Co-existence between Riva Integration Server and Outlook Plug-ins

Once Riva Integration Server is configured and full enabled, users will no longer need to have the Outlook plug-in installed to synchronize data. A best practice is to remove the Outlook plug-in and any data that had been synchronised to user accounts by the plug-in. 

However, some CRM plug-ins might include specific additional functionality not yet provided by Riva. For those cases, as long as the plug-in does not synchronize data, but rather only modifies or creates new entries, those features can continue to be used at the same time as Riva. Outlook plug-ins can be used at the same time as Riva to synchronize data on an Exchange server as long as they are not used to synchronize the same data type (contacts, appointments or tasks) being synchronized by Riva on the same email account.

Do not use an existing Outlook plug-in to synchronize the same CRM content type (contacts, appointments or tasks) as will be synchronized by Riva. Using two different synchronization services to synchronize the same content types will cause multiple entries and/or potentially loss of data. Always backup your data before you start
your testing.

Another example of Outlook plug-in and Riva Integration Server co-existence would be if you want to continue to use the Outlook plug-in to synchronize contacts and/or appointments and tasks for a user or a set of users. In that case, you would make sure those users are not a member of a Riva policy that will synchronize contacts and/or appointments and tasks. Those users, however, could still take advantage of Riva SmartConvert, AssignTo and Riva ConnectBar to synchronize their opportunities, quotes, cases and assign emails to contacts, opportunities, cases and quotes. To do this, you would make them members of a Riva policy that synchronizes only those functions.

Riva Integration Server and Outlook plug-ins can be used on the same Exchange system, just not on the same data type (contacts, appointments or tasks) on the same account.

Preparing Exchange account information before the first synchronization

There are different versions of Outlook plug-ins that have different functionality for different CRMs. The following recommendations are based on the premise that when a calendar or address book entry is deleted from Outlook, that information is not deleted from the CRM. Please test extensively prior to rolling out Riva with multiple accounts on your production system.

When you initiate Riva for the first time, Riva will apply the Policy synchronization options you have configured and begin to synchronize data from your CRM to Exchange / Outlook. Riva will not be aware of any of your users' existing contacts, appointments or tasks. If your users already have contacts, appointments or tasks in their account that are based on CRM information, those contacts, appointeintments or tasks will be doubled.  Before you choose to synchronize contacts, appointments and tasks, it is important to remember that many of your users will already have Exchange entries that "reflect" existing CRM data in their accounts - whether these entries were created by an Outlook plug-in or entered manually by the user. If contact, appointment or task entries already exist in Exchange that also exist in the CRM, new entries will be created by Riva in your Exchange accounts thereby causing double entries.

To prevent duplication information: If you choose to use Riva to synchronize CRM contacts to Exchange, your objective is to have your CRM be the authoritative source for corporate contacts and for contacts to be transparently synchronized to your user accounts.  Before Riva initializes a new account, if you have users who were using an Outlook CRM plug-in to synchronize contacts or users who have manually added corporate contacts to their contact lists, they will need to remove these contacts from Outlook. Otherwise duplicate contacts will be created. The easiest way to do this is to have the user sort their contacts by category. Contacts that have been synchronized with the Outlook plug-in will have a category assigned to each contact. After sorting by category, have the user(s) delete any contact that shows the category that was assigned by the Outlook plugin. After they have removed the contacts related to the Outlook plug-in, we recommend that they assign a new category (something like "Personal") to the remaining contacts in their contact list. This will allow them to easily sort their contacts based on the new category. This way, if a few contacts end up getting doubled up, it will be quite easy for them to know which duplicate contact(s) to delete from their contact list (the duplicate contacts that have the category set to "Personal"). The few minutes spent preparing the contact lists for integration will be well worth your users' and your time.

To summarize, have the users delete contacts that are linked to the CRM because these contacts already exist in the CRM. When Riva does it first initialization, the contacts will be automatically synched to their accounts and will continue to be automatically updated without any user intervention.

To prevent duplicate appointment and task entries: The steps to prepare your Exchange accounts to prevent duplicate appointments and tasks are the same as the steps identified above for preventing duplicate contact entries. When you choose to synchronize CRM appointments and tasks, your objective is to have your CRM be the authoritative source. Before you initialize user accounts, if you have users who were using the Outlook CRM plug-ins to synchronize appointments and tasks, or users who have manually added or copied appointments or tasks to their accounts, they will need to remove these appointments and tasks from their Outlook client. The easiest way to do this is to have them sort their calendar and tasks by category. All calendar events that have been synchronized with the Outlook plug-in will have a category. After sorting by category, delete any event that shows the category as having been synchronized to the CRM. After they have removed the CRM-related calendar events, we recommend that they assign a new category (something like "Personal") to the remaining events in their calendar. This will allow them to easily sort their remaining calendar events based on category. This way, if a few appointments or tasks end up getting doubled up, it will be quite easy for them to know which events to delete from their calendar (the duplicate events that have been assigned the "Personal" category). The few minutes spent preparing the user calendar events for integration will be well worth your users' and your time.

To summarize, have the users delete appointments and tasks that are linked to the CRM because they already exist in the CRM. When Riva does it first initialization, these appointments and tasks will be recreated in their Exchange accounts and will continue to be automatically updated without any user intervention.