Exchange calendar access from a Macintosh
One of the following three applications is required to access an Exchange calendar from a Macintosh computer.
Microsoft Entourage 2004
Microsoft Entourage 2004 (or version 11) was announced during RIT's winter quarter 2003-2004. It will support Microsoft Exchange calendaring and other features, and we expect it to build upon the foundation of Entourage 10.1.4. Entourage 2004 will be available for installation on RIT-owned computers as part of Microsoft Office 2004 through the RIT Microsoft Campus license agreement in June 2004. Office 2004 should be on sale in the RIT Campus Connections bookstore for faculty, staff, and student home use in June 2004.
Entourage 2004 adds a few Exchange-related features, the most important of which is delegate access.
Entourage 2004 continues to offer Palm HotSync support. It synchronizes your Palm to the local Entourage database, which is itself synchronized with your Exchange account.
You may also wish to check out the Microsoft Entourage Exchange servers and protocols that are used, to see how the program synchronizes data with your Exchange account.
Microsoft Entourage v.X
The Microsoft Entourage v.X Exchange Update in Summer 2003 (version 10.1.4 or later, in other words) provides calendar and address book access. This version of Entourage requires Mac OS X. It builds upon the existing Internet-standards based e-mail capabilities of Entourage, which take advantage of IMAP mail access to RIT's Microsoft Exchange environement.
It currently does not support delegate access for calendars, so you cannot assign special access rights to others or access another person's calendar -- either to view it or act as a delegate. You will not be able to view calendars stored in Public Folders.
However, with this update, Entourage does provide the ability to HotSync your Exchange calendar to a Palm OS-powered device. You must have Palm Desktop 4.0 or later installed in Mac OS X to take advantage of this feature.
Microsoft Outlook 2001
Microsoft Outlook 2001 lets you access most Exchange functions, including your network-based calendar, from Mac OS 9. It also works with the "Mac OS X Classic environment".
It does not support the ability to HotSync calendar items to a Palm OS-powered device. You must upgrade to Mac OS X to use Entourage v.X with the Summer 2003 Exchange Update to gain this feature on a Macintosh system.
Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access (OWA) is a Web-based interface to your Exchange account. With it, you can manage your calendar, among other tasks. You may use any Macintosh Web browser with Outlook Web Access, although not all features of OWA will work with every browser.
RIT is working with Microsoft and Apple to ensure that Apple's Safari works well with OWA.