Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook

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November 2009

This document provides important, late-breaking information about Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook with Offline Access. For more information about Update Rollup 7, see KB article 971782.

Key improvements

This section describes key improvements for this release.

Computer performance

• Reduced sign-in time. This is especially significant for users who have a large amount of offline Microsoft Dynamics CRM data. In earlier releases, Microsoft Dynamics CRM stored many files in the roaming profile, such as metadata, logs, traces, and the offline database. To reduce sign-in time, these files are now located in a local data folder.
• Improved overall performance. In earlier releases, the hoster process and offline database continued to run, even while the computer was in online mode. This could decrease performance and reduce battery life. These processes now run only in offline mode. Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook no longer requires the hoster process.

Outlook performance and synchronization

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now loads in the background. This enables users to read e-mail messages before Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is fully loaded.
• E-mail tagging now runs in the background. This improves Outlook performance, especially for users who have a large number of tracked e-mail messages in their inbox.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Address Book Provider (ABP) run-time storage of in-memory ABP XML has been moved to a Microsoft SQL Server CE in-memory representation. This helps manage Microsoft Dynamics CRM address book data more efficiently.
• State management logic has been improved. This enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM to handle network, authentication, sleep, and hibernation transitions more efficiently, without requiring users to restart Outlook for each transition. Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook with Offline Access now automatically transitions to offline mode when a remote Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server cannot be contacted (if the user has gone offline at least once in past). It automatically switches back to online mode when the connection is restored.
• Outlook synchronization now runs in the background and has significant performance improvements in terms of numbers of records synchronized per minute.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now supports Outlook delegates.  If an Outlook user is a delegate for another Outlook user, the delegate can mark items for tracking in the primary user's inbox. The Exchange Server stores the tracking information until the primary user starts Outlook. At that time, Microsoft Dynamics CRM verifies the data and then synchronize with Outlook.
• Manually synchronizing with Microsoft Dynamics CRM produces item-level failure details. The synchronization code now handles row-level failures in a way that does not cause the entire synchronization process to fail. Also, the synchronization progress dialog box now displays the list of specific record-level failures.
• The synchronization process has been improved to ensure that changes made to tracked records inside Outlook are propagated to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server, even when Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is not active (for example, in OWA, or when Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is in a disabled state).
• The synchronization process is now optimized to help prevent synchronization failures from damaging the offline database.

Setup and configuration

• Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) has been implemented to improve component download performance.
• Configuration Wizard now starts automatically when the user restarts Outlook after Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is installed. You can now auto-configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook by using a config.xml file.
• The number of Configuration Wizard screens has been reduced and the overall configuration process is simpler.
• After Update Rollup 7 is installed, subsequent updates will no longer require the user to have Administrator privileges on the client computer.
• Silent, unattended Systems Management Server (SMS) installations have been enabled by adding support for Management Information Format (MIF) files and removing the need for end users to be logged on to the computer during Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook with Offline Access deployment.

Software upgrade and update paths

You can upgrade Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 client for Outlook (regardless of which update rollups have been applied) directly to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Outlook.

To update Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook on a computer that has an earlier version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Outlook installed, download the update rollup and follow the instructions for the latest Update Rollup.

Known issues

For the latest information about known Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook issues, see KB article 976539.

Documentation

The following documentation is available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook.

• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help includes feature usage and troubleshooting information.
• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide includes the following Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook information:
  • The Planning Guide specifies hardware and software requirements, and deployment planning information.
  • The Installing Guide provides Setup, configuration, and troubleshooting information.
  • The Operating and Maintaining Guide provides information about ongoing administrative issues, such as update management.
• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK provides information for developers, system customizers, and report writers.
• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resource Center includes articles and links to other resources.

Documentation Feedback

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Documentation Team welcomes your suggestions and comments about the documentation. You can quickly and directly send e-mail feedback to Documentation Feedback. All feedback must be in English. Your feedback will be used to make improvements to the documentation and shape the content delivered to the Resource Center.

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