How to prevent duplication of events
Posted November 14th, 2006 by IndyGirl
I use a Palm T/X that hotsychs to Desktop Lifebalance on a PC, using MS Outlook.
Sometimes, after a meeting is scheduled in Lifebalance, and everything is synched, I need to change the time of the meeting. Whenever I do this, I get duplication of the original meeting and the new event time. If this is a repeating event, I get duplication all over my calendar!
How can I change this meeting time without duplicating events?
Comments
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
>Sometimes, after a meeting is scheduled in Lifebalance, and
>everything is synched, I need to change the time of the
>meeting. Whenever I do this, I get duplication of the
>original meeting and the new event time. If this is a
>repeating event, I get duplication all over my calendar!
When you say the meeting is scheduled in LB, do you mean that it is created in LB? If you mean it is created in Outlook and linked to LB, then that is where your problem lies. Both Palm's and Chapura's (PocketMirror) Outlook conduits will treat this as a change on the handheld (addition of the LB note). What usually happens to get duplicates is that someone makes a change to the meeting in Outlook (for example, by accepting). This means that you have changes on both platforms, and the conduits are pretty dumb about handling these. Even though the changes affect different fields, there is no attempt at conflict resolution when they could just take both updates.
Cheers
KeithC
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
Keith C:
Thanks for your insight. These meetings are originally created in LB. I don't use Outlook to "accept" any meetings.
So, what should I do when making a change in order to prevent duplication? Where should I make the change, Desktop Lifebalance, Outlook Calendar, PDA Lifebalance, or PDA Calendar? Or do I have to make the change on all 4 platforms, or just some of the platforms?
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
You should be able to just make the change on one platform, then let the conduits sync it to the others. If that isn't working, then I don't know what the problem is. Could you try to describe exactly the steps that cause the duplication?
Cheers
KeithC
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
For example, I needed to change the time for a recurring event for just one day. So, I changed it on MS Outlook, hit one time only, and hot synched.
I was left with:
1. Desktop Lifebalance Calendar didn't change, so the time of that meeting stayed constant for all days scheduled
2. MS Outlook and PDA Palm Calendar both had duplication of the events for all the recurring days. For all the days, I had double events at the same time, and for that 1 day I changed, I had one scheudled for the original time and the other scheduled for the new time.
What should I have done differently?
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
Hi
just to confirm
1 you originally created the event in LB as By Calendar (this is what you said you did in an earlier message)
2 you added the event to the Calendar through LB (so it would have an "LB#####" number in the notes
3 you made the event repeating in Palm Calendar
4 you synced to get the event in Outlook
5 at this point you have the event in LB, the Palm Calendar and in Outlook
6 you changed just one of the repeats in Outlook
7 you synced and found the LB desktop was not changed, but in Calendar and Outlook you had duplicates
It probably makes little difference whether you created the event in LB or the Calendar, so long as it was in LB before you synced.
There seem to be two problems. First, the LB Desktop has not changed. Second, you get duplicates.
For the first, I suspect that this will be fixed if you re-sync. If LB syncs before the Calendar, the desktop has no way of knowing about the change. Is the Palm LB showing the changed (and duplicated) events?
For the second, I don't think this is an LB problem. you get duplicates when something is changed on the Palm and on the PC. I think this is only down to LB if you create the event on the Palm Calendar, then sync, then import into LB and finally change on the PC and sync again. What does your HotSync log say?
Cheers
KeithC
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
KeithC
Your summary is correct. To answer your questions:
1. I did re-synch, and it didn't change
2. The log said: The Handheld record [EVENT...] and Outlook record [EVENT...] have been modified at both places. As a result these records have been duplicated in Outlook and Handheld. [Conflict case: Duplicate]
I have change events a lot. Sometimes, I'll "pencil" in an event on a day--but don't know the time of that event until 2-3 weeks later, but I still need it on my calendar so that I can plan for it.
Duplication happens to me all the time, so I know that I must be changing the event in an incorrect fashion, but I'm not sure how to do change an event in the future to prevent this duplication business.
RE: How to prevent duplication of events
OK, two things I know can cause duplication even if you didn't think they would.
First, is the LB tags being placed into the Notes. So if you create an event (on Palm or PC calendar) then sync before you import into LB, the import into LB is a change. If you also make a change on the PC before you next sync, both have actually changed.
Second, if the event is a meeting to which other people are invited, it is best not to change on the Palm at all after syncing. PocketMirror (not sure about the Palm conduits) optionally marks such events with "Mtg: " at the front so you know not to make changes. The reason for this is to do with the way Outlook handles meetings. It seems that they can get changed if you do nothing - I guess when people accept or decline them. PocketMirror doesn't treat its addition of Mtg: as a change, so as long as you don't change it on the Palm you should be OK. if you can, it is best to create meetings on the Palm, import them into LB and then sync. It is a real pain if someone else sends out the invitation, as I know of no way of not getting duplicates in this case - apart from not importing them into LB.
Cheers
KeithC