Manual Calendar Sync

In addition to automatic Calendar Sync settings, you can manually perform Calendar Syncs in IA365 for engagements they have added to your own calendar. The process involves setting up an email address for your firm that "kicks off" Calendar Sync.  We recommend using a generic email address that raises the least warning signs as possible, such as "[e-mail]." There should be a contact associated with this email and should fall under one of the allowed Contact Types on the Calendar Configuration Firm Settings page.

In order to use the Manual Calendar Sync, users will need to be enabled in the InterAction+ Client Insights Module.  Instructions on enabling Calendar Sync in CIM can be found in our InterAction+ Answer Center.

Users will have the option to toggle on syncing for that event. When syncing is enabled, the defined user will be added to the invitation automatically, triggering the sync process.

When the user is creating the meeting, that is when they will see the toggle mentioned above. We do not support external events with the calendar sync right now. For example, if a law firm sent you a calendar invite you cannot sync it to your calendar, but you can add it to InterAction as an activity. This is a limitation of Microsoft’s. 

A new manifest file must be installed in order to use this feature. Please contact your admin to install. 

Benefits

By syncing the creation of InterAction+ appointments, you'll capture more intelligence and data in InterAction+. Your firm's engagement and relationship scoring will improve, thus supporting your firm's marketing and business development goals.

Considerations for Manual Calendar Sync

Warning labels that may appear during the process are as follows:

• Event cannot sync because it is older than the number of days in CIM: Users get the below notification when they try to sync an event outside the number of days in the past set up in CIM.

  

•  Recurring: Recurring meetings cannot be synced due to a Microsoft limitation

  

• Private: Private meetings cannot be synced to avoid breaching individual firm privacy.

  

Administrators: Enable and Configure Client Insights Calendar Sync for Firm

Go to Firm Settings > Outlook® Sync > Calendar Configuration.

On the Calendar Configuration screen, you can enable appointment syncing, configure the email address to trigger Calendar Sync, set default activity types, and select which contact types should prompt the creation of appointments in InterAction+.

1. Enable new Appointment Sync with Outlook® Calendar: Toggle this on to enable the Calendar Sync. Once the sync is enabled, it can't be disabled.

2. Configure email address to trigger Calendar Sync: Type the email address for the defined user that will be added to the invitation to trigger the sync process.

   The Administrator must create a dummy user. The name of the user should be unique, so users won’t accidentally find it when searching for an actual contact (e.g. “[e-mail]”).

   This contact shall be used for other users to send events that will sync to InterAction+. 

   Choosing the contact types in Calendar Configuration settings will not automatically slide the toggle on. It designates which contact types associated with contacts on the event will trigger the sync automatically behind the scenes.

3. Synchronize past-dated Outlook® Calendar Items ___ day(s): Type the number of days after the event that you want the sync to continue to run (between 1 and 90).
   If a user edits an Activity in InterAction+ before this sync period is over, the sync will be broken.

   Your existing events in this time period won't be pulled into the calendar sync. Only newly created events or edited events falling in this time period will be reflected in InterAction+.

   Checkboxes

   • Exclude 'Our Personnel' and 'Our Consultants' from appointment: This option is selected by default. If you want your firm's personnel and consultants included as contacts in the InterAction+ appointment, clear this check box. 
   • Include text from the appointment body: This option is selected by default. If you don't want the calendar event description included in the InterAction+ appointment, clear this check box.
4. Optional: Rename the display type of synced appointments.
   

5. Contact Types: Select the contact types whose association with a calendar item will create an InterAction+ event. If at least one selected contact type is invited as an attendee, it will sync to InterAction+. The email address entered in Step 2 should fall under one of the allowed Contact types in order for the manual sync to work. Calendar items that include only unselected Contact Types won't automatically create corresponding InterAction+ appointments. 

   The available Contact Types are pulled from the InterAction+ Administrator.

   Events with private contacts won't be synced.

6. Click Save.

Using Manual Calendar Sync

1. Open Outlook and create a new meeting.
2. In the meeting window, click the IA365 button to open the IA365 pane.
3. Click the Mark for Sync slider.  This will automatically add the email address that was added from  Configure email address to trigger Calendar Sync. You will need to include this email address in every meeting that you wish to be included in the manual sync. 
   • Toggle On
     • The email address that was configured to fall under one of the allowed Contact Types will enable the sync process.
     • If there is another email address on the invite that falls under one of the allowed Contact Types the event will auto sync in the background.
   • Toggle Off
     • If there is no email address in the invite tied to a contact under an allowed Contact Type, then nothing will sync.
     • If the toggle is off but there are other email addresses with an allowed Contact Type the auto-sync will still happen in the background.
       
4. Click Send.