Gotchas on Dynamics 365 Outlook App Deployment

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has a shiny new Outlook App. In this post, I won’t discuss the functionality of this Outlook App (for the information about functionality, please use the following article: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/dynamics-365-app-for-outlook-user-s-guide.aspx)

One of the first pre-requisite of the new Dynamics 365 Outlook App is to enable the server-side sync (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531109.aspx). Once the server-side sync for the user’s mailbox completed, the user will be displayed under Dynamics 365 App for Outlook as Eligible User:

Click the “ADD APP TO OUTLOOK” button to let the provisioning service adding the Outlook App. This might take up to 15 minutes to finish the provisioning. For more information about the security requirements, supportability, compatibility and more details of the deployment, please refer to the following TechNet article: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn946901.aspx

Once you’ve got it provisioned, it will be available on your desktop-based Outlook:

As well as on OWA client: 

 

Gotcha #1 – Outlook App Doesn’t Like Multiple Dynamics 365 Instances

Now, as I’m happy with the App, I would like to make it available in other Dynamics 365 instances (Typical IT project lifecycle we will have multiple environments to be used for their purpose, such as: DEV/TEST/UAT/PROD).

So, what I have done was made the same configuration at the other environment, let say in UAT environment. And add progressing to add the app to Outlook. However, I’ve got the following error:

“Issue when adding to Outlook” – with detail: “CRM : IncomingEmailRejected”.

So I click the link “Help me resolve this issue” that takes me to the following KB Article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/3211627/incomingemailrejected-error-when-attempting-to-install-dynamics-365-app-for-outlook

The article mentioned the cause of the problem: “This error can occur if the Mailbox record has not been approved.”

Well, I’ve approved the mailbox. Otherwise, how come I could get a success message from the testing result:

To resolve this issue. I need to update the Mailbox synchronisation to the current organisation only. Which means, I can only sync and use the Outlook App for an instance at a time (which makes sense).

Once I ticked this option, I can add the Outlook App successfully for the new instance.

So, the feature of the traditional Outlook Client that is able to keep the configuration of multiple instances and switching on which one that becomes the syncing org, seems to be not available for the Outlook App.

 

Gotcha #2 – How to Remove or Disable the Dynamics 365 Outlook App?

Now, in some situations, it could be a business decision whether they would like to use the new Dynamics 365 Outlook App or the Traditional Outlook client. One thing that I noticed, once I enabled the Dynamics 365 Outlook App for the user, I can’t find anywhere in CRM UI to remove it:

It can only add, but not remove… Okay, this is not the end of the world. The Dynamics 365 Outlook App is technically an “Add-in” for Outlook. So, to remove it, simply navigate to File > Info > Manage Add-ins from Outlook desktop.

That practically will redirect you to Outlook OWA: https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?path=/options/manageapps

Now in here, we can see the list of Outlook add-ins that have been installed for us. Click Dynamics 365, in there we also can see which Dynamics 365 instance that the App is currently connected to.

To disable: simply untick “Turned on” checkbox.

To remove: select the add-ins and click the minus (-) button.

 

For now, these are the lessons learned that I’ve got from the Dynamics 365 App.

HTH!