Blackberry and Outlook

[muddasick]

Whenever my secretary emails me an appointment, it's unrecognizable by my Blackberry (8720). It's not until I accept the appointment in outlook and then hotsync my Blackberry with Outlook, then the appointment shows up on my Blackberry calender.

Is there software that will allow me to incorporate the appointments straight into my calender once she emails them to me from her Outlook?

I hope this questions makes sense, this is becoming a hassle for me at work.

Thanks in advance.

[NJBlackBerry]

Welcome to BB Forums.

What you are looking for is the BlackBerry Enterprise Server - BES - which will sync your contacts, notes, calendar and tasks over the air.

There are hosted BES solutions that would save you the cost of implementing your own.

[John Clark]

You need to be on a BES for that to work. This is how it works for me.

My wife uses Outlook (not on BES) and creates an appointment. She adds my BES email address as an attendee. It shows up on my BB and goes into my calendar properly on the BB and my Outlook. If she sends it to my GMail address, it doesn't work. I just get the email with an invalid header message.

If I make an appointment (on BB or my Outlook) and invite her as an attendee, it doesn't go into her calendar. It says the header is invalid..yada yada.

The BES system completes the circle, so to speak. Without BES it just doesn't work. I haven't heard of any other ways to do it, either.

[John Clark]

Too slow again....Guess I'm just "Lost!"

[muddasick]

Thanks for the quick response, unfortunately I have no experience with a BES. Is this a free service or is it something I will have to subscribe to and pay fees?

I am a small business owner, so the least expensive method suits me best. The word "Enterprise" and "Server" scares me a bit...

Thanks again...

[takeshi]

You will need to pay for BES hosting and a BES-compatible data plan. Some carriers have a BIS data plan and a BES data plan so if your carrier is one of those you'll need the latter in addition to BES hosting. A search on BES hosting here should turn up some options for you. BES hosting is typically about $20 per month in addition to your data plan.

If that sounds expensive, you can check into setting up and maintaining your own Exchange and BES servers... ;)