Numara FootPrints Sync

Numara FootPrints Sync supports the following:

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server
  
• Supported Personal Information Manager (PIM) software: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, Palm HotSync
• Supported Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs): PocketPC (through Outlook), BlackBerry (through Outlook or Lotus Notes), Palm (through Palm Hotsync or Palm Desktop)

Install the Desktop Client

To install the FootPrints Sync client:

1. Select  Preferences on the FootPrints homepage, then select FootPrints Sync (2-way) from the Miscellaneous tab. Select Configure FootPrints Sync Settings.  The FootPrints Sync page is displayed.
2. Click the Download the FootPrints Sync client link on this page to access the client.  You can choose to open and run the client installation or download it and run it.
3. Double-click the FootPrints Sync file (FPSync.exe) that you just downloaded to start the FootPrints Sync InstallShield Wizard.  The Welcome screen is displayed.
4. Click the Next button to continue.  The Program Maintenance window is displayed.
5. Click the Install button to install the client.  When installation is completed, the Completed window is displayed.
6.  Click the Finish button to finish the installation.

Once installation is complete, there should be two icons on your desktop, one called FootPrints Sync Setup and one called simply FootPrints Sync.  In addition, the Sync client is displayed. If it is not, double-click on either icon to display the FootPrints Sync client.  Details on configuring and using the FootPrints Sync desktop client are below.

Uninstall the FootPrints Sync Desktop Client

There are three ways you can uninstall the FootPrints Sync Client:

• Run the FPSync.exe file:

• Once the Welcome window is displayed, click the Next button.
• In the Program Maintenance window, click the Remove radio button, then click the Next button.  The client is removed.
• On Windows, use the Add/Remove Software program:
• Select Start-->Control Panel.
• Select the Add/Remove Programs option. This can differ depending on your version of Windows.
• Select FPSync the list and click the uninstall button.
• Open the Sync client and select File, then select the Uninstall option.

Configuring FootPrints Sync Settings Within FootPrints

These settings configure how FootPrints:

• handles appointments made in FootPrints or made in the PIM,
• synchronizes FootPrints Issues with PIM tasks and vice versa,
• and maps contact fields between FootPrints and the PIM.

Some PIMs have a concept of “private” and “public” calendars, similar to the FootPrints personal calendar and workspace calendar. A private calendar is viewable only by the PIM owner, but the public calendar can be seen by others, with the owner’s permission.

IMPORTANT

When Numara FootPrints Sync initially synchronizes FootPrints assignments with the tasks list, it takes role permissions into consideration.  Only the agent's own assignments or team assignments are synchronized.  However, if the agent's role only permits him or her to edit his or her own assignments through the FootPrints interface, the agent will be able to close and add to the Description field of the teams assignments through the PIM.  Administrators must be aware of this if they are to restrict agents from editing team assignments and, in that circumstance, may wish to restrict use of Numara FootPrints Sync.

Enabling synchronization and defining the PIM are done in the client installation. The following options only apply when synchronization is enabled in the client.

To enable FootPrints Sync in FootPrints and open the FootPrints Sync page for configuration:

1. Select Preferences from the FootPrints homepage.
2. Select FootPrints Sync (2-way).  If you want to continue to use the 1-way FootPrints Sync, which only synchronizes calendar appointments with your Outlook Calendar and does so only from FootPrints to Outlook, select Manual Calendar Sync (1-way).  If you choose 1-way synchronization, continue no further with this procedure.
3. Select Configure FootPrints Sync Settings from the FootPrints Sync section.  The FootPrints Sync page is displayed.

You can select options from the FootPrints Sync page as follows:

• Appointments
• FootPrints -> PIM—Tell FootPrints how to handle appointments created in FootPrints when writing them to the PIM.
• Personal Appointments—Only write FootPrints personal calendar appointments to the PIM.
• Personal & Workspace Appointments— Write appointments from the FootPrints personal calendar and the workspace calendar to the PIM.
• PIM -> FootPrints—Tell FootPrints how to handle appointments created in the PIM when writing them to the FootPrints calendar. FootPrints Sync does not synchronize invitees in an appointment from a PIM to an appointment in FootPrints. 
• Private Appointments—Tell FootPrints how to handle private appointments created in the PIM when writing them to FootPrints.
• Personal Calendar Only—Write private appointments from the PIM to the FootPrints personal calendar only.
• Personal and Workspace Calendars—Write private appointments from the PIM to the FootPrints personal and workspace calendars.

NOTE

Because FootPrints has no way of knowing when a user is one of many invitees to an appointment, if multiple invitees to a single appointment synchronize their Outlook calendars to the FootPrints workspace calendar, the same appointment will appear multiple times in the FootPrints workspace calendar.  To avoid this problem, invitees (but not the originator) to such an appointment should temporarily turn off synchronization to the Personal & Workspace Calendars and, instead, synchronize only with the personal calendar.

• Public Appointments— Tell FootPrints how to handle public appointments created in the PIM when writing them to FootPrints.
• Personal Calendar Only—Write public appointments from the PIM to the FootPrints personal calendar only.
• Personal and Workspace Calendars—Write public appointments from the PIM to the FootPrints personal and workspace calendars.
• Tasks—FootPrints Sync can write Issues to your PIM’s Tasks list.
• FootPrints -> PIM—Tell FootPrints how to handle Issues when writing them to your PIM’s Tasks list.
• My Assignments—Writes all Issues that are assigned to you to the PIM’s Tasks list when FootPrints is synchronized with the PIM.
• Post address book and workspace fields into the description of the tasks—All of the field data elsewhere in the Issue is written to the Description portion of the Task if this box is checked.
• PIM -> FootPrints
• Completed/Deleted Tasks—If you mark a task as completed or deleted in your PIM, when you synchronize your PIM and FootPrints, the status of the corresponding Issue in FootPrints is changed to the status you choose from the drop-down fields:
• Open—Status is changed to Open in FootPrints.
• Closed—Status is changed to Closed in FootPrints.
• [Other Statuses]—Other FootPrints statuses are displayed in the drop-down.  Select one of those to determine what to do when the status is marked as completed in the PIM.
• Don’t change Status—Status is left unchanged in FootPrints.
• Deleted Tasks—If you delete a task from your PIM, when you synchronize your PIM and FootPrints, the status to the status you choose from the drop-down fields:
• Open—Status is changed to Open in FootPrints.
• Closed—Status is changed to Closed in FootPrints.
• [Other Statuses]—Other FootPrints statuses are displayed in the drop-down.  Select one of those to determine what to do when the status is marked as completed in the PIM.
• Don’t change Status—Status is left unchanged in FootPrints.

NOTE

Lotus Notes only supports three levels of priority.  When mapping priorities from FootPrints to Lotus Notes, any priorities numbered higher than 3 are mapped to 3.

• Contacts—FootPrints can write the contacts in your FootPrints Address Book to your PIM’s Address Book.   Contact synchronization requires that you have a personal Address Book search defined.
• FootPrints -> PIM—Tell FootPrints whether to write the contacts from your FootPrints Address Book to the Address Book in the PIM and maps the fields in FootPrints to the fields in the PIM.
• Search drop-down—Select the Address Book search.  The results are what will be written to your PIM.
• Field Mapper—If you are going to synchronize contacts, you need to configure the mapping between FootPrints Address Book fields and PIM Address Book fields.
• FootPrints Field to PIM Field—Using the drop-down boxes, select the PIM fields that correspond to the FootPrints fields.

The FootPrints Sync Client

Once FootPrints Sync is installed, it places two FootPrints Sync shortcuts on the desktop:

• FootPrints Sync Setup
• FootPrints Sync

Double-click either of the shortcuts to open the client.

The first step after installation is to define the settings in the FootPrints Sync client.  The following sections of this document explain the buttons on the FootPrints Sync interface and then the menu items on the menu bar at the top of the interface.

FootPrints Sync Settings

To configure settings in the FootPrints Sync client:

1. Double-click the FootPrints Sync Setup shortcut on your desktop.

2. Click the Settings button.  A page is displayed for you to enter your FootPrints User ID, password, and the URL for the location of the FootPrints link.  The default for this location is http://localhost/MRcgi/webcal/, where localhost is your PC or handheld device.
3. Click the Next button after you have entered the information.  The Information Manager Settings window is displayed.
4. Select your PIM from the Information Manager Name drop-down list, then click the Configuration Options button.  Options are:
5. Lotus Notes
6. Microsoft Outlook
7. Outlook Express
8. Palm Desktop
9. Palm HotSync
10. PocketPC Sync thru Outlook
5. Once you have selected your PIM, click the Configuration Options button.  A tabbed window is displayed with options for you to configure your PIM.  Not all tabs are displayed for all types of PIM.  Choose your settings on each tab.

The following are the tabs and their options:

• User ID—Select the User ID from the drop-down (this tab is displayed with Palm and Palm HotSync only).
• Transfer Method—Select whether to transfer data in both directions, from the PIM to FootPrints only, or from FootPrints to the PIM only.
• Synchronize changes both ways—When synchronizing the PIM with FootPrints, write new data in both directions.
• Add PIM_type into FootPrints—Only write data from the PIM to FootPrints.
• Add FootPrints into PIM_type—Only write data from FootPrints to the PIM.
• Content—Select which data to transfer.
• Contacts—Write FootPrints contacts into the PIM.  Regardless of whether you chose to synchronize both ways or in just one direction on the Transfer Methods tab, you can only write contacts from FootPrints to the PIM.
• Tasks—Write FootPrints Issues to the Tasks list.  When synchronizing from the PIM to FootPrints, tasks synchronization changes the status field of the FootPrints Issue according to what you specified when you configured this feature in FootPrints.
• Calendar—Write calendar appointments between FootPrints and the PIM.
• Personal Category—Choose whether to synchronize Personal Category data (this tab is displayed with Palm HotSync only).
• Synchronize Personal Category
• Do not synchronize Personal Category
• When you have configured all of your settings on the tabs, click the OK button.  The Information Manager Settings window is re-displayed.
• Click the Next button.  The Synchronization Settings window is displayed.
• Select how you want your PIM synchronized with FootPrints:
• Synchronize once each day at time—Use the drop-downs to select the time of day at which the FootPrints Sync client will perform synchronization.  You can still synchronize “on-demand” by clicking the Synchronize button from the FootPrints Sync client interface.
• Synchronize every hours—Use the drop-down to schedule synchronization every X hours.  You can still synchronize “on-demand” by clicking the Synchronize button from the FootPrints Sync client interface or by double-clicking the FootPrints Sync icon.  Because synchronization can be demanding on the server, auto-synchronization can be scheduled with a maximum frequency of once per hour per user.  If immediate synchronization is required, double-click the FootPrints Sync icon in your system tray.
• Synchronize when the computer is started—If you select this option, the FootPrints Sync client will synchronize when the PC or handheld on which the client resides is booted. You can still synchronize “on-demand” by clicking the Synchronize button from the FootPrints Sync client interface.
• Synchronize Manually—Synchronization only occurs when you select the Synchronize button from the FootPrints Sync client interface.
• When you have made your choices, click the Next button.  The final window is displayed.
• Click the Finish button to complete the configuration tasks.

Synchronize

Click the Synchronize button to immediately synchronize settings between the FootPrints Sync client and FootPrints.

Help and Exit

An on-line help document that is specific to FootPrints Sync is displayed when you click the Help button and select FootPrints Sync Help.  There is also an About FootPrints Sync option on the Help menu that contains release information.

Click the Exit button to end your FootPrints Sync session.

FootPrints Sync Menu:  File

The File option on the FootPrints Sync client menu displays a drop-down menu with the following options:

• Uninstall FootPrints Sync Client—Uninstalls the FootPrints Sync client.
• Reset Palm Hotsync Settings—Resets the Palm HotSync configuration so that it no longer is configured for working with the FootPrints Sync client.
• Exit—Exits the application.

FootPrints Sync Menu:  Options

The Options selection of the FootPrints Sync client menu reveals the following options:

• Reread PC Data on Next Sync and Reread FootPrints Data on Next Sync — FootPrints Sync uses a special technology to skip past records that already exist on the handheld.  The first time a new database is processed it's much slower because FootPrints Sync must check every field.  Subsequent processes are much faster, because FootPrints Sync only updates the data that has changed.

Sometimes data changes in a way that FootPrints Sync does not recognize.  In other cases, reconfiguration requires a reread, like when you change the Category field or mobile phone number field in FootPrints Sync.

If you think the record count on the handheld is no longer reflecting the data record count in your Web PIM, or that the field values on the handheld do not reflect current FootPrints Sync configuration, check the appropriate Reread on the next Sync to force FootPrints Sync to reread the databases and update all fields.

Help

Click the Help button from the menu to get the About page or to access the FootPrints Sync-specific documentation.

Recurring Appointments

FootPrints Sync handles recurring appointments properly for all PIMs with one, limited exception.  In the case of Lotus Notes, if a change is made in Lotus Notes to the time at which a recurring appointment occurs, the change shows up in FootPrints when it is synchronized.  However, if a change is made in FootPrints to the time at which a recurring appointment occurs, the change is not reflected in Lotus Notes.

With Lotus Notes, only the most recent description is synchronized to the To-Do list, not all Descriptions.

Deleting Appointments

One limitation of Numara FootPrints Sync is that, if you have a calendar appointment with several people invited and someone syncs with the appointment, then deletes the appointment from his or her PIM, and then resyncs, the appointment is deleted in FootPrints even though it may still be relevant to the other invitees.  To prevent this from happening, if someone does not want to be part of a group appointment, they should delete themselves as an invitee in the FootPrints calendar appointment and then resync; the appointment will be deleted from their PIM and the FootPrints appointment will remain.

Synchronizing “On-demand”

To synchronize the PIM and FootPrints “on-demand”, i.e., immediately, either double-click the FootPrints Sync Setup icon and then click the Synchronize button or double-click the FootPrints Sync icon.

Limitations

FootPrints Sync and Lotus Notes

After updating the Description field in an Issue in FootPrints, the synched "To-do" item in Lotus Notes only shows the most recent description.  The older descriptions are gone. This limitation exists by design.

FootPrints Sync and Web Authentication

A situation exists with Web Server Authentication that can cause difficulties with Numara FootPrints Sync. If the users of the Sync program exist in a number of environments, some users may log onto their workstations and into DOMAIN as DOMAIN\USER and some users may only log into the local workstation as DOMAIN\USER. If the target server where FootPrints Sync communicates exists in a different domain (XXX.DOMAIN) from that of the users, whenever they use a plain web browser to connect to FootPrints Sync in XXX.DOMAIN, either from a workstation-in-domain or a stand-alone workstation environment, when the web server challenges them with a domain login and password request, they provide the DOMAIN\USER credentials and are allowed into the web server's resources and, subsequently, into FootPrints. However, because FootPrints Sync runs as the local workstation user and there is no way to "answer" the web server's login challenge through FootPrints Sync, the user will continually be denied access to the Sync service. This is due to the configuration of the customer's domain and must be addressed through proper configuration of interconnectivity between domains.