Tracked Appointments get lost

[Gummi Kr]

Hi,

In Outlook, users can push the 'Track in CRM' in the Appointment screen in
Outlook. When they track an appointment and the user is the organizer of the
Outlook appointments, the appointment gets lost from the Outlook calendar on
the next CRM synchronization. The workaround is to add the user as an
attendee, which is not the default function of Outlook.

Can anyone tell me if there is a fix for this or if there is a setting to
customize this behavior?

Best regards,
Gummi

[Kuvenp]

I have the same problem. Any luck with finding a fix for this or if you know
how this occurs.

[Arne Marquez [MSFT]]

This is actually the way this feature was designed. The concern was for the
Scheduling Manager scenaior, where one person schedules appointments for a
company's services. This individual would then have all the appointments
they organized added to their Outlook calendar.

If you are the organizer of the appointment and it is 'Tracked in CRM' you
should be able to view all of these in the CRM Workplace | My Work |
Activities folder.

--
Arne Marquez
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Gummi Kr" <Gum...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9A54A06F-4C82-4A1F...@microsoft.com...

[Gummi Kr]

Dear Arne,

It is true that you can view the appointments in the activity window.
However it cannot be by design that if you schedule an appointment in your
Outlook calendar and ‘Track in CRM’ that it gets deleted from the Outlook
calendar the next time you synchronize. It should still be displayed in
Outlook.

Best regards,
Gummi Kr

[Bernd Lachner]

Hi Arne,

it might be helpful for a scheduling manager scenario. But in fact, it was
not implemented this way from the beginning of MS CRM 3.0. So I have 2
questions:

1. when did you change this?
2. when will it be fixed, so that it works like before?

we have several customers who have reported this ERROR to us. We need a
quick fix for this BUG!

Thank you
Bernd Lachner
itara GmbH, Germany

[Arne Marquez [MSFT]]

I cannot say when it was changed, as this is not my feature area. I had
thought it was changed prior to V3 shipping, but based on your mail, I am
wrong.

I am sorry to report, that I had submitted this bug for triaging and it was
not approved. Basically the work-around you already found is the reason
that it was punted. If you could provide a business use case that I can use
to re-submit this bug, that would be helpful in getting a more favorable
resolution.

Realize, that to fix this issue, there are many other business scenarios
that may be affected and their instability will need to be explored as well
as the costs (time) and percieved benefit.

--
Arne Marquez
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Bernd Lachner" <BerndL...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FF540000-C558-410E...@microsoft.com...

[Mike Gil]

Hi Arne-
The business case/use case for a user to need to see, in Outlook, an
appointment created in Outlook but also tracked in MSCRM is basically for any
scenario OTHER than the scheduling manager scenario.

For example, I manage my calendar in Outlook and never use "My Activities"
in MSCRM, but want MSCRM to reflect appointments with contacts so that my
colleagues can see this history as part of the contact record. I gather that
the only way to do currently is to create separate appointments in MSCRM and
Outlook or to also make the meeting organizer an attendee?

rgds,
Mike Gilronan

[Bernd Lachner]

Dear Arne,

looking at the basic functions of Microsoft CRM it seems clear to me that
the service appointments are the scenario for a scheduling manager to plan
appointments for other persons. In this way it is clearly handled by the
given functions and described in the documentation, too.

The Outlook appointments are designed to schedule the events of a user
himself or to invite other users to a meeting. In the second case with a
probability of more than 95%, the user himselfs takes part at the meeting,
too. The last 5% can be solved simply by using the service appointment
function.

Microsoft Outlook and the integrated functions of Microsoft CRM MUST work in
the same way to keep one of the greatest sales features of MSCRM alive:
"Microsoft CRM integrates 100% in Outlook". Otherwise we will have a new
situation: "Microsoft CRM changes the way you work with your Outlook"!!!

How can we solve the problem?

Regards
Bernd

[Arne Marquez [MSFT]]

Mike,

Outlook Appointments are a single individual scheduling time. Outlook
Meetings are similar to appointments, but have other attendees.

If you create an Outlook Appointment (you are the organizer and the only
attendee) and click the 'Track In CRM' button, the Outlook Appointment is
represented in CRM as a CRM Appointment. The Appointment should be tracked
in both Outlook and CRM. Updates in either location should synchronize
without addtional user input.

If you create an Outlook Meeting (you are the organizer and an attendee) and
click the 'Track In CRM' button, the Outlook Appointment is represented in
CRM as a CRM Appointment. The Appointment should be tracked in both Outlook
and CRM. Updates in either location should synchronize without addtional
user input. If you are removed as an attendee, and that change is
synchronized to CRM, you should not see the Meeting in Outlook.

Again, the idea is that you are an attendee. Hope this helps...

--
Arne Marquez
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Mike Gil" <mike...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:32DBEFC3-6402-41C5...@microsoft.com...

[Arne Marquez [MSFT]]

Bernd,

I posted a reply to Mike Gil's email that discusses the differences between
the Outlook Appointment and Outlook Meeting. From your mail below, I think
you already understand the differences of working in Outlook with and
without CRM.

We have tried to give what are considered the feature set that benefits the
greatest number of customers. Most customers do not want all of their
appointments (or email) tracked automatically as, most folks have a mixture
of personal and work items in Outlook. The more differentiated the
solution, the more complex it becomes. I know this statement does not
change your situation, but I hope it may ease your pain to know what drives
our solutions.

--
Arne Marquez
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Bernd Lachner" <BerndL...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:2538C26E-764A-41DF...@microsoft.com...