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    Hi everyone, I've searched everywhere for an answer to this but can't seem to find one.

    One of my coworkers who uses the CRM Outlook plugin to do all his work has encountered a change in the way that appointments are being handled in his system.

    What's happening is that when he goes to create a new appointment (in Outlook) through the CRM action menu (eg for a certain contact he'll open up the contact information window, go to actions>add activity>appointment), it brings up the CRM appointment window, not the Outlook appointment window, which is what he wants. In doing this, the contact is automatically entered into the required field of the new appointment, which is also fine. He told me that in the past, when he would save and close the appointment, it would show up in his calendar, but not the required contact's calendar, but that recently (last few weeks), it is automatically entering the appointment into the contact's calendar. He doesn't want the appointment to show up in the contact's calendar as he is often using appointments as reminders. My questions are:

    1) Is there any way other than deleting the contact name from the required field that he can prevent the appointment from being sent to the contact?

    2) Is it normal for the CRM Outlook plugin to automatically send appointments to contacts like it appears to be doing now (meaning that something strange was happening before, but now his CRM is working properly), or is it normal for the appointments not to be sent? I ask because this issue may arise again soon with some of my other coworkers.

    Thanks

    Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:36 AM

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    "He doesn't want the appointment to show up in the contact's calendar as he is often using appointments as reminders"

    I would encourage the user to use the activity type of Task as a reminder rather than appointment. 

    As a side note,  it seems the behavior you describe is odd for a couple of reasons:

    • when a user creates an appointment in CRM, no e-mail is created and sent to an external recipient.  The system would need to either have a workflow running or some customization
    • the recipient would need to receive a specific file format in order for the recipient's Outlook to add a calendar item.  This also requires customization.

    My best guess, at this point, is somehow the user is actually creating an Outlook appt and sending that but thinks it is a CRM apppointment.  The only other possibility I can think of is that the system has been customized or the user is opening the appointment in Outlook, after it is synced from CRM, and hitting the send button.

     

     

    Regards, Donna

            Windows Live Blog

    • Proposed as answer by Donna EdwardsMVP Tuesday, May 11, 2010 8:48 PM
    • Marked as answer by Octopuddle Tuesday, May 11, 2010 10:47 PM
    Tuesday, May 11, 2010 8:48 PM
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    I think I may have found out why this problem was occuring, as it just happened again today and my user told me all the circumstances in which it happened. What he did was created an appointment in CRM in the past, which shows up on his Outlook calendar (as it should). He needed to reschedule, so he dragged the appointment from one point on the calendar to another point. After he did this apparently it asked him a series of questions which he just ok'd without reading. I'm guessing that one of those questions was about sending an invite. He's going to actually read the questions from now on...

    Funny thing is this doesn't happen on my calendar.

    • Marked as answer by Octopuddle Friday, June 4, 2010 12:59 AM
    Friday, June 4, 2010 12:59 AM

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    Microsoft CRM Outlook Client will not automatically send an Outlook Appointment Meeting request to the required Contact IF the appointment is created with Microsoft CRM (CRM Appointment form and then synch down.

    Is the required Contact an internal user (CRM) also?

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    Wednesday, May 5, 2010 6:35 AM
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    Thanks for responding.

    These are all external contacts.

    My coworker uses CRM Outlook Client (bringing up the CRM appointment form, not the outlook appointment form) to make the appointments, should he only be making them in the web interface? Apparently he hasn't changed the way he does this for about 2 years, its just suddenly started showing up in his clients calendars in the last few weeks.

    Wednesday, May 5, 2010 8:10 AM
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    Octopuddle, like you I have noticed that CRM doesn't send appointment invitations to external contacts (thank Goodness!). But I've also noticed that there is a privilege on the Business Management tab (of the security role form) called Send Invitation. And I've always wondered what this privilege did. Whether it's on or off doesn't seem to make much difference to the behaviour of CRM.

    Perhaps not sending invitations was a bug that Microsoft fixed in UR10? I'm not sure...

    Neil

    Neil Benson, CRM Addict at Customery Ltd.You can reach me on LinkedIn or Twitter, and you're welcome to sign up to Customery, an online community for UK-based Dynamics CRM people.

    Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:05 AM
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    Thanks Neil,

    I'm wondering if it was a bug that got fixed like you said, I'm just not familiar enough with CRM at the moment to know for sure.

    I'll have a look at the Business Management tab next, see if it holds any answers.

    Wednesday, May 5, 2010 12:03 PM
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    Nope, the Send Invitation privelege doesn't seem to change my issue.

    It seems that my coworker wants CRM to behave like another program he's used in the past, I may just have to try to convince him to try something different, or I'll end up creating some sort of workflow.

    Thanks for your help.

    • Edited by Octopuddle Friday, June 4, 2010 1:31 AM spelling
    Thursday, May 6, 2010 6:36 AM
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    "He doesn't want the appointment to show up in the contact's calendar as he is often using appointments as reminders"

    I would encourage the user to use the activity type of Task as a reminder rather than appointment. 

    As a side note,  it seems the behavior you describe is odd for a couple of reasons:

    • when a user creates an appointment in CRM, no e-mail is created and sent to an external recipient.  The system would need to either have a workflow running or some customization
    • the recipient would need to receive a specific file format in order for the recipient's Outlook to add a calendar item.  This also requires customization.

    My best guess, at this point, is somehow the user is actually creating an Outlook appt and sending that but thinks it is a CRM apppointment.  The only other possibility I can think of is that the system has been customized or the user is opening the appointment in Outlook, after it is synced from CRM, and hitting the send button.

     

     

    Regards, Donna

            Windows Live Blog

    • Proposed as answer by Donna EdwardsMVP Tuesday, May 11, 2010 8:48 PM
    • Marked as answer by Octopuddle Tuesday, May 11, 2010 10:47 PM
    Tuesday, May 11, 2010 8:48 PM
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    Thanks for all the responses. It seems that something strange was happening when the appointments were being sent out and it seems to have fixed itself as it no longer appears to be happening. I've finally cut through a whole tangled web of issues/questions this particular user had, and have changed a few customisations my predecessor made to this user's outlook (I've just taken over this job) so that the user can actually use the phone call function as it should be used. Thank goodness :P
    Tuesday, May 11, 2010 10:45 PM
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    I think I may have found out why this problem was occuring, as it just happened again today and my user told me all the circumstances in which it happened. What he did was created an appointment in CRM in the past, which shows up on his Outlook calendar (as it should). He needed to reschedule, so he dragged the appointment from one point on the calendar to another point. After he did this apparently it asked him a series of questions which he just ok'd without reading. I'm guessing that one of those questions was about sending an invite. He's going to actually read the questions from now on...

    Funny thing is this doesn't happen on my calendar.

    • Marked as answer by Octopuddle Friday, June 4, 2010 12:59 AM
    Friday, June 4, 2010 12:59 AM
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    I have a similar issue.  Old appointments created in Outlook and synced to CRM.  These appointments in CRM recently has a status change of closed.  After the appointment was resent in Outlook.  Why did this occur.  This was not the expected behavior.  ANy ideas or is this a bug...
    Friday, September 12, 2014 12:34 AM
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    Donna

    This started happening to us only recently. We use CRM as a reminder and do not want to send meeting requests to the customer. We also use appointments in Cases in service as time spent on site.

    What I find is that

    1. We create an appointment in CRM on a case for example it might be in the future or a past appointment after the event.

    2. This syncs with outlook and goes into the Calendar on CRM, Outlook and also on iPhone 

    3. If the appointment is in the future and has a reminder it pops up on Outlook as a reminder, and also on the iPhone as a reminder.

    4. Once the reminder is dismissed it then creates the invite and send the appointment to the customer.

    5. It does not sent the invite at the time of creation of the appointment, only at the reminder time.

    6. What we have done is set the Account and the Contact to not allow email. It might not work for everyone

    This is a bit of a pain as it requires changing multiple fields

    Thanks

    Thursday, December 3, 2015 12:16 PM
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    With regard to:Once the reminder is dismissed it then creates the invite and send the appointment to the customer.

    This is not CRM behavior.  Maybe it is device specific behavior or maybe you have some rule set somewhere that automatically sends a reminder to the attendees, I don't know.  If you want to get to the bottom of it and are not able on your own, work with a Microsoft Partner or open a support ticket.

    I hope that helps.

    Regards, Donna

    Thursday, December 3, 2015 1:15 PM