MS CRM 2011 Installation Steps

Hi Dynamic People, 


Today I started preparation for MB2-867 Exam with a title 'Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Installation and Deployment'. Here I will share my notes with you. It may be helpful to you and I in a practical world some day.


Best match :


MS CRM 2011 Server should be installed with ... 

• Windows Server as a Operating system for MS CRM Server
• SQL Server as a Database Server
• Share point Server for document management functionality
• Email router for routing email messages to CRM
• SSRS Server

• Supported Versions :

• Windows Server
• Windows Server 2008 R2

• SQL Server 
• SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition (x64) SP1
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (x64)

• Share point Server for document management functionality
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 
• SharePoint Foundation 2010 
• SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise

• Email router  on one of the following Operating systems
• Windows 7 Enterprise (x86) 
• Windows 7 Professional (x64)
• Windows Server 2008 Standard (x64) 
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard (x64)
• Note : Windows Server 2008 32-bit editions, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Microsoft Windows XP editions are not supported for installing and running Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router or E-mail Router Configuration Manager.

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.

Dynamics CRM 2011 R8 Service Update News

Today Microsoft announced what’s going to be in their next service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, codenamed “R8″, under the headline: CRM Anywhere.

The R8 service update is expected to be available Q2 2012 and promotes 6 areas of interest:

• Mobility
• Multi Browser Support
• Social Improvements
• Industry Templates
• SQL Server 2012
• Certifications

Mobility

The launch of a new product titled Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile, which will enable CRM Online, partner-hosted and on-premise customers with IFD to use CRM on up to three devices per user. There will be native clients, which means offline support, on all the main mobile platforms including.

• Windows Phone 7.5
• iPhone & iPad
• Android
• BlackBerry

This is a subscription service  for $30 per user per month.

Multi Browser Support

This feature has finaly arrived. R8 applied to your CRM server will priovide access to CRM using the following browsers

• Internet Explorer 7 or above on Windows 7, Vista and XP
• Safari 5.1.1 or above on Mac OS-X or iOS5
• Firefox 6 or above on Windows 7, Vista and XP or Mac OS-X or iOS5
• Chrome 13 or above on Windows 7, Vista and XP.

Social Improvements

Microsoft released the new Activity Feeds feature in November 2011 which provided Social features into CRM 2011. R8 introduces a series of enhancements to the Activity Feeds feature including.

• like/dislike
• enhanced filtering (e.g. @me, types of records I follow, record views)
• an updated mobile activity feeds client for Windows Phone 7.5.

Industry Templates

Building on the work of Microsoft partners and its own consulting team, the Dynamics Labs will be releasing several industry templates into the Dynamics Marketplace. The first few templates will include.

• Wealth Management
• Non-Profit
• Health

The templates will include data model customizations, dashboards, workflows and sample data. They’re designed to help customers in these specific  industries visualise how Dynamics CRM can help their business, and speed up an implementation without necessarily being a fully-packaged vertical industry product.

SQL Server 2012

Microsoft’s have already been upgraded their data centers to SQL Server 2012 and the R8 service update will bring official support for partners and customers wanting to upgrade their own deployments to SQL Server 2012. Additionally, there will be some new CRM features that make use of SQL Server 2012 new capabilities including

• Performance improvements
• Enhanced database recovery
• Next generation BI (“Crescent”) such as pre-defined Power Pivot models, Power View reports, and time-animated reports.

Certifications

Certifications are critical to enterprise adoption and Microsoft has been working hard over the last year to ensure that its data centers and CRM Online service meets several important certification standards including.

• ISO 27001
• SAS 70 Type II
• SOX
• SSAE 16 SOC1
• Safe Harbor
• Data Processing Agreement
• EU Model Clauses
• HIPAA compliance (supported through Business Partner Agreements).

For More Information Download the R8 Release Preview Guide from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM website:http://crmpublish.blob.core.windows.net/docs/ReleasePreviewGuide.pdf