Sync RULES between Outlook (XP) and Entourage (OSX)

[occamsrazor]

Hi,

I'm using Outlook on WinXP on a PC laptop, and Entourage 2008 on OS X on both a MacMini and MacBook Pro. I have one corporate Exchange account and 2 or 3 IMAP accounts.
It's all set up and working fine. The only problem I have is I use quite a lot of mail filtering Rules, and can't find any way to keep them in sync between machines. The Exchange rules are of course taken care of server-side, though existing rules don't seem to appear in the Rules window to allow being changed... does anyone know how rules in Entourage for exchange servers work?
But the bigger problem is all the rules I have setup in Outlook for my IMAP accounts - is there a way to export/import these into Entourage on either a one-off or regular basis?

Thanks....

 

[MisterMe]

The rules are not on the server, the rules are on each client. You need to independently synchronize both Entourage and Outlook with the Exchange server.

 

[occamsrazor]

My understanding was MS Exchange servers did server-side rules and message-filtering, and that the client (e.g. Outlook) just handled the creation/managing of those rules, which were then uploaded to the server, which did the actual filtering.... at least it appears to happen like this... but am happy to stand corrected.
With my exchange account the existing Outlook rules don't appear in Entourage's rules section, however the mails are still getting filtered correctly. I found this in Entourage Help:

I don't see my rules for my Exchange account
Cause: Entourage cannot display or edit rules that were created in Outlook or Outlook Web Access.
Solution: Create additional rules in Entourage.
Solution: Use a Windows-based computer to edit or disable the rules.

So it seems that the Exchange server does do server-side rule filtering for rules created by Outlook, but Entourage cannot create or edit those rules, it can only do client-side rules which would only apply when using Entourage.

The IMAP rules however, are clearly client-side.

You need to independently synchronize both Entourage and Outlook with the Exchange server.

Can you expand on what you mean by this, and how to do it? My problem isn't really the exchange account, it's trying to sync the IMAP client rules between Outlook and Entourage, and there doesn't seem to be a way to import rules into Entourage.

Many thanks...

 

[nadyne]

For Exchange, Outlook creates server-side rules. That is, the rules are run directly on Exchange. For the rules that you've created in Outlook, you don't need to do any synchronising of them to Entourage. Exchange will run the rules and take care of all of that.

Entourage 2008 does not create server-side rules. At this time, there is no way to create server-side rules from your Mac. There also isn't any way to import your Outlook IMAP rules to Entourage. I'm not aware of any third-party methods to get around this.

Sorry that I don't have better news for you. In Entourage, go to the Help menu, then select "Send Feedback". Tell us why this matters to you, how it impacts you, and what you're doing to work around it. This goes into our database of feedback, and helps us make decisions about what features to add in the future. It's much more impactful if I can go into that database and search on "outlook" and provide metrics for how many times this is requested, rather than me being in a meeting and saying "I think that I remember this one guy on a website saying that he wanted to do this" (not the least of which because this relies on my sometimes questionable memory ).

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[occamsrazor]

Thanks for your useful reply Nadyne, appreciate the concrete info as to what the situation is. This is pretty disappointing, as having just switched over to Mac/Entourage from Windows/Outlook, I now have no way at all of creating or modifying server-side rules without running Outlook on a PC, which would seem to be a rather big omission.
The inability to import IMAP rules I can live with, but not being able to edit the server-side exchange rules is a real problem - it's one of the best things about exchange, and affects things like receiving my email on my mobile phone.

 

[nadyne]

The inability to import IMAP rules I can live with, but not being able to edit the server-side exchange rules is a real problem - it's one of the best things about exchange, and affects things like receiving my email on my mobile phone.

I totally understand. My iPhone is connected to Exchange, too. I had a bunch of rules set up in Entourage that managed my incoming mail, but that didn't help my iPhone at all. I had to spend a lot of time in Outlook Web Access to set up server-side rules so that I wouldn't completely kill the battery on my iPhone (I get LOTS of mail!), and every time I need to add or edit one, I have to do the same thing.

We've been continually improving our Exchange support over time. Support for server-side rules is definitely something that we're aware of (after all, we're Exchange users too), but it hasn't yet hit the top of the list yet.

We announced Entourage for Web Services earlier this year, and it will hit final release very soon. If you're using Exchange 2007 or later, it brings new Exchange functionality like tasks, notes, and category sync. There's also huge performance improvements there, because we completely ripped out our backend for talking to Exchange (which was done via WebDAV) and replaced it with the new Exchange Web Services.

If your company is fast on Exchange updates, Exchange 2010 (which is in public beta now) brings a bunch of improvements for Mac users. OWA has full support for Safari and Firefox, which is how I updated all of my server-side rules. I've been using pre-alpha versions of it for months, and having the full OWA is really nice.

Regards,
Nadyne.

 

[occamsrazor]

Thanks for your helpful replies Nadyne.... I just tried using OWA under WinXP with IE, the premium version, and see what you mean about rules in OWA. It's not bad, enough to get by on, and would be good to have under FF for OSX. But seeing as my company is a slow adopter I guess if I want server-side rule-editing I'm going to have to stick to Outlook/XP for the foreseeable future.

There is really nothing to compare to Outlook, unfortunately. I have to say as a user of both platforms Outlook is a really good application, particularly if you're using it with an exchange server. Except when it hangs all the time when checking IMAP email

 

[occamsrazor]

We announced Entourage for Web Services earlier this year, and it will hit final release very soon. If you're using Exchange 2007 or later, it brings new Exchange functionality like tasks, notes, and category sync. There's also huge performance improvements there, because we completely ripped out our backend for talking to Exchange (which was done via WebDAV) and replaced it with the new Exchange Web Services.

Will that be dependent on servers being upgraded, or is it just the client that will need upgrading?