We did a test drive of the Salesforce Outlook connector in our sandboxes.
The app is working fine.
We are not sure how to do the installation for all of our 150 users.
Are there any ways to automatically install this connector instead of the users having to install this manually ?
Of course you can. The basic steps are as follows:
Just go to Setup > Desktop Integration > Salesforce for Outlook, and download the latest installer.
Create a new folder on the server, share it with users in the domain, and put the installer there. Note: You need to get the "msi" file, not the exe. To get this file, use SalesforceForOutlook /extract on the command-line, as outlined in Salesforce for Outlook Silent Installation
Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Active Directory Users and Computers.
Right-click on your domain, and choose Properties.
On the Group Policy tab, click New. Give it a name, like Salesforce for Outlook.
Now, click on Properties, and choose the Security tab. Select the groups you want to apply this GPO to.
Next, you need to edit the GPO, choose Computer Configuration > Software Settings.
In the Open dialog, select the full network name and file of the share you created with the installer file. This must the be the full share name (e.g. \\adserver\installers\salesforceoutlook.msi), which you can't get to by simply using the Browse button; you need to type in the full name of the file.
Click Assigned to assign the installer to the selected groups.
If you get stuck (this is the condensed version), try reading How to use Group Policy to remotely install software in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2003. While I haven't tried this extensively, it should work as advertised.
