Brithdays & Anniversaries get recreated from time to time - how to stop this?

[Michael Moser]

Apparently Outlook occasionally (I guess at the begin of a year)
recreates recurring appointments from the birthdays and anniversaries
that it finds in my Contacts-entries.

What's annying about this is, that for lots of birthdays I now have
duplicates, i.e. TWO appointments.

And what's desastrous is that all these new appointments have a
reminder set at 12pm of that day. Thus, in the last couple of days
repeatedly the alarm of my PDA has gone off to remind me of some
friends birthday and woke up me and my wife at midnight (which each
time caused some major quarrel and my PDA almost thrown at my head...
:-( ).

How can one stop this stupid recreation of birthdays and esp. how can
one stop new birthdays and anniversaries from having a reminder set?

Michael

 

[Brian Tillman]

\> And what's desastrous is that all these new appointments have a

reminder set at 12pm of that day. Thus, in the last couple of days
repeatedly the alarm of my PDA has gone off to remind me of some
friends birthday and woke up me and my wife at midnight (which each
time caused some major quarrel and my PDA almost thrown at my head...
:-( ).

There's a simple fix to this: turn off the PDA's sound before you go to bed.

 

[JeffG]

\> And what's desastrous is that all these new appointments have a

There's a simple fix to this: turn off the PDA's sound before you go to bed.

An even easier one is to break it - or to keep peace in the family,
let her throw it at you ;-)

First problem: duplicate entries. When setting the synch on your
PDA, don't let them actually Synch unless you have to. Use Outlook to
overwrite the handheld and you'll never have duplicates. That's my
workaround, I've had this problem with several PDA users in our
organization.

If you routinely change the PDA data and need it to update Outlook,
then you'll have to actually synchronize and you'll have to make sure
everything is set up EXACTLY right in your synch software, and on the
PDA itself. There are a lot of options, and setting them up isn't
always obvious. Pay special attention to the "conflict resolution"
setup and I'll leave it at this: Outlook isn't creating the
duplicates, your PDA is...

The alarm issue comes from a default setting on either Outlook or the
PDA, and maybe both. Change all your defaults to not set alarms if
that's what you really want. In Outlook 2003, you can change the
defaults at TOOLS/OPTIONS, and on the "Preferences" tab, clear the
"default reminder" checkbox. Note that clearing this will require you
to actually add a reminder to any new appointments you add...

And also note that your PDA probably has similar default options
somewhere too...

Always more words than help ;-)
JeffG

 

[Michael Moser]

\> And what's desastrous is that all these new appointments have a

There's a simple fix to this: turn off the PDA's sound before you go
to bed.
--

Yeah - and then I forget to re-enable it the next morning and miss the
first (few) appointment(s) that day. If that's the solution then I
don't need a PDA! I could miss my appointments without one just as
well....

Michael

 

[Michael Moser]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 09:17:22 -0500, "Brian Tillman"

...
First problem: duplicate entries. When setting the synch on your
PDA, don't let them actually Synch unless you have to. Use Outlook
to
overwrite the handheld and you'll never have duplicates. That's my
workaround, I've had this problem with several PDA users in our
organization.

If you routinely change the PDA data and need it to update Outlook,
then you'll have to actually synchronize and you'll have to make
sure
everything is set up EXACTLY right in your synch software, and on
the
PDA itself.

I often need to change data on the PDA, so just copying data one way
is not an option for me.

There are a lot of options, and setting them up isn't
always obvious. Pay special attention to the "conflict resolution"
setup and I'll leave it at this: Outlook isn't creating the
duplicates, your PDA is...

Sounds like a (yet another) bug in ActiveSync (the MS SW that I use to
sync the beast) then. Gush!

The alarm issue comes from a default setting on either Outlook or
the
PDA, and maybe both. Change all your defaults to not set alarms if
that's what you really want. In Outlook 2003, you can change the
defaults at TOOLS/OPTIONS, and on the "Preferences" tab, clear the
"default reminder" checkbox. Note that clearing this will require
you
to actually add a reminder to any new appointments you add...

Compared with the current situation I consider that a minor problem...

And also note that your PDA probably has similar default options
somewhere too...

Always more words than help ;-)
JeffG

Thanks anyway!
Michael

 

[Brian Tillman]

If that's the solution then I
don't need a PDA! I could miss my appointments without one just as
well....

LOL!