Outlook synchronization enables Outlook users to view Dynamics CRM information, including contacts, tasks, phone calls, letters, faxes, appointments, and e-mails, within the Outlook interface. This document describes the client synchronization process that is associated with Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 or later (for on-premise deployments) and with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online November 2009 Service Update or later (for online deployments).

The current situation happened at a customer where one user could not promote any emails into CRM, either from customer contacts or other CRM users.

Digging around a bit, I found this newsgroup thread with a mention of the following KB Article:

933234: Error message when you try to track an HTML-formatted e-mail message that contains an image in the signature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0: "An error occurred promoting this item to Microsoft CRM"

This particular article lists two possible causes:

•  The forms cache in Microsoft Outlook is corrupted.

•  The Microsoft Outlook temporary folder contains too many files. By design, Outlook has a limitation of 99 duplicated names that can be saved to the same image. Therefore, Outlook cannot read the embedded image when you have more than 100 e-mail messages with the same image.

In my particular case, the solution was to delete Outlook's temporary Internet files.

Thanks to Guy Shokrani for posting the solution on the newsgroup.

Using Encrypting File System to Protect Microsoft Dynamics CRM Data on a V3c Client Running Windows XP Professional

To configure Outlook 2003 to utilize this feature, perform the following steps:

1) Select Tools, Options to display the Outlook Options dialog box:

2) Click the Calendar Options button to display the Calendar Options.

3) Click the Time Zone button to display your Time Zone configuration:

4) The Current time zone group shows time zone information for your current location.  When you check Show an additional time zone, it activates a secondary time zone.

5) Set the Label to the value that you would like displayed on your calendar.

Note: Keep it short.

6) Set the Time zone for the additional time zone you wish to add to your calendar.

7) Check Adjust for daylightsaving time should you wish that option turned on.

8) Click OK until you're back to the main Outlook screen.

That's it.  When you now view your calendar, you'll see the additional time zone shown to the left of your current time zone.  As I mentioned earlier, this feature is really useful should you need to quickly determine the local time for a person that may be on the other side of the planet.

I ran into an issue at one of my customers that someone on the CRM Newsgroup mentioned as well so I thought I'd see if anyone else had seen similar patterns.

Situation:

The initial download of CRM information to an Outlook client takes an extremely long time, fails with various errors, or locks up Outlook.

Configuration:

You have installed a custom Callout on either the Account or Contact CRM Entity.

So, if you have a Callout installed, and you've seen the above symptom, please drop me a description of your Callout and the way the problem shows itself:  via email to [mitch at infinite-x dot net].

I wanted to gather as much info as I could before contacting CRM support.

Thanks, Mitch

If you carefully examine the following Windows Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient

You will find the settings that control the CRM Outlook client.  Here is a key of interest:

RunOutlookSyncOnStartup

Possible Values:  1 and 0

Outlook Client Option: Synchronize the items in my Outlook folders at startup

This setting is normally 1 which will instruct the Outlook Client to begin synchronization efforts immediately after Outlook is started. If you have issues with the synchronization process, you will probably see Outlook hang and/or become unresponsive.

Set this setting to 0 allow Outlook to start so you can regain control of the synchronization process or at least look to see what they use has decided to download and hopefully determine the issue causing the hang.

Additional Information:

There are a few other interesting registry settings in this section that are normally controlled through the CRM Outlook Clients Options page, but which you may need to modify to stop synchronization attempts while you are troubleshooting.

RunOutlookScheduledSync

Possible Values:  1 and 0

Outlook Client Option: Synchronize the CRM items in my Outlook folders every

Set this setting to 0  if you do not wish the CRM Client to perform the synchronize process at the interval specified on the CRM Options page.  Set it to 1, if you do want to synchronize Contacts.

SyncContact

Possible Values:  1 and 0

Outlook Client Option: Contacts

This setting controls whether or not Contacts will be synchronized at all. 

Set this setting to 0 to not synchronize Contacts and 1, is you want to synchronize Contacts.

SyncCalItem

Possible Values:  1 and 0

Outlook Client Option: Appointments I'm attending

This setting controls whether or not Appointments will be synchronized at all. 

Set this setting to 0 to not synchronize Appointments and 1, is you want to synchronize Appointments.

SyncTask

Possible Values:  1 and 0

Outlook Client Option: My tasks

This setting controls whether or not Tasks will be synchronized at all. 

Set this setting to 0 to not synchronize Tasks and 1, is you want to synchronize Tasks.

Being that laptop users are laptop users and have a tendency to be away from their office, it is now part of my standard CRM Laptop Client installation process to copy the Laptop Client Installation files to the user's local hard drive.

For CRM 3.0 Professional

Just copy CD #2 to a directory.

For CRM SBE

Locate the LaptopClient directory under the MSCRM directory found in the ClientApps share.

Scott, one of the guys at NetVision Consulting ( local MS partner ), suggested that we put the files in a directory called CRM INSTALLATION FILES – DO NOT DELETE since users sometimes have a fits of housecleaning that could render your careful preparation null and void.  Great tip Scott.

I have begun to notice a pattern in acceptance should you be installing CRM into an organization that does not currently utilize Outlook, or uses it minimally.

If the user isn't familiar and comfortable with Outlook, installing the CRM Outlook client can confuse the heck out of them.  This is caused by the fact that once the Outlook client is installed, the user now has at least two different methods to do many things.  And, if they don't know where Outlook ends, and where the CRM client begins, it can lead to more than a little bit of frustration as they attempt to determine the correct way to do something.

But doesn't everyone use Outlook?

Not as much as you think, especially in smaller organizations, and especially if they don't have Exchange installed. Either they use Outlook Express for email or use Outlook and then, only for email.  That means that things many of us take for granted, like: Contacts, Scheduling, and Shared or Group Calendars are totally new and different.  New and different many times is translated into "scary" and scary is bad.

Working through the issues

Here is one approach that I think will work in many organizations who make little or no use of Outlook.

1) Take time to know and understand the product knowledge-level of user community.

2) Perform a phased implementation and get the user working and productive with Outlook before CRM is implemented.

3) Have you or your staff be physically present during this initial phase so that people can ask stupid and embarrassing questions.

Note: There are no such things as stupid and embarrassing questions, but people still think they exist.

4) Perform a simple, quarter or half-day group training session so people can get an exposure to the product.

5) Engage with the users one-on-one, to provide personalized responses to questions and issues. 

People will generally react much better to personal coaching than group training and will tend to ask better and more questions when outside of the group setting.

6) By this point you have probably finished your CRM installation, configuration, and customization activities and it is now time to roll-out the CRM Outlook client.

7) Repeat steps 3 through 5 and outline the differences between Outlook and CRM and discuss in detail how the two products work together.

8) Have users keep a notepad to document questions and concerns as they use the system.

9) Perform frequent visits to each user's office to review and address any questions and concerns they may have document in their notepad.

While these steps may not handle everything you encounter, I think it covers most of the issues that I've seen in the past couple CRM implementations.

If you have experiences of your own that you would like to share, please leave a comment.

I tried removing and reinstalling the Outlook Desktop Client several times but could never figure out what in the world was causing Outlook to hang like it was.

After searching around for a bit, I found an article on Larry Lentz's blog regarding a similar-sounding issue.  It was solved by finding a CRM contact record containing bad data, and deleting the contents of the field where the bad data existed.

After reinstalling the Outlook client I displayed the synchronization status and saw that it was only syncing a single task between CRM and Outlook.  Hmm, I thought.

Using the CRM Web Client, I closed the task as completed and restarted Outlook.  After dealing with an error message, I noticed that the CPU issue had corrected itself.

Evidently, as Larry had found, there was something in that Task that was causing Outlook to freak out.

Thanks for the article Larry. Lunch is on me next time you're in Dallas ( or I'm in SA ).

Before you uninstall the CRM server, run the Rule Deployment Wizard and remove the CRM Rule from Outlook for each deployed user.

In the case of CRM Small Business Edition, the Uninstall will remove the CRM mailbox.

CRM Professional will produce different results because, in many cases, the CRM Server and the Exchange Server are on different computers and the Uninstall of CRM will not affect the Exchange Forwarding service.

Removing the Rule is important because if you don't, it will attempt to forward email to the now non-existent CRM Mailbox which will cause the user to receive a bounce email any time they get an email that may have the CRM Tracking Token in the subject.