Exchange Sync provides synchronization across the different versions of CRM (On-Premise, Partner Hosted and Online) as well as the different versions of Exchange (On-Premise, Hybrid/ADSync and Online). The way the application works is that it synchronizes between Marketing Lists (or custom entities), which contains lists of Contacts, and creates Distribution Groups in Exchange and adds the Mail Contacts to those Distribution Groups in Exchange.

Why do we need this?

The purpose of Exchange Sync is that a lot of organizations do not send their emails from CRM, but send it from Outlook, and they need the ability to send their email to a particular group of Contacts (or Distribution Group). The Marketing List in CRM maintains the list up to date, and the Exchange Sync application synchronizes with the Exchange Address Book, so users can send emails from Outlook containing the latest list of users.

To learn more about the features of the Exchange Sync application, click here.

What is the Community Edition?

Although the release is available in multiple editions, we decided to release an edition of the product to the Dynamics Community Free of Charge. This edition contains many of the features of the Full product with a few limitations, which include some features, deployment options and automation.

Deployment Options: Available for Dynamics 365 Online and Exchange Online Only.

Automation: No Automation is included in the Community Edition. Sync must be run manually be user running the application.

Support: As this is a free release of the product, support will only be provided via email (or web forum)

If you would like to try out the community edition, fill out the request for here:

https://www.briteglobal.com/dynamics/get-exchangesync-ce

The post New Exchange Sync Community Edition available now for 2018 appeared first on Aric Levin's Digital Transformation Blog.

The application retrieves the data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing Lists (both static or dynamic), and adds the members of the lists to Microsoft Exchange. If the members already exist in Exchange, the application can update them.

From the Microsoft Dynamics CRM side, the application supports Dynamics CRM 2013, CRM 2015, CRM 2016, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics 365. On the Exchange Server side, the application support Microsoft Exchange 2010, Microsoft Exchange 2013, Microsoft Exchange 2016, as well as Microsoft Exchange Online (via an Office 365 subscription).

The CRM Sync solution includes features such as such as Automatic Synchronization, Field Mapping and Custom entity relationships.

It is available for a 30-day trial.

The post CRM Exchange Sync support for Dynamics 365 appeared first on Aric Levin's Digital Transformation Blog.

The CRM Exchange Sync application adds the capability of synchronizing between Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing Lists and Contacts with Exchange Distribution Groups, Mail Contacts and Mail User records. The application retrieves the data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing Lists (both static or dynamic), and adds the members of the lists to Microsoft Exchange. If the members already exist in Exchange, the application can update them.

The post CRM Exchange Sync 3.0 Released appeared first on Aric Levin's Digital Transformation Blog.

Microsoft Office 2013 along with the other branded 2013 applications and server products have been release to manufacturing and are now available for download from the MSDN, Technet or Microsoft Partner web site.

According to Microsoft, the 2013-branded products are expected to hit “general availability” in the first quarter of 2013. Microsoft currently has a promotional offer for those buying Office 2010 to receive the upgrade to Office 2013 at no charge.

The post Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Exchange 2013 Released to Manufacturing appeared first on Aric Levin's Digital Transformation Blog.

The System.Management.Automation assembly allows the exeuction of Powershell commands against Exchange server.

Although, it would seem that the same code would be able to run for both of the versions of Exchange Server, two different codebases are required. The reason for this is that Exchange 2007 (SP1) supports only local powershell, and Exchange 2010 uses remote powershell.

        private void ConnectToExchange2007()
        {
            RunspaceConfiguration rc = RunspaceConfiguration.Create();
            PSSnapInException ex = null;
            PSSnapInInfo info = rc.AddPSSnapIn("Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin", out ex);
            rs = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(rc);
            Pipeline pl = rs.CreatePipeline();

            Command cmd = new Command("get-distributiongroup");
            pl.Commands.Add(cmd);
            ICollection<PSObject> results = pl.Invoke();
        }

        private const string SHELL_URI = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange";
        private void ConnectToExchange2010()
        {
            WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = GetConnectionInfo(exchangeServer, userName, password);
            Runspace rs = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(connectionInfo);
            PowerShell psh = PowerShell.Create();
            psh.Runspace = rs;
            rs.Open();

            psh.AddCommand("get-distributiongroup");
            Collection<PSObject> results = psh.Invoke();
        }

        private WSManConnectionInfo GetConnectionInfo(string servername, string username, string password)
        {
            System.Uri serveruri = new Uri(String.Format("http://{0}/powershell?serializationLevel=Full", servername));
            PSCredential creds;

            if (username.Length > 0 && password.Length > 0)
            {
                System.Security.SecureString securePassword = new System.Security.SecureString();
                foreach (char c in password.ToCharArray())
                {
                    securePassword.AppendChar(c);
                }
                creds = new PSCredential(username, securePassword);
            }
            else
            {
                // Use Windows Authentication
                creds = (PSCredential)null;
            }

            WSManConnectionInfo connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(serveruri, SHELL_URI, creds);
            return connectionInfo;
        }

The post Executing Powershell Commands against Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 appeared first on Aric Levin's Digital Transformation Blog.