Anyone using OSASync Pro?

[randystokes]

My firm finally converted to Outlook. I've been using Outlook with the GTD Outlook Add-in on my laptop for a long time. Now, I'm using Outlook and the GTD Outlook Add-in on my office desktop PC also. I'd like to be able to sync my desktop and laptop Outlook, so I could do planning, etc., on my laptop rather than being tied to my desktop. I thought maybe I could use my Treo 600 to sync the two, but I discovered (I should have thought of this, but hadn't given it any thought) that the Project field in Outlook with the add-in is a custom or user-defined field, so it doesn't sync over via the Treo. Darn!

I've been looking around for a solution, and OSASync Pro might fill the bill. I would still need to work with my tech support people at my office to figure out how to connect the desktop and laptop to do the syncing, but I think that's something we can get worked out.

What I need to know is whether anyone out there is using OSASync Pro to do what I'm trying to do. How is it working? Any issues, challenges, etc.?

Randy

 

[Unregistered]

Been using OSASync for a month...

and am new to GTD (1 week only). I work from both home-office and office-office and my current OSASync setup is via an ftp server.
So far, the two annoyances I've noticed are:
1. While the projects (as task super-categories) do sync and the subtasks (or action items) stay with their projects, the projects themselves (i.e., the ones found under Tools-->Options-->GTD) do not sync. It appears the place that these are stored are in the single xml file in settings and you probably don't want to sync that.
2. If you forget to sync on a computer you made modifications to, you can easily get out of sync. Example: I add task A1 to project XYZ on my work computer. I forget to sync and turn it off and go home. I get home and add task A2 to project XYZ on my home computer and I sync. When I sync again from my work computer, it will have tasks A1 and A2, while my home computer will only have task A1...I'm not sure that this happens all the time, but it has happened enough to make me more diligent with my syncs.

Hope this helps you.

 

[Unregistered]

I used OsaSyncPro for over a year and finally at the end of 2004, i threw it out. I lost too much data as a result of it's bugs.

When it gets out of sync - and it will - then it drops, through seemingly random choice, various elements. Fortunately, my contacts and calendar were backed up. However, by examining Calendars on two different OsaSync'ed PCs with the backup, I realised it had been quietly deleting items for months. It took many hours to recover the data.

Further, if anything out of the ordinary happens, it throws a meaningless Outlook error code message. The developer was very unhelpful about this, claiming that he couldn;t possibly deal with all of the errors from Outlook. In an Outlook plug-in?

FWIW: it worked perfectly through the 30 day evaluation!

B

 

[randystokes]

Any other ways to sync custom fields/categories

OK, so it appears OSASync Pro isn't the answer. Has anyone come up with a way to sync the custom fields/categories created by the GTD Outlook Add-In as between Outlook and a Palm device (or, as an alternative, between two different computers)?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Randy

 

[tonester]

I believe KeySuite from Chapura can handle custom fields and sync with multiple PCs.

This is from the website blurb, I haven't tried it myself (yet).

Regards,
Tony

 

[joeycan]

Key Suite worked for me for synching two computers via palm, it does sync the project field, you just have to remember to do update task actions after every sync so it will go into the right fields in the add-in.

Cheers

Joey

 

[randystokes]

Key Suite worked for me for synching two computers via palm, it does sync the project field, you just have to remember to do update task actions after every sync so it will go into the right fields in the add-in.

Cheers

Joey

Could you give me some more details? I'm also using KeySuite, but when I synced between my Treo 600 and my desktop computer, then synced my Treo 600 to my laptop, the Project field info wasn't being synced to the laptop. My understanding was that there was no where on the Palm version of the Key Suite apps to which that custom field could be synced, which is why the info wasn't being passed to my laptop -- i.e., it wasn't being passed from the desktop to the Treo, 'cause there wasn't a field in KeyTasks where the info for that field gets stored.

If you can help me get this to work I would be eternally grateful!

Randy

 

[randystokes]

Could you give me some more details? I'm also using KeySuite, but when I synced between my Treo 600 and my desktop computer, then synced my Treo 600 to my laptop, the Project field info wasn't being synced to the laptop. My understanding was that there was no where on the Palm version of the Key Suite apps to which that custom field could be synced, which is why the info wasn't being passed to my laptop -- i.e., it wasn't being passed from the desktop to the Treo, 'cause there wasn't a field in KeyTasks where the info for that field gets stored.

If you can help me get this to work I would be eternally grateful!

Randy

Let me follow up on this myself. I have tried -- again -- to set this up to synchronize. I can get all my tasks, etc. from my desktop to my laptop via my Treo 600. However, it doesn't appear that my tasks come over with the Project "attached" to them. That is, I get a long list of tasks listed under the Project: None heading. This is true even when I do an Update Task Actions. The only change I see is that the Projects themselves -- i.e., the Project heading and the "task" that's automatically created with the same name as the project when you create a new "task" and assign its Action as Projects -- do appear.

Let me be a little clearer. On my desktop computer, I have created lots of tasks, most of which are assigned to a Project. When I create a Project itself, I create a new task (Cntl-Shift-K), then give it a name and assign it the Action of Projects from the Action drop-down. Save and Close. Now, I can create a new task, assign it to a Project from the Project drop-down, and give it an Action -- such as @Office. Save and Close. Now, if I go to the Current View window in Outlook Tasks, I can select the Active Tasks by Project (GTD) radio button, and all my Projects show up, in alphabetical order (including the one I just created), with my tasks under the appropriate Project.

I then sync my desktop to my Treo 600 using KeySuite and its conduits. I then sync my Treo to my laptop. All of my TASKS get added to my task list in Outlook, and all of the Category information goes along with it, BUT the Project for each Task does not transfer over. I tried running the Update Task Actions, and that doesn't seem to do anything for the various tasks I've created, although each Project shows up when I view Active Tasks by Project on my laptop, but with only the automatically created "Task" with the same name as the Project -- all my own tasks are grouped under the Project: None heading.

Again, any help would be appreciated.

Randy

 

[Jogesh]

I use a software called Allway Sync to sync my desktop to my laptop, that is, if you don't need it to be synched via your Treo or other PDA. The way to do that is via a LAN connection from your desktop to your laptop. If that is not possible, you can use an external drive and transfer your data to it, then later transfer it from the hard drive to your laptop. The software is remarkably easy to use: I had used Osasync before and found it very buggy too. My suggestion is to sync the root directory in Outlook (.pst file) between your PCs. I have found my GTD folders and Projects exactly the same in both after the sync. Hope this helps. Cheers!

Jogesh