize your Palm device with Microsoft Outlook.
One of those options is Desktop To Go from DataViz at http://www.dataviz.com/products/desktoptogo/index.html. This easy-to-use program offers a simple and intuitive way to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, with the added bonus of providing synchronization with Microsoft Schedule+ 7.x. Desktop To Go is also reasonably priced at only $49.95, with special pricing for multi-user licenses (at http://www.dataviz.com/purchase/buy/desktoptogo/dtg_order_pg1.html). You can also download a fully functional 15-day free trial version from this address.
This month I’ll be reviewing what Desktop To Go has to offer; however, I won’t be discussing Palm/Outlook synchronization in detail. If you’re interested in learning more about how your Palm device and Microsoft Outlook interact, you should check out my previously mentioned December 2000 article, as well as my January 2001 piece, "A step-by-step guide to configuring PocketMirror and Microsoft Outlook" (at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200101/pocketmirror001.html).
.H1 Initial installation and set-up
Installing Desktop To Go is a breeze; in a matter of minutes you’ll be up and running. As shown in Figure A, the installer also offers you the chance to install DataViz WhatzUp on your Palm device.
.FIGPAIR A Go ahead and say yes; you’ll be glad you did.
What’s WhatzUp, you ask? It’s a slick little Palm OS utility that allows you to view your appointments and To Do List items on one screen, similar to the Date Book agenda view in Palm OS 3.5. But even if you have Palm OS 3.5, you still ought to take a look at WhatzUp, pictured in Figure B.
.FIG B WhatzUp offers a number of nice features.
As you can see, WhatzUp offers a number of additional features, including expanded viewing options and the ability access and edit any notes that are attached to your Date Book or To Do List items. So, unless you’re limping along with only 4K of free memory on your Palm device, give WhatzUp a try.
Now, getting back to the program at hand, once you’ve finished clicking your way through the installer, you’ll be taken to the Desktop To Go Installation Wizard, pictured in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Here’s where you get to pick and choose.
As you can see, you get to choose whether you’d like to synchronize with Outlook or Schedule+ (or a combination of the two). You also get to specify where your data is coming from and going (these settings will only apply to the first HotSync). Once you have made these basic choices, the final screen of the installation wizard lets you go directly to the Desktop To Go application, if you’d like. Otherwise you can HotSync and get right to work.
One word of caution to those who are using Palm Desktop 4.0: you’ll need to download and install an updated version of Desktop To Go. You can get this update at http://support.dataviz.com/support.srch?docid=2094&product=Desktop%20To%20Go.
.H1 General settings
Desktop To Go is a simple and easy-to-use application. I was immediately impressed by the straightforward and uncluttered interface, as shown in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Desktop To Go offers an easy-to-use tabbed interface.
Under the Global tab, you can configure several key setting, as well as choose the user to whom these settings will apply. If you’d like to configure specific settings for each of the four handheld programs, just select the appropriate tab. I’ll get to those in a minute.
The Options tab, pictured in Figure E, provides you with a number of key options, including the ability to bypass Outlook and synchronize any of the handheld applications directly with Palm Desktop.
.FIGPAIR E Have a look at these useful options.
You can also set Desktop To Go so that all your information from Outlook will be regularly backed up in Palm Desktop.
In order to customize how the individual handheld applications interact with Outlook, simply select the appropriate tab. What you’ll see looks something like what’s shown in Figure F.
.FIGPAIR F If you don’t want to think globally, you can always act locally.
If you need to modify any of the settings specified under the Global tab on a module-by-module basis, you can do that. Here you can choose to synchronize the individual handheld application with either Outlook or Schedule+, change the location of your personal data, set the conflict resolution options, change your synchronization method, and set up links to public folders. You can also use the HotSync Manager’s Custom dialog box to change your synchronization method. Both methods are shown in Figure G.
.FIGPAIR G Desktop To Go gives the standard Custom dialog box a bit of a facelift.
By the way, this screen looks the same for each of the four application tabs. If you really want to get under the hood and customize things, you need to choose the Advanced Options button in the lower left corner.
Once you do that, Desktop To Go opens a new dialog box, with a whole new set of tabs. I’ll start off with the Date Book settings.
.H1 Configuring the Date Book settings
Desktop To Go offers a number of ways to customize the interaction between your Palm device’s Date Book and Outlook.
.H2 Date Range
The engineers at DataViz understand that you might not want to carry all the appointments that you have in Outlook around with you on your Palm device, so they’ve made it possible to only transfer those that occur in the immediate past and future. You can control exactly what that time frame is using the Date Range tab, shown in Figure H.
.FIGPAIR H Desktop to Go lets you take archiving one step further.
.H2 Alarms
The Alarms tab lets you choose whether or not you want to synchronize the alarm settings for your appointments on your Palm device with those in Outlook, as shown in Figure I.
.FIGPAIR I To sync or not to sync; an alarming question.
As odd as this choice may sound, it can be quite useful to set Outlook to remind you of an upcoming appointment early in the morning, when you still have time to prepare, and then set your Palm device to warn you 15 minutes before you have to be there. Of course, if you want to synchronize your appointment alarms, you can do that instead.
.H2 Meetings
Outlook’s appointments offers several fields not found on your Palm device; with the Meetings tab, you have the option of specifying how your meeting location information from Outlook will be recorded on your Palm device, as pictured in Figure J.
.FIGPAIR J Thanks to the Meetings tab, you’ll always know where your meeting is.
You can choose to have the meeting location recorded as part of the subject line or in a handheld note. Additionally, you can add the name of the meeting organizer to the note as well.
.H2 Categories
As you may already know, your Palm device is limited to 15 categories per application and one category per item; Outlook, on the other hand, has no such limitation. In order to work around this issue, Desktop To Go lets you choose whether or not you want to synchronize your categories, as shown in Figure K.
.FIGPAIR K Categories can be a tricky issue; choose carefully.
If you choose not to synchronize the categories, you can fully use Outlook’s categories. If you choose to synchronize them, Desktop To Go uses a comparative process to determine how your Outlook categories will be synchronized. The Desktop To Go help file explains this process. If you’d like to check it out, just select the Help button in the lower right-hand corner.
.H2 Private
The Private tab lets you specify whether the items you have marked as Private on your Palm device will be synchronized. While the note in the dialog box does provide some information about how this works, a more detailed explanation can be easily found using the Help button. The Private tab is pictured in Figure L.
.FIGPAIR L You can discretely manage your private items here.
.H2 Global
Don’t confuse this Global tab with that other one. This dialog box simply controls the "global" settings within the Date Book module, by allowing you to return the settings to their default values. Of course, given this tab’s rather focused responsibilities, it kind of makes you wonder why DataViz didn’t just call it the Restore Settings tab. It’s pictured in Figure M.
.FIGPAIR M Go here to restore Desktop To Go’s default settings.
.H1 Configuring the Address Book settings
In addition to the three Advanced Settings (Categories, Private, and Global), which are the same as for the Date Book, the Address Book offers a few unique tabs, which are discussed below.
.H2 Address
Since Outlook offers three different address fields and your Palm device only has one, you’ll want to specify which addresses get downloaded to your handheld when you HotSync, as shown in Figure N.
.FIGPAIR N Addresses are important; make sure you get the right one onto your Palm device.
.H2 Phone
As you probably know, Outlook can hold many more phone numbers and email addresses per contact than your Palm device can. This leaves you with the all-too-common problem of determining which data you want to have synchronized. The Phone Number Priorities tab, pictured in Figure O, lets you prioritize which numbers should be synchronized to the five fields on your Palm device, for those contacts which have six or more phone numbers and/or email addresses.
.FIGPAIR O You can prioritize which numbers get synchronized, should any contact exceed the five field limit on your Palm device.
So, if you have six phone numbers and two email addresses for one or more of your friends, that’s no longer a problem. Here’s where you choose which ones you want to carry around with you. But keep in mind that these settings apply to all contacts.
.H2 Custom Fields
Since Outlook offers many more fields for data storage than your Palm device does, you’ll want to choose up to four fields to transfer to your Palm device. The Custom Fields tab shows you how to make those choices. It’s pictured in Figure P.
.FIGPAIR P Here’s how to get some of that extra data from Outlook onto your Palm device.
.H2 Misc
The Misc tab allows you to choose how email addresses, the File As setting, and your journal entries will be handled. It’s pictured in Figure Q.
.FIGPAIR Q Take a close look at this email setting; it can be a bit tricky.
If you choose Internet only, all valid SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) addresses will be correctly synchronized. Email addresses from your company’s Microsoft Exchange server, on the other hand, will not be synchronized. Instead, the email field will read "Outlook Reserved." This will prevent you from inadvertently overwriting the Exchange server entry.
If you choose All Addresses, then all email addresses will be synchronized. However, this means that the addresses for those contacts in your organization may look something like this: "EX:/o=ORGANIZATION/ou=MYCOMPANY/cn=Recipients/cn=bdraper". This is only slightly more useful that the "Outlook Reserved" notation.
In either case, this could be a bit frustrating because when you’re away from the office, I’m sure you want to have access to your coworkers’ actual email addresses, not some cryptic or otherwise unhelpful entry.
The File As option is fairly straightforward. This setting allows you to specify what information will be used to fill Outlook’s File As field, which doesn’t have a corresponding field on your Palm device. The File As field can be most helpful when sorting your contacts in Outlook.
Finally, if you use Outlook’s journaling feature, you’ll want to check this dialog box’s final option.
.H1 Configuring the To Do List settings
In addition to the three common Advanced Settings (Categories, Private, and Global), the To Do List Settings dialog box offers two other tabs.
.H2 Due Date
Outlook’s Task List is a bit more robust than the To Do list on your Palm device, and it offers a number of task tracking features that aren’t replicated in the handheld application. The Due Date tab lets you choose whether you want to use Outlook’s Task due date or start date as the due date on your Palm device, as shown in Figure R.
.FIGPAIR R Do you want the due date or the start date from Outlook to be transferred to your Palm Device?
.H2 Completed Tasks
The Completed Tasks tab, pictured in Figure S, lets you keep your Palm device clear of clutter by leaving completed (but not yet deleted) tasks in Outlook and not copying them to your Palm device.
.FIGPAIR S Keep your Palm device tidy by only synchronizing your current tasks.
Finally, you may be wondering how Desktop To Go handles the disconnect between Outlook’s three priority settings (High, Normal, and Low) and the To Do List’s five priority settings. The solution? Desktop To Go synchronizes Outlook’s priority settings by assigning High priority items as 1, Normal priority items as 3, and Low priority items as 5. All To Do items created on your Palm device and assigned a priority of 1 or 2 will be labeled as High in Outlook; those with a priority of 4 or 5 will be labeled as Low.
.H1 Configuring the Memo Pad settings
There isn’t anything new here to configure, just the three common tabs from the other modules: Categories, Private Items, and Global. These, of course, can be configured for Memo Pad just as they are in the other modules.
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.H1 Now to wrap it all up
DataViz Desktop To Go is a powerful and easy to use package. If your Palm device didn’t come with PocketMirror, or if you need to synchronize your Palm handheld with Microsoft Schedule+, you really ought to at least download the free trial and take a closer look at all the features this package has to offer.
While there were a few things that bothered me (especially the situation with Exchange server email addresses), for the most part I was extremely impressed with Desktop To Go’s easy-to-use interface and simple, straightforward design. I also liked what WhatzUp had to offer. The package functions as promised, and provides a great way to use Outlook or Schedule+ with your Palm device.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Desktop To Go, visit http://www.dataviz.com/products/desktoptogo/index.html.
For more information on PocketMirror, visit http://www.pocketmirror.com.
For Bob Draper’s article, "Palm Desktop and Microsoft Outlook go head-to-head" in the December 2000 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200012/outlook001.html.
For Desktop To Go’s special pricing for multi-user licenses, visit http://www.dataviz.com/purchase/buy/desktoptogo/dtg_order_pg1.html.
For Bob Draper’s article, "A step-by-step guide to configuring PocketMirror and Microsoft Outlook" in the January 2001 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200101/pocketmirror001.html.
For an updated version of Desktop To Go, visit http://support.dataviz.com/support.srch?docid=2094&product=Desktop%20To%20Go.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Contributing Editor Bob Draper is a technical writer at Westar Corporation’s U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground office. He’s also a Green Bay Fan and a certified Mac addict. He can be reached at palmguy@mac.com.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f3ef
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