I recently upgraded a customer from CRM 3 to 4. All users were using the Dynamics CRM Outlook client and relied heavily on shared calendar access in Outlook. Users needed to be able to schedule appointments for other users and update existing appointments, while syncing the appointments between CRM and Outlook/Exchange. With CRM 4, this functionality is available through the CRM Outlook client. An appointment can be created or updated on another users’ calendar, and with the CRM add-in, the appointment can be marked to be Tracked in CRM and Set Regarding a certain entity. However, the problem we ran into was that most users were not seeing the CRM buttons in the toolbar, or ribbon of the Outlook appointment window when opening another users’ appointment. The buttons were functioning correctly in their own calendar appointments, but not for other users’ appointments.
The issue was that the users did not have Delegates set up correctly in Outlook. Rights had been provided to edit other users’ calendars, but these rights weren’t sufficient to enable CRM functionality for those appointments. At a minimum, in order for the CRM functionality to be available on other users’ appointments, the following rights have to be provided to a delegate in Outlook:
Calendar: Author
Tasks: Reviewer
Inbox: Reviewer
Contacts: Reviewer
In Outlook 2010, these can be found under File – Info – Account Settings – Delegate Access. In 2007, look under Tools – Options – Delegate. Make sure to log off and log back on after making these changes. Note that these rights are minimums to provide CRM functionality. If other Outlook functionality is needed, they may need to be updated. Such as if a user needs the ability to update another’s calendar, they would need Editor permissions.
