NetSuite: Recurring Appointments Sync with Exchange

Riva 2.4.37 introduced support for NetSuite recurring appointments. This article describes the feature and impacts of enabling this functionality.

Background

Appointment recurrence is defined by a recurrence rule or pattern. These rules and patterns define the series of days on which an appointment appears on the calendar.

Even though, in a calendar view, there may appear to be many appointments, all appointments in a recurring series are actually a single record that has been expanded based on the recurrence rule. The recurrence rules that define how appointments are expanded are different for NetSuite and Exchange.

An example of these differences is that with Exchange, exceptions can be made to the recurrence rule to allow for changes to a single occurrence in the series – for example, to reschedule a single appointment because of a holiday Monday. NetSuite does not allow recurring appointment exceptions to be made.

How Does It Work?

To maximize support for NetSuite and Exchange's different built-in feature sets, the sync behaviour is different depending on which system is used to create the recurring appointment.

For each recurring appointment record originating in NetSuite:

• The recurrence rules from NetSuite are directly synchronized to the appointment record in Exchange. This results in a single appointment record in Exchange with a copy of the recurrence rule from the recurring appointment record in NetSuite. Each system will have a single record with the same recurrence rule.
• Recurring appointments synchronized from NetSuite to Exchange are "read-only" records. End-user changes to the resulting appointment record in Exchange are ignored and rolled back to the original state from CRM. Exceptions created in Exchange are rolled back.
• End-user changes to the original appointment in NetSuite result in the clearing of the original series and re-creation of the recurring appointment series in Exchange.
• All recurring patterns from NetSuite (daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly) are supported.

For each recurring appointment record originating in Exchange:

• The series is expanded automatically so that for each occurrence in the series, a unique record is created in NetSuite without any recurrence rules. This allow exceptions to the series in Exchange to be synchronized to NetSuite.
  • For more information on recurring events, including setting the maximum number of recurring records, see http://kb.omni-ts.com/entry/76/#Recurring_Appointments.
• Because the series is expanded, any subsequent changes in Exchange of individual appointments syncs with NetSuite.
• If a NetSuite user changes an individual appointment in CRM, Riva syncs this change to Exchange as an individual appointment change and creates an exception for that appointment in the Exchange recurring rule.

Note: Regardless of where the appointment originates and where it is last modified, these processes do not send appointment change notifications to attendees.

Implementation

Riva Cloud: Contact the Riva Success Team.

Riva On-Premise: Apply the following advanced option to the sync policy:

• Key Name =  Sync.Crm.SyncRecurrenceRulesToExchange    Value = True
• Or Contact the Riva Success Team.