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Synchronization Guide

To get the most out of FinchSync it is necessary to understand the concept of the the synchronization process. FinchSync IS NOT just a replacement for ActiveSync. It does NOT just exchange every item it finds on a PocketPC with a server it connects. Please make sure, that you READ and UNDERSTAND the following chapter about using 'categories' with FinchSync on your PocketPC.

Further, while developing FinchSync large efforts had been undertaken to provide the best synchronization possible. Due to some structural differences between Mozilla products on one side and Pocket Outlook on the other side, some points must be considered to avoid incompatibilities, which are discussed here.

New Syntax for the field 'Category'

While the Mozilla products can manage different address book and calendar resources, Pocket Outlook offers just one address book and calendar.

Further there might be more than one PC with which the PocketPC will be synchronized.

Picture: Diagram of a synchronisation setup with two PCs, each with multiple SyncSources.

The diagram shows an example of an typical setup. There is a PC at home, containing private contacts like a family addressbook, an addressbook with the members of your tennis club and a calendar with private events.

On the other hand there is a PC at the office, containing an adressbook with customers and a calendar with meetings.

One goal of the FinchSync development was to keep items from different servers and sync sources separate on your PocketPC. This means, that you can synchronize your private information at home AND your bussines information at the office with your Pocket PC. FinchSync tracks the origin of each contact, appointment or task, so that your private information on the PocketPC is NOT synchronized with PC at the office. 

That means, that your contacts from the tennis club will not end up in the customer addressbook at your office.

This is done using a special syntay for an item's category field on your PocketPC. The category of an item (contact, appointment or task) defines the origin of that item.

The category is build using the following syntax:

< server name>:<syncsource name>:<original category>

If you synchronize items from the PC to your PocketPC, the original category is modified according to this syntax and stored in PocketOutlook.

Following the above example, you have two servers configured on your PocketPC: 'Home' and 'Office'

Say you have stored your wife's birthday in your family calendar on your home PC. You've choosen the category 'Birthday' in Sunbird for this event. You have installed FinchSync server on that PC and setup a SyncSource named 'MyEvents' for this calendar file.

After synchronization of this item, you will find this on your PocketPC with the category set to:

Home:MyEvents:Birthday

This means: The item has the category 'Birthday', and is stored in the SyncSource 'MyEvents' on the server 'Home'.

Say you find an event of the category 'Office:Meetings:Birthday', can you figure out, from where this item originates? Maybe it's the birthdayparty of your boss, and this sure comes from the calendar on your office PC.

So if you add a new contact on your Pocket PC. How can FinchSync decide to which addressbook this contact shall belong? Right, you have to choose the correct category for this item. To store the address of your new tennis partner, type 'HomePC:TennisClub:Partners' to the category field. Since Thunderbird's addressbook does not support categories, the last part is optional: 'HomePC:TennisClub' will do.

That means on the other hand, if you add a new item and you wish to synchronize it with an external source, you MUST choose a category. This should be easy, because all available categories for external sources are listed in Pocket Outlook's category selection dialog after the first synchronization.

If you choose a simple category like 'Personal' or not any category at all for your new item, the item will not be synchronized at all and is only available on your PocketPC.

Note: If you have problems with new items, that will not show up in an external source after synchronization, the category field is not set correctly.

You can even move a contact from one addressbook to an other by changing the items category. The contact will be removed from one addressbook and added to the other. 

Note: There is a drawback in 'misusing' the category field for this purpose: Only one category is allowed per item. An item can not be part of two or more categories when synchronized with external sources. All items belonging to more than one category are ignored.

Category mapping

Some users complained about that 'strange' category fields. That's why category mapping was introduced.

Since the concept of FinchSync is based on the category syntax describe above, it can not be avoided. But it can be hidden from the user. The idea is simple. You tell FinchSync:

Listen! If a contact has the category 'Friends', it belongs to 'Home:Family:Friends' !

You can do this, by adding a category mapping on your PocketPC:

Category 'Friends' for type contacts is mapped to 'Home:Family:Friends'

From now on all contacts, existing or new, with the category 'Friends' will be synchronized with SyncSource 'Family' on server 'Home'.

A mapping it bound to an item type. You may configure different mappings for contacts on one side and appointment and tasks on the other side.

Still to complicated? Just add a 'Default' mapping. A default mapping just matches everything, that does not match any other mapping.

If you add a default mapping for type 'Appointment/Task' like:

Default for type appointment/task mapped to 'Office:Meetings'

If you add a new event to your calendar with the category set to 'External', it will appear on your office PC in Sunbird under the category 'External'.

You may still add new events to your private calendar, choosing the category 'Home:MyEvents'

If you just don't care about multiple sources ot servers, an easy setup would be:

On the PC:

1. setup a SyncSource for your addressbook, named 'adrbook'.
2. setup a SyncSource for your calendar, named 'events'.
3. configure a client and add both sources the the clients list.

On the Pocket PC:

1. Add a server, named 'PC'.
2. Test the connection.
3. Add a default mapping for type contact: default mapped to PC:adrbook
4. Add a default mapping for type appointment/task: default mapped to PC:events

This would behave like ActiveSync, synchronizing every contact, event or task between your PC and PocketPC. No hustling around with category fields.

You see, FinchSync offers a powerful system to manage different calendars, addressbooks spread over mutliple PCs just from your PocketPC. Or you keep it simple using default mappings.

Restrictions Synchronisation:  Pocket Outlook

Contacts

There are no restrictions in exchanging contacts between Pocket Outlook and a Mozilla address book. Fields that are not supported on both sides will not be synchronized.

For example: Pocket Outlook does not support the 'Nicknames' field, Mozilla does not support the fields 'Category' or 'Children'.

Appointments

While appointments synchronize quite well between Pocket Outlook and Mozilla Calendar, a few restrictions concerning recurring appointments must be considered.

A lot of effort has been put into synchronization of recurring events. Mozilla and Pocket Outlook use a different syntax to define recurrences and FinchSync must translate between those two. Some settings in Pocket Outlook are not compatible with Mozilla Calendar and should be avoided. FinchSync detects those settings and reports incompatibilities during synchronization.

The following recurrence patterns should be avoided:

1. Monthly recurrence at a specified day of a month, starting in a month with less days. Example: 'At the 31th every month', starting at 30.6.2005. (June has only 30 days.)
2. Monthly recurrence, using 'the <xxx> weekday' or 'the <xxx> weekend day'.
3. Monthly recurrence, using 'The last day of every .. month' starting in a month with less than 31 days.
4. A single event of a recurring event series may be deleted from the series, but MUST NOT (!) be changed !
5. For recurring all day events lasting more than one day, removing any events should be avoided. Example: There is an all day event, lasting from Monday to Tuesday, repeating every 2 weeks. Don't delete any occurrence out of this series.

Some rules for your reminder / alarm settings: 

1. Don't use reminder settings with more than 23 hours on recurring events. (See FAQ topic nr. 6 for details).
2. Use only reminder/alarms, that go off before the appoinment, since Pocket Outlook only manages those. (Avoid setting 'after' in Sunbird/LIghtning)
3. Due to a Bug in Sunbird, you can only choose 1-6 days or some multiple of 7 for your alarm setting. 14 or 21 days are valid values, 17 or 23 are not. (Sunbird can't write this to the ICS file and will loose the setting after restart.)
4. Remind this hints, if you set the reminder in PocketOutlook. 

As a rule of thumb: If you create a recurring appointment, the start-date should be the first occurrence of the series. Example: Don't create an appointment on 12th of May and define a recurrence rule like 'repeat every 17th of the month'.

Further there is a slight difference in appointment status:

Pocket Outlook	Mozilla Calendar
Free	Tentative
Tentative	Tentative
Busy	Confirmed
Out of office	Tentative

Tasks

Tasks synchronize quite well. Recurring tasks are not supported.

The restrictions on alarm/reminders settings of appoinments also applies for tasks.

Restrictions for Synchronisation:  Mozilla Applications

All Mozilla application should be closed before starting the synchronization. If this is not done, the applications may save changes before closing and overwrite changes done in the meantime by FinchSync.

Warning: Mozilla Applications must be closed before synchronization or changes may be lost.

On systems running Windows you may choose 'Block application' in the syncsource's configuration. This prevents the start of an application, if synchronization is in progress, or marks a syncsource as 'unavailable', if it is in use by an application.

If you start Thunderbird while it is blocked by FinchSync, the 'Profile Manager' will show up. Close the manager and wait until synchronization has finished.

Contacts

There are no special restrictions according contacts except that not all fields are supported by Pocket Outlook.

Appointments

Avoid the following:

1. Alarms with the setting 'before event ends'.
2. Never remove a recurrence exception once it has been synchronized with the Pocket PC. If an occurrence of an event series has been deleted from Pocket Outlook, it can not be restored.

Warning: There is a bug in Mozilla Calendar concerning recurring all-day events, which span over a period of more than one day. While this series will be displayed correctly on Pocket Outlook, in Mozilla Calendar the display will be faulty.

Tasks

1. Recurring tasks are not supported.
2. Alarms can be set in units of minutes, hours or days before the task starts / is due. Pocket Outlook only supports days. So choose 'days' when possible.