Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Synchronize Your Sent Items Folder
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "ARTICLE" @ 12:00 PM
Now that ActiveSync 3.5+ and Pocket PC 2002 allow you to synchronize multiple folders, I have been wanting to synchronize my Sent Items folder. Well, ActiveSync doesn't allow that for some reason. (Drafts aren't allowed either, but there is a good reason for that - synchronized drafts will lose formatting and come back to the desktop as plain text.) There is a way around the Sent Items folder though. If you are interested, click the Read this article link below.
Ok, so you are interested in synchronizing sent items using ActiveSync 3.5 or 3.6 with your Pocket PC 2002. To accomplish this, you will need to set up a rule in Outlook 2000 or Outlook XP on your desktop.
First, open Outlook and select Tools|Rules Wizard then select New. You should see a dialog box like Figure 1.
Figure 1
Select the "Start from a blank rule" option and then highlight the line that says "Check messages after sending." Press Next.
Figure 2
Don't check anything on the Conditions list. Press Next. You will get a message that says "This rule will be applied to every message." Here, you could get fancy and exclude certain emails you send based on who they were sent to or what they contained. I won't get in to that here, but you can always come back later and edit the rule and add your criteria here. Press Yes.
Figure 3
In Figure 3, you tell Outlook what to do with your sent message. You want to "move a copy to a specific folder." Check that box, then at the bottom of the dialog box, click on the "specified" link.
Figure 4
Here you will select the folder you want the message copied to. You can also create a new folder. I called mine "Sent-Dupe" for duplicates.
Figure 5
Finally, name your rule. Outlook may warn you that this is a client only rule. If you are in an Exchange environment, that means that if you are offline, the rule won't work until you connect with Outlook.
Once you are done, remember to go into ActiveSync's options and check this new folder for synchronization.
There are a few problems with this approach you should be aware of:
• If you are in an Exchange environment, emails sent from other terminals or through Outlook Web Access won't be processed by this rule. That is the real significance of the "Client Only" warning. Outlook itself is the program that executes the rule, not the Exchange Server.
• For some reason, emails sent from your Pocket PC, through ActiveSync and finally through Outlook aren't trapped by this rule. I can find no workaround for this and know of no reason why the Rules Wizard ignores emails sent via ActiveSync.
• Emails will stack up in your duplicate folder on the desktop. I set up an autoarchive process to automatically delete any emails in here older than 5 days. If you ever really need the deleted emails, they are retained in your real Sent Items folder.
• Emails copied to this folder are marked as unread. Again, I can find no workaround for this. No Outlook rules have the ability to mark a message read.
This isn't perfect, but it does allow you to at least have your sent items with you without CC'ing yourself. Now you can whip out your Pocket PC in a meeting and say "I sent you an email about that three days ago, so don't sit there and say you didn't know anything about it" and proceed to read it to them. :)
Ok, so you are interested in synchronizing sent items using ActiveSync 3.5 or 3.6 with your Pocket PC 2002. To accomplish this, you will need to set up a rule in Outlook 2000 or Outlook XP on your desktop.
First, open Outlook and select Tools|Rules Wizard then select New. You should see a dialog box like Figure 1.
Figure 1
Select the "Start from a blank rule" option and then highlight the line that says "Check messages after sending." Press Next.
Figure 2
Don't check anything on the Conditions list. Press Next. You will get a message that says "This rule will be applied to every message." Here, you could get fancy and exclude certain emails you send based on who they were sent to or what they contained. I won't get in to that here, but you can always come back later and edit the rule and add your criteria here. Press Yes.
Figure 3
In Figure 3, you tell Outlook what to do with your sent message. You want to "move a copy to a specific folder." Check that box, then at the bottom of the dialog box, click on the "specified" link.
Figure 4
Here you will select the folder you want the message copied to. You can also create a new folder. I called mine "Sent-Dupe" for duplicates.
Figure 5
Finally, name your rule. Outlook may warn you that this is a client only rule. If you are in an Exchange environment, that means that if you are offline, the rule won't work until you connect with Outlook.
Once you are done, remember to go into ActiveSync's options and check this new folder for synchronization.
There are a few problems with this approach you should be aware of:
• If you are in an Exchange environment, emails sent from other terminals or through Outlook Web Access won't be processed by this rule. That is the real significance of the "Client Only" warning. Outlook itself is the program that executes the rule, not the Exchange Server.
• For some reason, emails sent from your Pocket PC, through ActiveSync and finally through Outlook aren't trapped by this rule. I can find no workaround for this and know of no reason why the Rules Wizard ignores emails sent via ActiveSync.
• Emails will stack up in your duplicate folder on the desktop. I set up an autoarchive process to automatically delete any emails in here older than 5 days. If you ever really need the deleted emails, they are retained in your real Sent Items folder.
• Emails copied to this folder are marked as unread. Again, I can find no workaround for this. No Outlook rules have the ability to mark a message read.
This isn't perfect, but it does allow you to at least have your sent items with you without CC'ing yourself. Now you can whip out your Pocket PC in a meeting and say "I sent you an email about that three days ago, so don't sit there and say you didn't know anything about it" and proceed to read it to them. :)
