Restoring Deleted Outlook Contacts

Restoring Deleted Outlook Contacts

People who have used Dynamics CRM in the past know that historically the only way to get your CRM contacts into Outlook was to use the Dynamics CRM Outlook plugin.  This was an app that you would install on each user’s computer which provided for integration and synchronization between Outlook and Dynamics.  The Outlook plugin is still used today, however, a more modern approach is to use server-side sync.  This allows for communication directly between the CRM system and Outlook (via Microsoft Exchange) without the need for an application to be installed on each user’s computer.

One of the things to know about synchronizing contacts between CRM and Outlook was that if you deleted a contact from Outlook, it would not delete that contact from CRM.  This is a good thing because it’s simply too easy to remove a contact from Outlook. If deleting a contact in Outlook would delete the contact in CRM, then a user could unintentionally delete contacts in CRM along with their associated history data.  But what happens when you delete a contact from Outlook today and want that contact back in Outlook again a month from now?  There is no easy way to bring contacts back into Outlook that you previously deleted.  With the old Outlook plugin, there was a process you could follow to reset the entire synchronization process and get those contacts back.  This process was not available when synchronizing contacts via server-side sync.  Until now.

It is possible to reset the contact synchronization process when using the server-side sync method.  The steps are not obvious, but it can be done.

  1. The user must enter their Synchronization Filter options. (Click the gear in the upper right corner of CRM >> Options >> Synchronization >> Filters).
  2. Select the Contact sync view and disable it by clicking on the red square button.
  3. Enable the Contact sync view by clicking on the green triangle button.
  4. Have your administrator Test & Enable the Dynamics mailbox record for this user.

Once the Test & Enable process has completed, all deleted Outlook contacts will be restored.

TopLine Results prides itself at finding solutions to challenging problems such as this one.  If you need assistance with your Dynamics 365 CRM, let us try to help. Contact us at info@toplineresults.com or give us a call at 1-800-880-1960.


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