Possible?: Sync "picture" between outlook and blackberry contact
 

Does anyone know a way of syncing the picture in an outlook contact to the picture in a blackberry contact, and vice-versa?

Or are the two pictures independent of one another and exclusive to the respective application?

Thanks.

I sync my BlackBerry to Outlook often and I believe when you sync the two the contact pictures sync also. The reason I say this is because I never had pictures assigned to contacts in Outlook then I started to use the camera on my BlackBerry and assigned those pics of my friends as their caller ID photos. I was given a Treo 750 from work which I used for a while until I realized how much I missed my BlackBerry but that's another story. Anyways when I did a sync between Outlook and the Treo then received calls the pictures I used as caller ID on the BlackBerry were on the Treo.

ok, thanks- that sounds promising. I assume you are using a cable to sync?

Does anyone have any idea if this can be done over BES?

Looks like there are a couple of articles on the blackberry support site for this, I should have checked there first. Now that I've opened the thread, here are the articles below in case other users are interested:

" Personal contact with picture created on BlackBerry device not synchronized with Outlook"
BlackBerry Search Results

" BlackBerry Enterprise Server requirements for caller ID pictures"
BlackBerry Search Results

SO it seems syncing should happen over the BES and may just be a setting or mapping issue.

Sounds like you already found your answer, but mine sync just fine!

Alright, so I emailed my BES provider (exchangemymail) with the information I found and received this reply:

Aside from being a little snippy, in my opinion, it didn't work. I turned off my wireless reconciliation and turned it back on, popped my battery out and in, etc, etc, etc-- still no pic sync. Looks like this is simply not supported by exchangemymail. If this is an important issue for you, I would recommend going to another BES provider. it's too much hassle and not important enough for me to switch, but it would be nice to have this functionality.

Todzilla: Are you on a BES? Who is your provider?

Just a heads up on this---

I've spoken with Link 2 Exchange's Matthew and he has advised me that this issue is due to the proper installation of the newest BES upgrade.

Once this upgrade is properly installed (this requires installation as well as reset of global field mapping), contact picture will sync correctly. I have also learned that there are a few other "upgrades" which can speed up syncing of calendar entries as well as calendar reminder glitches being resolved.

Speaking with exchangemymail, they have the latest upgrades installed, however it doesn't seem like they installed them correctly. They don't want to reset their global field mapping which is part of the installation, however I can understand that if they have some custom mapping in place. Nonetheless, the upgrade will not be properly installed until that is done.

In any event, they don't seem too interested in resolving this issue, so I'm going to make the switch to Link2Exchange.

It's too bad--- Exchangemymail has been a great provider so far. But full functionality is important to me and it seems like Link2Exchange is more committed to that.

Does anyone currently use L2E that can provide some further feedback?

I'm with themessagecenter and am having the same issue with photos not sync'ing to Outlook contacts. I've just emailed them the links to RIM's solution (workaround.) My point is...before bailing on your current service, do check around. This may be an issue with many otherwise excellent hosted exchange providers.

I'll let you know what the guys at themessagecenter have to say when I get a response. FWIW, when I contacted them about another setting that would allow bluetooth access to desktop manager, they got on it right away and made the change.

yeah, I have historically gotten excellent service with exchangemymail and am overall satisfied but when they are delivering updates behind other providers and are reluctant to address issues when brought to their attention, my impression of them tends to decrease in value.

That being said, if they showed any initiative in providing these upgrades to customers, I wouldn't think about changing providers. At this point in time, however, it seems worth the transition and the extra $55 setup/blackberry fee to switch to a provider who provides these features.

You might want to check themessagecenter. To the best of my knowledge there is no setup fee. Of course, I'm still waiting for a response on this sync pictures issue.

themessagecenter looks pretty sweet since they don't charge the stupid $30 fee to setup.

Here's the response I got from themessagecenter.

"We're passing this onto our engineer that handles our BES systems. He will be doing an upgrade in the next few weeks and we'll see if he can add this to his list."

They've been pretty good about handling this type of thing. We'll see.

perfect. looks like most of the other providers are addressing this issue. Exchange my mail is totally disinterested.

I am using mailstreet.com as BES provider and adressed the picture sync problem three weeks ago. I have the feeling they are very interested in finding a solution (as they always had a very good support up to now) but did not find a way to activate syncing by now. They are still working on it. We will see, but if it will not work with them that would be a reason to switch the provider.

I will give an update as soon as it works....

L2E has emailed me to follow up a couple of times. THey have determined that it's just a matter of making sure that all of the upgrades are up to date and they follow RIM's knowledge base instructions.

I am going to follow up with exchangemymail to see if they are going to upgrade their systems any time soon. Based on the last response I got from them, they didn't seem too interested. It was somewhat out of character for exchangemymail, however, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.

I want this feature.

I received an answer from MAILSTREET recently. They will upgrade to SP4 for BES 4.1 soon and are sure that the syncing issue will be solved with this update. They allready run SP3 on an internal server and picture sync runs fine.

I hope this will solve my problem and that "soon" means "soon"!

I just spoke the the message center BES admin and they have recently upgraded to 4.1.4 FYI

They did, this past Saturday. I changed one of the pics on my Outlook (Exchange Server) and haven't noticed that change reflected on the BB.

I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to work but I'd think so. It works that way in WM5. I'd informed them of the setting that's supposed to enable this and they said they'd pass that along to their BES person but....

Are you saying that mail for exchange is not interested in upgrading? :-o I'm using them and was not aware this was a feature that BES can have. I thought only Window's Activesync had this feature?

Picture Sync
 

Hello All -

ShaneToronto - I have looked into the ticket you are speaking about where the support rep was a bit snippy, and didn't provide the high level of service Exchange My Mail has been known for.

I agree the message did come off snippy, and was not properly worded to explain the situation to you.

The problem with reseting anything "globally" is it effects ALL customers on our servers. We are obviously nervous about making any global change that may have a bad effect on another customers blackberry.

We are and have been looking into this, and we will get it resolved.

We will also have a talk with the representative and make sure he understands he needs to phrase his responses properly, and we may need to send him for more customer training.

Please bear with us as we resolve the issue.