Digital-Clay Changes Don't Affect Outlook Items
This topic covers various cases where adding or changing Digital-Clay items don't affect Outlook items as expected, or add unwanted items to Outlook.
Multiple Outlook folders
ClayStation currently can only work with one Outlook folder at a time for each type of item (Task/Appointment/Contact). By default Digital-Clay uses Outlook to define its default folders, but this can be changed in the ClayStation Options. Folders may also be disabled in the ClayStation Options so that specific types of items in Outlook will not be synchronized.
Go to ClayStation's Tools/Options/Outlook and check that the folder configured there matches the folder you are currently working with, or remove the folder to stop Digital-Clay from adding items into that Outlook folder.
Issues with Outlook Tasks/Appointments
- Only Digital-Clay Tasks that are assigned to the current user will be automatically synchronized with Outlook. If the assigned user is offline and the Task is added by another user, the Task will be added when the user connects to ClayCentral and synchronizes.
- If the Task is re-assigned to another user, Digital-Clay should automatically detect this and delete the Task/Appointment from Outlook for the previously assigned user.
- A Digital-Clay Task may be placed in either the Outlook Appointment folder, or the Task folder depending on the Task Category settings in ClayStation Options. If it does not appear in one, check whether it has been added to the other due to its Task Category.
- Deleting or abandoning Digital-Clay Tasks will delete the linked Task/Appointment from Outlook.
Issues with Outlook Contacts
- Only Contacts added by the current user will be automatically added to Outlook. Unless the ClayStation setting “Synchronize all Contacts” is checked.
- Deleting or inactivating Digital-Clay Contacts will only make the Outlook Contact 'Private'. Unless the ClayStation setting “Synchronize Deleted Contacts” is checked.
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Insufficient Digital-Clay permissions
An Outlook item will only be synchronized with the Digital-Clay item if the user has permissions to view/change that item.
If the user once had permissions to see this item and this changes, then if the Digital-Clay item itself changed, this will be treated in the same way as a delete (see above). If the item didn't change, then the item will remain in his offline database and Outlook folders.
Broken links
In some cases, the link between the Outlook and Digital-Clay items may be broken which will stop Digital-Clay from synchronizing them. To check whether the link is active, open the Outlook item and:
- Confirm that the Digital-Clay toolbar appears inside the window for that item.
- When you click on the button in the toolbar, ensure that you don't get an “Item doesn't exist” error message.
A link may become broken in the following cases:
- The offline database was recreated (e.g. the database was deleted or the Outlook PST was moved to another machine) and the initial synchronization did not receive this item (e.g. the item is inactive).
- Multiple Digital-Clay users are using the same Outlook folders and don't have the Digital-Clay items in their offline databases for whatever reason.
- A failed synchronization which causes the item to appear offline but not online, or vice versa.
- A change of Permissions causing the item to become unavailable due to security restrictions.
- Recurring Appointment issues that cause orphaned Digital-Clay Tasks: See Duplicate Items for details.
To correct these issues (except Recurring Appointment issues):
- If the toolbar still appears but you get an “Item doesn't exist” error, then try manually synchronizing the offline database (Tools/Synchronize).
- If the toolbar has disappeared completely, then the only way to re-link existing items is to use the ClayStation Tools/Import-Export tool, to select the item(s) for import/export, and select “Use Existing” when it asks what to do with duplicate names.