Configuring a Windows Mobile device for Over-The-Air sync with ChaosHost

REQUIREMENTS: In addition to a ChaosHost.com account, you need a Windows Mobile device running version 5 or newer.

LIMITATIONS: For Windows Mobile users, notes that are entered for Contacts and Tasks can be sent from ChaosHost to your Windows Mobile device, BUT any notes you edit or add on your mobile device are NOT sent back to ChaosHost.  If you need to add notes, you should do it from ChaosHost.com or from a Chaos software product on your local pc.

While not a requirement, it is also a VERY good idea to have a backup of your data files. Our Time & Chaos and Chaos Intellect programs offer this as a choice on the File menu. You should make a backup now if you have never done so, and making regular backups of your data is recommended!

Please plug your phone into a power supply when doing your initial sync! It is not a requirement, but the very first transfer will be sending enough data that most users will notice considerable battery drain.


Before you start....

Windows Mobile has a few quirks and one of them is that it keeps old data around even when you are changing the rules on who is in charge of synchronizing your data.

For best results, we recommend clearing out the databases on your phone so it won't have to deal with "orphaned" items that are no longer synchronizing with the same source as before.  Besides doing a "hard reset" of your device or having a blank database overwrite your device, a less difficult way to reset your devices databases is to use the freeware SKTools Lite program (click here for their web site), which includes an option to "Delete PIM information" to clear out the Appointment Calendar and Contacts databases. This SKTools program doesn't work with every model of Windows Mobile, but it does work with many of them.

You should also turn off any of the sync options you previously used to transfer Contacts and Calendar data to your device.

Once the device is cleared and no longer synchronizing with other sources for Contacts and Calendar data, the Over-The-Air sync options below can reload the device with all your data stored in the ChaosHost Appointments and Contacts databases.

(Did we say yet that it is a good idea to have a backup of your data, too?)

  
1. Configure Time Zone Settings

To successfully transfer your appointment data with correct times, you need to select a default Time Zone for your database on ChaosHost.com.  You will also want to set your Windows Mobile device to the same time zone to ensure that all the appointment start and end times come to your device as they should.  WARNING:  If you change the timezone on your device, Microsoft will change all of the start and end times on your appointments!  If you want the start times and end times to continue to match what you see on ChaosHost.com and in Time & Chaos/Chaos Intellect, you should NOT change the timezone on your device once you have made your initial setup!

On ChaosHost.com:

On your Windows Mobile device:

  
2. Add a Server Source to your Windows Mobile device

  
3. Don't forget to configure the "Schedule" too!

Also on the "Menu" in ActiveSync is a choice for "Schedule". This section controls how often your Windows Mobile device will check in for new data.

The defaults are for your device to Sync "As Items Arrive". While this would be useful for email services, email is not part of our ChaosHost service!  So this constant connection to check in with our service will only cause you to use up battery power faster than you need to.

You can change these items to "Manually" if you only want to sync when you say so.  You could also choose a different time span between syncs if you want it to happen automatically, but at a more optimum time than "constantly".

 

This help article applies to ChaosHost, a cloud database service for users of Chaos Intellect, Time & Chaos, and Chaos Free