Oh and in case any of you think I’m only complaining, I’m hoping that this thread will change the right person’s mind and lead to a new development strategy that will change the results we’ve seen over the last few years and finally fulfill MS’s promises about “native” client support for Exchange on the Mac platform. Seriously, how can anyone argue with a straight face that the 25 issues below constitute “native” client support?
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Sonntag, Paul
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 2:47 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: Feature/Improvement List
All,
Microsoft has claimed in public that the, "Leading Macintosh Software Developer Continues Commitment to Entourage X, Giving Users of Mac OS X Native Exchange Functionality for the First Time" (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Feb03/02-11ExchangeSolutionPR.asp)
And while I appreciate the commitment, the execution has fallen quite short of even a low level of expectation. The bottom line is that users cannot move back and forth between Windows and MacOS X and have the same feature set--not even close (see below)
I am trying to get the following Entourage 2004 limitations/features added to developer's todo list.
1. Entourage 2004 provides a solution for e-mail, group calendaring, scheduling, Global Address Book, and delegation only. Certain advanced Exchange features, such as voting, shared tasks, shared notes, and server-side rules, are not accessible.
2. Entourage 2004 does not provide full public folder or delegation support.
3. Only e-mail messages appear in Entourage. Other item types that might be in the public folder — such as Calendar events, contacts, or tasks — do not appear in Entourage.
4. To have Entourage automatically download the messages in a specific public folder, a user must subscribe to that folder.
5. Public folders cannot be created, dragged, moved, renamed, or deleted by using Microsoft Entourage.
6. Downloading the public folder list from the Exchange server can be very slow if there are many folders.
7. Entourage does not save the list of public folders. The list is downloaded every time the user selects the top-level public folders container. To avoid downloading the folder list frequently, users can subscribe to their favorite public folders in Entourage. Subscribed folders in Entourage are not added to the Outlook public folders Favorites list, nor are folders in the Outlook public folders Favorites list added to subscribed folders in Entourage.
8. Users cannot post directly to a public folder. To post a message, the public folder must have an e-mail address, and the user must have the correct access privileges. Users can also drag existing messages to a public folder, depending on a user’s privileges.
9. The Global Address List is available to Entourage 2004 users only if the Active Directory (AD) Global Catalog (GC) server is exposed to LDAP queries.
10. If mail folders are displayed in Outlook Web Access or Outlook, but not in Entourage, there is an Exchange server limitation. Ensure that the latest Exchange server patches and service packs have been applied to the Exchange server, use Outlook Web Access or Outlook to rename the folders that were not displayed, and then rename them back to their original names.
11. An unexplained failure to synchronize messages in the Entourage error log might be the result of the Exchange server blocking certain DAV verbs that Entourage needs. Read Knowledge Base article 823175, “Fine-Tuning and Known Issues When You Use the Urlscan Utility in an Exchange 2003 Environment” on the Microsoft Web site at http://support.microsoft.com/, or send the issue to your Exchange administrator for troubleshooting.
12. The read status of public folder mails might be lost when the folder is synchronized. There is no workaround for this issue. (WOW!)
13. If users are receiving too many reminders, the Calendar preference Tentatively add events when invitations are received might be enabled. To eliminate this type of reminder, disable this preference. (This preference is disabled by default when an Exchange account is created in Entourage.)
14. Deployments where Outlook 2003 users rename folders that are also synchronized by Entourage 2004 users
15. Entourage provides no offline access to the Global Address List. Offline, recently used addresses obtained from the Global Address List will appear in the most recently used list provided in the To field of an Entourage message.
16. Users cannot browse the Global Address List in Entourage (that is, scroll the Global Address List from A to Z).
17. Entourage does not support multiple Calendar or Contacts folders. This applies to Delegation and public folders as well as to the main account.
18. Entourage does not support setting permissions. Working with Exchange Server 34
19. Entourage does not support disabling the Entourage user interface based on permissions.
20. Entourage does not support mapping from subscribed public folders in Entourage to public folder favorites in Outlook.
21. Entourage does not support Outlook forms, voting buttons, RTF message formatting, or receipt tracking.
22. Entourage does not support server-side rules (including out-of-office messages). Entourage users connecting to an Exchange 2003 server can use Outlook Web Access for out-of-office messages.
23. Entourage does not support password expiration notification or the ability to change the user account password.
24. Entourage does not support quota management.
25. Entourage does not support synchronizing Tasks or Notes to Exchange servers.
Paul Ericson Sonntag, MCSE NT4, MCSE W2K, Exchange Server, Proxy Server, Net+, CCNA
Senior Instructor
Herzing College
Madison, WI
608-663-0819
