Nav developer: Outlook Synchronization in NAV 5.0 and the necessity to create five entities

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Based on incoming support calls, it appears that people tend to think they can do without adding the five default entities. For your convenience, here is a small recap. As said, there are five enitites:
APP: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Meetings
CONT_COMP: Contacts of the Company type
CONT_PERS: Contacts of the Person type
CONT_SP: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Salespeople
TASK: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Tasks

The first three are the contacts related entities and the last two are needed to synchronize tasks and appointments. If you never make usage of Tasks / ToDo, why on earth do you need to add it? The answer is you do not have to use them but can you guarantee that one of the salespersons is not going to use them in future? You tend to think: I only work with persons. Not with companies so I do not need CONT_COMP. Let me explain this further. Once I saw a case coming in where a customer only added one of the five default entities. He had the following setup in the Outlook Synch. User Setup:


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_PERS
Description: Contacts of the Person type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional

When he tried to synchronize his contacts out of NAV to Outlook and the other way around, the following error occurred:

One of the conflicting synchronization entities is not available


As a result of this, no synchronization took place. Let's analyze this. Brian (Beerman) is a salesperson defined in the Sales & Marketing module with Salesperson Code BB (Brian Beerman). The customer tried to synchronize contacts defined for BB. In this scenario, the salesperson entity is not being synchronized at all because the CONT_SP entity is not added. Furthermore, let's suppose one of the Contacts defined for salespersoncode BB works for Company XYZ. At this point, we also need CONT_COMP. A good working setup then looks like this:

User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_COMP
Description: Contacts of the Company type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_ PERS
Description: Contacts of the Person type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_SP
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Salespeople
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


Now let's assume that Brian goes onsite and wants to schedule a meeting with his contact Mr. A. BC who works for XYZ Company. At this point he creates a meeting. As the APP entity is not there, the Outlook Addin will generate errors. In this scenario a good working setup looks like this:


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: APP
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Meetings
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_COMP
Description: Contacts of the Company type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_ PERS
Description: Contacts of the Person type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_SP
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Salespeople
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


As the TASK entity is linked to APP entity, you need to define TASK as well including the elements. A good working setup looks like this:


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: APP
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Meetings
Number of elements: 2
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_COMP
Description: Contacts of the Company type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_ PERS
Description: Contacts of the Person type
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: CONT_SP
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Salespeople
Number of elements: 0
Condition: WHERE(Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


User ID: Brian
Synch Entity Code: TASK
Description: Microsoft Dynamics NAV Tasks
Number of elements: 1
Condition: WHERE(Salesperson Code=CONST(BB))
Synch Direction: Bidirectional


At this point the error One of the conflicting synchronization entries is not available should no longer occur.


Marco Mels
Microsoft Dynamics NL


Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA
These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use



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