Synching Phonecall Phone Numbers to Outlook in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Joel Lindstrom — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:02:07 -0500

If you schedule phone calls in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you will notice that they synchronize to Microsoft Outlook as tasks. This is great, as you will see them from Outlook, and they will remind you when they are due.

However, you may notice that the phone call task does not include the phone number for the phone call—if it is an outgoing call, if you want to see what number to call, you need to view the phone call in CRM to see the phone number.

While there is no way to add additional fields to the Outlook task form, it is possible to make additional fields synchronize to Outlook using a workflow.

Create a workflow based on the phonecall entity

Set to run on create of phone call or update of the phonecall phone number record

Step: Check condition to see if “Phone Number” field contains data

Substep: if it contains data, append the phone number to the top of the description field.

Publish the workflow

Now when you schedule a phone call in CRM . . .

The phone number will appear at the top of the task description (body) field.

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011,CRM for Outlook

Auto-Creating Contacts and Duplicate Detection in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Joel Lindstrom — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 -0500

As we have mentioned in previous posts, one of the new features in CRM 2011 for Outlook is the ability to automatically create new contact records if you track an e-mail with an address that does not exist in CRM.

This feature is turned on by default, and is located toward the bottom of the “E-mail” tab of user settings in CRM for Outlook.

As you plan your roll-out of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you should be aware of the default options and how they may interact with other application features.

One example that I’ve seen with this new feature, is that when you track an e-mail and the system creates a new contact, if duplicate detection is enabled, and the contact being created matches another contact in the system, the duplicate detection process will prevent the contact from being created, and also prevent the e-mail from being tracked.

If you find that periodically you are getting errors when tracking e-mails, I recommend testing with the automatic contact creation feature disabled.

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Synching Phonecall Phone Numbers to Outlook in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Auto-Creating Contacts and Duplicate Detection in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011