Various scenarios for customers without synchronization

Background story

A customer with 4 employees using Outlook to manage email and appointments decides to purchase SuperOffice CRM for 2 employees. To simplify the story, the male users John and Mike don’t use SuperOffice and the female users Linda and Julie are the new SuperOffice CRM users who are using the SuperOffice Invite system. Linda has configured the email settings in SuperOffice, where Julie didn’t.
Since Outlook is the main calendar system for this small company, all employees are used to look in Outlook to see the availability of colleagues.

User scenario 1

The following situation will occur when Linda creates an invite in SuperOffice with a known customer.

Linda
SuperOffice	An invite is created in SuperOffice and a known customer is invited.
SuperOffice	The appointment is created in the calendar and SuperOffice sends the invite
Outlook	No appointment visible

Known customer
Outlook	Receives the invite and the appointment is created tentatively

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar
Known customer accepts the invite in Microsoft 365 Web, Outlook sends acceptance email	Appointment shows that known customer has accepted the meeting	Is empty *)

*) The acceptance mail is received in the Outlook/Google inbox, displaying information about the meeting, but Linda will not find the appointment in the Outlook/Google calendar. This can be confusing for Linda.
Impact for colleagues: When John looks in Linda’s Outlook calendar nothing is booked, so a possible double booking could occur.

User scenario 2

The following situation will occur when Linda creates an invite in SuperOffice with a known customer.

Linda
SuperOffice	An invite is created in SuperOffice and a known customer is invited.
SuperOffice	The appointment is created in the calendar and SuperOffice sends the invite
Outlook	No appointment visible

Known customer
Outlook	Receives the invite and the appointment is created tentatively

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar
Known customer deletes the invite by using the right click functionality, no decline email is sent	Appointment shows that known customer has accepted the meeting	Is empty

Note: This situation is out of the hand of SuperOffice and seems only be possible when using Microsoft 365 web.

User scenario 3

Linda
Outlook	An invite is created in Outlook and a known customer is invited.
SuperOffice	No appointment visible

Known customer
Outlook	Receives the invite and the appointment is created tentatively

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar
Known customer accepts the invite in Outlook	Is empty *)	Appointment has acceptance state

*) The acceptance mail is received in the SuperOffice inbox, displaying information about the meeting, but Linda will not find the appointment in the SuperOffice calendar. This can be confusing for Linda

User scenario 4

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Julie.

Known customer
Outlook	Appointment is created in Outlook and Julie is invited

Julie
SuperOffice	Nothing happens
Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively

	Julie's SO calendar	Julie's Outlook calendar
Result	Is empty	Shows tentatively the appointment

When Linda looks in Julie's SuperOffice calendar nothing is booked, so a possible double booking could occur.

User scenario 5

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Linda, John and Mike

Known customer
Outlook	Invite is created in Outlook and known customer invites Linda, John, and Mike.

Julie
SuperOffice	The invite is received by the SuperOffice inbox
SuperOffice	The appointment is created tentatively in the calendar with one participant
Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively in the calendar with all participants

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar
Result	Shows tentatively the appointment with only one participant (Linda) *)	Shows tentatively the appointment with all participants

*) Since the email addresses of John and Mike are not present in the SuperOffice database they are not added as participants to the SuperOffice meeting stored in Linda’s calendar.

Impact for Linda: Participant information in SuperOffice is not complete, only Outlook shows the correct list of participants.

User scenario 6

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Linda with a recurring invite.

Known customer
Outlook	Recurring Invite is created in Outlook and known customer invites Linda

Linda
SuperOffice	Receives the invite
SuperOffice	Creates the appointments tentatively in the calendar (after clicking accepting all)
Outlook	The appointments are created tentatively

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar	known customer
Linda deletes one appointment from the recurrence pattern in Outlook	Appointment visible	Appointment is removed	Shows in Outlook that Linda declined one appointment of the recurrence pattern
Linda marks the invite private in Outlook	Appointment is visible for everyone	Appointment is marked private
Linda sets the alarm in Outlook	Alarm is not set	Alarm is set

Note: Visibility or alarm settings made in Outlook/Google are not in sync with the visibility or alarm settings in SuperOffice.

User scenario 7

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Linda and Julie.

Known customer
Outlook	Invite is created in Outlook and known customer invites Linda and Julie

Linda
SuperOffice	Receives the invite
SuperOffice	Creates the appointment tentatively in Linda’s calendar, but it also creates the appointment tentatively in Julie’s calendar
Outlook	The appointments are created tentatively

Julie
SuperOffice	Appointment created through the incoming invite from Linda
Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively

Depending on which actions are being done by Julie.

	Julie's SO calendar	Julie's Outlook calendar	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar	known customer
Julie accepts the invite in Outlook	Appointment has tentative state	Appointment has acceptance state	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite	Shows that Julie accepted the invite	Shows in Outlook that Julie accepted the invite
Julie accepts the invite in SuperOffice	Appointment has acceptance state	Appointment has tentative state	Shows that Julie accepted the invite	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite
Julie declines the invite in Outlook	Appointment visible in SUO has tentative state	Appointment is removed	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite	Shows that Julie declined the invite	Shows in Outlook that Julie declined the invite
Julie declines the invite in SuperOffice	Appointment is removed	Appointment visible in Outlook with tentative state	Shows that Julie declined the meeting	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite	Shows that Julie did not respond to the invite

Depending on which actions are being done by Linda

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar	Julie's SO calendar	Julie's Outlook calendar	known customer
Linda accepts the invite in Outlook	Appointment has tentative state	Appointment has acceptance state	Shows that Linda did not respond to the invite	Shows that Linda accepted the invite	Shows in Outlook that Linda accepted the invite
Linda accepts the invite in SuperOffice	Appointment has acceptance state	Appointment has tentative state	Shows that Linda accepted the invite	Shows that Linda accepted the invite	Shows that Linda accepted the invite
Linda declines the invite in Outlook	Appointment visible in SUO has tentative state	Appointment is removed	Shows that Linda did not respond to the invite	Shows that Linda declined the invite	Shows in Outlook that Linda declined the invite
Linda declines the invite in SuperOffice	Appointment is removed	Appointment visible in Outlook with tentative state	Shows that Linda declined the meeting	Shows that Linda declined the invite	Shows that Linda did not respond to the invite

Depending which actions are done, including in which order they are done will affect the functionality. For example if Linda declines the appointment in SuperOffice, the following flow is in effect:

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar	Julie's SO calendar	Julie's Outlook calendar	known customer
Linda declines the invite in SuperOffice	Appointment is removed	Appointment visible in Outlook with tentative state	Shows that Linda declined the meeting	Shows that Linda declined the invite	Shows in Outlook that Linda declined the invite
Known customer changes the time of the invite			Shows the appointment on the old time	Appointment is changed to the new time
Known customer deletes the invite			Appointment visible in SUO has tentative state	Appointment is removed

To summarise: For SuperOffice users and non-SuperOffice users this will be a confusing situation, in some cases when users are invited to a meeting it will show up in SuperOffice and in some cases, the meeting will also be visible in Outlook. This is besides the situation where the acceptance state and deletions are showing different information between Outlook/Google and SuperOffice.

User scenario 8

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Linda and changes are being made by
Linda.

Known customer
Outlook	An invite is created in Outlook and a known customer invites Linda.

Linda
SuperOffice	Receives the invite
SuperOffice	Creates the appointment tentatively in Linda’s calendar.
Outlook	The appointments is created tentatively

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar	known customer
Linda accepts the invite in Outlook	Appointment has tentative state	Appointment has acceptance state	Shows in Outlook that Linda accepted the invite
Linda marks the invite private in Outlook	Appointment is visible for everyone	Appointment is marked private
Linda sets the alarm in Outlook	Alarm is not set	Alarm is set

User scenario 9

The following situation will occur when a known customer invites Linda for a recurring project meeting
with no end-date.

Known customer
Outlook	Invite with no end date is created in Outlook and known customer invites Linda.

Linda
SuperOffice	The appointments are created tentatively in the calendar with a max of 100 appointments
Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively exactly how it is specified by the sender

	Linda's SO calendar	Linda's Outlook calendar
Result	Shows partially tentatively the appointments (max 100 appointments)	Shows tentatively the appointments correctly

Impact for Linda and Julie: The SuperOffice calendar shows only partially the invite, when Linda books an appointment in the distant future, the SuperOffice calendar is empty.

User scenario 10

The following situation will occur when an unknown customer invites Linda and Julie.

Unknown customer
Outlook	Invite is created in Outlook and an unknown customer invites Linda and Julie.

Linda
SuperOffice	Receives the invite
SuperOffice	Nothing happens, however, within the Inbox you have the possibility to add the unknown user to SuperOffice.
In Linda's Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively

Julie
SuperOffice	Nothing happens.
In Julie's Outlook	The appointment is created tentatively

Depending on which actions are being done by Julie.

	Julie's/Linda's SO calendar	Julie's/Linda's Outlook calendar	Unknown customer
Julie or Linda accepts the invite in Outlook	Appointment not visible	Appointment has acceptance state	Shows in Outlook that Julie or Linda accepted the invite
Julie or Linda declines the invite in Outlook		Appointment is removed	Shows in Outlook that Julie or Linda declined the invite

Impact for Linda and Julie: It can be confusing since sometimes appointments are created in SuperOffice but not always. This depends if the person who sends the invite is known or unknown in SuperOffice.