Our Integration with Microsoft 365 keeps your Microsoft and OpenCRM Contacts, Calendar, and Task lists in sync. This FAQ is going to walk you through setting up a sync between your Microsoft account and your OpenCRM User account.
How does the integration work?The actual how to's of each of these will be covered below, but in short.
How does the sync work?The rest of the FAQ will cover how to set these things up, but before you get started there are a few things you should know about the way the sync works:
Step 1: Setup/ Enable at Organisation levelThe first thing you need to do to start your team being able to sync their OpenCRM Contacts, Calendar items, and Tasks (via Planner) with their Microsoft account is to enable this at the company level. This means you will need to be an administrator both on your Business Microsoft Account and OpenCRM.
Step 2: Connect to Microsoft 365 User AccountOnce set up at Organisation level and enabled at User level, the sync for for individual Users can be configured by clicking the Microsoft Sync button on the User record.
Additional Microsoft 365 Sync Functionality and QuestionsThis section seeks to answer some of the most commonly asked questions about our Microsoft Integration. If you think we have missed one, please get in touch.
What happens if I delete a record?Due to a limitation of the Microsoft API, deletion of anything in MS (Contact, Calendar Task) will not sync back to OpenCRM. If you need to delete an item (Contact, Calendar entry or Task) - do so in OpenCRM. When then next sync runs, that will also remove that entry from Microsoft 365.
How can I delete recurring Meetings?If you create a Recurring Meeting in either your Microsoft 365 Calendar or OpenCRM, you will need to delete these in OpenCRM. As above, Microsoft simply cannot tell OpenCRM when an item has been deleted. So if you delete in M365, nothing will be sent to OpenCRM and so the Activities will remain there...and will re-sync to Microsoft. But, if you delete ALL the Activities from OpenCRM, this will be sent to Microsoft and the Meetings will be removed there. The easiest way to do this is to create a Custom View filtering on the exact name of the Meeting created and delete the Activities in bulk.
Can I see my MS Planner Task lists in OpenCRM? Can I send Tasks from OpenCRM to a particular MS Planner list?You will find the Task List field on Activities in OpenCRM - this is under the Activity Details heading. This is a standard picklist, but once your sync is configured , it will also be populated with the Microsoft 365 Planner Task lists that you have access to in Planner/ Teams. By selecting one of these task lists in the list when creating an Activity in OpenCRM, when the Activity has synced, it will be placed in the matching task list in Planner/ Teams. Additionally, this field is populated when an Activity is created from Planner and synced into OpenCRM. You can use this field to move a planner task between planner lists by changing the task list in OpenCRM - when the Activity syncs back to Planner, it will be placed in the new task list.
Can I assign Tasks to other users?Because Microsoft Planner allows you to assign tasks to other users in your Microsoft 365 organisation, if you assign a task to another user, and they also have Microsoft 365 sync setup on their OpenCRM user, that task will be synced to their OpenCRM task list. If they do not have an OpenCRM account or have their sync set up, the task will not be brought into OpenCRM. If you reassign a task in Microsoft Planner that is already linked to a task in OpenCRM and to a user that is not using Microsoft Sync, or if you unassign the task in Microsoft Planner, the assigned user will be removed in OpenCRM and the task will become unassigned. This could result in visibility of the task being lost dependent on your team sharing/ security configuration.
I've updated a task Description in Planner and OpenCRM has not updated, why?Due to rate limiting on Microsoft's API, OpenCRM is limited to only retrieving the Description of tasks where the due date is 1 month either side of the current date and time. This means if you edit a task description in Microsoft which is outside of this window, it will not be updated in OpenCRM. However it will also NOT be overwritten with the value from OpenCRM unless / until the record is edited in OpenCRM at which point the OpenCRM record will be seen as having the most up to date information.
Where do the different times (and statuses) come from on Tasks?Microsoft Planner handles tasks very different than we do in OpenCRM:
How OpenCRM decides which Tasks to syncMicrosoft Planner does not have a "modified date/time" that we can use to decide which records to sync. This means we have to use other options to determine if a Task has been changed and needs to re-sync with OpenCRM. We therefore sync records using the following two rules:
If the answer to the first point above is YES and to the second is NO, the OpenCRM task will be updated from the Microsoft task. If the answer to the second question is YES, however, the Microsoft task will be updated from the OpenCRM task. Changes in OpenCRM will always override changes made in Microsoft. Microsoft to OpenCRMDue to rate limiting on Microsoft's API (and to shorten sync times), OpenCRM will not sync any changes to tasks marked as complete in Microsoft that are more than two weeks old.
Can I move a Contact from one folder to another? Can I have a single Contact in multiple folders?In Microsoft 365, a Contact can only be in one Contact folder. If a contact is listed in multiple folders in OpenCRM, the first folder will be the one used to decide what folder the Contact will go in in Microsoft 365. Caution should be used when moving Contacts between folders, if the same Contact in OpenCRM is synced to multiple Microsoft 365 accounts. Doing so would move that Contact to different folders for all Users and a User may have not selected the folder it moves to when it syncs back to OpenCRM.
How is the assigned to set in OpenCRM if a Contact is in multiple M365 Contact groups?To try and prevent duplicates from being created in the event that two of your users have the same Contact in their Microsoft list, the following rules are applied:
What happens if a Contact is re-assigned in OpenCRM?When a Contact is reassigned in OpenCRM the sync with M365 should not be affected...unless that reassigning changes the permission of the Contact or the the sync itself:
Calendar Events with Attendees (Users in OpenCRM)OpenCRM -> Microsoft Two settings in the Microsoft sync settings control what happens when a meeting with attendees is synced from Microsoft to OpenCRM
If these settings are ticked, activities created in OpenCRM with users on the sub tab will be created in Microsoft with each user on the sub tab added as an attendee, if they are synced by the activities primary user (the assigned to user) and so long as the attendees primary OpenCRM email address matches their Microsoft user account. The meeting Organiser in Microsoft will be the Microsoft account linked to the assigned to user of the activity. WARNING: When a meeting is added to Microsoft by the sync from OpenCRM, it will send an invite to all attendees on the meeting (from the meeting organiser). It is worth considering this when setting up users on the sync for the first time as it will send invites for all new meetings it adds to the Microsoft calendar - including meetings that have already taken place if the first of the above two settings is enabled. If the assigned to user of the activity is not configured for the sync, regardless of the above settings, the activity will be synced to the calendars of users on the sub tab who are configured with the sync, but they will be individual meetings in each persons calendar and no attendees will be added. This is to prevent meeting invites being sent from the wrong people. Microsoft -> OpenCRM If a user who is setup on to sync with Microsoft creates a Meeting in Microsoft and links users from their organisation, all the attendees will be added to the sub tab on the Activity in OpenCRM as long as the email address of the attendee in Microsoft matches one on their OpenCRM User account. The attendees to not need to have the sync setup for this. For shared calendar events, only changes made by the meeting organiser will be synced from Microsoft to OpenCRM. Any OpenCRM user could make changes to the event in OpenCRM providing they had sufficient permissions to do so. This would update the organiser's event in Microsoft as well as the event in all attendee calendars. If an attendee makes a change to a shared calendar event in the Microsoft calendar, this would be overwritten by any changes made to the event in OpenCRM. You may also be interested in:
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