MS CRM: CRM for Outlook configuration

MS CRM application can be created as a profile in Outlook by installing and configuring CRM for outlook plug in. Download it here.

Once you install the application, you need to configure the profile.

Run the configuration wizard, enter your credentials and synchronize the organisation data.

Close the wizard and open outlook. You can find the application related information in Outlook folder structure as a profile in outlook.

This way, instead of relying on a browser, we can use application in outlook more efficiently. Advantages include working offline capability, synchronization with emails, reminders for Alerts and meetings and so on.

MS CRM: System Administration

In this post, I am going to introduce some basics of System Administration in MS CRM. 

You can access Administration options from Microsoft Dynamics CRM -> Settings -> Administration. Few important options/features are defined below. 

Auto Numbering: We can specify a format of auto numbering like below. 

Business Units: We can create the organisation hierarchy by using Business Units. We can define a BU, add users, teams, child BU etc to it. If I disable a BU, no user in the BU will be able to access the application.

Security Roles: Security role is the entity where we mention which objects should be accessible and upto which access level for a user role. We assign security role to user. This is the most important security feature of MS CRM.

Teams: We can define teams of users and group them as a logical entity.
System Settings: We can define calendar settings, currency settings, format of numbers, email tracking options etc for the organisation in this section.
Field Security Profiles: We can define a security profile for users to provide access to modify certain field data. (Example: only a manager can edit quote amount)

MS CRM: Default Solution, Managed and Unmanaged Solutions

Solutions: All the configurations in an MS CRM application is maintained in a solution. It is a repository of configuration items like Entities, Fields, Forms, reports, Dashboards etc. People who are new to MS CRM can get confused easily by terms like Default Solution, Managed Solution and Unmanaged Solution.

Every application will have one default solution defined with all the basic entities. Default solution is a vanilla solution. It is recommended not to modify anything in a default solution. We should create our own custom solution. Every custom solution once created is a unmanaged solution. Once you are done with your customization, you need to make it a managed solution, meaning that you do not let anyone modify the solution. It is locked and can be moved to other environments as a package.

We can add unmanaged solutions, do our customizations in it, export it as a Managed solution and import it to higher environments as a Managed solution. If a managed solution is deleted, it deletes all the customizations. For testing in unmanaged solutions, we need to publish the customizations.

Navigate to Microsoft Dynamics CRM -> Settings -> Customizations

You can access default solution by clicking Customize the System link.

You can create, access or modify custom solutions by clicking Solutions link.

A default solution looks like this.

MS CRM: Application UI Sections and Navigation Basics

This series of posts on MS CRM will be targeted for a novice developer. I will start with basics and later on extend it to complex functionalities. I will be providing some video tutorials later covering these topics with a use case.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a software package developed by Microsoft. MS CRM is gaining a lot of CRM market lately.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is available in two primary delivery mechanisms:

Dynamics CRM On-Premises and Dynamics CRM Online.

The on-premises version of CRM is hosted by the customer in an on-premises server. With CRM Online, Microsoft takes over the hosting responsibilities. Decision points like direct access to SQL tables and expanded backup capabilities can drive the decision to go on-premises or online.

I am going to use CRM Online only in my posts as I have limited access to a trial version of MS CRM application. You can get one month trial access by registering in the link. 

After registering, the application will look like this. By default, we will have Sales, Service and Marketing modules. I am going to explain basic navigation steps below.

The red box indicates the application bar where on clicking the Microsoft Dynamics CRM drop down, the available apps and the settings can be accessed.

On selecting an App (like Sales dropdown), the available entities will be shown like below.

On selecting an entity, it will show the recent records and the records of the entities in below section.

We have a quick Create option also.

The green box shows the default view of the entity selected (Dashboard in this case), the one which we want to see on home page. We can change the default any time by changing our preferences. 

The yellow box is a what's new section, showing recently created, updated records information. We can follow a particular record and the updates will be shown in follow section in the right.

I will explain about the steps to configure application in further posts.