Travel tech for the Mac user
 

So I have been working for my current employer for ~6 months and it has required a lot more travel than I am used to in the past. All the employees schedule their own trips, book their hotels, book their car rentals, which is great because it adds a lot of flexibility, but it costs a lot of time. So I have been trying to examine all my options to save some time.

It seems to be a bit more difficult to integrate cost saving techniques because I use a Mac laptop, Outlook 2011 to manage my calendar and emails, and I am using an Andriod phone for now (waiting for the iPhone 5 and SMIME encryption).

I tried TripIt and it's nice that it auto feeds into the app and you can subscribe to iCal. But it seems that TripIt, along with others only have iCal options and nothing is really supported in Outlook 2011.

I have been considering taking the drastic step and just migrate over to iMail and iCal, but I haven't quite make that step yet and I am not sure if it's just my familiarity with Outlook (I've used some iteration of it since 1997) or just an uneasiness of combining personal use applications for corporate work.

Anyone facing the same dilemmas as I am?

Welcome to Flyertalk!

I am in almost exactly the same situation. The difference is that I have an assistant who copies stuff manually to my Outlook calendar. But it is a time sink I would like to eliminate. I actually spent a couple hours last night trying to get my Trip It or Worldate accounts to do this. I can get the TripIt feed to show up on my iPhone but it doesn't make it to Outlook. I also have an Android phone but can't get any sync there either. My Blackberry would sync with Worldmate and put it in Outlook but since I replaced it with the Android phone that isn't an option.

Does anyone know how to sync iCal with Outlook? Or iCal with an Exchange server? Thanks.

Well you can add an Exchange calendar "feed" into iCal by just adding another account, and designating it as an Exchange source. It will ask for your credentials.

It seems that iMail / iCal / Address Book are all very capable apps that can all sync with exchange. It also seems to make sense if you are using something like TripIt that something as simple as another feed into your iCal can be a one source as least on the Mac.

Getting that all to your mobile source seems to be a little more tricky. It looks like you need to run a combo of apps, like TripIt, and your regular suite of apps. In my case I run Touchdown on my Andriod since I need SMIME since most of our emails are encrypted. I'll be glad when it iOS 5 comes out.

WORST comes to WORST...

You can set up Bootcamp and install Windows on your Macbook...

:td::td::td:

What about using gMail and gCal? They both have offline options now, and will push to your Android phone.

Well I have a VM Fusion Win7 instance just in case, but I am not going to do that since these are everyday apps and it's just not an efficient work flow to have.

I already use gMail and Google Calendar for my personal items, but this is not a feasible solution for my corporate calendar and mail needs. However that does work if I switch over to iCal+iMail+Address Book.

I am experimenting right now with that very option, try to do it for a couple weeks and see how I feel about it.

How would Windows help? I have a PC in my office I could use and mY assistant uses a PC so I could set something up on one of those if need be. Thanks.

You can subscribe to ical calendars in outlook.

http://www.tripit.com/uhp/calendarInfo

You won't get 2-way sync for this, but for the tripit feed, you should be making any changes via tripit anyway. As long as you subscribe to it properly in outlook, you will see all the changes in outlook also. (just as you can subscribe to tripit's ical feed in google calendar, ical, etc.)

The instructions on tripit's page are for outlook 2007. Here's the instructions for Outlook 2010 (scroll down to the "Add an Internet Calendar Subscription to Outlook") http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ou...443.aspx?CTT=1

If you want it all in your personal calendar then you would have to use import. I think the separate calendar is better since any changes to your trip made at tripit.com would be reflected automatically in outlook. But that's up to you of course.

-David

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Thanks. But is doesn't seem to work in Outlook 2011 or transfer the Tripit info to Exchange.

I don't know what you mean by "doesn't work". It worked fine for me in outlook 2007, and I seriously doubt that uSoft would drop that support. Also, did I miss where you wanted/needed to sync the tripit calendar to your exchange server? I thought the request was to be able to see the tripit calendar (and changes to it) in outlook.

It's not going to transfer anything to your exchange server. If you want to do that, you would need to statically import the tripit calendar entries into your personal calendar in outlook, and I suppose that would get synced to your exchange server. They have instructions for that also, but I don't think it's a good way to do it because you won't pick up changes to your trip. (plus I can't help you with that as I don't have an exchange server).

Anywhere you view your calendar you can subscribe to both calendars. Take a look at using multiple calendars. You can view them together, and use both for scheduling etc. You just subscribe once, anywhere you use outlook, and you are done. Your assistant would also need to do that for his/her view of your calendars.

I do the same thing with google calendar as my personal calendar + my tripit feed anywhere I view my calendar. tripit's entries are never really imported into my personal calendar either. But I have one view with everything, no matter where I view my calendar.

-David

Unfortunately, Outlook 2011 (Outlook for Mac) doesn't have native iCal sync support built in.

Back in April/May Microsoft released an update for Office 2011 that provided "Sync Services". What this allows is for Outlook to sync with native Apple Mail, iCal, and Contacts on the Mac.

What I've done is setup my TripIt iCal feed in Apple iCal. Then I setup Sync Services in Outlook (Preferences, Sync Services) auto sync the TripIt iCal feed into Outlook. It's a pain, but it works.

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Are you able to tell if it propagates from Outlook to Exchange? Thanks.

No, it doesn't propagate into Exchange, only Outlook itself.

Thanks for the correction. I should have realized that the mac version is different from the version I've used.

It kind of sucks that you can't just import an ical feed with a url like you can in the windows version.

-David

Isn't it odd that the BlackBerry "just works?" ;)

Well, in fact it doesn't work over WiFi for some odd reason. Even odder that the only sync platform Worldmate made was Blackberry. Not a very forward looking decision.

I tried to replicate this but can't.. I can see the tripit in my iCal but can't see it in Outlook for Mac.. super bummed. anyone help?

I haven't looked into it too hard myself (have the corporate Dell that I'm forced to use) but I thought the latest Mac mail and calendar applications could all speak to an Exchange server natively? Certainly, when I had Snow Leapord, I did a test of connecting Mail to an Exchange Server......

unfortunately outlook 2011 doesn't have a way to get tripit in the calendar. Anyone know how to do this?

I gave up and sync my Outlook with iCal on my macs and then subscribe to Tripit with the Mac Calendar. That way it is all in iCal on my macs and iPhone.

bummer so you look at email in outlook, then ical for calendar?

is the offline gmail still based on gears? if so, that is being retired..

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More and more I'm using the Mac email as well due to integration with Omni Focus and DevonThink.

I originally struggled to keep Outlook when I moved to the Mac, I had been using it since the beginning. Eventually out of frustration I gave up and went to just using iMail.

After a while, I've gotten used to using iMail and it's snappy and reliable. I miss (terribly) the Calendar integration in Outlook and the easy of finding common meeting time with people via the free/busy and being able to just drag-and-drop an item right into the calendar was great. I'm not a huge fan of iCal. These are things you can still do in iMail/iCal, but the are much harder and not nearly as nicely integrated.

The Mac version of Outlook was never great, even the latest version seems a little funky and the synchronization never seems to work as I expect.

I contacted Tripit tech support and they claim that adding the feed to iCal and then turning on Outlook Sync Services will do the trick. I have tried it several times and it does not work. The process seems fairly straight forward - the only part that has any user input is the Sync Services. I was hoping that the person that got this working could weigh in and let us know how he configured this.

Under Sync Services when I select Calendar on the left I see two accounts to sync with: "On My Computer" and "Exchange". I have selected both. Then beneath that I have a dropdown box "Outlook folder to add new items to" and it has two options "On My Computer / Calendar" and "Exchange / Calendar". The dropdown box appears like it can be set for each option in the window but in fact can only be set one way or the other for all items (poor interface design!). I have tried setting it both ways and it makes no difference.

Bottom line - I get Outlook items synchronized with iCal. But the calendar feed never shows up in Outlook in any calendar.

Anyone got this working?

Welcome to Flyertalk. Unfortunately, I could not get it to work either. I tried in that way.

Er, perhaps not so much welcome to FT as at last we have found something that you wanted to post on!! :D

[June 2009 join date noted]

Bump - anyone had any success getting this working. MS has released a number of service packs for Mac Office and I was hoping that this would do something - but nothing so far!