Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell

Synchronizing the Palm and Outlook

The act of synchronizing data between the Palm and another application is called a HotSync . In the context of Outlook, this is the process where the records in a specific folder are synchronized with a matching item type on the Palm. A comparison of the relationship on item types between the two programs is shown in Table 16-3.

When a HotSync is requested, the software compares each record on the Palm against the records on the PC. The default action is to Synchronize the files. When this happens, the HotSync software looks at the internal date stamp of each record to decide how to proceed. Table 16-3 shows how records are synchronized. The Actions column define an action on the part of the user, the HotSync Synchronize Command column details how this action is resolved.

Table 16-3. The Palm Synchronize Function

Action	HotSync Synchronize Command
Create new record (Palm or Outlook)	The record is added to the opposite system.
Delete record (Palm or Outlook)	The record is deleted from the opposite system.
Change a record (Palm or Outlook)	The change is updated on the opposite system.
Change the same record in the same way on both systems	No changes are made to either system.
Change the same record in different ways on both systems	The record appears twice on each machine—one is the original entry, the other is the entry made on the opposite system. An error message is logged.
Change a record on the Palm, delete the opposite record ...