From the first time that I used Microsoft Dynamics CRM (all the way back in the day), I remember the Outlook add-in. Or rather, I should say that I remember the PAIN that the Outlook add-in was!
You remember what I’m talking about, I hope. Here’s a screenshot of the ‘fabled’ toolbar:
The installation of this was a nightmare, to be honest. From the pre-requisites that it needed to install (and download – even if the machine already had them installed), to just hanging there, it wasn’t ever something that I looked forward to putting on machines.
It was a memory hog, slowed performance, and occasionally crashed Outlook, seemingly just because it felt like it! In addition, trying to carry out a mass roll-out of it (through SCCM, or Group Policy, or even other methods) never seemed to work properly at all.
In one of my roles we had to install this for dozens of users. Randomly, even on brand new machines (with nothing else installed), it would fail to install or initialise. Long hours were spent poring through logs, trying to work out error messages, and frantically get it working. Users were VERY used to seeing the following error happen:
In short, it’s been around for a VERY long time, as the following diagram shows (I’m loving how they compress 12 years into just a short space):
In late 2017, Microsoft announced that they were going to deprecate the Outlook add-in. There were several other options around, such as proper server-side sync, and the Dynamics 365 app for users. These were supposed to be being used instead.
The response from clients was crazy – so crazy in fact, that Microsoft did something that it very rarely does. They reversed the decision to deprecate it, and instead confirmed that it would still be sticking around. They realised that the other options weren’t at parity with the Outlook add-in for desktop, and didn’t want to deprive users of the essential functionality that they were needing.
In 2018, I was at Summit EMEA in Dublin. One of the more interesting conversations that I had with one of the senior Microsoft people was around the Outlook add-in. They told me that from the moment that Microsoft had announced that it was deprecated, every client had asked them about it. Even to non-technical people (eg sales, etc). It was due to this, in part, that they decided to un-deprecate it!
Moving on several years, the landscape has now matured. A lot of users are using Outlook through browsers, rather than the desktop version. They natively plug-into Dynamics 365 through the web as well. The Dynamics 365 App for Outlook has gotten better, along with the way that it works:
Users, on the whole, seem to have generally adopted the latest technology, and have therefore moved on from relying on the Outlook add-in for desktop. There’s also the new Unified Interface, which the Outlook add-in doesn’t support (and which will be being rolled out to all users on Dynamics 365 during 2020!).
Microsoft has therefore announced that as of March 2020 (which has just passed), the Outlook add-in has now been deprecated (once again). Support, security & other critical updates will be continue to be provided until October 1st 202, but customers will need to transition to the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook by then.
Very nicely, they’ve provided a playbook (which can be found at https://aka.ms/OutlookCOMPlaybook). This details the upgrade path, and has some good information in it for customers who will need to upgrade from it.
So if you’re still on the old version, take a look now, and work out the best way for you & your organisation to upgrade. It’ll give you newer & better functionality, work easier, and above all, shouldn’t crash your machine!
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions around this, and I’ll do my best to help you out.