Where Did My Tracked Contact Icon Go?

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, when you track a contact in CRM, the icon of the record in the contacts view in Outlook changes from the standard Outlook "business card" icon   to the CRM synched contact icon .  This can help you quickly separate which contacts are personal contacts from your CRM synchronized contacts.

You may find, however, that a tracked contact's icon may revert back to the standard Outlook contact icon.

This happens when a user makes a change to the contact record in Outlook after the record is synchronized with CRM.  For example, a user adds notes to the Outlook contact.   When this happens, don't worry--the contact is still tracked in CRM, but the contact icon is changed by Outlook to the standard contact icon.

It is important to remember that the contact synchronization only happens when the contact is tracked from Outlook or when one of the synchronized fields is updated in CRM. 

Here are some tips for how to clean this up or prevent this from happening to you in the first place:

1. If you have tracked contacts where the icon has reverted back to the standard icon, make a change to one of the synchronized fields on the CRM record.  For example, put a dash in the email address 3 field on the contact, or one of the other synched fields that you don't use.  The next time CRM synchronizes, it will change the icon for the record to the CRM tracked contact icon.  See http://blog.customereffective.com/blog/2008/02/crmoutlook-sync.html for a full list of synchronized fields.  
2. To prevent this from happening, only modify tracked contacts in CRM, not on the Outlook contact form. 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft CRM,Contacts,synchronization

Comments

[Regan]

An Outlook to "competitor" CRM synchronization solution I worked with in the past has a setting which allowed the administrator to make synchronization "read-only" for either/all contacts, tasks and appointments. Given that editing contact info in outlook can easily break any business rules that you have for contact data i would really like to see a similar option available for MS CRM.