Category: microsoft Crm

Discuss Microsoft Dynamics CRM ”; Previous Next Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft, focusing on enhancing customer relationships for any organization. It is one of the leading industry-standard CRM software available in market. The product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service sectors, however Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Quick Guide ”; Previous Next Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Overview Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. CRM can help reduce costs and increase profitability by organizing and automating business processes that nurture customer satisfaction and loyalty. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft focused on enhancing the customer relationship for any organization. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service sectors, though Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it. In recent years, it has also grown as an Analytics platform driven by CRM. The CRM Solution can be used to drive the sales productivity and marketing effectiveness for an organization, handle the complete customer support chain, and provide social insights, business intelligence, and a lot of other out-of-the-box functionalities and features. As a product, Microsoft Dynamics CRM also offers full mobile support for using CRM apps on mobiles and tablets. As of writing this tutorial, the latest version of CRM is CRM 2016. However, in this tutorial we will be using CRM 2015 Online version as it is the latest stable version as well as frequently used in many organizations. Nevertheless, even if you are using any other versions of CRM, all the concepts in the tutorial will still hold true. Product Offerings Microsoft Dynamics CRM is offered in two categories − CRM Online CRM Online is a cloud-based offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM where all the backend processes (such as application servers, setups, deployments, databases, licensing, etc.) are managed on Microsoft servers. CRM Online is a subscription-based offering which is preferred for organizations who may not want to manage all the technicalities involved in a CRM implementation. You can get started with setting up your system in a few days (not weeks, months or years) and access it on web via your browser. CRM On-Premise CRM on-premise is a more customized and robust offering of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, where the CRM application and databases will be deployed on your servers. This offering allows you to control all your databases, customizations, deployments, backups, licensing and other network and hardware setups. Generally, organizations who want to go for a customized CRM solution prefer on-premise deployment as it offers better integration and customization capabilities. From the functional standpoint, both the offerings offer similar functionalities; however, they differ significantly in terms of implementation. The differences are summarized in the following table. CRM Online CRM On-Premise This is a cloud-based solution provided by Microsoft in which all the servers and databases are managed by Microsoft. This is an on-premise solution provided by Microsoft in which the servers and databases are managed by the customer. You can get started with an online offering in a matter of few days. You pay for the users and used space on-the-go. Setting up an on-premise offering needs technical skills as well as sufficient time to setup the CRM instance and get it running. It supports relatively less customizations and extensions. It supports relatively more customization and extensions. CRM Online does not give the ability to perform manual data backup and restore options, since the database is hosted on Microsoft servers. However, Microsoft performs daily backups of the database. CRM on-premise gives complete ability to manage your database. CRM Online has various plans based on the data storage limits such as 5GB, 20 GB, etc. CRM on-premise does not have any such limits on storage size, since the data exists on your own servers. CRM Online provides inbuilt capabilities of features such as insights, social listening, analytics, etc. CRM on-premise has extra costs for these features. CRM Online supports automatic updates to future version. CRM on-premise updates need to be installed by the administrator. Accessing CRM Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be accessed via any of the following options − Browser Mobile and Tablets Outlook Product Competitors Microsoft Dynamics CRM is undoubtedly one of the top products in the CRM space. However, following are the other products that compete with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Salesforce.com Oracle SAP Sage CRM Sugar CRM NetSuite Product Versions Microsoft Dynamics CRM has grown over the years starting from its 1.0 version in 2003. The latest version (as of writing this article) is 2015. Following is the chronological list of release versions − Microsoft CRM 1.0 Microsoft CRM 1.2 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Environment Let”s start by setting up our CRM environment. We will be using the online version of CRM 2015, since the online version provides one-month free trial access. By doing this, you will not need to purchase any license to learn CRM. Note − Since Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a growing product, it is possible that by the time you are learning this, you will have a newer version of the product. In that case, the application may not look exactly as you would see in the screenshots of this tutorial. However, the core concepts of the product remain the same. The look-and-feel and the navigation of the product may change, however, in most of the cases you will be able to easily navigate and locate the required options. Setting Up Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Account Step 1 − Navigate to the following URL − https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/home In case you do not see the options of Trial version via this link in future, just try searching “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Free Trial” on Google. Step 2 − Click the Try it free button. This will start a 3-step registration process as shown in the following screenshot. In Step 1 of 3-step registration,

Plugin Registration ”; Previous Next In the last chapter, we created a sample plugin to create a follow-up Task activity when a Contact record is created. In this chapter, we will see how to register this plugin in CRM using Plugin Registration Tool. You can find the tool at this location: SDK/Tools/PluginRegistration/PluginRegistration.exe. For convenience, the plugin registration process is divided into three sections − Connecting to the Server Registering the Assembly Registering the Plugin Connecting to the Server Step 1 − Run the PluginRegistration.exe from the location specified earlier. Click the Create New Connection button. Step 2 − In the Login window, choose Office 365 since we are using the online version of CRM. Enter your credentials and click Login. Step 3 − The tool will open and look like the following screenshot. Registering the Assembly Step 1 − Go to Register → Register New Assembly. Step 2 − This will open the Register New Assembly window. Click the Navigate icon and locate the Plugin DLL that you created in the last chapter. Step 3 − After navigating the DLL, click Load Assembly. This will populate the SamplePlugins assembly and all its plugin classes. You can see the PostCreateContact plugin class highlighted below. If your plugin assembly had 3 plugin classes, it would have shown three plugins listed there. Step 4 − Select Isolation Mode as Sandbox, Location as Database and click Register Selected Plugins. It will show you a success message, if the registration is successful. Registering the Plugin Now we will be registering the specific steps on which the individual plugins will be called. Step 1 − Select the PostCreateContact plugin. Step 2 − Click Register → Register New Step. Step 3 − We will be registering this plugin on the creation of the Contact entity, on postoperation stage and in the synchronous mode. Message − Create Primary Entity − Contact Event Pipeline Stage of Execution − Post-operation Execution Mode − Synchronous Keep the rest of the options by default and click Register New Step. You can see a new step added to the plugin. Now we will go to CRM and test if our plugin is working correctly. Note that these test steps are specific to our example plugin. Testing the Plugin Go to Contacts tab and create a new record. Once you save the record, you can see a new activity created and associated with this record. You can click the activity to see the details that we had set in the code. This confirms that our plugin ran successfully. Similarly, you can extend your plugins to achieve highly complex functionalities. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Plugins ”; Previous Next A plug-in is a custom business logic that integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to modify or extend the standard behavior of the platform. Plug-ins act as event handlers and are registered to execute on a particular event in CRM. Plugins are written in either C# or VB and can run either in synchronous or asynchronous mode. Some scenarios where you would write a plugin are − You want to execute some business logic such as updating certain fields of a record or updating related records, etc. when you create or update a CRM record. You want to call an external web service on certain events such as saving or updating a record. You want to dynamically calculate the field values when any record is opened. You want to automate processes such as sending e-mails to your customers on certain events in CRM. Event Framework The Event Processing Framework in CRM processes the synchronous and asynchronous plugin requests by passing it to the event execution pipeline. Whenever an event triggers a plugin logic, a message is sent to the CRM Organization Web Service where it can be read or modified by other plugins or any core operations of the platform. Plugin Pipeline Stages The entire plugin pipeline is divided in multiple stages on which you can register your custom business logic. The pipeline stage specified indicates at which stage of the plugin execution cycle, your plugin code runs. Out of all the specified pipeline stages in the following table, you can register your custom plugins only on Pre- and Post-events. You can’t register plugins on Platform Core Main Operations. Event Stage Name Description Pre-Event Pre-validation Stage in the pipeline for plug-ins that are to execute before the main system operation. Plug-ins registered in this stage may execute outside the database transaction. Pre-Event Pre-operation Stage in the pipeline for plug-ins that are to executed before the main system operation. Plugins registered in this stage are executed within the database transaction. Platform Core Operation MainOperation Intransaction,the main operation of the system, such as create, update, delete, and so on. No custom plug-ins can be registered in this stage. For internal use only. Post-Event Post-operation Stage in the pipeline for plug-ins which are to executed after the main operation. Plug-ins registered in this stage are executed within the database transaction. Whenever the CRM application invokes an event (like saving or updating a record), the following sequence of actions takes place − The event triggers a Web service call and the execution is passed through the event pipeline stages (pre-event, platform core operations, post-event). The information is internally packaged as an OrganizationRequest message and finally sent to the internal CRM Web service methods and platform core operations. The OrganizationRequest message is first received by pre-event plugins, which can modify the information before passing it to platform core operations. After the platform core operations, the message is packaged as OrganizationResponse and passed to the post-operation plugins. The postoperations plugins can optionally modify this information before passing it to the async plugin. The plugins receive this information in the form of context object that is passed to the Execute method after which the further processing happens. After all the plugin processing completes, the execution is passed back to the application which triggered the event. Plugin Messages Messages are the events on which the plugin (or business logic) is registered. For example, you can register a plugin on Create Message of Contact entity. This would fire the business logic whenever a new Contact record is created. For custom entities, following are the supported messages based on whether the entity is user-owned or organization-owned. Message Name Ownership Type Assign User-owned entities only Create User-owned and organization-owned entities Delete User-owned and organization-owned entities GrantAccess User-owned entities only ModifyAccess User-owned entities only Retrieve User-owned and organization-owned entities RetrieveMultiple User-owned and organization-owned entities RetrievePrincipalAccess User-owned entities only RetrieveSharedPrincipalsAndAccess User-owned entities only RevokeAccess User-owned entities only SetState User-owned and organization-owned entities SetStateDynamicEntity User-owned and organization-owned entities Update User-owned and organization-owned entities For default out-of-the-box entities, there are more than 100 supported messages. Some of these messages are applicable for all the entities while some of them are specific to certain entities. You can find the complete list of supported message in an excel file inside the SDK: SDKMessage-entity support for plug-ins.xlsx Writing Plugin In this section, we will learn the basics of writing a plugin. We will be creating a sample plugin that creates a Task activity to follow-up with the customer whenever a new customer is added to the system, i.e. whenever a new Contactrecord is created in CRM. First of all, you would need to include the references to Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk namespace. The CRM SDK contains all the required SDK assemblies. Assuming that you have already downloaded and installed the SDK in Chapter 2, open Visual Studio. Create a new project of type Class Library. You can name the project as SamplePlugins and click OK. Add the reference of Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk assembly to your project. The assembly is present in SDK/Bin. Now, create a class named PostCreateContact.cs and extend the class from IPlugin. Till now, your code will look something like the following. You will also need to add reference to System.Runtime.Serialization. Once you have added the required references, copy the following code inside the PostCreateContact class. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk; namespace SamplePlugins { public class PostCreateContact:IPlugin { /// A plug-in that creates a follow-up task activity when a new account is created. /// Register this plug-in on the Create message, account entity, /// and asynchronous mode. public void Execute(IServiceProviderserviceProvider) { // Obtain the execution context from the service provider. IPluginExecutionContext context =(IPluginExecutionContext) serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext)); // The InputParameters collection contains all the data passed in the message request. if(context.InputParameters.Contains(“Target”)&& context.InputParameters[“Target”]isEntity) { // Obtain the target entity from the input parameters. Entity entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters[“Target”]; try { // Create a task activity to follow up

JScript Web Resources ”; Previous Next JScript Web Resources are probably the most important type of web resources that you will be using with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Applications of JavaScript in CRM Form Event Programming Form Event Programming is used to handle client-side behaviors such as what happens when a user opens a form, changes some data, moves through tabs, etc. To achieve such client-side interactions you will be writing JavaScript code and adding it as a JScript Web Resource in CRM. However, the JavaScript code which you will write has to use Dynamic CRM’s Xrm.Page model and not the standard JavaScript DOM. Using Xrm.Page model is Microsoft’s way of coding which ensures that any code you write using this model will be compatible with any future versions of CRM. Web Resources In addition to being used in Form Event Programming, JavaScript is used in other applications of CRM such as − Open Forms, Views and Dialogs with a unique URL. Using OData and SOAP endpoints to interact with web services. Referencing JavaScript code inside other Web Resources (such as HTML web resources). In such cases, you would write your JavaScript code (using Xrm.Page model) and add it as a JScript Web Resource in CRM, which can then be referenced anywhere with a unique URI. Ribbon Customizations Finally, one of the other common use of JavaScript is to handle ribbon customizations such as − Display/Hide ribbon buttons based on some logic Enable/Disable ribbon buttons based on some logic Handle what happens when you click a certain ribbon button To handle such scenarios, you will write your JavaScript logic (using Xrm.Page model) and then add it as a JScript Web Resource. This Web Resource can then be referenced in the ribbon button’s XML and we can specify which method in which JScript file to call to check if a ribbon button should be displayed/hidden or enabled/disabled or handle click events. Xrm.Page Object Model Following is the Xrm.Page object’s hierarchy showing the available namespaces, objects, and their collections. You will be using these properties while writing JScript code. Namespaces Sr.No Object & Description 1 Context Provides methods to retrieve context-specific information such as organization details, logged-in user details, or parameters that were passed to the form in a query string. 2 Data Provides access to the entity data and methods to manage the data in the form as well as in the business process flow control. 3 UI Contains methods to retrieve information about the user interface, in addition to collections for several sub-components of the form. Objects Sr.No Object & Description 1 Entity Provides method to − Retrieve record information Save method Collection attributes 2 Process Methods to retrieve properties of business process flow. 3 Navigation Provides access to navigation items using items collection. 4 FormSelector Uses Items collection to access available forms to the user. Also uses the navigation method to close and open forms. 5 Stages Each process has a collection of stages that can be accessed using getStages method of process. 6 Steps Each stage comprises of various steps that can be accessed using getSteps method of stage. Collections Sr.No Collections & Description 1 Attributes Provides access to entity attributes available on the form. 2 Controls ui.controls − Provides access to each control present on the form. attribute.controls − Provides access to all the controls within an attribute. section.controls − Provides access to all the controls within a section. 3 Items Provides access to all the navigation items on a form. 4 Tabs Provides access to all the tabs on a form. 5 Sections Provides access to all the sections on a form. Supported Events in Form Programming The Form Programming using Xrm.Page model allows you to handle the following form events − onLoad onSave onChange TabStateChange OnReadyStateComplete PreSearch Business Process Flow control events Form Programming Example In this example, we will put some validations on the Contact form based on the PreferredMethodofCommunication that the user selects. Hence, if the user selects his/her preferred method as Email, then the Email field should become mandatory and similarly for other fields of Phone and Fax. Step 1 − Create a JavaScript file named contacts.js and copy the following code. function validatePreferredMethodOfCommunication() { //get the value of Preffered Method of Communication code var prefferedContactMethodCode = Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”preferredcontactmetho dcode”).getValue(); //if Preferred Method = Any, make all fields as non-mandatory //else if Preferred Method = Phone, make Mobile Phone field mandatory //and all other fields as non-mandatory //else if Preferred Method = Fax, make Fax field mandatory //and all other fields as non-mandatory if(prefferedContactMethodCode == 1) { clearAllMandatoryFields(); } if(prefferedContactMethodCode == 2) { clearAllMandatoryFields(); Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”emailaddress1”).setRequiredLevel(”required”); } else if(prefferedContactMethodCode == 3) { clearAllMandatoryFields(); Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”mobilephone”).setRequiredLevel(”required”); } else if(prefferedContactMethodCode == 4) { clearAllMandatoryFields(); Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”fax”).setRequiredLevel(”required”); } } function clearAllMandatoryFields() { //clear all mandatory fields Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”emailaddress1”).setRequiredLevel(”none”); Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”mobilephone”).setRequiredLevel(”none”); Xrm.Page.getAttribute(”fax”).setRequiredLevel(”none”); } Step 2 − Open the Contact entity form by navigating to Settings → Customizations → Customize the System → Contact entity → Forms → Main Form. Step 3 − Click Form Properties. Step 4 − From the Form Properties window, click Add. Step 5 − In the next Look Up Web Resource Record window, click New since we are creating a new web resource. Step 6 − In the New Web Resource window, enter the following details − Name − new_contacts.js Display Name − contacts.js Type − JScript Upload File − Upload the JavaScript file that you created from your local machine. Step 7 − Click Save followed by Publish. After this close the window and you will be back to Look Up Web Resource Record window. Step 8 − Here, you can now see the new_contacts.js web resource. Select it and click Add. You have now successfully added a new web resource and registered it on the form. Step 9 − Now we will add an event handler on the change of Preferred Method of Communication field. This event handler will call the JavaScript function that we just wrote. Select the following options from the

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Tutorial PDF Version Quick Guide Resources Job Search Discussion Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management software package developed by Microsoft, focusing on enhancing customer relationships for any organization. It is one of the leading industry-standard CRM software available in market. The product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service sectors, however Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it. Audience This tutorial is targeted for Microsoft Dynamics CRM developers beginning to learn Dynamics CRM or developers who are looking for a specific functionality of the product. This tutorial will bring you to the intermediate level of knowledge in Microsoft Dynamics CRM covering all the important aspects with complete hands-on experience. Prerequisites Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a product that runs completely on the Microsoft technology stack (ASP.NET, IIS, Microsoft Office, etc.). Hence, basic knowledge of ASP.NET and C# (or VB.NET) is needed. Also, this tutorial assumes that you already have Visual Studio software installed on your system. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Web Services ”; Previous Next Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides two important web services that are used to access CRM from an external application and invoke web methods to perform common business data operations such as create, delete, update, and find in CRM. Consider the following scenarios − You have an external .NET application, which needs to talk to CRM. For example, you may want to insert a Contact record in CRM when a new customer is registered in your external application. Or maybe, you want to search records in CRM and display the search results in your external application. In such scenarios, you can use the web services exposed by CRM to consume them in your application and perform create, delete, update, and find operations in CRM. IDiscoveryService Web Service This web service returns a list of organizations that the specified user belongs to and the URL endpoint for each of the organization. IOrganizationService Web Service This web service is the primary web service used for accessing data and metadata in CRM. The IOrganizationService uses two important assemblies –Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll and Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll. These assemblies can be found in the CRM SDK package inside the Bin folder. Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll This assembly defines the core xRM methods and types, including proxy classes to make the connection to Microsoft Dynamics CRM simpler, authentication methods, and the service contracts. Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll This assembly defines the requests and responses for non-core messages as well as enumerations required for working with the organization data. Following are the namespaces supported by these two assemblies. Each of these assemblies support certain messages, which will be used to work with the data stored in any entity. A complete list of messages supported by them can be found in the following links − Supported xRM Messages − https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334698.aspx Supported CRM Messages − https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309482.aspx IOrganizationService Web Service Methods The IOrganizationService provides eight methods that allows you to perform all the common operations on the system and custom entities as well as organization metadata. Sr.No Method & Description 1 IOrganizationService.Create Creates a record. 2 IOrganizationService.Update Updates an existing record. 3 IOrganizationService. Retrieve Retrieves a record. 4 IOrganizationService. RetrieveMultiple Retrieves a collection of records. 5 IOrganizationService. Delete Deletes a record. 6 IOrganizationService. Associate Creates a link between records. 7 IOrganizationService.Disassociate Deletes a link between records. 8 IOrganizationService.Execute Used for common record processing as well as specialized processing such as case resolution, duplicate detection, etc. Web Service Example To understand how the web services work in CRM, we will look at an example provided by CRM SDK. In this example, we will create a new Account record, update it, and then finally delete it using the CRM IOrganizationService web service. Step 1 − Open the folder where you had extracted CRM SDK. Now open the QuickStartCS.sln solution by browsing to the following location:SDKSampleCodeCSQuickStart Step 2 − We will be exploring the QuickStart with Simplified Connection project. Open app.config in this project. By default, the connectionStrings section in this file will be commented. From this, uncomment the first connection string key and edit the following three details − Url − Specify the URL of your CRM instance. In our case, since we are using the online version of CRM, you will have to mention that URL. Username − Your CRM Online user name. Password − Your CRM Online password. Step 3 − Open the SimplifiedConnection.cs file in this project and Runmethod inside it. public void Run(StringconnectionString, boolpromptforDelete) { try { // Establish a connection to the organization web service using CrmConnection. Microsoft.Xrm.Client.CrmConnection connection = CrmConnection.Parse(connectionString); // Obtain an organization service proxy. // The using statement assures that the service proxy will be properly disposed. using(_orgService = new OrganizationService(connection)) { //Create any entity records this sample requires. CreateRequiredRecords(); // Obtain information about the logged on user from the web service. Guid userid = ((WhoAmIResponse)_orgService.Execute(new WhoAmIRequest())).UserId; SystemUser systemUser = (SystemUser)_orgService.Retrieve(“systemuser”,userid, new ColumnSet(newstring[]{“firstname”,”lastname”})); Console.WriteLine(“Logged on user is {0} {1}.”, systemUser.FirstName,systemUser.LastName); // Retrieve the version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. RetrieveVersionRequest versionRequest = new RetrieveVersionRequest(); RetrieveVersionResponse versionResponse = (RetrieveVersionResponse)_orgService.Execute(versionRequest); Console.WriteLine(“Microsoft Dynamics CRM version {0}.”, versionResponse.Version); // Instantiate an account object. Note the use of option set enumerations defined in OptionSets.cs. // Refer to the Entity Metadata topic in the SDK documentation to determine which attributes must // be set for each entity. Account account = new Account{Name = “Fourth Coffee”}; account.AccountCategoryCode = new OptionSetValue( (int)AccountAccountCateg oryCode.PreferredCustomer); account.CustomerTypeCode = new OptionSetValue( (int)AccountCustomerTypeCod e.Investor); // Create an account record named Fourth Coffee. _accountId = _orgService.Create(account); Console.Write(“{0} {1} created, “,account.LogicalName,account.Name); // Retrieve the several attributes from the new account. ColumnSet cols = new ColumnSet( new String[]{“name”,”address1_postalcode”,”lastusedincampaign”}); Account retrievedAccount = (Account)_orgService.Retrieve(“account”, _accountId, cols); Console.Write(“retrieved, “); // Update the postal code attribute. retrievedAccount.Address1_PostalCode = “98052”; // The address 2 postal code was set accidentally, so set it to null. retrievedAccount.Address2_PostalCode = null; // Shows use of a Money value. retrievedAccount.Revenue = new Money(5000000); // Shows use of a Boolean value. retrievedAccount.CreditOnHold = false; // Update the account record. _orgService.Update(retrievedAccount); Console.WriteLine(“and updated.”); // Delete any entity records this sample created. DeleteRequiredRecords(promptforDelete); } } // Catch any service fault exceptions that Microsoft Dynamics CRM throws. catch(FaultException<microsoft.xrm.sdk.organizationservicefault>) { // You can handle an exception here or pass it back to the calling method. throw; } } Step 4 − This method basically demonstrates all the CRUD operations using CRM web services. The code first creates an organization instance, then creates an Account record, updates the created record and then finally deletes it. Let us look at the important components of this code. To see on-the-go changes in CRM when this code runs, you can debug this code step-by-step (as we discuss below) and simultaneously see the changes in CRM. Step 4.1 − Establishes the connection to the organization using the connection string that we had modified in Step 2. Microsoft.Xrm.Client.CrmConnection connection = CrmConnection.Parse(connectionString); Step 4.2 − Obtains a proxy instance of CRM organization web service. _orgService = new OrganizationService(connection) Step 4.3 − Creates a new Account entity object and sets its Name, AccountCategoryCode

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Useful Resources ”; Previous Next The following resources contain additional information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Please use them to get more in-depth knowledge on this. Useful Video Courses Blazor examples 13 Lectures 1.5 hours Taurius Litvinavicius More Detail Zbrush Ultimate Course for Beginners/Intermediates 149 Lectures 32 hours Milivoj Popovic More Detail System Dynamics and Mechatronics Engineering Course Featured 5 Lectures 1 hours Phinite Academy More Detail Hydraulic System Modelling Course with Matlab and System Dynamics 10 Lectures 2.5 hours Phinite Academy More Detail Suspension System with Car Dynamics Balance 6 Lectures 1 hours Phinite Academy More Detail Computational Fluid Dynamics Fundamentals 16 Lectures 3 hours The GT Academy More Detail Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Environment ”; Previous Next Let”s start by setting up our CRM environment. We will be using the online version of CRM 2015, since the online version provides one-month free trial access. By doing this, you will not need to purchase any license to learn CRM. Note − Since Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a growing product, it is possible that by the time you are learning this, you will have a newer version of the product. In that case, the application may not look exactly as you would see in the screenshots of this tutorial. However, the core concepts of the product remain the same. The look-and-feel and the navigation of the product may change, however, in most of the cases you will be able to easily navigate and locate the required options. Setting Up Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Account Step 1 − Navigate to the following URL − https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/home In case you do not see the options of Trial version via this link in future, just try searching “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Free Trial” on Google. Step 2 − Click the Try it free button. This will start a 3-step registration process as shown in the following screenshot. In Step 1 of 3-step registration, fill in the mandatory details such as name, email, and language. Step 3 − Click the Try it free button. This will start a 3-step registration process as shown in the following screenshot. In Step 1 of 3-step registration, fill in the mandatory details such as name, email, and language. Step 4 − In Step 3 of 3-step registration, Microsoft will validate the mobile number that you have specified. For this, you can provide your mobile number and click Text me. It will then send an OTP to your mobile using which you will be able to proceed further with the setup. Step 5 − Your Office 365 user ID will be created. You can save this user ID information for later access. After setting up the account, it will now open your CRM Dashboard which will look something like the following. Just to emphasize again, the screenshots above may change with a future version, however setting up the environment will be a pretty simple process. Downloading CRM SDK The Software Development Kit (SDK) of Microsoft Dynamics CRM contains important code samples including server side code, client side code, extensions, plugins, web services, workflows, security model, etc. Basically, the SDK contains every development resource that you would need to get started with CRM. Whether you are planning to set up a new plugin project or setting up a web services project for CRM, the SDK provides the basic architecture and examples ranging from simple to advanced level to help you kick-off. We will now look at the steps to download and install the SDK. Step 1 − Every version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM comes with its own SDK version. The best way to get the correct SDK version would be to search on Google for your respective CRM version. For example, if your CRM version is 2015, then try searching for “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 SDK”. Step 2 − Once downloaded, run the exe setup. Click Continue. Step 3 − It will ask you to choose the location where the SDK should be extracted. Select any appropriate location where you would like to keep the reference SDK. Step 4 − Open the folder where you had extracted. You can access all the SDK content from here. Conclusion In this chapter, we have set up our environment by creating a CRM Online account. We then downloaded the CRM SDK, which will be used in the subsequent chapters of this tutorial. Make sure to note down the credentials with which you have set up the account, since you will need these credentials the next time you login. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Entities and Records ”; Previous Next Now that we have a functional overview of all the CRM modules, let us learn and understand about the entities and forms in CRM. What is an Entity? An entity is used to model and manage business data in CRM. Contacts, Cases, Accounts, Leads, Opportunities, Activities, etc. are all entities which hold data records. Conceptually, a CRM entity is equivalent to a database table. For example, Contacts entity would hold Contact records, Cases entity would hold Cases records, and so on. You can have both: out-of-the-box entities (which comes by default with the CRM) and custom entities (which you can create with customization). For instance, suppose that you are maintaining the data of the books your customers have read. For this, you will be storing the customer data using out-of-the-box Contacts entity but where would you store the books data? You do not have any entity that can store data for books. In such scenarios, you will create a new custom entity named Books and relate this with the existing Contacts entity. For this tutorial, let us take an example of storing employers and employees in CRM. Taking this example into consideration, out-of-the-box, CRM provides Contact entity in which you can ideally store all your employees. It also provides an Account entity in which you can store all your employers. But for the sake of learning entities, we will create a new custom entity called Employer (and not use the existing Account entity). Creating a New Entity Step 1 − Click the top ribbon button followed by Settings option. Click Customizations option from the Customization section (Refer the following screenshot). Step 2 − Now click Customize the System option. This will open up the Default Solution window. You will learn more about CRM Solutions in the next chapters but for now you will be using the default CRM Solution. Step 3 − Expand the Entities option from the left panel. Step 4 − Now click New → Entity. Step 5 − In the Entity Form, enter the Display Name as Employer and PluralName as Employers. In the section ‘Areas that display this entity’, check Sales, Service and Marketing. Checking these options will display the newly created entity in Sales, Service, and Marketing tabs of CRM. Step 6 − Click on the Save and Close icon. This will create a new entity in CRM database behind the scenes. Step 7 − In the Default Solution parent window, you will see the newly created Employer entity. Step 8 − Click Publish All Customizations option from the top ribbon bar. This will publish (aka commit) all the changes we did till now. You can close this window by clicking Save and Close. Creating Records CRM is all about managing valuable data in your system. In this section, we will learn how to create, open, read, and delete records in CRM. We will continue with the employer entity that we created in the last chapter. Step 1 − Navigate to Employer entity records grid via Show work areas → Sales → Extensions → Employers. Step 2 − Click the New icon. This will open the default new employer form. You can see that there is only one editable field Name in this default form. Enter Employer 1 in the Name field. Click Save and Close. Step 3 − In the Active Employers view, you can see the newly created employer record. Accessing Records To access the already created records in CRM, go to that entity page. In our case, navigate to Show work areas → Sales → Extensions → Employers. You will see list of records present there in the grid. Click any Employer record to access it. Updating Records Once you have a record open, you can just edit any details on the form. By default, CRM 2015 comes with auto-save option which saves any changes made to the form 30 seconds after the change. Alternatively, you can click Ctrl+S. In case you want to disable the auto-save feature, go to Settings → Administration → System Settings → Enable auto-save for all forms and select No. Deleting Records Step 1 − Select one or multiple records which you want to delete and click the Delete button. Step 2 − Confirm the deletion of records by clicking Delete. Conclusion As seen in the above example, the default Employer form had only one field. However, in real life scenarios, you will have many custom fields on a form. For example, if you look at a sample Contact record (which is an out-of-the-box CRM entity), it will have many fields to store contact information such as Full Name, Email, Phone, Address, Cases, etc. In the next chapters, you will learn how to edit this default form and add different types of fields on it. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;