The SynergyExchange.exe background job allows you to replicate appointments from the calendar in e-Synergy to the calendar in Outlook and vice versa. This means that appointments only have to be entered once, either in e-Synergy or in MS Outlook, but are visible in both programs. So when a company is already working with MS Outlook for registration of appointments this could be continues, the replication makes sure the appointments are shown in e-Synergy as well.
Tables involved when running SynergyExchange:
When SynergyExchange runs it checks which resources have the flag for synchronization on. This is checked in the table 'humres' where the field SynchronizeExchange indicated whether the calendar of the resource needs to be synchronized. The value '1' means synchronization needs to be done and the value '0' indicated no synchronization needs to take place.
In the table BacoSettings SynergyExchange checks whether the resource has specified additional request types to be synchronized to Exchange. By default all request types that have the option 'Calendar' checked in the request definition will be synchronized to Exchange. Via their calendar > customize each user can add certain request types which will be synchronized for them as shown in the screenshot below.
Depending on the direction set for synchronization SynergyExchange will create activities in Outlook for all selected request types. When synchronization is done in both directions also activities from Outlook will be created as the selection request type in e-Synergy.
When using the SynergyExchange background application there are three mandatory parameters which need to be included in the command line of the job. These are the standard parameters /S: and /D: and /E:. The /E parameter indicates the name of the Exchange server. Next to these mandatory parameters there a number of optional parameters:
An example of the command line for SynergyExchange would look like this:
Each employee can decide whether he or she wants to synchronize his/her calendar with MS Outlook. This done via a setting on the employee's own resource card as shown in the screenshot below.
More extensive settings for the synchronization between e-Synergy and MS Outlook can be found via the user's calendar. In the top right corner there is a link available 'Customize'. After clicking this link you will see the screen below.
In this screen you can choose to synchronize your contact persons from e-Synergy to Outlook or vice versa. The first time SynergyExchange runs it will only synchronize contact persons from e-Synergy to Outlook. Only the contact persons of which you are account manager will be synchronized. When something changes for the contact persons in Outlook those changes will also be applied in e-Synergy. Contact persons which were already created in Outlook will not be synchronized to e-Synergy as they might be private contact persons. More information about synchronizing contact persons can be found in the release notes of this functionality. It is advised to leave the option to synchronize contact persons unchecked. There are some unresolved issues with this functionality which may cause SynergyExchange to not function properly. For now we advise to only synchronize calendars with Outlook.
In e-Synergy each user can indicate whether appointments need to be synchronized with their Outlook calendar. The administrator in e-Synergy can setup which type of request needs to be created when a 'activity' is imported from Exchange. This can be done via [System > Maintenance > Settings - General > Calender] as shown in the screenshot below. Also the administrator can setup the range used for synchronizing appointments from Exchange to e-Synergy.
In the screenshot above e-Synergy is setup to create requests of the type 'Appointment' when activities are imported from Outlook. More information about this screen can be found in this document: Calendar: Settings for e-Synergy/Exchange synchronization.
Next to the settings in e-Synergy there are also settings which need to be checked on the Exchange server via the Exchange System Manager. The settings that need to be checked on the Exchange server are described in this document: How to configure the Synergy Exchange replication.
When running the SynergyExchange background job you can check the results via [System > Reports > Log > Processes]. In this overview all log entries for the background jobs are shown. These log entries might contain error messages when something goes wrong with the background job. There are a few error messages which are known by Exact and which are caused by wrong settings either in e-Synergy or on the server itself. Those messages are explained in this section.
"Failed to logoff from mailbox of [username]. Error code = -2147417848, error text = Method '~' of object '~' failed" - This error message could be caused by an old version of the file CDO.dll. In that case the solution is to update this file according to the instructions in this technote.
"Failed to logon to mailbox of synadmin. Error code = -2147221233, error text = [Collaboration Data Objects - [MAPI_E_NOT_FOUND(8004010F)]] " - This error message is often caused by insufficient rights for the user that is running the SQL Server Agent on the Exchange server. That user needs to have full access to the server in order to update and create appointments.
"Failed to process calendar for jvg: Error in ProcessContacts" - This error message is caused by turning on synchronization of contacts. This functionality is not yet supported by Exact because of instabilities in this application. This means that synchronizing of contact persons should not be turned on.
Rejecting appointmentsYou can create an appointment in e-Synergy and SynergyExchange will synchronize them to Outlook. When you reject them in e-Synergy they are supposed to be deleted from Outlook as well. In some cases the bias between UTC time and regular time on the SQL server might come into play though. With the following queries the bias can be found:
SELECT GETDATE()SELECT GETUTCDATE()In most cases this bias will be 60 minutes which means that you should wait at least 60 minutes to reject the appointment. Only then the appointment will be deleted from your Outlook calendar as well. This is because of the following check:
msg.TimeLastModified < DateAdd("n", -serverBias, LastModifiedTime)
With the date filled out the check would look like this:
CDate("15-11-2005 10:24:16") < DateAdd("n", -60 ,CDate("15-11-2005 10:26:18"))
Active directory issueThere might be a situation where the SQL Server and IIS are located on different servers. This means e-Synergy is installed on server1 (the server with IIS) and the database is located on server2 (with SQL). Due to other software programs server2 might not be known in the Active Directory, so both servers can't see each other. This could lead to problems with some background jobs including SynergyExchange.exe. This can be solved by registering the instance of the SQL server to the Active Directory. Registering the instance is done via the Enterprise Manager by selecting the properties of the instance you would like to register. The screenshot below shows which setting needs to set.