Implicit Sync Add-In for Microsoft® Outlook®
Synchronizing CRM / Web Applications with Microsoft® Outlook®
Overview
Architecture
Configuration
Categorization of Outlook Items
Implicit Sync Toolbar
Uploading Email Messages
Implicit Sync is a platform designed for web application developers who want to synchronize their application
with Microsoft Outlook. It supports both unidirectional and bi-directional synchronization of all Outlook
items (contacts, tasks, and calendar) as well as uploading of email messages from Outlook to the web application.
It is an ideal platform for web or enterprise applications that require synchronization with Outlook:
- CRM applications
- Contact management applications
- Software as a Service (SaaS) applications
- Project management applications
- Scheduling applications
Implicit Sync is fully configurable add-in for Microsoft Outlook that supports Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.
It provides all the required hooks into Outlook including the user interface and the update mechanisms
that track any changes to the Outlook items and propagates them to the web application and vice versa.
It receives periodic notifications from the web server of any changes to these items and updates their
corresponding copies in Outlook.
Note: Implicit Sync is designed to synchronize Outlook with a web based application. If you need to
synchronize Outlook with a local database, please see Implicit Sync DB.
Implicit Sync add-in interfaces with Outlook and provide the following functionality:
- User interface - Outlook toolbar, menus and configuration dialog
- Ability for the user to categorize items and tag them for synchronization
- Ability to intercept any changes made to Outlook items and propagate them to the web application
- Ability to receive updates from the web application and synchronize the corresponding items Outlook items
- Ability to upload email messages to the web application (manually or automatically)
To maintain synchronization of the corresponding items in Outlook and on the web, Implicit Sync maintains a local
database (Microsoft Access database). The database is also used to cache the business categories in order to significantly
improve performance especially fro application managing a large amount of data.
Implicit Sync can communicate with the web application by either using web services, HTTP or through a custom interface
that the application developer can provide. Synchronization is done by exchanging XML files with the web application.
The XML files contain the data of three basic synchronization events: Add (new item), Modify (existing item) and Delete.
Implicit Sync also supports off-line mode where changes to Outlook items are stored in the local database and transmitted
to the web application when the user re-connects to the Internet.
Implicit Sync is dynamically configurable by the remote application without requiring any code changes. Through
the interface, the web application can control the functionality, user interface and behavior that the application
wishes to expose to the user. The configurable parameters include:
- Which type of items should be synchronized (Email, contacts, tasks or calendar items)
- Location (folders) of items to be synchronized
- Synchronization mode (bi-directional or unidirectional)
- Manual or periodic synchronization
- Categorization of Outlook items to application-specific set of categories
- Two modes of synchronization: all outlook items or only items that are categorized by user as application-related items
- What user interface should be shown to the user
Categorization of Outlook Items | top |
Implicit Sync allows the user to categorize Outlook items to an application-specific set of categories.
The categories are dynamically configurable by the application:
In the above example, the application has dynamically configured three categorization parameters: Customer,
Project and Project ID. This allows the Outlook user to categorize each Outlook item to a specific project
before synchronizing it with the web application. The actual values of each category list is also periodically
synchronized with the web application and is cached locally in the database so that performance is minimally affected
when synchronizing large lists. The application can also configure whether user is allowed to add categories from the
client and update the server-side database.
A fully configurable toolbar allows user to access the web application from within Outlook or to initiate manual
synchronization or upload of selected email messages:
Uploading Email Messages | top |
Email Messages can be uploaded to the web application directly from the email compose form:
A similar functionality is available to upload messages that are stored in Outlook folders.