Outlook Synchronization does not work correctly when multiple contacts have similar names stored in several address books in Microsoft Outlook and some other issues we found

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog posting about Outlook Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. There is some news to mention which makes the configuration less complicated and some issues we found so far. In previous blog postings, in previous Microsoft Dynamics NAV releases and even in the official documentation about Outlook Synchronization, we used to suggest to synchronize the Microsoft Dynamics NAV salesperson  to Microsoft Outlook without the E-mail address. This was important to populate E-mail2 field with correct values in table 13 when working with Tasks and Appointments in a Microsoft Exchange Server environment. E-mail2 field no longer needs to be populated which means it is no longer required to synchronize the Microsoft Dynamics NAV salesperson without an E-mail address to Microsoft Outlook. You just create the salesperson in Microsoft Dynamics NAV with an E-mail address. After that you synchronize this salesperson to Microsoft Outlook and you are done. No further action is needed.

Another issue we found is that when a Microsoft Dynamics NAV contact does also exist in one of the Microsoft Outlook address books, like the Microsoft Exchange Global Address List or any other custom Microsoft Outlook address book, an error could occur stating that the system was expecting an E-mail address matching the E-mail address it found in that other address book. The system should have looked in the dedicated contacts folders for Outlook Synchronization defined in the Outlook Add-In properties.

A hot fix does exist for this issue and can be obtained from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2617761

Another problem may happen when working with several localized releases in one environment. E.g. in Belgium or in Switzerland, (Belgium) Dutch, (Belgium) France, Italian and German speakers may connect to the same company database. They can use their Microsoft Dynamics NAV language in the language they prefer. With Outlook Synchronization this could generate an issue, especially in the table 405 Change Log Entry. Let me further explain this via s small repro scenario.

REPRO:
1. install Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 (any build) or Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 (any build), install French language pack or setup Suisse client with Suisse database
2. configure Outlook Synch either via CFRONT or NST
3. for the Outlook Synch user, only add company and person contact entity
5. perform a normal synch
6. for one of the synchronized contacts, update the address
7. change language to French
8. for the same synchronized contact, update the address again
9. perform a normal synch

ERROR:
03.09.2010 09:11
Fehler beim Ausführen einer Microsoft Dynamics NAV Codeunit für die Antwort: Kontakt Nr. ‘KT000001’ already exists.

It’s recommended that you have web services or NAS running in the language you’re synchronizing against and have the users connecting setup in the same language.
EN-US users are setup in an EN-US client and connects to an EN-US web service.
FR-FR users are setup in an FR-FR client and connects to an FR-FR web service.
DE-De users are setup in an DE-DE client and connects to an DE-DE web service.
..
Etcetera

The last issue we found is also a language related problem caused by a configuration issue. When configuring Outlook Synchronization in Microsoft Dynamics NAV for the first time, the configured language of the CSIDE Client or the configured language of the Role Tailored Client is extremely important. If you are working in a localized environment, the language of the CSIDE Client or Role Tailored Client will define the fields definition in the Outlook Synchronization tables. Changing language afterwards, will not change he pre-populated field. Let me explain with a screenshot using a Dutch localized Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 client using the APP entity.

If you generate the entities while CSIDE Client is set to Dutch in my scenario, the field changes to Dutch captions.

Synchronizing any of this could result in an error in the Outlook Add-In:

To solve this problem, the following is necessary:

1. fix data issues in table 405 Change Log Entry or delete contents out of this table either via Object Designer or via Data Deletion after setting filters, etc.
2. reset entities to default values after configuring the correct language in the CSIDE Client or Role Tailored Client matching language configuration of web services or NAS!)

Regards,

Marco Mels
CSS EMEA

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights