Add2Outlook Administration Guide > Synchronization Rules

Auto Populate Subject With: “Auto Population” is a fancy technical term which means automatically put the text you enter into the subject line of an appointment.

•	This option is most often used to identify the calendar it came from, such as “public” or the creator of appointment with initials, last name or full name. In some scenarios the words “Personal” or “Work” is appropriate.

•	This is used most often to identify the creator of the appointment with initials, last name or full name.

Synchronize How Many Days: This option specifies what date range you want the program to synchronize from and until.

•	Set the number of days in advance to synchronize changes.

•	Set the number of prior days to synchronize changes.

•	Scan Ahead Dates options. This option tells you how many days or weeks to replicate both in the future.

•	Prior: The program will replicate from today and however many days specified in the past.

•	Future: The program will replicate from today until the timeframe specified has been reached.

•	Static: The program will replicate a certain defined date.

•	Scan Prior Dates options. This option tells you how many days or weeks to replicate in the past.

Tip: if reoccurring appointments are to be replicated from the source, make sure (at least for the initial sync), the start date is far enough in the past to contain the date of the first (master) reoccurring appointment of the series. Once replicated, you can change the prior days to 0.

Within each relationship you can specify the date range of each type of item you want to copy. In a calendar relationship, the date of the calendar item is used to determine if it should be copied. If the calendar item date falls within the prior date (prior to today) and post date (sliding after today) date range you specify within the relationship, it will be copied. If not, it will not be copied.

In a Task Relationship, the start and end dates are the dates used to determine if it falls within the date range specified in the relationship. If you want all tasks to be replicated, regardless of Start or End Date, you need to set both the Prior Sync Days and the Sync Ahead days to 0. This way when the replication cycle is active, all tasks with an end date (or no end date) and any started (or not started) tasks will be copied from the source to the destination.

If you want just some of the tasks copied, such as those with a start or end date that falls within the date range you have specified within the relationship, setting the values to something other than zero would only copy those tasks falling within the range of the calculated date within the start or end date period.

Why do some items not copy? If you specify a positive number of days either in the Prior Sync days or Post (from today) Sync then in order for the task to be synchronized, it must at least have a task Due Date and that date must fall prior to or equal to the number of sync days specified in the relationship.

For Example, if you are trying to sync 5 days in advance, then the Due Date must be equal to or less than the date 5 days in the future.

If the task has a Start Date specified in the task, then the start date must be greater than or equal to the sync prior days AND the due date must be before or equal to the post sync days.

In Contact Relationships, the date fields are not necessary.

Do not copy Private items: This is a simple on/off function to either ignore or replicate source appointments marked as “Private” in the bottom right side of an Outlook appointment.

•	If synchronizing from public-to-private folders, this option is not relevant since there is no such thing as a private public calendar item.

Conflict Resolution: On occasion, both the source and destination appointment in a single calendar relationship are separately edited/changed, but not deleted. When both source and destination appointments are edited, this creates a conflict requiring a resolution by one of 2 actions:

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Always replace the item in the destination folder option. This option confirms the source appointment as the primary/master appointment and will overwrite the changes which were made to the destination appointment and replace the changed destination copy with the new updated source appointment. This is the most common option for most installations.

•	Always replace the item in the source folder option. This option can make the destination appointment as the primary/master appointment and will write BACK to the original source item with the updated destination appointment. Use this option sparingly, and only on one to one folder relationships.

Tip on option: “Always replace the item in the source folder” option:

If several people are using this or any of our synchronization programs, and you are going from a public folder to a private folder, it is best not to have two people with relationships that will change the master to the destination and write back to the master, because if both users do it, one user’s changes will be lost.

Copied Resolution: If only the copied item (the destination copy) changes, this option specifies what to do. The Solution allows for 3 automated choices:

•	Always overwrite any changes to the destination so the copy in the destination folder always matches the source appointment. This is the most common setting, but allows for the loss of changed destination information.

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Preserve the changed destination copy, and make a new copy of the original. This option will look like the destination has duplicates, but actually has two different appointments, the original and the user’s changed copy of the original. If the user makes changes to the new tied copy, it will again untie that changed copy and when replication occurs will make a newly tied copy, so there will be three in the destination. The tied copy in the destination folder will continue to change with any changes to the source appointment, but the new duplicate appointment in the destination folder will never reflect changes made to the source appointment. This option is useful for public-to-private relationships where the user makes their own notes in the tied copy, and wants to keep them as meeting notes.

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Synchronize the changes to the destination copy back to the original. This means the copy in the destination folder for that user has become the master appointment, and will Overwrite the changes in the original source. This can be a good thing and the desired operation, but is not the best idea when there are more than two users that have this setting on the same source calendar. Tip on option: if several people are using this or any of our synchronization programs, and you are going from a public folder to a private folder, it is best not to have two people with relationships that will change the destination to master and write back to the original master, because if both users do it, one user’s changes will be lost. Use this option sparingly, and only on one to one folder relationships.

Source Item Deleted Resolution: When the source item is deleted, this rule specifies what to do with the tied copy in the destination folder.

•	Do nothing to the tied copy in the destination folder – leave it in the destination folder, unchanged.

•	Delete the tied copy in the destination folder.

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Leave the tied copy in the destination folder, but add the word “Deleted” to the beginning of the subject line of the tied copy in the destination folder. This option is helpful if you have one to many users with relationships on the source folder because it will tell everyone what happened to the item and things don’t just start disappearing.

Tip on Calendars: most users want to delete the destination item if the source item is deleted to clean up their calendars. This is a good idea in that situation. If things get changed, removed, or rescheduled; we have found it would be best to mark the item Deleted – which is an automatic feature of the product if the source item is deleted. If the appointment is rescheduled, or canceled, it would be best to train your users to edit the subject of the item and add “Rescheduled to…” (and the date) or "Canceled" to the subject so it replicates out to the appropriate people.

Destination Item Deleted Resolution: When the destination appointment is deleted, this rule specifies what to happen to the source folder item.

•	Do nothing to original master item in the source folder. This option leaves the original item unchanged.

•	Delete the tied copy in the source folder. – Not recommended.

•	Leave the original tied copy in the source folder, but add the word “Deleted” to the beginning of the subject line of the tied copy in the destination folder.

Tip on Calendars: most users SAY they want to delete the source item if the destination item is deleted to clean up their calendars, but this is almost ALWAYS a bad idea if more than one user has this power or more than one user has a relationship from this folder (one to many). This option is only ideal if ONE user has this powerful rule set up on the folder. It the user deletes the copy of the item and it gets deleted from the source, then items can disappear accidentally and cause issues with other users. Again, the most common setting of the rule is to mark the item “Deleted” – which is an automatic feature of the product if the source item is deleted. If the appointment is rescheduled, or canceled, it would be best to train your users to edit the subject of the item and add “Rescheduled to…” (and the date) or “Canceled” to the subject so it replicates out to the appropriate people.

Existing Item Synchronization Flag: At the time of establishing the initial relationship, this option determines what you want the program to do with existing calendar appointments in the source folder and within the specified date range.

•	Replicate ALL existing appointments to the destination folder and tie for synchronization.

•	Ignore existing calendar appointments and mark them so they do not get copied.

Tip: if Replicate no items is selected, Add2Outlook will only replicate/synchronize new appointments created after the calendar relationship is established. Once this option is selected, the existing items in the source will never replicate to the destination even if the relationship has been changed.

•	If you find that none of the existing items have replicated and you accidentally specified Copy no items, the only way to get existing items replicated is to remove (delete) the relationship and rebuild it again.

When done with the Rules, you can change the automatic naming of the relationship, but normally you could just accept it. Press OK to save the relationship.

Want a 2-way Relationship? Creating the Reverse Relationship

After you save the first relationship, you can then make the reverse of the relationship. In our example it was a public-to-private relationship. Anything made in the public will be synced to the private. Likewise, anything made in the private will be synced to the public.

•	Go back into Add-in Options, select the relationship you want to reverse and right click and press Add Reverse.

(You can always create a second relationship at any other time).

Tip: Do not make the Auto Populate the same name as the original.

•	Click Save to create and save the reverse relationship.

When you accept the changes, you will notice you have a private-to-public and a public-to-private Relationship.

Tip: Even though there is a heading for Relationship Alert, there is no Relationship that has that status in the picture because there is no “+” next to the folder. Relationships become in alert when the user is disabled, offline or the folders are no longer available.

Select OK when completed in order to save the relationship. Add2Outlook is now available for Manual Online synchronization.

Tip: Add2Outlook will not synchronize with the Add2Outlook Console open and will stop synchronizing when the options page (Console) is opened. If this occurs, it will start over on the sync time when the Add2Outlook options page is closed or the Sync Now button is pressed. This is a feature so that replication does not occur on an incompletely specified relationship. Again, when you exit the Add2Outlook Console it will replicate manually or on the schedule you have chosen.