sync-with-outlook-events

Sync with Outlook - Events

As far as I understand, Task Coach treats everything as a Task and not as a calendar entity. Calendar entities are events that have a fixed start and end time. Therefore the first thing to do is create a
Category called Appointments and apply it to anything that is an appointment or event

Appointments: Task Coach -> Outlook

From Task Coach:

1. Select the appointments you want to export (use the category filter to show only the Appointments category)
2. Select File: Export: Export as CSV
3. Leave default Export items from "Tasks"
4. Select all columns to export
5. Select "Export only the selected items" unless you want all tasks
6. Select "Put dates and times in separate columns" then press OK
7. Choose a name and save the file somewhere you can find it (e.g. Desktop)

From Outlook:

1. Select the Calendar panel
2. Select "File: Import and Export"
3. Select "Import from another program or file" and press Next
4. Select "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" and press Next
5. Browse to the file you saved and select it
6. Choose the options you prefer (Replace duplicates, allow or do not import) and press Next
7. Leave default "Select destination folder:" to Calendar and press Next
8. Press "Map custom fields"

9. Drag and drop fields from your Task Coach CVS file from the left to the Outlook to the right and ensure that on the left the Fields and Mapped from are as follows:

   1. Subject mapped from Subject
   2. Start date mapped from Planned start date
   3. Start time mapped from Planned Start time
   4. End date mapped from Due date
   5. End Time mapped from Due Time
   6. All day event unmapped
   7. Reminder On/Off unmapped
   8. Reminder date mapped from Reminder date
   9. Reminder time mapped from Reminder time
   10. the rest unmapped
   11. Billing information mapped from Revenue if necessary
   12. Categories mapped from Categories
   13. Description mapped from Description
   14. Priority mapped from Priority

10. Press OK then Finish

11. Double click the task/s you have imported and change the following:
    1. select the Reminder checkbox (if you have reminders!
       although you have set reminders, outlook works like an alarm
       clock that you need to turn it on as well)
    2. Task Coach does not have many information with regards to
       Location, whether its private, whether its all day, attendees
       etc. Hence change them in Outlook as necessary.

Alternative: (Using the iCalendar format)

This is quite limited because all appointments default to 1h duration only. Task Coach labels all Tasks as VTODO in the iCalendar format and the due date as DUE. Appointments should be labelled as VEVENT and should have a DTEND for when the appointment is meant to end. A conversion is necessary to change these parameters.

1. Download fart (program from sourceforge https://sourceforge.net/projects/fart-it/) and place somewhere easy (e.g. Documents)
2. Create "fart.bat" batch file with the following lines (without the numbers at the front!) and place in same folder as fart.exe
   2.1 fart 1.ics VTODO VEVENT
   2.2 fart 1.ics DUE DTEND
3. Perform steps 1-7 in Task Coach as above, name the file "1.ics"" and save in the same folder as fart.exe and fart.bat
4. run "fart.bat" (double click)
5. Import the ics file generated into Outlook