Best PIM option

[Sick Freak]

I've been a Microsoft user for about 30 years now (and 10 years as a Microsoft employee) but have very little knowledge of Android. (I still haven't purchased one myself - I'll do that when my current Windows Phone dies.) Since Microsoft has turned its back on smartphones, I need help understanding options for a good PIM for my parents. They are now on Android, but their calendar, contacts and e-mail are now in different places (VZW set it up, not me.) They're comfortable with Outlook (desktop) but noticed that while their e-mails are on both their phone (Android Outlook app) and desktop, none of their contacts, calendar appointments nor tasks are being synced between their desktop and phone. I even imported the Google Calendar into their Outlook desktop, but found that it won't sync with the phone due to a limitation of IMAP. After that, I saw that there was a way to do a read-only view of the Google Calendar in Outlook, but that's not what they're wanting. I'm not sure of what the new protocols are outside of ActiveSync, but also know that there are some third party apps around that might do it all for us.

So, what I'm asking is... how can I get it so that everything is in one place and syncs up properly to both their Android phones and their Outlook desktop? They should be able to make a change to a contact (including photo,) add a calendar appointment, add tasks, etc. on their desktop and have it show up on their phone (and vice versa.)

They currently have Gmail accounts, but not Outlook 365. Their primary e-mail is through their ISP (Charter.) I know that at one time, Google offered ActiveSync, but that appears to be gone now. Maybe the answer is migrating them over to a different e-mail account that uses a different protocol or maybe one of the many apps that says they can sync Outlook with non-Microsoft accounts (usually Gmail,) but I didn't want to do that until I knew the options.

I've done some looking on the forums, but the questions I find are specific to usually only calendar or contacts, not everything together. I'm sure that with all the people here that have Android phones and Windows desktops, there will be some good possibilities.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! On Android devices, it's definitely most convenient to have all of that information in your Google account, because then the information is accessible anywhere that they log in with their Google account (whether it's a phone, tablet, or PC):

1. For Calendar, have them start entering new events in Google Calendar. If they're on their computer, have them use the calendar.google.com website. If they're on their phone, use the Calendar app, and when entering an event, make sure the calendar account it's being added to is the Google account (not the local Phone account, which is usually called "My Calendar").
For existing events in a non-Google calendar, it can be a bit of a hassle -- you'd have to export the events from the other calendar, and then import the events into Google Calendar. See this help page: https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37118?hl=en

2. The same general idea goes for contacts as well. New contacts should be entered on the contacts.google.com website, if using a computer; but if it's on the phone, they need to make sure that it's being entered into their Google account, not the local Phone account. It should be fairly obvious which account it's going to in the contact entry form -- usually at the top of the screen.
For existing contacts in a non-Google contact list, it's the same idea as above. First, export the contacts to a .csv or .vcf file, then import them to Google Calendar. This help page describes how to import the file into Google Calendar: https://support.google.com/contacts/answer/1069522?hl=en

3. Although it's ideal for them to use Gmail, it's still easy to get their Charter email in the Gmail app. Open the Gmail app, tap the Menu button, then the down arrowhead right next to the account name. Then tap Add Account, and follow the prompts to add the Charter email account. Once it's synced, you can easily toggle between the Charter and Gmail inboxes.

4. There's probably no easy way to transfer the tasks over, since there typically isn't a way to export tasks, then import them to Google. Google doesn't have a unified task/reminder solution, either -- there's Google Keep (a general note-taking app which allows you to create a checklist/to-do note, but without a way to set a reminder for each checkmark item), the Google app's Reminders (which are easy to set -- just say "Hey Google, remind me to [xyz]" -- and show up in the Google Calendar as their own separate calendar, but don't have their own separate app that allows you to look at all of your reminders at once in a list form), and the old Google Tasks (part of Gmail, with some older 3rd party apps that sync with it, but I suspect support might go away pretty soon). This is probably the least crucial issue for your parents, so they have time to look at the various solutions, either from Google or from 3rd party developers.

 

[Sick Freak]

Thanks for the quick reply B. Diddy, but I didn't see anything in your response about using their Outlook app on their Windows desktop. If it was only a function of just using the phone and websites, this would be easy. However, they want to use their Outlook app on their PCs, and judging by the number of help videos and sync applications out there, this seems to be a big problem for many people.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yeah, I tend to avoid the Outlook PC program like the plague.:-[ They could certainly keep using Outlook to access their email on the computer, but contact and calendar sync between Google and the Outlook program can be really clunky and glitchy, because you have to rely on 3rd party programs, none of which are particularly good. CompanionLink is one that's been around for a while, but I'm really not sure how well it works: https://www.companionlink.com/

Is there a reason they prefer to use Outlook, rather than the Gmail/Google Calendar web interface?

 

[Sick Freak]

They're in the 70's and it took me a long time to get them to just understand e-mail. Even now, I constantly have to use TeamViewer to remotely help them with the simplest tasks because neither of them are tech savvy. The Outlook client is what they're used to and everything is in a single place and easy to manage. While websites are getting better and better, the client is still easier to use and more powerful.

Thankfully my in-laws use Outlook.com for their e-mail addresses, most of it works okay with the client - their biggest problem is that contact pictures don't sync with their android phones, so I have to manually copy them to the phone and add to each contact. (With the Windows phones, adding it to the Outlook contact automatically put it on the Windows Phone's copy of the contact.) Now I just need to fix VZW screwing up all their contacts....