Customer Reviews

Intellisync 4.0

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I just installed Intellisync 4.0 on my PC, in order to sychronize with my Palm 3x. I was waiting for a new version of this product to come out due to previous reviews noting problems synchronizing with Outlook 2000. I have not noticed any such problems with this version. Installation was easy, and I was up and running in no time. Previously, I had been running the Franklin planner software on my PC, as I had purchased the Palm from Franklin Covey. At work we use Outlook, so I ended up maintaining two seperate pieces of software - Outlook for email and email contacts, Franklin for calender and phone/snail mail contacts. Now I use Outlook for all, and I will abandon the Franklin software. I can't remember the exact process for the initial synchronization, but I didn't loose any contact info, and basically Outlook just sucked up everything that was in the Palm. It was so easy!! I give Intellisync 5 stars because it performed exactly as I had hoped and was extremely simple.

A 30-day trial version is available for download directly from Pumatech. Then buy it from Amazon. This is the only single user software I've been able to locate which will synchronize a Palm with Lotus Notes. I got the Palm for my wife (a power user by the looks of it), but in order to be practical it had to be able to download all of her calendar from Lotus. She's not a technophile; I was afraid she'd be annoyed (she loves Franklin Planners) with buttons and wires. She loves it. But it was Intellisync that made it practical. Installing Intellisync was easy and trouble free. She has no trouble at all plugging in the Palm via its HotSync cable and hitting the synchronize button on the cable plug. Upon doing this, the Palm "wakes up" and the PC wakes up, (Lotus doesn't even have to be running!). Intellisync then begins its job of comparing the Palm's database with Lotus' and vice versa. Before updating either, it displays a report on the PC and asks for confirmation. Any conflicts are resolvable at this time (i.e. the same person's address being changed in both Lotus and the Palm, which one should be kept?) All her appointments are copied (even all day events). The same for her personal address book under Lotus, and To Do items. The Palm isn't enabled for e-mail, so this isn't an issue. The software that ships with the Palm is adequate for synchronizing with Outlook 2000. Intellisync plus the Palm allow her to synchronize Lotus Notes at work with Outlook at home. We only had to purchase an extra HotSync cable. The details: Palm m100; HotSync serial cable; Intellisync 4.0; Lotus Notes R5 (5.0.2a); Windows 95 running on Gateway 300mhz Pentium.

I have used intellisync 3.5 for several years and have found it adequate although technical support was limited/expensive, so encouraging purchases of upgrade. I just bought 4.0 as an upgrade but didnt notice that they had dropped support for Meeting Maker which is my calendaring Application. The last version which supports MM was version 3.7 which is no longer in stores and only avaialable from their website. I called their support # and best they could suggest was to buy v3.7 and east the cost of 4.0 since they wouldnt do an exchange.

Their are to morals to this story : (1) Read the compatibility/functionality sttements BEFORE you buy and (2) try not to do business with customers service orgs who care only about $.....not customers satisfaction.

I cannot speak for other programs Intellisync claims to support, but I can say my experience with transferring between Intellisync and Lotus Notes has been one of the worst I have had. As a systems person with over 15 years experience, that's very bad.

It is true that it installs easily, but it is totally unreliable and unpredictable in its behavior when synching your Palm appointments with Lotus Notes 4.5 calendar.

Our office purchased one copy and tested it for several days. While its functional design could be improved, it seemed to work acceptably. After we bought six copies, erratic behavior started appearing in our original test installation. We have had similar problems with a second installation.

Please refer to A Sofware User from Buffalo for a good account similar to our experiences. Tech Support has *never* responded to our e-mails. We were so fed up at that point that we have not pursued it further and are writing this up as a loss.

You cannot selectively accept or decline changes. This results in duplications that you either have to live with or manually delete in the Palm or in Notes. Sometimes appointments aren't picked up at all. There seems to be no consistency to the behavior to let us diagnose the problem. There is a Re-synch option to re-do from scratch, but it doesn't work consistently, either. We have had to uninstall and reinstall IntelliSTINK (as we now call it) and sometimes even the Palm Desktop software to correct inconsistencies. But again, this doesn't last.

I am always a little uncomfortable reading strong negative reviews because I wonder if the reviewer simply didn't follow instructions and is unfairly venting. In this case, several different people with years of PC experience have worked with this software, thoroughly studied the documentation, and tried a host of approaches to get acceptable operation. As a systems office, we know you can't find perfect software, so we weren't expecting perfection in this.

Unfortunately, this is so flawed and aggravating to work with that I would urge you to look elsewhere. Since there are a number of positive reviews, though, you may find it works for you, but definitely try the software for your particular setup before you buy it. And be sure to test it heavily. It may appear to work fine at first, but repeated use seems to lead to problems. Plus, based on other negative reviews of the support, you're not going to get much help from PumaTech.

I love my Palm and use it for almost every feature. I especially use the repeating scheduled events feature for meetings. When I used Desk Top to Go to sync palm with outlook at my old job, it worked like a charm... much like the palm hotsync to palm desktop. It allowed clear override of handheld over PC or vice versa for each individual function.

Intellisync to Groupwise synchronization at my current job is a total nightmare. I tend to use the palm at off site meetings all the time and to make changes on the fly while out of the office. The synchronization is more for my secretary than for me, so she knows where I am and can let folks know when I am available. Intellisync does not allow for a complete override of handheld over PC or vice versa. It wants to be able to synchronize both and the verification is an all or nothing thing. You cannot go in and accept some, but not all of the conflicts. Also, it wants to put items back into my palm, that I have taken out as repeating items. It is a nightmare that I cannot live with. I thought I was crazy, because others do not have this problem, but other folks at my company tend to use primarily the PC and rarely make the kind of changes in the handheld that I do. ( I use for to do lists, notes, memos, etc in addition to self scheduling)The IS folks have worked on it with me and agree that it is quirky and not something that I am doing wrong (oh how I hoped it was something I could learn to do differently)
I no longer use Intellisync to sync to Groupwise. I sync to Palm desktop using the palm hotsync and my secretary uses that to know where I am. We are both much happier, though other Groupwise users hate it because they cannot look at my calendar.

I'd give anything to have this work properly and hoped it was simply something I was doing wrong, but I am sick of the manual labor it takes to go through a year of calendar to remove individual items that groupwise keeps putting back into my palm out in the future when I have removed it from the palm

This is great for users of Palm and Outlook. Email synch is full of problems, but contacts, to do lists and calendar works just fine. No hassles.

Before you buy you can download a test version for free from Pumatech. You can also go desktoptogo.com for their trial run. I tried both and this one is definitely better.

Since day one of downloading the s/w for the internet, I have not been able to get it to synchronize as advertised with Outlook (bi-directionally). I made several attempts to get this resolved with their online support staff to no avail. They essentially gave up and referred me to their telephone support staff, who then wanted me to buy a srevice "tag" in order for me to get help (now that this problem had dragged on past their stated 45 day warranty period). The manager of support (Howard) would not budge from his stance that after 45 days, there is phone support given without a $19 service tag being purchased by me... he did not care that their online support staff could not resolve my problems when I first asked for help. I would not recommend any products offered by this company because of thier poor customer relations.

After playing around with this thing for a while, I use it for my Novell GroupWise address book but nothing else. Actually, you must synchronize through it for everything, but for all of the other applications I just tell it to synchronize with my Palm desktop, as before. I could use it for other applications; I just don't, because I ran into more trouble (with GroupWise, not with Intellisync) than it's worth. This product tries to do a lot, synchronizing with a variety of different applications (e.g., Outlook). You probably wouldn't be interested in this at all if you weren't using some application other than Palm desktop already. This leads to unavoidable complexity, with all the different tricks and quirks involved in the several applications supported. I don't know that anyone could improve significantly upon the way Intellisync copes with this, applying common sense and providing just about the right number of options (more would just add perhaps unnecessary additional complexity). But don't buy this unless you are prepared to spend at least a moderate amount of time mastering details, reading the manual or at least systematic trial and error, etc.

I was so bummed when I couldn't sync my iPAQ with my Lotus Notes in work. Intellisync fixed it! Easy to install and use, syncs bewteen the programs you choose - Great!

I installed this product in early February and have been fighting to get it to sync my e-mail from Lotus Notes 4.5 ever since. The calendar syncs fine, but the software terminates every time during the e-mail sync and nothing transfers. I have reinstalled both the Intellisync and Palm applications, had my drives and network profiles reinstalled, and configured Intellisync every way under the sun. Pumatech tech support gave me a few suggestions, none of which worked. When I called back, they wanted me to buy a "tech support ticket" for $19.95 because my 30 day free tech support warranty was expired!

I'm not wasting any more time or money on this product. I'll switch to something that works.