Getting the outlook synchronization to work correctly can get a bit tricky, especially if you are working with an existing CRM database upgraded from 1.2. Here are some tips to help you out:
After you complete these steps, you should be ready to install the client application. If your clients are laptops which will work disconnected at times, you will want to install the full client “Client.msi”. For desktops, use the light client “LightClient.msi”. Refer to the CRM 3.0 Implementation guide for descriptions of these two applications and instructions on how to deploy them in your enterprise.
When outlook starts up, the CRM client will begin synchronization of records. At startup, quickly goto the CRM main menu in Outlook and select Show Synchronization Progress. You want to do this quickly because once the process starts, the UI is not that responsive. If you see the following symptoms, you may have a problem with synchronization
- Progress window does not appear
- Progress window does not show any progress being made (after many minutes)
- The progress window appears, then disappears suddenly
- The Outlook window does not respond at all
- The outlook process constantly takes a 60+% of processor resources
- The outlook process continues to consume memory without stoping
If you notice any of these symptoms, you may have a synch process stuck in an infinite loop. To determine if this is the case, you need to turn on CRM Outlook Synchronization Tracing. This requires registry key changes that ARE NOT DIRECTLY SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT (These keys are not documented anywhere). Make these changes at your own risk. Make sure you back up the CRM client registry key before continuing. HKCU->Software->Microsoft->MSCRMCLIENT.
Copy the following into a text document:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient]
"TraceDirectory"="c:\\crmtrace"
"TraceEnabled"=dword:00000001
"TraceCategories"="*:Verbose"
"TraceCallStack"=dword:00000001
"TraceRefresh"=dword:00000001
"TraceSchedule"="Hourly"
Put whatever local drive location you wish in the TraceDirectory key. Makes sure this directory exists on the client machine.
Save the document with a “.reg” extension. The will make it a registry merge file. Copy this file to the client machine you want to trace. Double click on the file and choose to merge the registry values into the registry. CRM outlook client tracing is now setup on that client computer.
Restart outlook. The synchronization process should start again. Open windows explorer and navigate to the directory you specified in “TraceDirectory”. You should now see log files in this directory (if you don’t see them right away, wait a few seconds). Let these files grow for a little bit (a minute or so) then open the log file that was growing. You will see verbose tracing about the synchronization process. Look for repeating error sections. You will probably notice that the error is around a particular record in CRM. Look at the XML for that record. Look for thing like:
- Malformed XML
- Bad character data
- Malformed email addresses
- Malformed web addresses
If you see anything unusual, fix the record either using CRM (preferred) or directly in SQL (not supported by Microsoft). Re-run the synchronization process and re-examine the log files. Repeat until you get the process working correctly.
Happy Debugging!