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Beaubien Best contact Sync Practices for ical, Iphone & now ipad
I will be buying a new iMac. I hope to successfully sync my SFDC contacts and calendar to iCal & Mobile Me. From there I want to sync to my iPhone and the soon to be released ipad. Is there a way to simplify this? Why can't Salesforces cloud sync directly to my mobile device? Apples cloud seems to be able to do this. I'm not a programer just an end user but wouldn't some kind of API solve this? I have Salesforce mobile and don't really use it much as I don't get caller ID or recent calls on the iPhone. And the Salesforce mobile is PAINFULLY slow. You would think Salesforce would have a better integration with the Mac. Someone help me understand a simpler solution.
Right now I am syncing to a Google Contacts and Google Calendar using Appirio's Calendar and Contact Sync.
From there, I sync to my iMac (iCal and Contacts) using Spanning Sync.
From my iMac, I sync to my iPhone (and my wifes, and my Macbook) using MobileMe.
This is about the best solution I've seen. I'm having problems though with Appirio amalgamating contacts with the same information (ie if I have a husband and wife as separate contacts in Salesforce, it overwrites one and leaves only one of them in Google). Other than that, and a few odd formatting issues, it "works" (loosely).
That being said, I'm still looking for other/better options.
RY
RY,
I have done exactly what you did. The problem with all these sync is that sometimes there are big errors. I had one of the processes write back to salesforce with mixed up data. It ruined my database. I had to do an update to every contact. The most frustrating part is everybody points fingers at the other. It really is salesforces issue as they are completely capable of syncing to mobile devices directly but choose not to. The final answer I got from a moble guy at SFDC is they can't sync my data due to privacy issues. Come on! Is that really the reason? I doub't it.
I agree, it's not the best solution. I'm still out there exploring a simpler way. It's frustrating to have to run so many programs just to sync the data. You would think that would be the direction Salesforce would be going.
Good luck!
RY
Yes. The biggest thing keeping me from using it Simon is the lack of ability to specify contact groups.
RY
Tried. Won't install on my computer. Been trying to get a response from them for a week now.
I, too am trying to get PocketMac Backup for Salesforce to run on my computer. It says it downloads, but I cannot "open" it or get it to run. Have you had any luck? I cannot get any help from Support or their website. And no call back. I want my money back if I cannot get it started.
Simon,
I have used sf3 until my Mac broke. Now I'm using my PC until I get a new Mac and ipad. Until then and even after I get new gear why can't Salesforce sync directly to the devices? I know you do a great job with your program but it seems like it does not fit with the objectives of SFDC. What about the Cloud? This does not feel very cloud like.
Last time i looked there's no API on the device for accessing calendar data, so that makes it hard to do the sync at the device level unless apple builds in more support to do it.
Our Salesforce Certified Riva Integration Server is now fully compatible with Mac Entourage and Mac OS X native Mail, iCal and Address Book and Hosted or On-premise Exchange:
http://www.omni-ts.com/newsroom/entourage-crm-integration.html
http://www.omni-ts.com/newsroom/mac-crm-sync.html
http://www.omni-ts.com/crm-integration/salesforce.html
Because Riva provides transparent server-side synchronization directly between Salesforce and Exchange, there are no Outlook plug-in dependencies. Riva provides full integration with all Exchange clients running on all desktop and mobile operating systems including Outlook, Outlook Web Access, Terminal Services, Mac Entourage, Mac OS X Mail, iCal, Address Book, BlackBerry, iPhone and ActiveSync mobile devices.
And if you have a limited number of Mac users to sync, you can access Riva Live in the Cloud:
http://www.omni-ts.com/crm-integration/riva-live.html
Best regards,
Aldo Zanoni
CEO, Managing Director
Omni Technology Solutions, Inc.
www.omni-ts.com