Tips for MS CRM 2011 Solutions

Here are some useful tips for MS CRM 2011 Solutions.

General :

• There are 2 type of solutions. Managed and Unmanaged.
• Managed solution will be published as part of an import. In other words - With a Managed solution publishing occurs during the import process. 
• If it is an unmanaged solution you need to Click Publish All Customizations after the import is completed.  
• For the best practice,  Refresh your browser to see the changes from the import.
• Dynamics CRM 2011 allows the flexibility to use in-built entities and functions when it’s appropriate for the solution and the ability to hide those functions when they’re not required.
• The Help Visor text still refers to real schema name for edited entity. This can be adjusted to match the customizations by adding and customizing the SiteMap to the solution.

Creating a solution :

• Create a new publisher or use existing one for new solution
• Create a new solution, add existing entities or create new one.
• You can edit / add / delete entities, their fields and relationships before publishing solution.

Create a Customization Page :

Customization pages are optional and point to a Web Resource.  This means they can be static HTML content, or more active AJAX or Silverlight content.  Often times these can be used to allow a customer to set options on the installed solution.  The customization page is available for use after the solution is installed.

Removing Managed solution :

• When we will remove the managed solution Dynamics CRM 2011 returns to the state it was before we imported that solution. 
• When we will remove the managed solution it will delete imported customised entity (if any) including its data. System entities will be changed to its original form and data will stay there.

Removing an unmanaged solution :

Removing an unmanaged solution does not uninstall any of the components.  This is a compelling reason to consider using managed solutions in our deployed projects.