Synchronizing Outlook Tasks on the iPhone

The iPhone has been an extremely popular consumer device, but is now making great strides as a business device. The iPhone OS provides native support for Exchange mailboxes and is extremely easy to configure for synchronization. The native iPhone clients synchronize mail, calendar and contacts with an Exchange mailbox, but does not synchronize tasks. For those of us that manage all of our tasks with Outlook, this created a bit of a gap.

There is, however, a cheap and easy solution to synchronize tasks between Outlook 2007 and the iPhone that uses a free internet service from Toodledo along with a software connector to Outlook by Chromatic Dragon Software and the $2.99 Toodledo iPhone app.

(Be sure to make a copy of the current tasks in the event that any are deleted or duplicated during the intial synchronization).

Getting started:

 

A. Sign-Up for a Toodledo Account

1. Navigate to http://www.toodledo.com/ and sign up for a free account.

B. Install and Configure the Outlook Sync Application

1. Go to http://www.toodledo.com/connect_outlook.php for information on the Toodledo Outlook sync application from Chromatic Dragon.
2. 
   Download the Outlook sync tool from the Chromatic Dragon web site at  http://www.chromadrake.com/ChromaticDragon/software/ToodledoSyncInfo.aspx.
3. Click Run when prompted to install the Toodledo Sync Application
4. Start the Toodledo Sync Application by clicking on SyncApp.exe from the C:\Program Files\Chromatic Dragon\Toodledo Sync Application folder.
5. Enter your toodledo Unique Id and password and verify the authentication.  Please note that you need to use your Toodledo Unique ID to authenticate, this is not the same as your normal Toodledo login name. You can find your Unique ID on the account settings page once you have logged in to the Toodledo web site.
6. After entering your Unique ID and password, click the test button to test the connection.
7. Configure the Application options best suited for you from the available options.  (A sample configuration has been shown in the screen shots below)
 


8. Click File/Close from the menu to save your selections.
9. There should now be a toodledo Sync Application icon in the system tray. To synchronize tasks for the first time, right-click on the system tray icon and select Manual Sync to synchronize current tasks to Toodledo.
Once you have successfully tested the connection, you will be presented wiht the Toodledo Sync Applications Options.

C. Install the Toodledo iPhone Application

1. From you PC or iPhone go to the iPhone App Store and download the $2.99 Toodledo - To Do List Application from Toodledo.
2. Install the application and enter your Toodledo account information when prompted.
3. The iPhone app will now synchronize your tasks from your Toodledo account (which is being synchronized with your Outlook client by the Toodledo Sync Application installed earlier).
4. You will now see a list of your current tasks, synchronized onto your iPhone.


 

D. Other Options
 


If you do not want to purchase the Toodledo To - Do app, you can also access your tasks from Toodledo's mobile device optimized page located here.
 
Thanks to everyone that posted on this topic in blogs and how-to pages.  This solution can be found in a number of other blogs and FAQ's, that enabled me to first get this to work, most notably Daniel B. Curran's post which can be found here.
 
If anyone has a better solution to synchronize tasks between Outlook 2007 and the iPhone or an update to this information, feel free to post a comment below.