Microsoft CRM Client for Outlook synchronizes the Outlook calendar and tasks with service activities, appointments and Tasks activities in the Microsoft CRM Service Calendar. Most users have Outlook opened and Outlook provides the reminder popup feature which is not available in the CRM web interface. Here are some productivity tools using Outlook features for MS CRM:

1. Popup reminder. An easy way to add a pop up reminder to QoS-IT (such as a reminder to bill & close case when all jobs are completed) is by a workflow that creates a reminder task. When Outlook synchronizes with CRM the CRM task will be in the Outlook To-Do List with pop up reminder 15 minutes before the task’s due date. In the workflow Add Step>Create Record and select the record as task. Click the Set Property page, place the curser in the Due Date field and set it to: 5 minutes (or any other time) after workflow execution time....

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There are 2 common issues with Microsoft CRM Email Router:

1. The service “Microsoft CRM Email Router” does not start.

2. The router routs old Emails.

Both issues are related to a file located at: “C\Program Files\Microsoft CRM Email\Service\ Microsoft.Crm.Tools.EmailAgent.SystemState.xml”

If the file is corrupted the router will not start. Stop the router service, rename the file and start the router service again. In most cases this will solve the problem

The file also maintains a timestamp as xml parameter named “ThresholdDate”.
By default this value is “0001-01-01T00:00:00.0000000Z” (format as “YY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.mZ).
Each time the user’s mailbox is scanned, the timestamp is incremented / updated. To eliminate scanning old emails, set the date and time to current date / time.
Example: The 10^th February 2010, 11:45 is set as: 2010-02-10T11:45:00.0000000Z

Error message when you access entities in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook: "A Microsoft Dynamics CRM window was unable to open, and may have been blocked by a popup blocker"

Read more: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970632