.KEYWORD ezsync
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE EasySync is as easy as 1-2-3
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY This article is for Lotus Notes lovers (and those who want to be) only. It mentions such things as underwear, R5, lust and something dirty-sounding called Slow Sync-ing. Please proceed with caution.
.AUTHOR Dan Velasco
Note: This article is for Lotus Notes lovers (and wannabes) only. It mentions such things as underwear, R5, lust and something dirty-sounding called Slow Sync-ing. Please proceed with caution.
When it comes right down to it, good synchronization software is like your underwear. If installed correctly, it’s not something that you really think about much during the day. Sure, you might think about other people’s underwear, but let’s get back to real core issue–you want something that will reliably and seamlessly synchronize your vital data between the Notes databases you love so much and the Palm computer you lust over. That’s where EasySync 3.0a from Lotus can help. Not with the lust, mind you, but with the seamless synchronization.
EasySync 3.0a is really composed of five conduits that integrate seamlessly into your HotSync manager software. These conduits synchronize the following information: email, calendar, addresses, To Do lists and memos. As you can with HotSync, you can adjust the synchronization settings for each of these conduits separately.
But EasySync is not without its caveats, and those caveats have to do with compatibility issues and the need to synchronize with other non-Lotus software programs. But many of those caveats might not apply to you and/or can be easily avoided. I’ll discuss those a little later in this review.
.H1 The five conduits, blow by blow
Let’s take a quick look at each of the five conduits:
.H2 Notes Mail
The email conduit is by far the most robust and fun to customize. To get to the customization options for email, like for all of the conduits, you simply right-click on the HotSync manager icon in your system tray and choose Custom. When you open up the Notes Mail conduit, you’ll see the dialog box in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A The Notes Mail Conduit is the most fun to customize.
Two of the best features of the mail conduit are the Inbox Options and the Custom Options.
.H2 Inbox Options
It’s great to have your Notes email in the palm of your hand but, in reality, most of us will usually use it as an occasional reference rather than as another platform on which to compose and manage messages. EasySync can be set to replicate your entire inbox or a subset of documents in your inbox.
For example, you can choose to replicate just the new messages that you have received since your last HotSync. Or you can synchronize everything after a certain date. You can see what the Inbox Options dialog box looks like in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B Most users should be able to find some setting they like in the Inbox Options dialog box.
One of the features that I found useful was the checkbox to clear the inbox on the handheld before transferring the messages. This enables me to have a perfect mirror copy of my Notes inbox on my handheld after syncing.
.H2 Custom Options
One of my favorite features is the ability to synchronize the contents of a particular mail folder. You can see how to set this up in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C The Custom Options dialog box lets you specify a mail folder to synchronize with your Palm organizer.
I like this a lot because I can synchronize emails concerning my top project of the week or month. This way I always have these important messages at my fingertips and don’t have to make them stay in the inbox so I can access them. I would like to see the ability to replicate with more folders in the future, but, like I mention above, I could always write an agent to do this. Most end-users, however, aren’t programmers and can’t.
.H2 Notes Calendar
The Notes Calendar conduit is pretty straightforward, as you can see in Figure D. It offers the option to Synchronize the files, have the desktop overwrite the handheld or to do nothing. You can also set a "Slow Sync" option for this and the other conduits that I’ll describe later. The only thing that disappointed me about the conduit was that it doesn’t allow the ability to have the handheld overwrite the desktop, something that the product literature says it does. This is also true for the address, To Do and journal conduits as well.
.FIGPAIR D The Notes Calendar conduit settings are similar to those for the address, to do and journal conduits.
.H2 Notes Address
The Notes Address conduit options are pretty much the same as the Notes Calendar conduit options. The exception is the ability to map custom fields between your PalmPilot and your Notes Personal Address Book. You can see this in Figure E.
.FIGPAIR E The Notes Address conduit allows you to map custom fields as well.
.H2 Notes To Do
This is a straightforward conduit that allows you to synchronize your To Do list. There is one thing to be aware of, however, and that is in the different ways that Notes and your Palm device prioritize tasks. Notes allows you to set a priority to 1, 2 or 3 and your Palm device allows you to set the priority to 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Here is a quote from the help section for To Do synchronization:
.QUOTE Your handheld To Do tasks with priorities of 1, 2, or 3 have the same priority in Notes after you synchronize, while tasks with priorities of 4 or 5 on your handheld will be unprioritized in Notes. Items with no Notes priority become Priority 4 in your handheld. Notes tasks retain their priorities when synchronized.
.H2 Notes Journal
There is just one caveat with synchronizing with your Notes personal journal: the file must be named JOURNAL.NSF or synchronization will not take place.
.H1 Strengths
In my opinion, EasySync has the following strengths:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Synchronization with Lotus Notes R5: Although I didn’t test this feature, EasySync 3.0a will now synchronize with your information stored in Lotus Notes R5 databases. Note that versions 2.1 and earlier will not synchronize with Notes R5 and you’ll need to upgrade to 3.0a to do this.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Ease of use: EasySync’s integration with the HotSync manager makes it very easy to use. There is no separate program to run or weird configuration documents to figure out. You simply change the HotSync options just like you would if you were synchronizing with the Palm Desktop software.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Flexibility: EasySync is modular in design, meaning that if you don’t want to synchronize all of your information with Notes, you can get a separate conduit to synchronize specific information with another program. Of course, if it’s something other than the Palm Desktop for which you already have the conduits, you’re going to have to fork out some more money.
.END_LIST
.H1 Do you like to do it slow, baby?
Another interesting feature of EasySync deserves its own paragraph. It’s the Slow Sync feature, and you can see a description of it below that I’ve taken straight from the help files:
.QUOTE Check the Slow Sync box if you want EasySync to examine each record on both the handheld and Notes as it performs synchronization. This is useful if some documents are not being synchronized, but no other problem is apparent. In normal use, you should not need to select this option.
Basically, this is just one of those features that makes you feel warm and fuzzy (debugging tools are always appreciated). It also brings up the point that EasySync does not really set speed records for synchronization in normal mode, so if you use the Slow Sync option you might want to schedule a coffee or bathroom break at the same time.
.H1 Compatibility caveats
As with any product dealing with multiple versions, there are some things to be watch out for. Here are a few:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Don’t use EasySync on a machine running multiple versions of Notes. I discovered this after having installed and configured it on a system with both Notes 4.6 and 5.0 running. I now have it working on this system, but not until after I renamed my Notes R5 NOTES.INI file and re-added an entry in my registry for Notes 4.0 (which I think the R5 install deleted). My recommendation, therefore, is the same as that I received from Lotus: do not run EasySync on a computer running multiple versions of Notes. This may be true for other conduits as well, so just be careful.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET EasySync 2.1 and R5 don’t mix. Versions 2.1 and earlier of EasySync will not work with R5. The good news is that if you have version 2.1 or above you can upgrade to version 3.0a of EasySync for free. Contact Lotus for more information.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Bleeding edge people need version 3.0: The other compatibility caveat is that if you have a Palm IIIx, Palm V, or IBM Workpad 3C, you must use EasySync 3.0a because EasySync 2.1 and earlier are not compatible with these devices and HotSync 3.01.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Before you rush to switch, if you are going to use EasySync after having used another Notes/Domino synchronization product, or vice-versa, first synchronize with your old product first and please read the Read Me file for the new product thoroughly. You might have to set up synchronization to be unidirectional at first in order to avoid duplicates. Or it might suggest that you delete the information off of your Palm device entirely with a hard-reset and then synchronize so that all of the information from Notes synchronizes with your Palm organizer.
.END_LIST
.H1 Conclusion
Overall, I’m pretty happy with EasySync. It makes me feel loyal to Lotus when I use it and focuses me on making the most of synchronizing with the information in my Notes databases. I now can use group scheduling capabilities built into Notes and be in sync with the other members of my team. And perhaps I can write some agents to filter out some of the more juicy entries from my journal. This potential for future functionality, both what is already available and what will be available, helps me to be content with using this product when there are others out there that I can use. And, when you find good synchronization software, just like when you find a favorite brand of briefs, you’re pretty willing to stay with what works.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on EasySync, visit Lotus at http://www.lotus.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Contributing Editor Dan Velasco is the Information Manager for the Worldwide Sales & Marketing Department at Adecco in Redwood City, CA. He is also an R4 and R5 CLP Principal Application Developer and a R4 Principal System Administrator. You can reach him via email at dan.velasco@adecco.com or on the Web at http://dan.velasco.com.
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