Implicit Sync DB Add-In for Microsoft® Outlook®
Synchronizing Microsoft® Outlook® with Database Applications
Overview
Architecture
Configuration
Categorization of Outlook Items
Implicit Sync Toolbar
Implicit Sync DB synchronizes Microsoft Outlook with external databases. It supports both unidirectional and
bi-directional synchronization of all Outlook items: contacts, tasks, and calendar. It is an ideal platform
for database or enterprise application developers to integrate and maintain synchronization with Outlook.
Implicit Sync DB supports any SQL / ODBC compliant database, including:
- Microsoft® SQL Server®
- MySQL database
- Oracle database
- Microsoft® Access®
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 external database and vice versa. It queries
the database for any changes and updates the corresponding Outlook items.
Note: Implicit Sync DB is designed to synchronize Outlook with a local database. If you need
to synchronize Outlook with a web database, please see Implicit Sync.
Implicit Sync DB 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 database
- Ability to query the database for updates and synchronize the corresponding Outlook items
Implicit Sync DB supports an off-line mode where the user may not be connected to the network where the database resides.
A typical scenario for laptop users. To support full synchronization in off-line mode, we use a local Microsoft Access database
file to store any changes to Outlook items and synchronized with the external database once the user re-connects to the network.
Implicit Sync DB is dynamically configurable by the database application which 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 DB 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 database 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 database.