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ilyonsilyons 

Outlook Edition 2 task and event sync issue

Hello,

With the new sync funtionality, it seems that any useful identifying information (account or contact name) related to a task or event is no longer appended during sync. This means I have a dozen 'followup call' entries in my task list and I have no idea what accounts or contacts any of my events relate to. I know I can right click and View in Salesforce but this is hardly useful sync functionality.

I have logged this with customer support and have been told that my 'feature request' will be considered. I know that the previous sync mechanism using intellisync appended identifying information - this 2.0 release is a major downgrade in functionality/usability.

I am really surprised to not see more people complaing loudly about this issue. Does nobody else care about this?

Ian Lyons
Ski Bum.ax145Ski Bum.ax145
Hi

I have just been setting up Outlook edition for the first time and this problem was the first thing i noticed. It seems to have been a huge part to overlook as now i have lots of Tasks in my Outlook folder with ni useful details in them! I have been having a play and can not find any obvious solution!

Any thoughts or assistance would be much apprciated.

Andy Tennison
Harry JamesHarry James
I inquired about this and this is the response that I received:


There is no way today to create an appointment in Outlook and automatically associate with a Contact or Account in Salesforce.com.
-- The appointment is synced to Salesforce as a “generic” event
-- You need to open the event on your Home Page in Salesforce and manually relate to an Account, Contact, Opportunity, etc.
-- This feature is now on the New Feature Request List
-- If you can create the event in Salesforce and sync to Outlook that will be the best way – although I know it’s not always feasible.
wsws
This is a workaround you can use in the mean time - at least until the feature has been implemented. For events and tasks - Outlook Edition 2 syncs the leads and contacts to an Outlook field called 'WhoId', and accounts, opportunities, cases, campaigns, contracts and assets to an Outlook field called 'WhatId'. If you modify your view in Outlook to show those fields, e.g. as in a list view - you will be able to see contacts and leads associated with your events and tasks. To see accounts, opportunities, etc associated with events and tasks you will have to first create the custom mapping and then perform a sync.

While this workaround will allow you to view the Who and What 'ids' it doesn't allow you to make the association in Outlook - but at least you have the ability to see the association (which was created in Salesforce).

I'm not sure if this is helpful?
MutchlerMutchler
I agree 100% - it was not until I noticed that the old way of adding [Contact Name] or [Account Name] no longer works...

Message and Activity Management still need alot of work in my opinion - too much work to create and manage.
MutchlerMutchler
I agree 100% - it was not until I noticed that the old way of adding [Contact Name] or [Account Name] no longer works...

Message and Activity Management still need alot of work in my opinion - too much work to create and manage.
flescorflescor
This sounds like a useful trick, but when I try to customize the simple or detailed list views of Tasks, I don't see WhoId or WhatId to add them to the view. Do they have different display names (e.g., Contacts for WhoId?)

Scott Fletcher
ilyonsilyons
This is a great tip thanks!

For Tasks and Events, I found WhoId lurking in the 'User-defined fields in folder' dropdown but could not find the WhatId field.

Also, displaying the note field makes this more useful

Cheers
wsws
To get the WhatId to be displayed - you have to create the field mapping first - it isn't on by default. To do this - go to Tools - Salesforce Options and click on the tab you want: events / tasks. Click on Advanced Options and you'll see a tab for field mappings. Hit the new mapping button and find WhatId on the salesforce side and type in any name on the outlook side, e.g. WhatId. After creating this field - you have to sync in order to get Outlook Edition to create the field for you and populate any data. If you look under user-defined fields - you'll see the new WhatId field.

The only time this doesn't work is if there is no data in any of the records for that new field mapping you've just created. If this is the case - then enter some test data in one record and sync.
wsws
The WhoId and WhatId (see previous post on how to show the WhatId) can be found under the section "User-defined" fields. When you are looking at the list of fields to add to your view, on the left hand corner of that dialog box - there is a drop-down to change it from 'frequencyly used' fields to other options of which user defined is one of them.
ng30345ng30345
Do you know if this issue was resolved w/ the Salesforce7 release?  It doesnt look like I can yet associate a Contact or Account with a Task I created in Outlook.
wsws
Hi,

It's 'resolved' in terms of this functionality is in Outlook Edition 3.

Thanks,
DErskineDErskine

I've been testing Outlook Edition for my company for a few months.  The mapping availability of the Contact and Opportunity in an Event is great.  Unfortunately I'm still a little disappointed.  Below is a synopsis of how I see this presently working.  If someone knows a workaround, myself and a lot of people at my company will be very happy. 

If you are not using a List view in Outlook, and want to know the Contact or Opportunity association, you would need to edit the field map to one of the fields that are viewable in the Appointment window in Outlook.  Those are Subject, Location, Time (Start and End) and Body.  Since you likely need to know the first three as they are mapped by default, you're only real choice is to map the WhoID (Contact) or WhatID (Opportunity) to the Body.

The rub, however, is that while you can map multiple Salesforce fields to a single Outlook field, the WhoID map supersedes the Description and the WhatID maps.  The default map for the Description field (in Salesforce) is to the Body field (in Outlook).  This is completely logical.  But when you map the WhoID to the Body, you loose the data map from the Description field.  The WhoID map overwrites the Description field map.  Ditto for the WhatID.  WhoID supersedes the other two.

Essentially, if you want to know the name of the person you are meeting at a client site (Contact), the Opportunity the meeting relates to (Opportunity), and the notes on why you are meeting them (Description), you have to manually add all of that information as notes in the description field and leave the default mapping in place. 

One could argue that if I were to simply grow accustomed to using the List view in Outlook this problem would be resolved.  But I use a Blackberry in the field, as I'd imagine quite a few Salesforce users do.  There is no List view on the Blackberry.  Its been a while since I played with a Windows Mobile device, so I can't attest to whether or not the List view is available.

What's the solution?