Synchronize absences with Outlook

Background information

If you want to sync with Outlook (Exchange, Office 365), please contact the Lucca help desk to activate the synchronization. This service is free is you configure yourself the integration.

The Timmi Absences absence synchronisation web service syncs a user’s Timmi Absences absences with their Outlook calendar in real time. When an absence is created/approved/deleted in Timmi Absences, the employee’s calendar will create/update/delete it.

If your are e Google user you can also synchronize absences with Google Calendar.

You'll find on this page:

the configuration for Office 365
the configuration for Exchange on-premise
the main synchronization issues and how to fix them

Office 365 or Exchange online (with Microsoft account)

Timmi Absences uses a Lucca service application in Azure AD to which you give admin consent. This must be done once by an Office365 admin.

Access the synchronization module in Timmi Absences in Exports > Synchronize leaves
Click Configure
In the configuration page click the Allow access button
A window should open. Connect Office 365 with an admin account and grant access to Timmi Absences. Read and write permissions on user calendars are required.
Once the consent is given, the synchronization should be up and running.

You can check anytime the access rights granted to Lucca in Office365 administration : Admin > Azure Active Directory > Enterprise applications > Timmi Absences - Synchronisation des absences > Permissions

Exchange on premise

To enable Timmi Absences synchronisation to your users’ Calendars, you must create the authentication information (login name, password) for an account that has write access to your users’ calendar, called an impersonation account.

These are the steps for creating an impersonation account under Exchange Server 2010 or 2013:

First create a user. We will call it SynchroFiggoUser.

Create a custom permission scope; we will call it SynchroFiggoScope:

New-ManagementScope –Name:SynchroFiggoScope –RecipientRestrictionFilter:{RecipientType -eq "UserMailbox"}

Assign the standard impersonation role to the user created for Timmi Absences

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Name:SynchroFiggoAssignment –
Role:ApplicationImpersonation –User:SynchroFiggoUser –CustomRecipientWriteScope:SynchroFiggoScope

Refresh for associations to take effect: gpupdate /force
Configure the synchronization in Exports>Leave Synchronization>Configure
URL: Exchange server’s URL that should look like https://mail.company.com/ews/exchange.asmx
Login: service account login
Password: service account password
Also make sure that the Lucca web service IP is authorised to access the server in question.

Syncing with an Exchange server occurs over HTTPS and requires a certificate provided by a certification body. Self-signed certificates are insufficient.

What information is synchronised?

Event description

You can choose to have the absence type (annual leave, RTT, Sick, etc.) appear in the event description or not. By default, the descriptions are hidden (the event shows as ‘Absent’).

Full days

For one-day events, you can choose to send them as a ‘full day’ or time slot (for Outlook syncing only). If you choose time slot, Timmi Absences will create an event for the configured hours.

Status

When a request is entered and is pending approval, a temporary event is created in the calendar. When the request is approved, the event is confirmed.

Initialising

Absences already in Timmi Absences can be synced using the initialisation function at the bottom of the configuration page.

Simply enter a date: all absences after this date will be synced. This allows you to retrieve absences from the last month, for example.

You must choose the legal entities whose absences you want synced. This allows you to launch initialisation for only certain entities.

Troubleshooting
When setting up a calendar synchronization you can have the following issues.
- All events are in error: it usually means the URL of the server is not correct or the service account doesn't have sufficient rights (on-premise only).
- Some users have errors: check the email address of these users in Lucca. It must be the same as in Office 365 / Exchange.
  The error code is usually the following.
  You can find it in the logs when clicking Details on the event.
- Leave cancellations are in error, with the following error code:
  
  Two possible reasons:
  - The absence has been created by an ICS from a Timmi Absences notification, prior to the synchronization setup. This can happen during the few months after the setup. This wont happen anymore once all absences are created by the synchronization service.
  - The absence has already been deleted from the user calendar.