Open vs. Scheduled Appointments In CRM

by Danny Varghese 01.23.09

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In CRM, when creating appointments, you can set the status to Open or Scheduled.  But why would a user set the status to one or the other?

According to the SDK, the status and state codes are different:

For CRM Outlook users, the only real difference seems to be the scheduling. When other users look at your calendar during this time period, if the appointment was marked Open, the time block will be marked as "tentative." If the appointment was marked Scheduled, the time will show up as "busy" in Outlook.

Understanding How Outlook Synchronization Handles Deletions

When Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM synchronize, records that you delete in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook are also deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, with the following exceptions:

• If a contact is deleted in Outlook and the contact is not owned by you, the contact is deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook.
  
• If a contact is deleted in Outlook and is owned by you, the contact is not deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, but the link is broken and the record is not updated or recreated in Outlook.
  
• If a contact is deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook and the contact is owned by you, it is not deleted in Outlook, but the link is broken and the record is not updated.
  
• When you delete an e-mail message, contact, completed task, past appointment, or service activity in Outlook, it is not deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but the link is broken. However, if you delete a pending (incomplete) task or future appointment in Outlook, it is also deleted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
  

CRM4 Outlook Client – Issues and Fixes

Smiti Shah Published Wednesday, August 06, 2008 10:50 AM by crmblog

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This must-have fix is likely the most common perf/stability issue out there, especially on Outlook 2007. This fix resolves the issue. A current workaround exists by turning off the To Do bar.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952724

2. With E-mail Auto Promotion Enabled, Outlook may not close cleanly/properly.

This fix addresses a memory allocation issue that can occur somewhat unpredictably. If your users are using e-mail auto promotion, I encourage you to deploy this hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948121

3. Contacts with birthdays earlier than 1/1/1970 causes Outlook to crash

This was caused by an API change by one of our dependencies.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948045

4. Items in Shared Calendars will report Sync Issues

We do not support Shared Calendars in CRM 4.0, we encountered a couple of cases where some code was getting executed against a shared calendar and causing problems.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949086

5. Cannot Promote an E-mail where the name of the attached file contains a ‘&’ symbol.

If the attachment to an e-mail contains the ‘&’ symbol, it will fail to track in CRM.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949719

6. Selecting Dismiss on Outlook Calendar reminder for Service Activity causes record to change Status Reason back to default value for that record.

Selecting Dismiss on Outlook Calendar reminder for Service Activity causes record to change Status Reason back to default value for that record

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950475  (not yet published)

7. OWA Sent Emails Get Stuck in Outlook Draft Folder When Outlook Is Open And CRMADDIN is Enabled

When you have both Outlook and OWA open, and you have the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Microsoft Office Outlook installed, and you send an email form OWA, the email will be stopped in the Draft folder instead of being sent

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950088

Smiti Shah

You can't find what? Installing CRM 4.0 from a network share

posted at: 01.17.2008 at 12:38 AM by Aaron Elder

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While not officially a new feature of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0; the ability to install CRM from a network share (or shared drive within Virtual PC 2007) is very much welcomed.  Generally speaking this should "just work", however some of you may be getting an error when you attempt to run setup and clicking next after selecting the SQL server to use.  The error looks something like this and says setup cannot find the file Reserved.sql.

The reason for this seems to be that the Config folder is not copied from the setup source location into the temporary location from which it actually runs.

To fix this as follows:

• Simply copy the Config folder from your network share into the temporary location (noted in the error dialog)
• Click OK on the error dialog
• Click Next again to try again

This time, setup will find the files it needs and all will be well in the world.

Cheers,

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

CRM Outlook Client update

An optional software update is now available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for Microsoft Office Outlook. This optional software download includes an update that can increase the performance and reliability for everyday system use.

From Microsoft Office Outlook, users can automatically download this update by navigating to the CRM menu found at the top of their Microsoft Office Outlook screen (see below). Within the CRM menu, there is an option to check for software updates – which will download this update so that installation can begin. The user will then be presented with a set of instructions on how to download and apply this update to their client configuration.

Additional information about the client updates can be found online at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954491. Refer to Knowledge Base article KB 954491 for a summary of items addressed in this update.

If you experience problems downloading or installing this update, please contact Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support. Support contact information can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com/crm_training_and_support/index.html.

Microsoft CRM Outlook client and authentication balloons

Posted by Mike Snyder on July 1, 2008

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You know those little "balloons" that pop up from time to time in the Outlook 4.0 client? Below are some registry settings to change the Outlook client's behavior around network connectivity, notifications and so on. Our support manager recommend increasing ClientAuthAllowRetries to 10 and ClientAuthNotificationThrottle to 60000 (60 seconds), but you can obviously tweak to fit to your unique environment.

Regkey Name	Default	Description
ClientAuthNotificationThrottle	30000	Specifies the required elapsed time before which another balloon notification may be displayed (helps prevent too frequent balloon notifications).
ClientAuthRenewPeriod	60000	Specifies how frequently the hoster process will check if it should renew authentication.
ClientAuthVerifyConnectionPeriod	30000	Specifies how frequently the hoster process will check connectivity to the web application by downloading a tiny icon (anonymous access).
ClientAuthVerifySignedInPeriod	5000	Specifies how frequently the hoster process will check if authentication has been lost (ex: detect if cookies have been deleted or the CRM ticket has expired).
ClientAuthAllowRetries	3	Specifies the number of failed authentication attempts (after this an error will be shown or the client will move to the offline state).

Posted by Mike Snyder on July 1, 2008 in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

HOTFIX ALERT: You cannot view any e-mail messages in the folders after you install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 On-Premise client for Outlook

This one has caused me some problems with our CRM implementation as well as a few clients. The end user will call you and tell you that thier Outlook is stuck and the moving bar never stops.

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SYMPTOMS
After you install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 On-Premise client for Microsoft Office Outlook, you can select different folders in Outlook. However, you cannot view any e-mail messages in the folders. In the area where the e-mail messages should be displayed, Outlook displays "loading."
RESOLUTION
click here to open the KB Article
Click here to request the Hotfix

Set Regarding - size of recently used list

Philip Richardson Wrote the following on his blog.
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April 14, 2008 16:25 by philip
I discovered today that you can set the number of items shown in the Most Recently Used (MRU) list for CRM 4.0's Outlook Client. The default setting is 7 items and I find it just doesn't work for me.

Add the following reg key to our client machine:

Location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient
Value Name: MaxRegardingObjectListCount
Type: REG_DWORD

Here is a reg patch for those that love their *.reg files. This patch sets it to 50 items (ie. 32 in hex).
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient]
"MaxRegardingObjectListCount"=dword:00000032

Warning: Modifying the registry is dangerous. If you don't know what you are doing them don't attempt it. Ask one of your parents to help out.

The following screenshot shows this config in action. I've blurred the data out for the usual reasons.

Larger (or smaller) Outlook MRU for CRM 4.0

Do you need to increase or reduce the number of MRU (Most Recently Used) drop-downs in the CRM Outlook client. Phillip has a nice artical stating how to modify this. Click Here to view his post.