Usage Highlights Entourage 2004
From Provider Notes
For more information about ISC's Exchange Service, visit the Provider Web [1].
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Entourage Interface
Entourage allows for flexible arrangement of tool buttons and panes. Users of Eudora, Thunderbird, MeetingMaker and many other popular mail and calendar clients will find an arrangement that they are comfortable or familiar with. Toolbar and Navigation buttons are configurable allowing for cleaning up the interface as a user becomes more familiar with functions and keyboard shortcuts.
Sending a new email
Opening the message editor window can be accomplished either by keyboard shortcut (Apple/command-N), menu option (File/New/Mail Message) or toolbar button. The Entourage message editor will support plain text and HTML formatted messages. When using HTML a fully functional tool bar is available for text formatting. Switching between the formats is easily accomplished by clicking the Use HTML button just above and along the left edge of the text area. When through creating message and addressing, to send it just click the Send button in the button bar along the top of the editing window.
Addressing a new email
Before entitling or entering text into a new message, a non-movable floating Address window appears above the message editor allowing you to address your message. Cc: and Bcc: addressing also are supported in the Address window. Clicking in the viewable message editor window causes the addressing window to close. Adding addresses during or after editing is done by clicking in the Address field of the Editor and entering the address in the appropriate field. Entourage supports the University's LDAP server (directory.upenn.edu) in addition to the Exchange Global Address List (GAL) on exchange.upenn.edu. Configuration instructions for these servers are in the main How To Configure Entourage 2004 For Exchange document.
Reading email
Mailbox contents, such as the Inbox, Sent Items, etc. are listed in a message index pane. When viewing the index it can be configured to "group" messages by Subject, Received (date), Sender, etc. whereby a separator is inserted between groups. When grouped chronologically, the groupings are by day of the week then week then month then year; the actual grouping category depending on how far back you scroll in your index. When grouped by Sender, Subject, etc. the separator contains the common sender, subject, etc. respectively. Or, the index can be viewed in strict sequential order without the grouping separator. See: View/Arrange By... Tip: When using Grouped view, to select all of the messages in a particular group to, for example, archive or reply to, click in the group separator. Single-clicking an index entry will select the message and display it's contents in the Preview pane if Entourage is configured to show Preview pane. Viewing the message in the preview pane will provide minimal header information. Double-clicking the message entry will open the message in a new sizeable window. Full message header information is viewable in a scrollable pane of the message window.
Replying to an email
While viewing an Inbox message either in a preview pane, separate window or just selected in the Inbox index you can send a reply to the sender of the message or a group, if the message was sent to a group of addressees. When using the Reply and Group Reply commands, respectively, by keyboard shortcut (-R, Shift--R), menu option (Message/Reply, Message/Reply to All) or Reply, Reply All toolbar button you will open the editor window with the contents of the original message already addressed to the sender and/or group. -tip: if you select a specific part of the message prior to the reply command only that part of the message will appear in your editor window with your reply.
Out of Office
Entourage 2004 does not provide a way to directly set your Out of Office message on Exchange. To enable your Out of Office message, you will need to use the assistant on the Outlook Web Access Page.
For more explicit instructions on configuring the Out of Office Assistant, please visit the following page:
How_to_set_Out_of_Office_messages_on_Exchange#Outlook_Web_Access_.28OWA.29
Address Book
The Address Book is considered a major component of Entourage along with Mail, Calendaring, Projects, Tasks and Notes. You access Address Book via its navigational button in the Entourage interface. The Address Book allows for searching on multiple LDAP servers and Exchange servers, provides addressing for the Mail feature and is a major Personal Information Management (PIM) feature for members of the enterprise who use handhelds such as Treos and BlackBerrys.
Calendar
Another essential component of Entourage is Calendar. The view of your calendar can be a single day, a workweek, week or month. The workweek can be configured via Entourage preferences as any combination of days of the calendar week such as Monday thru Friday or Sunday thru Wednesday and Friday. The calendar week view is Sunday through Saturday. The default view is whatever state the calendar was left in when Entourage was closed.
Sharing & Delegation of calendar information
Sharing or granting permission to view calendar information allows a colleague to view your calendar information. By default, shared items marked as private are not viewable, although they appear as "busy" time on your calendar.
A delegate is someone who has been granted permission to open another person's folders, create items, and respond to requests on behalf of that person. To become someone's delegate, the account owner must grant delegate access to his or her calendar and email. Delegate Access is a more advanced feature than just sharing your Outlook folders. If you want to grant additional permissions, such as allowing a delegate the ability to create e-mail messages or respond to meeting requests on your behalf, you must use Delegate Access.
Delegation requires special configuration in Entourage 2004. Additional details about sharing and delegation can be found in the Usage Highlights Sharing & Delegation document.
Troubleshooting
Entourage 2004 Does Not Display All Messages
In some cases (usually with large mail stores), Entourage 2004 will not display all incoming messages, even though these messages are viewable in Outlook Web Access. To rebuild the message list, select Empty Cache from the Edit menu.
Meeting organizer not notified when declining a meeting which was previously accepted
When declining a meeting invitation which a user had previously accepted, Entourage 2004 does not send an update to the meeting organizer. Users of Entourage 2004 should send an email alerting the meeting organizer any time they change their reply to a meeting invitation . Entourage 2008 corrects this issue by providing options to delete/decline with notification to the meeting owner.
Backup/Restore of Entourage 2004 data wipes out metadata
This was a known issue that was fixed in the Entourage 2008 Database file structure. Entourage 2008 Databases, when rebuilt, do not lose the metadata information in the database such as reply flags, forward flags, category information and so on.
Related Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles and Blogs
http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_2008_corrects_several_annoying_behaviors_nonexchan.html http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_and_time_machine.html http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html
Please backup the Entourage 2008 Database prior to the initial backup and plan your backup strategy after you read thoroughly the above mentioned blogs.
Auto address lookup/type ahead results in wrong address
To work around this issue turn off address lookup and type ahead, and clear the local address cache file. This will solve the problem for a time, but Entourage will continue to cache new addresses as you send so it may be necessary to clear the local cache periodically.
- In the Entourage menu select Preferences ... The Preferences window will open.
- Under Mail & News Preferences select Compose
- Ensure that the following are unchecked
- Automatically check names when sending messages
- Search directory services when sending messages
- Display a list of recently used addresses when addressing messages
- Click the Clear List button.
- A dialog will ask you if you are sure you want to clear all entries from the recently used address list.
- Click the Clear button.
- Click the OK button.
- Restart Entourage.
This issue is not changed in Entourage 2008 because automatic lookup and type ahead are seen as features.
Historical Data from MeetingMaker
Part of ISC's migration from MeetingMaker to Exchange involved exporting the MeetingMaker calendar data to a .pst file for archival purposes. These files are not in a format that Entourage can use or understand. In order to view these items in Entourage, you must go through the process outlined below on a Windows computer running Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007.
Before proceeding further, it is a good idea to back up your Outlook calendar data in case something goes wrong. Please see Making Local Backups; Backing Up Outlook for more information.
Local Import instructions
These instructions will walk you through using your .pst file with Outlook locally.
- Obtain the .pst file from Networking that you will use for the end-user in question
- Open Outlook. Go to File-->Data File Management
- With the Data Files tab selected, click Add.
- Select Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) and click OK.
- Navigate to the location where you saved your .pst file, select it and click OK.
- Rename the Personal folder to something meaningful, Example:Backup Calendar.
- Click OK, then Close.
Exporting Your Local Calendar to the Exchange Server
Once you have the data file within Outlook, it is a simple procedure to upload the data into a new calendar on your Exchange account.
- Make sure that the calendar data from the .pst file that you attached in the previous steps is selected (Calendar in Backup Calendar if you used the previous naming convention).
- Right-click on the calendar name (listed under My Calendars in the sidebar), and select Copy "Calendar:... from the contextual menu.
- Select Mailbox-username and click OK.
- After a few seconds, you should see a new calendar under My Calendars
- If you want to rename the calendar, right-click on the name and select Rename
- Once you see the message at the bottom of the calendar window that says All folders Synchronized, you can close Outlook
Using Exported Data in Entourage
Once you have imported your .pst calendar to the Exchange server, you can access the data from within Entourage. You will see the second calendar available to you under your list of calendars.
Comparing Calendars in Entourage
There is unfortunately no easy way to view two calendars side-by-side. In order to do so, you will need to do the following:
- Go to File-->New, and select New Main Window
- Arrange the windows side-by-side so that you can see the two calendars at the same time.
If you want to copy events from your backup calendar to the main calendar:
- Select the event in question on the backup calendar
- Right-click the event and select Copy to-->Choose Calendar from the contextual menu.
- Select your main calendar from the list, and click Copy
