Importing resources

The Groupware Connector can locate centrally maintained resources such as rooms and devices in MS Exchange, import them to the CRM and create or customize them.

If such an Exchange resource is used with an appointment, it is transferred to Exchange or read from there together with the appointment, similar to an appointment attendee assignment. Exchange resources are able to automatically accept or decline, if defined accordingly in Exchange.

This feature is available for Exchange Server 2010 and later, as well as Exchange Online as part of MS 365.

For Exchange from 2010 and Google, a job is available that imports resources automatically and adjusts their status as needed (Job-ID: GRW_IMP_RSC, "Groupware resource import", see also the descrip­tion in the comment field of the job).

As a "Resources manager" (Global Groupware confiuration), please specify an AD account (Active directory, a user with a P.O . box) permitted ro read room and distributions lists. Its user doesn’t need to be a CRM user (hence, free input in this field). For Distribution groups (Global Groupware configuration), please refer to the notes on device resources.

Resources are represented as P.O. Boxes in the Groupware, and have their own email address that serves as a "Groupware-ID" in the CRM. For this reason, they are also full accounts in the Active directory. As a consequence, resources cannot be created in the AD using the Exchange Connector. This is an administrative process that cannot be carried out via the EWS interface. Exporting from the CRM to Exchange is therefore not possible.

Nevertheless, it is possible to automate finding specific resources and then update the inventory in the CRM accordingly.

Using the Groupware assignment function of a CRM resource, you can assign an existing Groupware ID of technical resources. Note that Exchange distinguishes between "rooms" ("Room") and "devices" ("equipment").

For room resources, an Exchange administrator can create so called room lists ("Room lists") and assign the room resources to the respective room lists, based on the corresponding building, for example.

You can find the room lists via the EWS interface, whereby all room resources that have been included in a room list are found in the second step (query of the rooms in a room list).

With device P.O. Boxes, this works differently because they cannot be added to a room list. For the Exchange Connector to be able to determine the respective device resources, the following is defined:

Device resources can be added to a "Dstribution group" ("Universal email-distributor group" or "Mail Universal Distribution Group"). As there can theoretically be any number of these, and as there is no sensible method such as “ provide all distribution groups”, the EWS connector expects the distribution groups containing the relevant resources to be specified in the global groupware configuration (email addresses of the distributor groups, separated by semicolons).

The CRM user assigned to the job (see above) becomes the agent responsible for the resources created in the CRM. With existing resources, the job does not change the person responsible.

In the standard, the responsible is sent corresponding (internal) messages. The job handler was extended accordingly so that adaptations can be made through customizing.

The resources can first be searched for using their resource ID, and in the second step (if the search for the ID did not produce a hit) using their name in exact spelling and without placeholders.

If the query returned more than one hit, or a person resource or a resource group was found, then the job logs this, and doesn’t import.

Found resources always have the status “ACTIVE” after a job run. Resources that have a groupware ID but were no longer found in the groupware are set to “INACTIVE”.

You can import resources from several groupware servers (e.g. one per branch office). This ensures that only the resources that are no longer available on the server from which they originate become inactive, for example.

Each groupware server requires a groupware configuration (may already exist if, for example, appointments are already being synchronized), with the job copied and parameterized accordingly.

Technical resources (neither persons nor groups) that are assigned to appointments are transferred like the participants to Exchange and Google (if they are resources with a Groupware assignment), or read from there.

As resources are largely treated like participants (persons) in the groupware, and in particular can accept or decline participation, the RSC/ACT assignment includes the participant status along with the corresponding administration table (Administration / Activities / Resource status).

A Groupware flag is not required because there are no internal or external ressources.

Four Exchange statuses (confirmed, reservation, declined, no reply) are initially present in the CRM and can­not be changed. Other statuses can be defined for persons, however, doing this is not required.