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  • Product: DT Practice

Synchronizing contacts with Outlook

If your firm is licensed for the Client Management add-on module and uses Microsoft Outlook as its email client, you can synchronize contacts in DT Practice with those in a selected Outlook contacts folder. We recommend that you choose a folder that contains only contacts that you want in both DT Practice and Outlook. All contacts in the specified folder will be added to your firm’s contact list in DT Practice.

Setup

Before you can sync contacts between DT Practice and Outlook, you must first set up DT Practice for synchronization.
Setting up synchronization
Use the Contact Synchronization Setup dialog to choose an Outlook contacts folder with which to sync, choose the contacts you want to sync with Outlook, and choose whether to enable automatic synchronization, which triggers synchronization any time a change is made to contact information in fields that are synchronized between the two applications. You can also choose whether you want to see a confirmation dialog before changes occur.
note
All of the settings on the
Contact Synchronization Setup
 dialog are user specific. As a result, each staff member can select different settings for contact synchronization, including different Outlook folders and filters.
  1. Choose Setup > System Configuration > Outlook > Contact Synchronization. The Contact Synchronization Setup dialog opens.
  2. Mark the
    Synchronize with Outlook folder
     checkbox.
  3. Select the More button next to the
    Synchronize with Outlook folder
     field and navigate to the Outlook folder with which you want to synchronize contacts in DT Practice.
    note
    You can synchronize with a personal Outlook contacts folder on your computer, or with a firm-wide public contacts folder on your firm’s network.
  4. In the
    Select Folder
     dialog, select the appropriate Outlook folder and select
    OK
    .
  5. In the
    DT Practice Contacts to synchronize
     field, you can choose a filter for the contacts that you want to synchronize. If you do not already have such a filter available, you can selet the More button and create a new one.
    note
    Filtering is optional. If you choose to use a filter for contact synchronization, all contacts that do not meet the criteria of the filter will be removed from the Outlook contact folder you have specified.
  6. In the
    Import contacts from Outlook as
     field, choose whether you want to import contacts from Outlook as Clients or Standalone contacts. Client contacts are companies, individuals, or other entities who are clients of your firm. Standalone contacts can be attorneys, bankers, or other miscellaneous contacts who are not necessarily associated with your firm’s clients.
  7. The
    Display confirmation dialog prior to committing changes
     checkbox is marked by default. If you do not wish to see this dialog, clear the checkbox.
  8. If you want to enable automatic synchronization, mark the
    Enable automatic Contact Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook
     checkbox. If you leave this checkbox unmarked, synchronization will occur only when you perform it manually using the Sync button on the toolbar.
  9. Select
    OK
     to close the
    Contact Synchronization Setup
     dialog, which will also synchronize contacts with the selected Outlook folder.
  10. Unless you chose not to display it, the
    Pending Outlook Synchronization Changes
     dialog appears and lists the changes that will be made to the selected Outlook contacts folder.
note
Following an import, you may need to add additional information to contacts so that all DT Practice relevant fields are completed. You can do this from the
Manage Clients
 screen (Actions > Manage Clients).
Any subsequent changes you make to contacts that are synchronized between DT Practice and Outlook will be passed between the two applications at the next synchronization. The record that was last changed will take precedence over the older record. We recommend that you make such changes in DT Practice.
Choosing which contacts to synchronize
If you do not want to synchronize all of your DT Practice contacts, you can create filters to choose only certain contacts for synchronization. To create and select a new filter for your contacts, follow these steps.
  1. If it is not already open, choose Setup > System Configuration > Outlook > Contact Synchronization to open the
    Contact Synchronization Setup
     dialog.
  2. Select the More button next to the
    DT Practice Contacts to synchronize
     field.
  3. In the
    Contact Filters
     dialog, select the
    Add
     button.
  4. In the
    Filter Name
     field, enter a name for your filter. Keep in mind that your filter will be added to a firm-wide list of contact filters, so you may want to include your name or initials in the filter name.
  5. In the first
    Filter by
     field, choose a criterion by which to filter. For example, if each contact you want to sync with Outlook has your name in the
    Associate
     field (Clients setup screen, Main tab), you could filter by Client Associate, using "Single" as the Method and your name.
  6. When you have finished building the filter, select either the
    Must match all criteria
     option or the
    Must match one or more criteria
     option, as appropriate.
  7. Select
    Enter
     to save your changes.
  8. Select
    Done
     to close the
    Contact Filters
     dialog, then choose the filter you created in the
    DT Practice Contacts to synchronize
     field of the
    Contact Synchronization Setup
     dialog.
  9. Select
    OK
     to close the
    Contact Synchronization Setup
     dialog, which will also synchronize your filtered contacts with the selected Outlook contacts folder.
note
Your choice of a contact filter for determining which contacts should sync with Outlook is unique to your user profile. As a result, each staff member can use a different contact filter for synchronization purposes. For example, you may want to create a filter that will synchronize only the contacts that you work with directly.

How synchronization works

The fields on the Contact Info tab of the Clients setup screen were designed to closely mirror the information in a Microsoft Outlook contact record. Consequently, DT Practice can easily pass contact information back and forth between itself and Outlook.
The synchronization of contacts between DT Practice and Outlook follows some basic guidelines:
  • When a change is made to a contact record in one application, the change is transmitted to the other application upon the next synchronization.
  • The most recently updated record always takes precedence. If you change a record in Outlook and then change the related record in DT Practice before synchronization can occur, the changes you entered in DT Practice will overwrite the changes you made in Outlook. For this reason, we recommend that you keep DT Practice open throughout the day, and either use automatic synchronization or remember to sync contacts each time you make a change in either application.
The synchronization process creates a one-to-one correspondence between the related records in DT Practice and Outlook. If duplicate records are later added to either application, they will not be recognized as duplicates for purposes of synchronization; rather, they will be treated as new records, and added via synchronization to the other application.
note
Blank spaces at the end of fields in contact records can be seen by DT Practice as differences between records in Outlook and DT Practice. Though these differences may not be visible to you, the blank spaces will be removed during the synchronization process. Accepting such changes will synchronize the differences the first time, and those differences will not reappear during subsequent synchronizations.

How to sync your contacts

There are two basic methods for contact synchronization: automatic and manual. With automatic synchronization, any time a change is made to contact information in either DT Practice or Outlook, the change will be transmitted automatically to the other application upon completion. With manual synchronization, such changes can accumulate and are transmitted only when the process is triggered manually.
Both methods assume that you have set up contact synchronization according to the steps outlined earlier in this topic.
Choosing a synchronization method
You can switch between automatic and manual synchronization at any time. To choose your favored method of synchronization, follow these steps.
  1. Choose Setup > System Configuration > Outlook > Contact Synchronization. The
    Contact Synchronization Setup
     dialog opens.
  2. To enable automatic synchronization, mark the
    Enable automatic Contact Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook
     checkbox. To disable automatic synchronization, clear this checkbox.
  3. Select
    OK
     to save your change.
Contacts are synchronized each time you select
OK
 in the
Contact Synchronization Setup
 dialog. With automatic synchronization enabled, contacts will be synchronized each time a change is made to the information for a contact selected by the filter you chose for contact synchronization (if any).
Synchronizing contacts manually
To perform manual synchronization of contacts, select the
Sync
 button in the DT Practice toolbar.
Sync Outlook Contacts