Synchronization Monitor
Synchronization monitor is accessible through “Monitor” toolbar button:
Synchronization Monitor contains the following widgets:
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List of available synchronization Profiles
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List of Scenarios for each profile
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Synchronization Rules. Usually each scenario contains at least two rules: one for E->CRM (Exchange to CRM sync) and another CRM->E. One may disable a rule by setting Enabled=false to make the scenario “one way”.
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Synchronization summary for each item within the scenario (new/synchronized/merged/errors). New means new item has been detected and corresponding new item has been created. Merged means that similar item has been found at destination location and it is assumed to be a pair for source item. Synced means item has been changed and its counterpart has been updated correspondingly. Errors means that rule encoutered errors while trying to sync or merge some items. Sometimes errors are caused by temporal causes (networking errors, access restrictions, intermediate config issues). In such cases those errors may be recovered by “Re-Sync” toolbar button.
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Toolbar buttons:
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Refresh the monitor.
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Journal button has different behavior depending on selected item. If an item is a Synchronization Profile then the whole journal for it is displayed. If item is an individual rule within a scenario then list of items created or synchronized for this rule is shown. See section describing “Journal Viewer” for more information.
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Save task options (if any were modified). If sync is now running then options will be re-read after finishing current iteration.
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Reset Last Sync Time for specified sync rule. See description of “Set Last Synchronization Time” dialog.
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Re-sync current rule. This button is only enabled when there are errors. Re-sync forces all items with problems to be synchronized again.
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Sync Rule Options: view/edit special settings related to the selected rule.
Global Options
Global options editor may be shown by pressing corresponding toolbar button:
This forces global options editor dialog to appear:
Runtime options
Iteration Interval: time in milliseconds between consequent iterations. During this time Synchronization agent just doing Sleep without any calls to Exchange server or CRM server. Possible values: 1000 – one second, 15000 – 15 seconds (default), 60000 – one minute.
Lookback Interval: Time interval in milliseconds to look back from the last synchronization time when checking modified items. Default: 0. Should only be set when recommended by GrinMark.
Verbosity: From ‘Default’ to ‘Full’. Should be set to ‘Default’ for production use. Affects log file verbosity. Should only be set when developing custom solution with advanced synchronization logic or when asked by GrinMark.
Unsubscribe from Events: Unsubscribe from Exchange event notifications when synchronization service is stopped. Should be set to ‘True’ unless you need to disable the synchronizer for a long time period and expect that users may use “Archive To” folders during this period. Default: True.
Exchange Pulling Mode: Exchange event notifications pulling mode: ‘Strict’, ‘Try’ or ‘Disabled’. 'Strict' is recommended for normal operation. Other modes are recommended if there are errors with server connection. This option may lead to limitations in synchronization. Default: Strict.
Rotate Journal: When set to true, every time Journal size exceeds 10mb, it is archived and compressed and all new entries are saved to a new journal.
Time Zone: Default time zone to use for new Calendar items in Exchange. Default: AESync server’s time zone.
SMTP
SMTP settings are related to automatic Email notifications. Email notifications inform administrator about various aspects of synchronizer functionality: synchronization and connection errors, usage statistics, license expiration.
Server Host, Server Port, Smtp User Name, Smtp Password, Use SSL: Set of options required to send an outgoing email.
Recipients To, Recipients Cc: Notification Email recipients (comma-separated lists)
Notification Filter: One or more flags.
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None: Disable any notifications.
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CRM Connection Failed: Sent when synchronizer is unable to connect CRM
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Exchange Connection Failed: Sent when Synchronizer is unable to connect Exchange
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License Not Found for User: Sent when one of users has missing, invalid or expired license.
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Service Started: Sent when synchronizer service is stopped.
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Service Stopped: Sent when synchronizer service is started.
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Synchronization Error: Sent when some error occurred during synchronization
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Daily Summary Letter: Sends daily usage statistics (per-user synchronization info and license expiration summary).
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License Expiration Info: Sends notification 30, 7, 2 and 1 days before license is expired for at least one of users.
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All: Enable all the notifications above.
Default: only ‘License Expiration Info’ notification.
Notification Duplicate Interval: Number of minutes to wait before sending notification message with the same parameters if the reason for a problem is still unresolved.
Exchange
Exchange Categories:This group of settings allow control of Master Category List. The synchronizer has uses Exchange categories to mark synchronized and archived items. By default it includes following categories:
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CRM (item has a copy in CRM),
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Archived (item copied into CRM),
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Phone (to distinguish Meeting appointments from Call appointments) etc.
Master Category List allows defining category names and colors in a centralized manner. All modifications of Master Category Lists are controlled only for users specified in the synchronization profiles. Please, note that Categories are defined for each synchronization rule separately. If you want some rule to have custom category (say, “Lead” instead of “CRM Lead”), you need to set “Assign Category” option for “Synchronize Leads (CRM->E)” in the Synchronization Monitor. And if you want to define and deploy a color for this category then it should be specified separately in Global Options dialog to be deployed.
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Deploy Categories: Category deployment is performed during service startup according to the following options:
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None: Don’t deploy (default).
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New: deploy only new categories. If user has some category already defined then it is not deployed. Otherwise it is deployed.
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All: always deploy all categories defined in this dialog. This option is needed if you want to force all users to have same color settings for each of specified categories.
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Category Names: collection of category definitions. Each category defined by its Name, Color and keyboard Shortcut.
Categories are deployed on per-user basis every time synchronizer is started. So it only affects Exchange users configured in any of the the Synchronization Profiles and does not affect others.
Journal Viewer
Journal viewer provides information about synchronization flow and results.
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Status section displays information selected synchronization profile and rule.
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Information section (click to see warnings and errors from current execution).
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Keyword filter. Type any keyword to have them highlighted in the journal view.
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Date filter controls range of dates to filter journal events by timestamp.
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Runtime shows information about items being synchronized in the real time. The list is populated automatically and scrolled to most recent item every time something is updated in the journal.
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Column based filters, to show only rows with specific values of column cells. I.e. it is possible to filter only entries for single user. And/or entries with one direction, etc.
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Row selector, forcing the log data related to specific row appear in the bottom (log view).
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Log view. If one or more rows are selected in #7 the Row View will show log file related to these journal entries.
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Journal row data. Each entry corresponds to a single synchronization step. Column data contains the following information:
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Description: name or subject of the synchronized entry.
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User: The user being synchronized in the form <user email>/<CRM login>.
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Action: One of: New, Sync, Merge. New: new entry created in destination system based on the corresponding entry in the source system. Sync: destination entry already exists, but has been updated. Merge: matching destination entry has been detected and updated according to the source entry.
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Direction: S2E – CRM to Exchange, E2S – Exchange to CRM.
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Module: type of synchronized item.
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Timestamp: time when synchronization happened.
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Modifying Synchronization Scenarios
Synchronization Monitor may be used to modify properties controlling the behavior of synchronization scenarios:
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One-way vs. Two-way synchronization
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Exchange Items Selection Criteria (Categories)
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CRM Selection Filters
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Exchange Folders
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Other: Item merge, automatic email archiving, automatic Account creation, etc.
Note: Changing default synchronization scenarios should be done with care. It is always recommended to try modified behavior with small number of users before applying to larger installation.
Making One-way Synchronization
By default synchronization scenarios named as “Synchronize …” are two-way. Such scenarios contain two synchronization rules:
First, data is copied from Exchange to CRM (E->CRM). Then it is copied from CRM to Exchange (CRM->E).
In some cases one-way sync is not enough. For example, “Support” department may need access to CRM Contacts but should not create new contacts in CRM. To achieve this goal we disable E->CRM branch by setting “Enabled” for corresponding synchronization rule to “False”:
After “Enabled” is set to false and configuration is saved
(
) the disabled rule is displayed with
greyed icon:
And given synchronization scenario becomes one-way.
Exchange Categories
Categories are a powerful mechanism for controlling the synchronization logic. The effect of categories depends on the synchronization direction.
Exchange -> CRM
Assign Category: “;”-separated list of categories to assign to each synchronized item.
Select Category: “;”-separated list of categories. Only items belonging to one of these categories are visible to the Synchronizer. If “Select Category” is empty, all items are selected.
Ignore Category: “;”-separated list of categories. Items belonging to any of these categories are invisible for synchronizer (ignored). If “Ignore Category” is empty, all items are selected.
CRM -> Exchange
Assign Category: “;”-separated list of categories to assign to each synchronized or created item.
Exchange Folders
Each synchronization rule works in certain Exchange folder.
Default folder for a rule may be changed by editing “Exchange Folder” property. The folder is defined by “\”-separated path, i.e.
Folder1\Folder2\Folder3
For example: CRM\Opportunities\Archive To
“Folder1” is either folder name, or locale-neutral “well known mailbox folder” placeholder, i.e. one of:
[Contacts], [Calendar], [Tasks], [Inbox], [SentItems]
For example, [Contacts] is resolved to “Contacts” in English version of Outlook, “Kontakte” in German version, “Контакты” in Russian version and so on.
Note: if you want to change the folder for the whole synchronization rule, then you need to change it twice: for (E->CRM) rule and for (CRM->E) rule.
Note: synchronization history depends on the folder. Changing folder in production environment may lead to side effects (loose of history and appearance of duplicates) so this should be done with care.
Updating Last Synchronization Time
Last synchronization time is the beginning of the synchronization period. If some item is older than “Sync Begin Time” then synchronizer ignores it. The word “older” here addresses to data entry creation or modification time. For example, if an entry represents a person with birthday in 1895 which has been entered into the electronic address book in 2005, then its creation time is in 2005. By default last synchronization time is set to 1900 to fit all possible data entries.
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Name of synchronization rule. Last Synchronization Time (LST) may be updated per-rule. I.e. Exchange->CRM may be set to use one LST (say, only one year old items) while CRM->Exchange may have another (say, one month).
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New synchronization interval start
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List of users. Those users that should get new LST should be checked.
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Set to update LST for checked users to a new value specified in #2.