This feature allows the entry of tasks in Advance Web to automatically generate updates for a corresponding Outlook calendar or task entry. This task then continues to be synchronized between Advance Web and Outlook as changes are made in either application.
Previous to this enhancement, institutional personnel would have to enter and maintain task and calendar-related information in two different products to gain the benefits of both applications. This was an inefficient use of their time and potentially resulted in incorrect, incomplete or conflicting data in both products. This enhancement more fully supports the use of Advance Web as the main data entry point for tasks while providing flexibility for users to view or update the information in Outlook or Advance Web. This allows institutional personnel to work more efficiently and allows institutions to more accurately and completely capture the necessary statistics to measure the work being performed by its personnel.
This enhancement is included with the core Advance Web license.
Environment
Exchange 2010 or 2013 is required to take advantage of this feature. Web Services are used to perform the synchronization.
Important Notes
This enhancement is supported for Advance 9.3 and higher.
This functionality only applies to new tasks; existing tasks created prior to 9.3 will have their ‘Outlook Sync Type’ identified as ‘None’ and cannot be synchronized.
The synchronization of document attachments for Tasks is out of scope for this feature at this time.
DataLoader is out-of-scope for this feature at this time.
General Information
If Outlook synchronization has been turned on for a task context (via System Option 295), when New is selected on the task form header, the user will see the new Outlook Synch Type field with three radio button choices: None, Calendar and Task.
The default is None, which indicates that this task will not synchronize with Outlook. If the user wishes to synchronize the task as an Outlook Calendar entry, the Calendar radio button is selected. To synchronize the task as an Outlook Task, the Task radio button is selected.
When either the 'Calendar' or 'Task' radio button is selected, the display of the task form will immediately change. This is because different data elements are available based on, the selected radio button. The task form will have two distinct sections.
The Synchronized with Outlook section displays all of the fields that will synchronize with Outlook. The Advance Only section displays the fields that are for Advance Web purposes only and do not synchronize with Outlook.
For synchronization to take place between Advance Web and Outlook, the task must be added in Advance Web and either the Calendar or Task radio button must be selected. Advance Web will have no knowledge of tasks or calendar entries initially created in Outlook.
Responsible Assignment
All tasks synchronizing with Outlook will require a Responsible value to be entered when the task is added. This is true whether it is creating an Outlook task or a calendar entry. This is required so that Advance Web can determine which Outlook user should have these updates applied.
Field Validation
The behavior of the fields in the Synchronized with Outlook section on a Task form is consistent with Outlook. As an example, the drop-down values match those available in Outlook for the corresponding field. This is critical to ensuring that the synchronization between the two applications occurs correctly.
Deleting Synchronized Tasks and Calendar Entries
If the user wishes to delete a task that has been synchronized as an Outlook Task or Calendar entry, this deletion should be performed in Advance Web. This is the only method to permanently remove this task/calendar entry from both Advance and Outlook. If a task or calendar entry is deleted in Outlook, this will not result in the deletion of the associated task in Advance. In fact, if the corresponding Advance Web task is updated in the future, this will result in the re-creation of the Outlook task or calendar entry.
Additional Usage Rules
Once a task has been added and saved to synchronize with Outlook, the Outlook Synch Type value cannot be changed.
If you initially add a task and you keep the default of None for the Outlook Synch Type, you can change this to Calendar or Task in a subsequent update. Again, once it is changed to Calendar or Task and this change is saved, this field can no longer be modified and will be display only.
Task Description Field Length
The length of the Task Description field in the Task table in has been changed from 255 to 4000 to accommodate the synchronization of larger amounts of text.
Outlook is Unavailable
In the rare instance where Outlook is unavailable, Advance Web will track synchronized task/calendar additions, modifications and deletions in Advance Web so that these will automatically synchronize with Outlook when it does become available. This is handled via the sync_status value in the task_outlook_sync table.
Advance Web is Unavailable
In the rare instance where Advance Web is unavailable, Outlook does not have the ability to indicate to the user that Advance Web is unavailable for the web service to perform the update. Therefore, the institution may wish to implement policies and procedures to handle this rate scenario. As an example, the institution may issue an e-mail to all impacted personnel letting them know that Advance Web is unavailable. Any changes made in Outlook will need to either be made again in Outlook or made directly to Advance Web as out-of-synch conditions could be created that cannot be automatically reconciled through Advance Web functionality.
Subject Line
The Subject Line value of an Outlook Task or Calendar entry created via synchronization is comprised of three components and separated by dashes. Given that Advance Web is creating this value by concatenating three separate components, updates to the Subject line in Outlook will be ignored by Advance Web.
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