Learn About Preparing Repeating Events for Migration

Important Full product retirement for Salesforce for Outlook is scheduled for December 2027. See Salesforce for Outlook Retirement. To keep integrating Microsoft Outlook with Salesforce, check out our next-generation products: the Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture. See Move from Salesforce for Outlook (Retiring) to the Next-Generation Products.

Why Do Reps Have to Prepare Repeating Events for Migration?

Repeating events are events reps schedule one time but occur multiple times. For example, your teams’ monthly sales meeting or weekly 1:1s with managers are likely scheduled as repeating events. In Salesforce, repeating events are represented by two objects. Although both kinds of repeating events are visible from both Salesforce user experiences, other event functionality is limited. These limits cause issues for Salesforce for Outlook users when you migrate them to Einstein Activity Capture. For example, Salesforce for Outlook creates and syncs only recurring events (Salesforce Classic repeating events). Einstein Activity Capture creates and syncs only event series (Lightning Experience repeating events).

• Recurring events (repeating event object in Salesforce Classic)
• Event series (repeating event object in Lightning Experience)

When you migrate, reps experience different issues depending on the direction reps are set to sync. To help you navigate these issues, we provide guidelines to follow based on your reps’ sync directions. First, review the prerequisite steps in the next two sections. Then follow the guidelines recommended for your sync direction.

The guidelines help reps to manually preserve event associations and details they’ve saved in nonsyncing fields. Plus, guidelines help reps remove duplicates from their calendars. But the date and time captured in the Salesforce event fields Last Modified By and Created By are replaced by the date and time that reps walk through these processes.

Depending on how many repeating events reps own, these processes can be tedious and take some time. Review the complete instructions before proceeding. Likewise, some solutions require you to work with users to complete the process. It’s also helpful to bring in your IT admin.

Note To avoid introducing more complications to your reps’ calenders, maintain the same sync direction for reps when you roll out Einstein Activity Capture. However, if you must change sync direction, don’t roll out repeating event sync with Einstein Activity Capture. To do so, avoid selecting the Sync event series option when you create Einstein Activity Capture configurations.

While this solution prevents more complications, it leaves a version of each repeating event on both calendars that no longer sends and receives updates. Over time, one or both versions can become outdated, introducing inaccuracies to your reps’ calendars. To correct that issue, decide which calendar is the source of truth, and have reps remove repeating events that are no longer syncing from the other calendar. If you decide to remove events from Salesforce, reps can refer to that portion of our guidelines for useful steps. See the Remove Repeating Event Duplicates After Migration section in Manage Your Repeating Events for Migration.

Check Which Sales Reps Are Affected

Refer to your existing Outlook configurations or the notes you retained on your configurations. If the Sync recurring events option is selected, users assigned to that configuration are impacted. Follow the recommendations suggested for your sync direction. If no reps are set up to sync recurring events, proceed to the next user preparation task, Learn About Preparing Default Salesforce for Outlook Calendars for Migration.

Depending on your implementation, it’s possible that reps have event series instead of or in addition to recurring events on their Salesforce calendars. How can you tell which repeating events are recurring events and which are event series? Proceed to the guidelines for your sync direction. We alert either you or your reps how to tell the difference and when no further action is needed.

Repeating Event Guidelines for Users Assigned to Sync Outlook to Salesforce or Both Ways

For reps assigned to the sync directions Outlook to Salesforce or Both Ways, Einstein Activity Capture creates a duplicate event series for every recurring event. On their Salesforce calendars, reps see duplicates of every repeating event occurrence: one that syncs with Outlook and one that doesn’t. The original recurring event occurrences stop receiving and sending updates between Salesforce and Outlook. As a result, over time, either or both calendars can become inaccurate or cumbersome to manage.

This issue is unavoidable, but these guidelines help you work with your reps to identify and manually remove their old recurring events.

1. Ask your IT admin to back up events in both Salesforce and Exchange in case any mistakes are made along the way.
   • In Exchange, admins can copy each user’s events into a backup folder.
   • In Salesforce, admins can write a query against SOAP API or REST API to export events to a backup .csv file.
2. Ask your reps to prepare all events on their calendar for sync. See Prepare Your Default Outlook Calendar for Migration and Get Ready to Sync Events Using Einstein Activity Capture.
3. When you’re ready to migrate, in addition to setting up your other features, we recommend selecting these settings on reps’ Einstein Activity Capture configurations.
   1. On the General Sync Settings tab, select the same event sync direction that you were using with Salesforce for Outlook. Switching your event sync direction during migration can introduce more issues with repeating events.
   2. On the Advanced Sync Settings tab, select Sync event series.
   3. On the Advanced Sync Settings tab, select Relate synced events to Salesforce records. This setting isn’t required, but it automatically relates events to reps’ matching contacts or leads. Doing so can help reps when they’re manually cleaning up duplicates later.
4. Allow some time to make sure events have finished syncing. You can ask your reps to compare their Outlook and Salesforce calendars to see if events have synced. Reps can take it from here. Let them know which sync direction they’re set to, and send reps instructions for identifying and manually deleting duplicate repeating events. See Manage Your Repeating Events for Migration.
5. Remind reps not to create repeating events from Salesforce Classic, or else those events don’t sync. When reps have finished removing their duplicate repeating events from Salesforce, come up with a plan for removing or reducing reps’ access to Salesforce Classic. See Optimize Phase: Make Lightning Experience Stick.

Repeating Event Guidelines for Users Assigned to Sync Salesforce to Outlook Only

For reps assigned to sync from Salesforce to Outlook only, when you migrate to Einstein Activity Capture, any recurring events created in Salesforce Classic stop syncing. A version of each repeating event is left on both calendars, but updates are no longer sent and received between calendars. As a result, either or both events become inaccurate over time as reps update one version and not the other.

To prevent this issue, we provide guidelines that you can share with reps to help them re-create their repeating events before you roll out Einstein Activity Capture. We also include steps to help reps remove the old recurring events after rollout. It can be helpful to involve an IT admin in the process.

Important When scheduling your rollout milestones, plan to activate Einstein Activity Capture configurations shortly after reps finish preparing their events for migration. Minimizing sync downtime reduces opportunities for your reps to introduce differences between their Salesforce and Outlook calendars, which can cause confusion in the interim.

1. Ask your IT admin to back up events in both Salesforce and Exchange in case reps make mistakes along the way.
   • In Exchange, admins can copy each user’s events into a backup folder.
   • In Salesforce, admins can write a query against SOAP API or REST API to export events to a backup .csv file.
2. Export all events in Salesforce using Data Export. See Export Backup Data from Salesforce.
3. Save a backup copy of the resulting Event.csv just in case!
4. Open the Event.csv file in an app that lets you edit spreadsheets, and, to narrow down which repeating events reps have to re-create, follow these steps.
   1. Remove any events (rows) that have an empty RecurrenceActivityId column. The RecurrenceActivityId column can be used to determine which events occur only one time and which are recurring events or event series. Events (rows) that show a string of text in the RecurrenceActivityId column are recurring events.
   2. Remove any events (rows) that show a “1” in the isChild column. Events (rows) that show a “1” in the IsChild column indicate that the event is the version that the attendee sees. Events with attendees must be prepared for migration by the syncing organizer (the organizers’ version is somewhere in the spreadsheet, too).
   3. Remove any events (rows) that show a “1” in the IsDeleted column. Events (rows) that show a “1” in the IsDeleted column were deleted by reps, so reps don’t want to preserve them.
   4. We recommend removing any events (rows) that occurred before today’s date. Usually, doing so significantly reduces the number of events you ask your reps to re-create. The ActivityDate column shows the date the event was scheduled.
      

      Note If reps’ Salesforce for Outlook sync filters are set to sync past events, past events that you remove from the spreadsheet don’t sync if reps happen to edit them. But the possibility for past events to miss updates eventually closes. You can only sync events up to 180 days in the past. It’s up to you to decide how important past events are and which course of action is best for your sales reps. To check for event sync filters, review your Outlook configuration for a filter on the End field.
5. Identify which reps on the remaining events in the spreadsheet.
   1. Sort the spreadsheet by the OwnerID column. Doing so groups all events created by the same user in descending numerical order.
   2. Copy the OwnerID from the first row, and open Salesforce. From Lightning Experience, paste the ID into global search. See Search for Records in Lightning Experience.
   3. Lightning Experience returns the user profile of the user who created that record. Remember that only Salesforce users who are syncing events with Salesforce must re-create their recurring events. You can cross-check users between the spreadsheet and your Salesforce for Outlook configurations.
   4. Return to the spreadsheet and add a column where you can paste that user’s name or email address, so you can follow up with the user.
   5. Add that users’ name for all other events in the spreadsheet that include that ID in the Owner ID column. Use the Find feature in your spreadsheet to locate all instances of that ID.
   6. Find the next unique OwnerID, and repeat the preceding steps b. through e. to locate and associate the users’ contact info with the recurring events the user owns in the spreadsheet.
6. When you identify all recurring event owners, instruct those reps to re-create those recurring events.
   • Provide each rep with the spreadsheet details that pertain to their recurring events.
   • Provide instructions for how to identify their recurring events and re-create them as event series. See the section for users syncing Salesforce to Outlook only in Manage Your Repeating Events for Migration.
   • To avoid extended sync downtime, set a reasonable deadline for reps to complete your request.
   • Have reps confirm when they finished re-creating events. Verify their status by exporting Salesforce events again, and use the criteria in step 4 to reduce the list the same way you had previously.
   • Remind reps not to create recurring events from Salesforce Classic any longer, because those events can never sync.
7. When reps are done recreating events (and your other migration preparation is complete), you can deactivate Salesforce for Outlook event sync.
8. Confirm with reps that Salesforce for Outlook is deactivated, so their events aren’t syncing to Outlook. Have reps complete the remaining steps to prepare the rest of their events for migration. See Prepare Your Default Outlook Calendar for Migration and Get Ready to Sync Events Using Einstein Activity Capture.
9. When reps are done preparing the rest of their events, you can activate Einstein Activity Capture event sync. In addition to setting up your other features, we recommend selecting these settings on reps’ Einstein Activity Capture configurations.
   1. On the General Sync Settings tab, select the same event sync direction that you were using with Salesforce for Outlook. Switching your event sync direction during migration can introduce more issues with repeating events.
   2. On the Advanced Sync Settings tab, select Sync event series.
   3. On the Advanced Sync Settings tab, select Relate synced events to Salesforce records. This setting isn’t required, but it automatically relates events to reps’ matching contacts or leads. Doing so can help reps when they’re manually cleaning up duplicates later.