Monday, December 15, 2014

How Does Unified Contact Management Affect the ROI of Daily Productivity

A unified contact management solution is certain to produce a positive ROI on daily productivity for you business.

Unified Contact Manager
Breakdown in Contact Management
JFK once said,
"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

After the Crises is a Mistake 

Too often companies think about problems AFTER the fact. This is a mistake.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Exchange Server 2013 MAPI profile Generator

By Vern Weitzman

What do telephone books have in common with Exchange server MAPI applications? For starters, there won't be any extensive investment in either of these technologies. They will both be relics of the past and no one will miss them.

Even though we are working diligently to support EWS in our contact management software, we occasionally have a requirement for a stand alone MAPI profile when connecting to Exchange. However, Exchange 2013 radically changed the requirements for building a profile. Since Microsoft recommends against installing Outlook, and using it to run MAPI background services, that means we can’t use Outlook to create a profile.

When you run the standalone MAPI/CDO component, the documented procedure to build an Exchange 2013 profile is not user friendly. You need to be proficient with MFCMAPI and very meticulous with a hex editor. After several attempts at this process, profanity is commonly expressed.

I had the pleasure of creating an Exchange 2013 Server profile for many server installations and it was obvious that we should never ask a customer to do this procedure. For my own sanity, I tasked one of our engineers to create an app to automate Exchange 2013 profile generation. You can download the itrezzo MAPI generator here. The download is just a zip file. Extract the contents into a subfolder and run iaProfGen.EXE.

Run on iaProfGen


Note: If you are setting up a MAPI application to run as a Windows Service, be sure to logon as the service account since the MAPI profile has to be accessible in HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Run iaProfGen ( double click or open the application ) and this window will appear.

itrezzo MAPI profile generator
  1. Select Exchange 2013 as shown above 
  2. Be certain that the identity is the owner of the service account mailbox 
  3. Name the profile 
  4. Click the Discover button
MAPI profile generator


  1. Note that the unique server identifier for the Exchange Server is automatically filled in 
  2. If your environment supports AutoDiscover, the RPC proxy server or CAS will be filled in. If it is empty after AutoDiscover, you have to enter this manually. 
  3. Hit the configure button to create the MAPI profile
Exchange Server MAPI profile generator

Watch the log window to insure that the profile was created successfully.

Now hit the Test button to insure that the profile works.

test MAPI profile generator


All constructive feedback is welcome in the comments below and feel free to learn more about itrezzo contact management solutions.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Configuring Unified Contact Management on Windows 2012 or later

By Vern Weitzman




Note that only the English Language version of the server OS is supported at this time.


I. Internet Information Server (IIS) Setup

The itrezzo ECO Platform supports the following components:
  • itrezzo Administrator 
  • Self Service Update 
  • Employee Contact Portal 
  • Data Dictionary 
  • The Unified Contact Manager 
  • The Watchdog Service
Self Service Update and Employee Contact Portal directly interface with IIS to allow web browser-based administration and user functions.

The procedure below assumes that your Windows 2012 server or later does not have any Web components installed. You will need to adapt the instructions if you already have some IIS components installed.

Here is the step-by-step IIS Web Configuration for the itrezzo Unified Contact Management setup on Windows 2012 Server or later.

  1. Check ASP.Net 4.5IIS Web Configuration for the itrezzo
  2. Open the Server Manager. Select the Manage menu. 
  3. Add Roles and Features Wizard and select the local serverWindows 2012 Server Manager
  4. If not already checked, add the Web ServerWeb Server Configuration
  5. A pop up will appear that indicates the IIS Management Tools will also be installed. Click Add Features
  6. Choose the Next Button to navigate to Features. 
  7. Scroll to .Net Framework 4.5 Features 
  8. Check ASP.Net 4.5 
  9. Check WCF Services and a popup will occur. Click Add Features. 
  10. Check HTTP ActivationIIS Web Configuration for the itrezzo Contact Management
  11. Click Next 
  12. Scroll down to Application Development and expand that node 
  13. Click Next (twice) to Start the Web Server Role Service
  14. On Role Services, expand the Web server 
  15. Under Security, check Windows AuthenticationConfigure Windows Authentication
  16. Under Application Development, check ASP.NET 4.5ASP .NET 4.5 itrezzo
  17. Click Next

This is a summary of the expected additions to roles and services.
IIS Web Configuration for GAL Sync

Click the Install button. You can close this wizard and installation will still take place in the Background.

Here is a more complete summary of the expected roles and services that must be installed.
IIS Web Configuration Summary


III. Microsoft .Net Frameworks Setup  


The ECO platform requires  .NET Frameworks 4.8 or any higher version. 

You can find the latest .NET installer at this URL: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework

Please note that after the .NET Frameworks installation has been completed, it may take up to one hour for optimization to run. During that time, you will notice very high CPU activity. Microsoft has provided a script you can run on demand to force the optimization to happen more quickly. You don’t need to wait for the optimization to complete. Proceed to the next step immediately.
  1. Prior to running the Installer

Also, you first make certain of these two requirements:
  • Open the Computer Management MMC snap-in
Use installer with itrezzo Unified Contact Manager

  • The itrezzo service account should explicitly be a member of the administrator's group on the local machine
itrezzo Admin properties on Windows 2012

  • The service account must also have a “Logon as a service” right which can be set in the local security policy
Windows 2012 Contact Manager

V. Running the itrezzo Platform Installer

You can find the itrezzoAgent installer at http://support1.itrezzo.com/updates/server.

We recommend that you download the installer to a local disk before running it. If you are unsure about which components to install, do not add any components to the default selection. If you are installing for Office 365 or Exchange 2013, remove the "Administrator" component at the top.




Always run the installer while logged in as the itrezzo Service Account.

Proceed to configure the Unified Contact Manager to Sync contacts to Outlook: http://blog.itrezzo.com/p/steps-to-sync-gal-to-smartphone.html .

Friday, August 8, 2014

Sync SalesForce to iPhone, Android and BlackBerry via Exchange Server Contacts

By Vern Weitzman


Sync SalesForce Contacts to an iPhone and Increase Your Bottom Line



How many times has someone on your sales team missed a client call because the right contact information wasn’t in his or her phone?


If you answered even once, it’s too often.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Sync Smartphone Contacts using Collections

Optimize AD Groups for Contact Lists
By Vernon Weitzman

Smartphones, Contact Collections and the Global Address List

There are many elegant things about Active Directory. One thing that has always impressed me is the simplicity, reliability and scalability of AD Groups.  When constructing groups,  it is trivial to insert mailboxes, contacts or domain users as members of a group. We also have the flexibility to nest groups inside of groups. When we ultimately send an email to a distribution group, the expansion happens on the server and can recursively include dozens or even hundreds of groups and thousands of recipient objects.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Sync the Global Address List to an iPhone (Part 2)


By Vernon Weitzman

Practical steps to Sync the GAL to a SmartPhone

Global Address List Screenshot
This is the second part of a blog post on synchronizing the Global Address List (GAL) to an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry. One of the points in that blog post was that it’s sometimes a bad idea to sync the entire GAL to Smartphones. There are often unwanted mailboxes in the GAL. It is better to use a Distribution Group or select specific OUs (Organizational Units) that optimize the Smartphone experience.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Best Practices to Sync the GAL to an iPhone or Android


Get a mirror of the GAL on an iPhone or Android


By Vern Weitzman

Before syncing the GAL to an iPhone or any other SmartPhone, take advantage of the lessons learned from your peers that have done this before. If you review the questions below, it will give you a well-informed starting point for your GAL to iPhone sync project.