Outlook for Mac 2011Now that Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been released and is in your hot little hands, let's go over what it is, why we did what we did, and how it impacts you and your work.

Sync support

First the biggest thing (well, I think anyway): Calendar sync support. Now you can sync Outlook—calendar as well as contacts, notes, and tasks—with any service or device that supports Apple Sync Services, including your iPhone and iPad. Apparently, this has been a top customer request and so, as I've said before, if you don't ask for it, we don't know you want it. Feedback, folks—it works.

Server-based rules

I don't know what I'd do without the many rules I have set up on my computer, and boy do I have some complicated rules. For example: When I get an email from any one of the 10 people on my team, it gets moved to the  Team  folder unless it's from my manager, in which case it gets sent to the Louis folder, unless it has something to do with our upcoming performance review (everyone's favorite time of year) in which case it goes to the Review > 2011 folder, unless it's marked Personal and then it goes into the Personal folder. If I didn't have Microsoft Exchange-based server-side rules, well, it would make a whole lot more organization work from me. Who needs that?

(In case you're not clear on this, here is the difference between client-side and server-side rules. If you don't know the difference, you can't really know what a necessary added feature this is.)

Redirect! Redirect!

Ever get an email that you know wasn't intended for you? Maybe you have a similar name to someone in your company (three Crabbys at Microsoft? I shudder to think) and you sometimes get each other's emails. Now you can just click one new button, the Outlook Redirect button, send it along to the other Crabby in the org, and replies from that other Crabby will go to the original sender, and you're completely out of it. Ingenious.

Read more about what's in the service pack release and download Office for Mac 2011 SP1.

— Crabby