Settings for synchronization

Under Administration > Overview > Synchronization Settings, you determine which Dynamics 365 entities are synchronized with portatour® and whether an automatic, periodic synchronization should take place.

1. Select the license for which you want to change settings by clicking on the license name.
2. Make changes suited to your requirements as described below.
3. Save and close the form after applying the changes.

Rows to Synchronize

In the section Rows to synchronize, specify which records are to be synchronized between Dynamics 365 and the portatour® servers. See also Considerations for the configuration.

The following entities can be selected:

• Account
• Contact
• Lead
• Appointment

Per entity, you choose between the following settings:

• No: records for this entity are not synchronized with portatour®
• Yes: Records for this entity are synchronized with portatour®. By default, all data records for which a user is the owner are synchronized. Click Edit filter to change the criteria of records to be synchronized and the assignment of records to a user (see below Edit filter).

Edit filter

1. Click the link Edit filter to edit the filter for an entity. A form is opened showing a Dynamics 365 view which is automatically created by portatour®, for example portatour Auto Activate 'account' View.
2. Select Edit Filter Criteria. A form is displayed where you can create, edit or delete filter criteria. This filter selects accounts in California:
3. Select OK to close the form with the filter criteria.
4. Save and Close the form with the view for the filter.

Initialize Last Customer Call Date

In the section Initialize Last Customer Call Date, you can initialize the value Last call from data of your Dynamics 365 organization for all customer entities to be synchronized. For each customer entity to be synchronized, i.e. those entities for which under Rows to synchronize Yes is checked, a separate section exists here.

Initialize last customer call

Under Initialize last customer call you select when and under what circumstances the last call date in portatour® Anywhere should be overwritten with data from Dynamics 365. The following options are available:

• Select Never if no date should be set for the last call in portatour® for any customer or if the date of the last call is not available in Dynamics.
• At first synchronization of a record: The date of the last call is transferred from Dynamics to portatour® exactly once. If a date is added later in Dynamics, this has no effect.
• Select If last customer call date in portatour® is still empty for a record if data should only be transferred from Dynamics to portatour® Anywhere if the 'Last call' field in Anywhere is empty. Even if data is added later in Dynamics, this option will not unintentionally overwrite more recent data in Anywhere.
• If last customer call date in portatour® is older for a given record: During each synchronization, the last call date in portatour® is compared with the one in Dynamics. Select this option if the data in portatour® Anywhere is outdated and you want to import more recent data from Dynamics. The synchronization process under this option is slower than with If last customer call date in portatour® is still empty for a record.
• Select Always if you want the last call date in portatour® Anywhere to be overwritten with data from Dynamics during every synchronization. Use this option for testing only.

Select source of last customer call date

If there is no separate field for the last call date in your Dynamics organization, it is also possible to read out the last call date from activities using a filter and transfer it to portatour® Anywhere. Select the entity as source from which the date of the last call should be read out, e.g. appointment, task or a custom entity (e.g. call report) of your organization.

If you use appointments for the last call date, just use the example query that is already pre-filled in Dynamics. Clicking Edit query shows the view with filter:

In this example, the date of the last appointment within the last year at this customer is used as last call. A filter for 'Start Time' limits the value to Last 1 Years.

The filter contains a criterion relating the entities of an example account – in this case to Huber, Kai. This restriction is necessary. portatour® automatically adapts this restriction to every account that is synchronized. You can decide which example account to use in the filter.

The view must return exactly one column with date values. Any additional columns with other data types are ignored. To ensure that the latest appointment is is returned, the results are sorted by Start Time in Descending Order. portatour® will read the date from the the first returned row.

Below is a step-by-step guide to create a query for tasks for reading the last call date:

1. Under Source of last customer call date, select Task.
2. Click Edit query. A new window for editing the view opens.
3. Click Edit Filter Criteria.
4. Create the filter Regarding equals exemplary company. Select the field where the company name is.
5. Create the filter Subject Contains e.g. Call. Here you filter out those tasks that were really a customer call.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Add Columns. A pop-up window opens.
8. Check Due Date and click OK.
9. Click Configure Sorting.
10. Select for Sort by due date: Descending Order and confirm with OK.
11. Save and Close the query.
12. Click Validate to see the last call date portatour® would use for the example account. Verify that this conforms to your expectations. Correct the query if necessary.

In summary, the four requirements for the view, no matter which entity you use:

• Filter using one (related) example company.
• Limit the results to a reasonable time frame in the past, for example the “Last 1 years”. Filter out future dates.
• Exactly one column of type “Date and Time”.
• Sort by the right column and order, typically by a date/time column in descending order.

Addresses to synchronize

Dynamics provides multiple addresses per record for companies, contacts and leads. Select between Address 1, Address 2 or Custom for the address which is visited by your sales representatives and thus should be used by portatour® for planning visits:

Select Custom if you have created custom fields for the visit address, and enter the appropriate field names in all fields:

Options

• Enable the Automatically close appointments option so that appointments in Dynamics 365 are automatically closed as soon as they are marked as attended in portatour® Anywhere.
• The default setting for Populate 'Required Attendees' for new appointments is No. Only select Yes here if you want the “Required attendees” field to be automatically filled in Dynamics 365 for customer appointments created in portatour® during synchronization. Attention: This leads to automatic email sending in Dynamics 365.
• Call reports that you create in portatour® Anywhere are stored as tasks or appointments in Dynamics 365. Use the desired option for this under Use the following entity to store call reports.
• Activate the option Automatically close call reports so that these tasks are already created with status closed.
• The items Run manual synchronization by user as, Run manual synchronization by administrator as and Run periodic synchronization as determine in which context the synchronization with portatour® Anywhere should technically run: As the affected user, as administrator or as SYSTEM. We recommend the setting User, as this means the user will be entered as creator of new records in Dynamics 365. If there are errors during synchronization due to the change, make sure that the user has all the necessary rights.
• Under Behavior if changes from portatour® Anywhere cannot be processed due to missing privileges you configure the behavior during synchronization if the executing user does not have sufficient permissions for synchronization. Select Abort synchronization to first adjust the permissions and then restart the synchronization or Discard changes to start the synchronization without the changes made by the user in question.
• Enable Multiple-sales-reps-per-customer mode if territories are covered by multiple sales reps.

Periodic Synchronization

In Periodic Synchronization you configure the synchronization so that data between your Dynamics 365 organization and the portatour® servers is automatically synchronized periodically.

1. Turn on periodic synchronization by selecting Yes under Enabled.
2. Specify the date and time of the next synchronization under Next Synchronization On. The default setting is 'in 2 hours', rounded down to a full hour. Choose the time in the future that suits you.
3. Under Time Between Synchronizations, select the time period between two consecutive periodic synchronizations.

Assuming that today is 11/07/2023, a typical setting for periodic synchronization would be:

• Next synchronization: 08.11.2023, 3:00
• Time between synchronizations: 24 hours

This will set up a synchronization every night at 3:00.

Automatic Error Report E-Mail

For quick troubleshooting it is possible for portatour® to automatically send emails containing an error report to administrators and/or to portatour®.

• To Manufacturer: Select Yes if you want the portatour® team to be informed automatically. Select No if you do not want this.
• To Administrator: Select Yes to notify one or more administrators in your organization in the event of an error.
• Administrator: Select the administrator(s) to receive the notification.
• Email Sender: Select which administrator should appear as the sender of the emails.
• Level: Select Errors to send automatic error reports only in case of errors. Select Errors and Warnings to send an email also in case of a warning.

Section 'More'

This shows the time of the last synchronization.