Hitting the road with Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook with offline access
Salespeople can make critical customer information available and up-to-date on business trips with filters. By specifying only the data you need to synchronize with your laptop, you can avoid wasting valuable laptop memory, stay current with the head office, and keep information on your laptop fresh. Meanwhile, managers and co-workers are up-to-date.
Using CRM for Outlook, you can set up and activate filters with criteria similar to Advanced Find by specifying the criteria for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM records that you want to be available when you go offline. In addition, you can change what data will be available when you synchronize by activating and deactivating the filters.
To see what data filters are being applied to your offline synchronization, in Outlook, on the File tab, click or tap CRM > Go Offline > Offline Filters.
Note
You can have more than one active filter so you can take larger, combined sets of data offline.
Select the data you need with filters
To leverage local data, consider a trip to regional offices in the USA in Washington and Oregon. You would want to define needed information in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database that applies to customers in these states.
First, create a filter of the data for a record type. Save this filter as your “master,” and call it “My Active Accounts”, for example. Second, modify this filter to create different versions for your business needs.
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To edit an existing filter, on either tab, double-click or tap the item in the list. To keep the original data group, make a copy using Save As, and add additional criteria, such as “Address 1: State/Province equals WA”. Save it with a new name such as “My Accounts in Washington.”
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Using Save As again, change the criteria to “Address 1: State/Province equals OR”, and name your new data group “My Accounts in Oregon.”
Important
Before your trip, deactivate all filters, except those that apply to the customers in the first area you are visiting.
Deactivate or activate filters
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To deactivate a filter, on the User Filters tab, select one or more filters. On the tool bar, click or tap the Deactivate button (a red circle with a red square).
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To activate a filter, on the User Filters tab, select one or more filters and then click or tap the Activate button (a green circle with a green triangle).
Take your data offline and synchronize your data
While you are offline, you can add new contacts and accounts or update the accounts and contacts on your laptop. When connecting to your company's network again, you can synchronize your data.
Important
Any users who log on locally to a computer that has Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook installed can potentially access Microsoft Dynamics CRM data that is stored in the offline database. Shared use of a computer running CRM for Outlook is not supported.
Go back online and synchronize your data
Any updated data from your laptop will be synchronized with your company's Microsoft Dynamics CRM database. You can now deactivate and activate a new set of filters for your next visits, using the procedures explained earlier in this article.
Combine data filters to take more information with you
Because filters are additive, you can have more than one active filter. For example, if you are going to the Northwest United States, you can activate the Washington and Oregon data filters you created and take both sets of data with you.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook privacy information
To use Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook, you must sign in with your credentials (an email address and password). You may choose to save this information locally so that you aren't asked for your credentials each time you open Microsoft Outlook. If you choose to save this information, CRM for Outlook will automatically connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM every time you open Outlook.
After the first time you sign in and use CRM for Outlook, the connection between your computer and CRM will always be open when you have access to the Internet. You may choose to turn off the connection between your computer and CRM through the Options area. If you choose to clear this option, CRM for Outlook may suffer from decreased performance.
You can use CRM for Outlook to track email in CRM. If you do, the email thread will be visible to the users in your organization who have permission to view it.
For every email you receive, CRM for Outlook will send CRM the sender's email address, the recipient's email address, and the subject line of the message. This enables CRM to validate whether any particular mail should be stored by the CRM service. When an item is tracked, a copy of that item will be maintained by the CRM service and will be visible to the other users in your organization who have the right permissions. When an item is untracked, that copy is automatically deleted from the CRM service only if that item is owned by you.
