What’s new with SharePoint 2013 and Dynamics CRM
Recently an analyst asked us what is new in SharePoint & Dynamics CRM with the December 2012 service update. I wrote the below note as a quick summary of what’s revolutionary and evolutionary with SharePoint (specifically SP 2013) & Dynamics CRM.
1. Self-Service BI with PowerView
Excel 2013 introduces the ability to create PowerView charts for advanced data analysis by combining a variety of data sources. With the new December 2012 Service Update, data from Dynamics CRM Online can be included as one of the data sources for PowerView. SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online’s new release provides the ability for customers to render PowerView charts (including bubble animations) from Excel workbooks through Excel Web App. This allows professionals to analyze their CRM Online data in a self-service manner with just a browser (no need for everyone to be running Excel 2013). For example, in the below figure you can see that the customer service data from CRM combined with call metrics from IVR systems to produce a report rendered right within the browser.
2. Self-service Portals with BCS
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2013 has been enhanced to natively consume OData endpoint making it easy for customers to integrate Dynamics CRM data within SharePoint. For example, customers can now easily build an internal SharePoint portal for casual CRM users. This is very useful in many enterprise scenarios such as help desk ticketing, vendor portal and many more. SharePoint 2013 also introduces the new notion of SharePoint ‘Apps’ that can bundle such customizations and provide developers with the ability to sell them through the Office marketplace. You can find a simple step-by-step walkthrough on Connecting SharePoint Online and CRM Online using BCS here.
3. Document library integration enhancements
With the December 2012 service update, the document library integration with SharePoint has now been enhanced to support SharePoint 2013 along with rendering on multiple browsers including Chrome, Safari, Firefox and IE. SharePoint 2013 also has improved eDiscovery for legal compliance and built-in Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) compatibility for interoperability with other applications (like Adobe Bridge and Photoshop) making it easier for customers to manage their CRM digital assets with SharePoint.
4. Identity alignment
Office 365 and CRMOnline have shared the same identity platform for some time now. The same identity platform now has been extended to developers for their custom apps as well through Windows Azure Active Directory. This simplifies the user provisioning and administration of joint solutions spanning Dynamics CRM, Office 365 and other applications within an organization.
5. Social enhancements
Last but not least is the social enhancements in December 2012 service update powered by Yammer which becomes the social layer for Dynamics CRM. We are also heavily investing in unified identity, integrated document management and feed aggregation among SharePoint, Yammer and Dynamics CRM for the future.
The list is just a sampling of what I have been able to do discover so far and I’m sure there are a lot more cool integration scenarios that we’ll discover together as a community. Things like FAST search, SharePoint for Internet Sites connecting to CRM and many more scenarios were possible earlier with SharePoint 2010 and they are enhanced in many ways within SharePoint 2013.
If you’d like to see some of these scenarios in action, please check out one of my presentations at the upcoming Convergence conference:
Title |
Developer's Guide to Integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Microsoft SharePoint 2013 |
Session Code |
CSCRM09 |
Description |
Many organizations use both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SharePoint and are increasingly looking for ways to integrate these two technologies. With the new wave of SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 suites, it is now even easier and compelling to integrate them with Microsoft Dynamics CRM for collaborative cloud solutions. Come learn some of the developer patterns and practices you can use when building apps using technologies such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SharePoint 2013, Office 365, and more. |
Room |
391-392 |
Day |
Thursday, March 21 |
Time |
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM |
Add to Calendar |
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<!--[endif]-->Comments
Anonymous
March 08, 2013
Thanks Girish - this is great, good to know CRM and SharePoint are getting closer!Anonymous
March 11, 2013
Hi Girish - this is really helpful - good to have this all summarised in one place. Can you share the licensing implications - for eg - do you need ESS CAL for scenario 2? thanks!Anonymous
March 11, 2013
@Cassandra, Yes, I guess one could use a full license or ESS-like CAL for scenario #2. That said, I'm certainly not a licensing expert to give the best advice here! The latest pricing and licensing guide by Ramesh should have all the details: crmdynamics.blob.core.windows.net/.../Pricing_Licensing_Guide.pdf.Anonymous
March 25, 2013
Hi Girish, I attended two sessions of yours at Convergence. Both were about integrating SharePoint 2013 and CRM 2011. I tried to take good notes but I was wondering where I can find the PowerPoint slides from the sessions? Thanks! Holly Myers hmyers@moog.comAnonymous
March 27, 2013
@Holly, All of the content (powerpoint & videos) from Convergence should be available in the virtual convergence section of the website. For more details please see: www.facebook.com/.../143939355779207 Thanks, -Girish.Anonymous
June 17, 2013
Girish -- Great information. We are just starting our integration for doc management. One thing I can't find anywhere -- how can we filter the documents for our users? An example -- We set an archive flag for older documents that we still need to retain but don't need to see all the time. We set the default view in SharePoint to be "CurrentDocuments" which are those without the Archive flag set. We want the view in CRM to default to "CurrentDocuments" but can't find any way to do that. Can you point me in the right direction?Anonymous
May 12, 2015
I am disappointed by the lack of collaboration between the SharePoint and CRM teams and am pushing for a unified platform. rrfreeman.blogspot.com/.../crm-and-xrm-vs-sharepoint-for-business.html