It has been a while since the last GroupCalendar Online update. We have now added a few improvements that require your attention. Many of our customers are still on the GroupCalendar 2013 instances which are not up to date anymore. To benefit from the new improvements and features of the GroupCalendar 2015 version, we would need you to perform a simple task for us.

What can you expect from the update?

1. Performance: There were a lot of performance improvements since the last version. We’re constantly trying to improve the performance so our customers don’t lose too much time during scheduling.

2. Multiple data centers: GroupCalendar is available in more datacenters than before. After you’re done with the steps described below, it will be possible for us to move your installation without interruption to the latest release version. We’ll decide to which datacenter you’ll be moved to get the best performance available. I.e., it doesn’t make sense that when your CRM is located in Europe and connecets to a GroupCalendar instance hosted in the US.

3. New features: In addition to the performance improvements, we have also implemented a few other features you might be interested in.

• Auto-Refresh: Whenever someone updates or creates a new activity within CRM, the GroupCalendar will automatically refresh its view. Each user will always have an up-to-date overview of the scheduled activities.
• Quick previous/next navigation: The TopDown and Agenda view now have a separate navigation option to quickly navigate to the previous or next day/week/month. There is no need to open the right navigation pane to switch days/weeks/months.
• Improved week number calculation: The calculation of the week numbers did not work in some special cases.
• Performance Counters: In case you run into any performance issues, even with the performance-optimized version, we have added performance counters to see what exactly is slowing down GroupCalendar.

How to get the new features and improvments?

You need to prepare your system with the latest MSCRM-Addons.com Solutions so we’re able to move your installation to an up to date instance. This step could be quickly done by a CRM administrator. Please download these three files:

• MSCRMADDONScomGeneral.zip (447.82 kb)
• GroupCalendarServerCore.zip (7.40 kb)
• GroupCalendarAutoUpdate.zip (29.44 kb)

After that, please navigate within your CRM to Settings > Solutions.

Figure 1: CRM Solutions

Please import all three solutions in the above order.

Figure 2: Click on Import

If you want to use the auto-refresh feature, you have to assign all users the security role MSCRM-ADDONS.com GCAutoUpdate after you have imported all the solutions.

How long will it take to get the update?

We’ll periodically check if your CRM system was prepared with the above steps and if so, we will perform all necessary steps.

After we have applied all steps to GroupCalendar, your CRM connects automatically within 7 days to the new Group Calendar instance.

It could happen that some users will see the update earlier than others. 

That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.