If you decide not to use the CRM App for Outlook, syncing emails, contacts and appointments using just Server Side Sync and Forward Mailbox can be really painful sometimes, especially when you are troubleshooting why something is not being synced. The “Server-Side Synchronization Monitoring” Dashboard provides some assistance to the Administrator, but when you want to dig into the details, I often end up using “FetchXML Builder” or “LinqPad” to query the TraceLog entity. Below is the fetchxml I use

<fetch top="50" >
  <entity name="tracelog" >
    <attribute name="tracestatus" />
    <attribute name="tracedetailxml" />
    <attribute name="tracelogid" />
    <attribute name="machinename" />
    <attribute name="tracecode" />
    <attribute name="traceactionxml" />
    <attribute name="traceparameterxml" />
    <attribute name="traceparameterhash" />
    <attribute name="errortypedisplay" />
    <attribute name="modifiedon" />
    <attribute name="text" />
    <attribute name="level" />
    <attribute name="collationlevel" />
    <filter>
      <condition attribute="tracestatus" operator="eq" value="0" />
    </filter>
    <order attribute="createdon" descending="true" />
  </entity>
</fetch>

Another common scenario that I troubleshoot is, why an appointment is not synced to Outlook after it was created in CRM. The first thing to check in this case is the user’s sync filter. I use the XrmToolBox tool “Sync Filter Manager” to check what the user’s sync filter for appointment. After confirming that the fetchxml picks up the appointment that has to be synced, we can now proceed to stage 2 of troubleshooting.

The field that is key in this scenario is called “GlobalObjectId“. This field in the appointment entity will be set, after the appointment is synced to the user’s Outlook. Unfortunately, this field is marked as not searcheable, which means it cannot be used in Advanced Find.

But, we can still create view that shows the synced appointments and appointments that have not been synced, using FetchXML Builder. Below are the steps

1. Install FetchXML Builder from XrmToolBox store, if you don’t have it already
2. Save an existing view into a new view on appointment entity. Don’t worry about the filters yet as we will update this using FetchXML Builder
3. Next step is to open this view in FetchXML Builder
4. Update the fetchxml and save the view. Confirm the user’s sync filter for appointment using the Sync Filter Manager and make sure the new fetchxml criteria match with the user’s sync filter criteria

Synced Appointments – FetchXML

<fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="true" >
  <entity name="appointment" >
    <attribute name="subject" />
    <attribute name="scheduledstart" />
    <attribute name="scheduledend" />
    <attribute name="regardingobjectid" />
    <attribute name="prioritycode" />
    <attribute name="activityid" />
    <attribute name="instancetypecode" />
    <attribute name="location" />
    <order attribute="createdon" descending="true" />
    <filter type="and" >
      <condition attribute="scheduledstart" operator="not-null" />
      <condition attribute="instancetypecode" operator="neq" value="2" />
      <condition attribute="scheduledend" operator="not-null" />
      <condition attribute="globalobjectid" operator="not-null" />
    </filter>
    	<link-entity name="activityparty" from="activityid" to="activityid" alias="ad" >
      <filter type="and" >
        <condition attribute="participationtypemask" operator="ne" value="9" />
      </filter>
    </link-entity>
  </entity>
</fetch>

Not Synced Appointments – FetchXML

<fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="true" >
  <entity name="appointment" >
    <attribute name="subject" />
    <attribute name="scheduledstart" />
    <attribute name="scheduledend" />
    <attribute name="regardingobjectid" />
    <attribute name="prioritycode" />
    <attribute name="activityid" />
    <attribute name="instancetypecode" />
    <attribute name="location" />
    <order attribute="createdon" descending="true" />
    <filter type="and" >
      <condition attribute="scheduledstart" operator="not-null" />
      <condition attribute="instancetypecode" operator="neq" value="2" />
      <condition attribute="scheduledend" operator="not-null" />
      <condition attribute="globalobjectid" operator="null" />
    </filter>
    	<link-entity name="activityparty" from="activityid" to="activityid" alias="ac" >
      <filter type="and" >
        <condition attribute="participationtypemask" operator="ne" value="9" />
      </filter>
    </link-entity>
  </entity>
</fetch>

You should now be able to use these new view from the grid area.

If you try to use the view from Advanced Find, you will get this error.

This means you have to use FetchXML Builder to update you fetchxml, if any changes are required in the future. If you want to add more columns to the view, you’ll have to use “View Designer” to do that, as you would not be able to use Advanced Find to do this, because of this error.

I hope this post will help you troubleshoot future appointment sync issues.

Tools used:

1. LinqPad
2. Dynamics CRM LinqPad Driver
3. XrmToolBox
4. FetchXML Builder
5. View Designer
6. Sync Filter Manager