Apex Connect Outlook 3.0 Best Practices

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2. Index Business Driver and Common Use Cases System Requirements Best Practices for Synchronizing Contacts Notes on New 3.0 Behavior FAQ

3. Business Driver Customers would like the ability to integrate their Outlook Edition with salesforce.com. This capability would� Allow users to synchronize Contacts, Tasks, and Calendar events Associate Outlook email messages with Contacts, Events, and Tasks Create Tasks and Cases from Outlook email messages Map custom fields in Salesforce to fields in Outlook Save time entering data in both salesforce.com and Outlook

4. Common Use Cases

5. System Requirements

6. Where do I get Connect for Microsoft Outlook, and what are the system requirements? Salesforce Editions: Available to All Editions Install the latest Outlook Edition 3 (known as O3) from Setup/Personal Setup/Desktop Integration/Outlook Edition System Requirements for O3: Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000, XP Professional SP1, XP Professional SP2, or Vista Microsoft Outlook XP (2002), 2003, or 2007 Outlook Edition 3.0 is not compatible with Outlook 2000 or Word 2000.

7. Skill Level Required Recommended skill level to implement O3 is an IT administrator working with a Salesforce administrator. User preferences and synchronization settings should be determined by an administrator. O3 can be downloaded and used immediately if users have access to the tool. A controlled and customized implementation of O3 typically takes one week to configure, test, train, and rollout to end users. For larger customers, this time frame may vary and often takes longer.

8. Are there minimum bandwidth recommendations? Outlook Edition has no explicit bandwidth requirements, although faster connections obviously translate to faster performance.� Users with home DSL connections with <1Mbits/second download rate will likely notice slower sync times.� Use with a modem connection is not recommended. "Average" sync exchanges are roughly 1-5Mb (Note that "average" is very difficult to pin down, as�it is highly dependent on an org's custom fields, custom tabs, and the amount of data being synched). Average space requirements vary with the amount of data being synched. A normal Outlook Contact equals ~2k. For example, if a user syncs 1000 Contacts, expect this to require an additional ~2Mb storage on the client.

9. Are Vista & Outlook 2007 supported? O3 has support for Vista and Outlook 2007, including the new Ribbon UI.

10. Best Practices forSynchronizing Contacts

11. How does synchronizing contacts work?(This has not changed from O2.) When a contact is marked for synchronization, matching is based on 4 fields: First Name Last Name Account Name Email Address Based on built in logic, if the contact record in Outlook is not matched based on the criteria above, a new contact will be created in salesforce.com.

12. How does synchronizing contacts work? (cont�d) A Conflict resolution box is displayed if the contact has previously been synchronized and now detects changes have been made in salesforce.com and Outlook based on last sync. If a similar contact is found in general, but the contact still does not match well, then a new contact is created.

13. Synchronizing Contacts - Example Contact Name: Jennifer Smith Account Name: IBM Matching will only occur for the Contact and the Accounts associated with Jennifer Smith If there is only ONE Account of IBM, then this is considered a match If more than one IBM exists, O3 will prompt you to create a new record or associate to an existing one. (This is different from O2.)

14. Best Practice for Synchronizing Contacts Salesforce.com should be the data master! Don�t make Contact changes in Outlook � Create and maintain Contacts in salesforce.com Set up synchronization to be unilateral from salesforce.com to Outlook When synchronizing, the latest information from salesforce.com will be brought into Outlook Know your contact data in salesforce.com and determine your approach: Are most of your Contacts old? Are most of your Contacts new? Do you have a mix of new and old Contacts?

15. If most of my Contacts are old� If the majority of your Contacts in salesforce.com are old or may have outdated information: Create a new Contacts folder in Outlook Synchronize Contacts from salesforce.com to the new folder in Outlook Why? By synchronizing Contacts from salesforce.com into a new Outlook folder, old Outlook Contact data can be maintained separately. Contacts in the new Outlook folder can be maintained and synchronized bi-directionally which helps keep data clean.

16. If most of my Contacts are new� If the majority of your contacts in salesforce.com are new: Create a new Contacts folder in Outlook Synchronize Contacts from salesforce.com into Outlook From your new and old Outlook Contacts folder, consolidate your contacts to have the latest Contact information Synchronize bi-directionally Why? You now can maintain one list of new contacts in both Outlook and salesforce.com Helps keep Contact data consolidated and clean Helps reduce duplicate Contact records in both systems

17. I have a mix of old and new contacts� If you have a mix of old and new Contacts in salesforce.com, the best approach is to leave all the Contacts in the existing Outlook folder. When synchronizing Contacts, you will be prompt to resolve the Contacts through the Conflict Resolution screen. This process, however, may be time consuming. Why? Conflict resolution will match any existing Contacts in salesforce.com and Outlook and provide you options to select the most updated data.

18. Synchronization of Events All synchronized events are labeled with the "salesforce.com" category. Daily open-ended events and events with an end date synchronize for up to one month. Open-ended weekly and monthly events synchronize for up to one year. Open-ended yearly events synchronize for 5 years. Synching Recurring Events Salesforce stores recurring Outlook events as separate events. If you need to change a recurring event, change it in Outlook and your changes will be reflected in salesforce.com the next time you synchronize.

19. Synchronization of Events When creating events in Outlook and synchronizing to Salesforce, you need to do a manual association on the event to track it against a record in Salesforce. If you do not manually associate it to a record, then the event will only be displayed on your homepage.

20. Notes on New 3.0 Behavior

21. O3 Enhancements Faster Performance Supports Email Attachments Supports Who/What Associations with Custom Objects

22. O3 Behavior � General Tips Your first synch may take a few minutes! During a search for a contact, the default search only displays the first 50 Account names. If you do a full search where an Account name is manually entered, this may take longer since it�s looking for all the account names that match. Synchronizing over the VPN is known to be slower. When O3 is installed, Outlook may be slower during start up.

23. O3 Behavior � General Tips In Outlook 2007, security is disabled when it is pushed out to users. There is a security setting in Outlook that needs to be enabled. Contact support if you need additional information. Outlook 2007 may be slower when starting up because of the initialization process. However, this is generally not noticeable to most customers. Add Emails: Performance may be slower when associating a record to a custom object when an organization has a large number of custom objects.

24. O3 Behavior � Use Unique Names When creating a Contact in Outlook, best practice to ensure that the Contact has the proper name is to use unique names for Accounts. You must use the Associate button to make a proper association to the appropriate record. Example: If you just enter �IBM� for the Account Name, O3 will not let you mark that contact for sync.

25. O3 Behavior � Task Types Tasks and events in Outlook that are synched do not have an Event/Task type passed to salesforce.com. This will affect reporting activity analysis. Example: Reporting for Joe Smith may have 10 Event tasks with Type = blank, while others have �Onsite Visit, Conference Call, Left Message, etc.� Task type information from salesforce.com going into Outlook, however, does work. Best practice for both scenarios above is to use salesforce.com to associate the event/task to the proper name, and use Outlook to view the data.

26. O3 Behavior � Modifying Defaults O3 allows users to customize the sync criteria by modifying the registration/dictionary files (O_Dictionary.xml). Example: Ability to synchronize contacts where you are not the contact owner A technical expert is recommended to modify these settings. See the Advanced Admin Tip sheet for details. Administrators need to �push� O3 to users if users do not have the admin rights to download software/applications. The administrator will also need to modify or set the dictionary files for customization.

27. O3 Behavior � Modifying Defaults

28. O3 Behavior � Default Task Status When you 'Add Email' from Outlook Edition, the default status of the activity being created may not set to what you want. For example, it may set the status to "Absent" instead of �Completed�. This setting is not directly configurable in Outlook Edition. It is inherited from existing settings in salesforce.com. This is set based on the �TaskStatusValues� on the Windows Registry, and displays that as the default status. For more information, please contact Support for Solution 00006311. 

29. O3 Behavior - Asynchronous Login O3 can log into salesforce.com on Outlook startup and keep the session alive. A new login is forced every 20 minutes. The schema is refreshed every 10 �real� logins (i.e. a new SID was obtained). After 2 failed logins, we give up until a successful login has occurred.

30. O3 Behavior � Embedded App �Salesforce.com in Outlook folders� will continue to be supported, except for a change in behavior when using Vista and Outlook�07 in combination. With this combination, using the folders launches a Salesforce session in a new browser window. (This is not on by default anymore. You will need to select this in your O3 settings.) This change is due to additional security features in Vista.

31. FAQ

32. FAQ Does Outlook Edition work on Citrix? Outlook Edition is not supported in �terminal server� environments like Citrix However, some customers have gotten O3 to work where additional testing is required. In a Citrix terminal server environment, several users log on remotely to the same machine. At Salesforce customer sites some of these users will be Salesforce users, while others aren't. For more information on how to handle such implementations, contact Support for Solution 0005937. Best Practice is to thoroughly regression test when rolling out O3 in a Citrix environment.

33. FAQ Is Outlook Edition supported on Single Sign On? Outlook Edition is supported with Single Sign On (SSO). There is an SSO Tip Sheet published by Salesforce.com, specifically for Outlook Edition and SSO. See Solution 0005628 for details.

34. FAQ What happens when two people own a Contact that has the same email address from the same Company, and one user makes an update, and the other person synchronizes? If the user can see the record, then the Contact will be synchronized. If the last modified timestamps are different between Outlook and Salesforce, then a conflict resolution screen is displayed. If only one user�s last modified timestamp is different, then an update occurs to the other user.

35. FAQ What version of Outlook am I on? In Outlook - click Tools | Salesforce Options | Under the General Tab click About in the bottom right. How long will Outlook Edition v1 be supported? Outlook Edition v1 is no longer available nor supported. How long will the Outlook Edition v2 be supported? Outlook Edition v2 will no longer have any version updates. End of life procedures have not yet been determined for this release.

36. FAQ When new releases are available for O3, is there a forced upgrade? If you are an Enterprise Edition Customer and you�re using Client Application Administration, you may be prompted to upgrade depending on your Admin Setup. If you are a Professional Edition Customer, there is no forced upgrade. You will need to log into salesforce.com to get the latest version. What are the steps needed to upgrade to O3 from O2? Uninstall of O2 is not required. Make sure that Outlook is shut down before beginning installation. Run the install program and follow the steps in the Wizard.

37. FAQ I am currently using O2 and am not ready to upgrade to O3. Where can I get the old version? Submit a case to support, and they will send you a link to the older edition. We want to determine why the customer wants or needs to use an older version of the client. Where can I find documentation on version updates on O3? Release notes will be coming soon to outline changes in each version updates of O3.

38. FAQ Because of storage issues, I don�t want any of my users to synchronize with attachments. How can I turn that off for everyone? The registration key on the o_dictionary.xml file called �SupportAttachments� can be set to �false� to turn off attachment support. Can I associate an attachment to more than 1 object per synchronization? No, you will have to select an object to associate the attachment to. You also have the ability to add additional files/attachments from your computer.

39. FAQ What is the maximum size of the attachment I can select? The default maximum attachment size is 1MB and can be changed via the MaxAttachmentSize registry key (number in bytes). This is unrelated to the attachment size limit set in the app. Why do I get a message saying �You have not selected a salesforce record�, even though I have already selected/associated a contact/lead and account/ opportunity. If you double click the Contact or Lead, you will see it selected at the bottom of the dialog (�Your name selection: �)

40. FAQ How come I unmarked my task/event from synchronizing, and it still shows up? This is a known issue: When an event has been unmarked for synchronization, the event may still get synchronized. How come the icons do not show up when I am looking at the my contact�s address cards? Icons do not show on the address cards on Outlook 2007. You will need to switch to the business card view.

41. FAQ How come I was able to synchronize yesterday, but today I can�t? Most likely, you�ve changed your salesforce.com password, but have not changed it in your Outlook settings. In Outlook, go to Tools | Salesforce Options and change your password there as well. In Outlook, go to:Tools | Salesforce OptionsIn Outlook, go to:

42. Links & References Help & Training in salesforce.com Administering Outlook Edition 3: http://na1.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/salesforce_outlook3_admin_cheatsheet.pdf Outlook Edition 3 Cheatsheet: http://na1.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/salesforce_outlook3_cheatsheet.pdf Outlook Edition 3 Fundamentals � Breeze Training: Coming soon!