Is it possible to register custom SSP on Mobile5 for PIM?

Hi All,

Recently I was trying to porting an old SSP from PocketPC 2000 to
Mobile5 device.

The SSP was used to synchronize PIM information (Calendar, Task and
Contact) between desktop and device. It was working in the following
way on PocketPC 2000:
-- 1. First, it register itself as the default service provider for
Calendar&Task&Contact objects on the desktop for ActiveSync.
ActiveSync was happy to pick up this registration and use my custom
SSP instead of the Outlook provider for syncing Calendar&Task&Contact
items.
-- 2. Then, my custom SSP grab Calendar&Task&Contact information from
some custom database through the network and send it down to the
device through ActiveSync.
-- 3. In the other direction, it also works fine: ActiveSync will pick
up changes at runtime on the device and direct my SSP to sync it back
to the desktop and finally send back to the database over the network.

When I am porting it to Mobile5, I am stuck at step 1 above. It looks
like that the ActiveSync Manager ignore my registration for
Calendar&Task&Contact object types. The ActiveSync Manager will only
use Outlook SSP as the provider for Calendar&Task&Contact and if
Outlook is not present, the ActiveSync Manager will just disable the
syncing of all Calendar&Task&Contact items!

I don't know why this used to work properly in previous version, and
suddenly is not supported any more? So my question is: does Mobile5
drop support for 3rd party SSP for the Calendar&Task&Contact PIM
items? If anyone else has any luck to find some way to let ActiveSync
Manager to recognize custom SSP, can you share your experience?

Any information will be greatly appreciated!

Hai

GG
Sat May 12 04:12:55 CDT 2007

<haihuang.tiger@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1178909833.397432.25960@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All,
>
> Recently I was trying to porting an old SSP from PocketPC 2000 to
> Mobile5 device.
>
> The SSP was used to synchronize PIM information (Calendar, Task and
> Contact) between desktop and device. It was working in the following
> way on PocketPC 2000:
[cut]
>
> I don't know why this used to work properly in previous version, and
> suddenly is not supported any more? So my question is: does Mobile5
> drop support for 3rd party SSP for the Calendar&Task&Contact PIM
> items? If anyone else has any luck to find some way to let ActiveSync
> Manager to recognize custom SSP, can you share your experience?
>
> Any information will be greatly appreciated!
>
> Hai


3rd party SSP are supported. But in WM5 and WM6 Contacts, Tasks and Calendar
(and Inbox, FWIW) use a different synchronization engine (AirSync). A
solution would be to develop your own device-side SSP and disable the
"standard" Outlook providers at setup.


--
Giuseppe Govi
giuseppe govi <> syncdata it

haihuang
Mon May 14 10:25:23 CDT 2007

On May 12, 5:12 am, "GG" <s...@my.sig> wrote:
> <haihuang.ti...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1178909833.397432.25960@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Hi All,
>
> > Recently I was trying to porting an old SSP from PocketPC 2000 to
> > Mobile5 device.
>
> > The SSP was used to synchronize PIM information (Calendar, Task and
> > Contact) between desktop and device. It was working in the following
> > way on PocketPC 2000:
> [cut]
>
> > I don't know why this used to work properly in previous version, and
> > suddenly is not supported any more? So my question is: does Mobile5
> > drop support for 3rd party SSP for the Calendar&Task&Contact PIM
> > items? If anyone else has any luck to find some way to let ActiveSync
> > Manager to recognize custom SSP, can you share your experience?
>
> > Any information will be greatly appreciated!
>
> > Hai
>
> 3rd party SSP are supported. But in WM5 and WM6 Contacts, Tasks and Calendar
> (and Inbox, FWIW) use a different synchronization engine (AirSync). A
> solution would be to develop your own device-side SSP and disable the
> "standard" Outlook providers at setup.
>
> --
> Giuseppe Govi
> giuseppe govi <> syncdata it


Hi Giuseppe,

Thanks a lot for your reply. So far this is the only valuable
information I can get on this issue :-)

Your reply for sure point me to some direction, but I still have some
questions:
-- My understanding for your reply is: WM5 and WM6 are now using
AirSync to replace the old ActiveSync framework. I have not worked on
AirSync before, so can you direct me to some site for more
information? Is it just a different framework for syncing between
desktop and device? And of course, does it support SSP written for
ActiveSync?
-- I am able to sync the Calendar&Task&Contact between Outlook on my
desktop and Pocket Outlook on the WM5 device by using ActiveSync. In
here I do not see AirSync? Does this mean WM5 also support both
ActiveSync and AitSync?
-- My original question for registering my custome SSP as the default
provider for Calendar&Task&Contact is ON DESKTOP SIDE. In your reply,
you mentioned to "disable the standard Outlook provider at setup", did
you mean to do this on desktop side, or on the device, or should do
this on both side?
-- Plus, can you shed some light on HOW to "disable the standard
Outlook provider at setup"? Do you mean that by disabling standard
Outlook provider at setup will allow ActiveSync to recognize my custom
provider and use it to sync happily?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hai

GG
Mon May 14 16:12:23 CDT 2007

<haihuang.tiger@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1179156323.019200.187260@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On May 12, 5:12 am, "GG" <s...@my.sig> wrote:
>> <haihuang.ti...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:1178909833.397432.25960@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
[cut]
> Your reply for sure point me to some direction, but I still have some
> questions:
> -- My understanding for your reply is: WM5 and WM6 are now using
> AirSync to replace the old ActiveSync framework. I have not worked on
> AirSync before, so can you direct me to some site for more
> information? Is it just a different framework for syncing between
> desktop and device? And of course, does it support SSP written for
> ActiveSync?
> -- I am able to sync the Calendar&Task&Contact between Outlook on my
> desktop and Pocket Outlook on the WM5 device by using ActiveSync. In
> here I do not see AirSync? Does this mean WM5 also support both
> ActiveSync and AitSync?

The desktop application is still named ActiveSync (Windows Mobile Device
Center in Windows Vista). AirSync is the underlaying protocol used to
synchronize Windows Mobile and Exchange and, starting from WM5, is also used
to synchronize Outlook via ActiveSync.
Currently, to the best of my knowledge AirSync is not documented so you
can't develop a synchronization provider based on AirSync. However, both
ActiveSync and WMDC are compatible with traditional SSPs.

> -- My original question for registering my custome SSP as the default
> provider for Calendar&Task&Contact is ON DESKTOP SIDE. In your reply,
> you mentioned to "disable the standard Outlook provider at setup", did
> you mean to do this on desktop side, or on the device, or should do
> this on both side?
> -- Plus, can you shed some light on HOW to "disable the standard
> Outlook provider at setup"? Do you mean that by disabling standard
> Outlook provider at setup will allow ActiveSync to recognize my custom
> provider and use it to sync happily?
>

No, you can't register your custom SSP on desktop and expect it to work as
it is, because the corresponding device-side SSP is not existing any longer
in WM5 and WM6. You must develop your own device side SSP for Contacts,
Tasks and Appointments (or, alternatively, figure out how AirSync works...)
Once you have developed and registered the device-side SSP, you must also
make sure the user is not synchronizing Outlook / Exchange at the same time,
as this would probably lead to unwanted cancellations and duplicate items -
that's why I said you should disable Outlook / Exchange synchronization.


--
Giuseppe Govi
giuseppe govi <> syncdata it

haihuang
Wed May 16 15:18:06 CDT 2007

Hi Giuseppe,

Thanks for your reply. I have updated my reply a while back but looks
that it got lost in the wind?... So here I will write it again.

> Currently, to the best of my knowledge AirSync is not documented so you
> can't develop a synchronization provider based on AirSync. However, both
> ActiveSync and WMDC are compatible with traditional SSPs.

So, for now I can forget about AirSync and keep work on the ActiveSync
direction.

> No, you can't register your custom SSP on desktop and expect it to work as
> it is, because the corresponding device-side SSP is not existing any longer
> in WM5 and WM6. You must develop your own device side SSP for Contacts,
> Tasks and Appointments (or, alternatively, figure out how AirSync works...)

In my original application, there are SSP dlls on both the desktop
side and the device side. They are loaded by ActiveSync framework on
both side and sync Contact information across the wire. So, I already
have the SSP on the device side. I am NOT CLEAR what you mean by
saying "the corresponding device-side SSP is not existing any longer
in WM5 and WM6"?

In addition, I have tried the SyncExpress and it works like a breeze.
Great job :-) I think that I can use the same strategy used by
SyncExpress to sync Contact information. In SyncExpress, it registers
a different name as "Address", in order to bypass the limitation of
WM5, but under the cover it still writes into the Contacts folder of
the Pocket Outlook on the device. In my case, I can register something
such as "MyCustomContact" to the ActiveSync, and then under the cover
write information into Pocket Outlook Contacts folder.

Question 1: is my understanding correct, that I can use a different
object name to bypass the limitation of Mobile5?

> Once you have developed and registered the device-side SSP, you must also
> make sure the user is not synchronizing Outlook / Exchange at the same time,
> as this would probably lead to unwanted cancellations and duplicate items -
> that's why I said you should disable Outlook / Exchange synchronization.

I can imagine what a mess when both my custom SSP and Outlook's native
SSP syncing into the same Contacts folder on the device...

However, is it possible to disable the Outlook's native SSP? If the
Outlook is NOT installed on the machine, there is little problem. When
Outlook is installed on the machine, then the user can activate the
Outlook SSP at any time. It looks that there is nothing I can do to
disable user to do that??? The only thing I can think of is to show
some warning message at the installation time. But again, there is
guarantee that the user will read the warning and will not choose
Outlook by mistake.

Question 2: Is there a way to disable Outlook SSP programmatically?

Thanks again for your information!

Hai