Exact Synergy Enterprise supports synchronization of appointments with Microsoft Exchange 2010 from product update 244 onwards.
It allows synchronization of appointments created in Exact Synergy Enterprise and Microsoft Outlook to each other. However, in this synchronization, recurring appointments with no end date are handled differently.
This document describes the basic principles and how recurring appointments with no end date are synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise in the following topics:
This type of appointment is created in Microsoft Outlook. To create recurring appointments with no end date, select the No end date check box under the Range of recurrence section on the Appointment Recurrence page, as shown in the following:
When this recurring appointment with no end date is created, the appointment will be displayed in Microsoft Outlook until the year 4,000 and above. Synchronization of recurring appointments with no end date to Exact Synergy Enterprise will still occur whenever they are created, but the process and rule for them to be created in Exact Synergy Enterprise are handled differently.
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Whether it is created from Exact Synergy Enterprise or it is synchronized from the Exchange server, each appointment in the Exact Synergy Enterprise calendar is a request by itself. When you create an appointment in Exact Synergy Enterprise, it means you have created a request. Each request is a record in the database.
For example, when a recurring appointment that has 10 occurrences is created and synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise, 10 requests are then created in Exact Synergy Enterprise. This means there will be 10 records in the database. Thus, the number of requests to be generated in Exact Synergy Enterprise will be massive when recurring appointments with no end date are displayed in the calendar beyond year 4,000.
During the synchronization, the synchronization service will have to connect to the Exchange server to retrieve data for each of the occurrence in the series of the recurring appointments with no end date.
As the number of appointments that are synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise increases, more records will be created in the database.
This will slow down the synchronization process and could potentially cause congestion to the network and affect other network activities.
This section discusses the fundamental principles of recurring appointments with no end date synchronization and the workaround approach to minimize issues discussed in previous section.
When a newly created recurring appointment with no end date is synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise, the appointment will only recur for one year in Exact Synergy Enterprise. The synchronization process will add one year to the first occurrence of the recurring series. The remaining occurrences after that one year will be ignored.
For example, a monthly recurring appointment with no end date is created in Microsoft Outlook. This appointment starts from January 1, 2012. When it is synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise, only 12 appointments (or requests) will be created, starting from January 1, 2012 until December 1, 2012. The synchronization process is as follows:
Recurring appointments with no end date may be created long time ago before the synchronization is activated, or before the companies start using the Exchange 2010 synchronization. Even after migrating to Exchange 2010, getting the synchronization activated and applying the Add one year formula, the appointments synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise might not be valid to the users.
For example, a company created a monthly recurring appointment with no end date in 2010. The company starts using the Exchange 2010 synchronization in year 2012. Assuming the recurring appointment with no end date started on January 1, 2010, synchronization would start on January 1, 2012. The synchronization process is as follows:
Though the synchronization works according to the rules, the appointments synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise may no longer be valid for the users now as these were set in the past. Every time synchronization of recurring appointments with no end date recurs, only occurrences with the date that is equal to or greater than the date of the synchronization will be taken into consideration when synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise. Past occurrences are ignored.
The Exchange 2010 synchronization contains a feature named Touch that keeps extending the recurring appointments with no end date to Exact Synergy Enterprise. This approach is used to manage the rest of the occurrences that are not available in Exact Synergy Enterprise since the last synchronization.
Synchronization will only occur when you create, modify, or delete the appointments. These actions trigger a notification from the Exchange server and the synchronization service will be notified to start the synchronization process. The Touch process “touches” the recurring appointments with no end date and by “touching” them, there will be notifications. However, technically, the recurring appointments with no end date are not modified and there are no actual notifications triggered from the Exchange server.
In Exact Synergy Enterprise, the configuration file Exact.MacroManager.Exchange.config contains following:
The Touch process will be triggered to synchronize the recurring appointments with no end date to Exact Synergy Enterprise again. The first occurrence appointment will be picked up when its date is equal to or greater than the last occurrence that is already synchronized. In the previous example, the last occurrence that is synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise is December 1, 2012. Hence, occurrences from January 1, 2013 will be synchronized to Exact Synergy Enterprise.