-Updated 9/2/2020

Welcome back for Part 10 and the final part of the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook blog series. Today, we are covering the new Delegation support for other users to use the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook on your behalf. This is one of the few remaining features to bring parity to the App for Outlook and was a common use-case in the legacy Dynamics 365 for Outlook COM add-in.

Our Dynamics 365 product group and development teams have done an outstanding job building, testing, and documenting this feature. Our public documentation can be found here: 

Set up delegate access

Use delegate access

If you have attempted this previously within the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, you may have tried to create an appointment on an Outlook calendar that you are a delegate for and when you go to track this item to Dynamics from a delegated calendar, the Dynamics 365 icon does not appear or is grayed out. Sound familiar? Then, let's get to the good stuff.

Using Outlook’s Delegate Access, you can give someone permission to act on your behalf. For example, you might have an assistant that you want to manage your Calendar for appointments and meeting requests. Some assistants might also monitor a manager's Inbox and send email on her or his behalf. An important note here, that Delegate Access is different than a Shared Calendar and it will be discussed below.

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagements, Dynamics 365 App for Outlook is now enabled for use by delegate users, to track and perform actions on behalf of the primary user whose mailbox and calendar they are managing. 

For more information on how to make someone your delegate and the associated permissions within an Exchange mailbox, please see here. 

Requirements:

Although the requirements are outlined in this link, I want to be sure to cover these again, as they are very important. 

Outlook version: 

This is only supported on Office Outlook Click-to-Run (C2R), version 16.0.12130.20272 or later. This version is only required by the Assistant (delegate user), however, the primary mailbox owner will need to have a version of Outlook that supports App for Outlook minimum requirements. The primary mailbox owner must also be configured for Server-Side Sync and have the App for Outlook deployed. The Delegation feature will NOT be supported on MSI versions of Outlook. 

The Outlook version list can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-office365-proplus-by-date

The minimum required version of Outlook was released in December, 2019 to the Monthly Channel. This means that you must be on the Monthly Channel until this version is available on the Semi-Annual channels, which are deferred approximately 6 months. Most companies have their users on a Semi-Annual channel. So if you have users that need to use the delegation feature right away, you can move users to the Monthly Channel, temporarily, until this minimum version is available in the Semi-Annual channel. At which point, they can be moved back to the Semi-Annual channel. This would effectively be reverting to an earlier version of Outlook when done, so be sure to talk it over with those in your Organization to understand the details of changing channels.

What is this Skype URL and why is it required to be whitelisted?

If you look at the documentation, it is mentioned that https://config.edge.skype.com/ is required to be whitelisted/not blocked in your network. But why? This URL is listed under Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams in the following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/urls-and-ip-address-ranges

It is listed under this section as it was initially created by the Skype team. However, this URL is valid for all Office and the documentation has not yet been updated.

This URL controls Office Feature Flights from being updated properly on end-user machines. If this is blocked, it prevents the proper config keys and values from being created in the Registry. In this case, the Feature Flight would be Shared Calendars to support delegation.

Without these being created properly, the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook will not be usable from a shared calendar and users will also see grayed out apps that are not supported within shared calendars. Such as My Templates app or other custom apps/add-ins.

Although it is directed at Office for Mac, this documentation applies for the endpoint in general Office clients and specifies the use only for Flighting Configuration. The detail on the use of this endpoint can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/network-requests-in-office-2016-for-mac

Redeploy the App for Outlook:

The next thing I want to make sure to call out is that you must redeploy the App for Outlook after delegation settings are enabled. This is required to push the new manifest to the Exchange mailboxes. You could redeploy the App for Outlook to only those users that will be using delegate functionality. However, this might become an administrative overhead for tracking which users were redeployed and would also require teh Admin to redeploy for individual users in the future, that may want the functionality. Although delegation may not be used by all users, my recommendation would be to simply redeploy the App for all users so they all have the latest manifest in case they, at some point, decide to use the delegation functionality.

Delegate settings in Outlook

When a delegate user is created in Outlook Desktop, make sure they have Editor level permission. Since the delegate user would be tracking and setting the Regarding object on an email or an appointment, they would need to have Editor level permission. To know more about the different delegate permission levels, please see here. 

Delegation Scenario Expectations:

When an Email is created by a Delegate:

• CreatedBy – System (you will see this, as it is promoted by Server-Side Sync)
• Owner - User will be manager (primary mailbox owner)
• Sender - User will be manager (primary mailbox owner)

• Delegate users will be able to track an email in compose mode through App for Outlook before sending. Just remember that any delegate tracking scenario will be asynchronous in both Read and Compose mode and will take a few minutes, depending when the last sync cycle occurred.

• If you Track or Set Regarding on an item in the Manager's mailbox, as the delegated user, you may briefly see “Processing, please wait…" status. This is expected, as it requires successful connection to Exchange to update the properties from the Outlook item. If you save and send the email in this status, it will fail to track, as the properties will not have been set.

What are the expectations when an Appointment is created by a Delegate and tracked to Dynamics 365?

• CreatedBy - User will be manager (primary mailbox owner)
• Owner - User will be manager (primary mailbox owner)
• Organizer - User will be manager (primary mailbox owner)
• Shift+F9 - will force sync a calendar between Outlook and Exchange

• If you Track or Set Regarding on an item in the Manager's calendar, as the delegated user, you may briefly see “Processing, please wait…" status. This is expected, as it requires successful connection to Exchange to update the properties from the Outlook item. If you save and send the email in this status, it will fail to track, as the properties will not have been set. We are working on improving the user experience to notify users to wait until it shows “Track Pending.” The message you would see is below:

You need to wait until this changes to below to Save and Send or before closing the record.

• Delegate users will be able to track an appointment in compose mode through App for Outlook before sending. Just remember that any delegate tracking scenario will be asynchronous in both Read and Compose mode and will take a few minutes, depending when the last sync cycle occurred.

• If the primary calendar owner looks at this appointment on their own calendar during this time, it will also show as "Track pending…" 

How does the App for Outlook appear to the delegate?

This looks the same as when you access the App for Outlook from your own calendar or an email item. When the delegate user opens an email or an appointment belonging to the user whose mailbox they are managing, they will be able to see the Dynamics 365 icon in the Outlook ribbon. They can open the App for Outlook and perform actions like track and set Regarding to capture the item in Dynamics 365. 

Is Delegation supported for Contact tracking in Dynamics 365?

Tracking Contacts as a delegate from the Contacts area is not supported. Although you can create a new contact that appears as Unresolved Recipient through the Tracking Pane when in an Email or Appointment.

Download Shared Folders Setting

The next important item to note is the Outlook functionality of Download Shared Folders to the local .OST file.

This is normally set by default, but you will want to confirm how this setting is managed for Assistants, as it may result in a different experience depending how it is set.

• With it enabled, there may be a lag time where Outlook syncs to Exchange. Until this synchronization happens, our properties will not be set on the Exchange item and it will not be promoted to Dynamics.  Having this enabled with large shared folders can result in significant growth to the .OST file and cause performance issues.

• With it disabled, the shared mailbox will be in “online” mode with direct connection to Exchange. Similar to using “Cached Exchange Mode” on the primary mailbox. With a direct connection to Exchange, you do not see any of this lag time like you do with it enabled. It should be tested in a larger production-size mailbox to ensure there are no performance implications. From my testing, the user experience in wait times was much better with this setting disabled. You are also unlikely to encounter the “Tracking in Progress” scenario above, as it has direct connection to Exchange.

Check out the rest of the series below:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9