Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 New Features

By : Jim Wang, Darren Liu
Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 New Features

By: Jim Wang, Darren Liu

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offers exciting new features that enable you to build and maintain a robust customer relationship management system in your organisation.This book is your one stop resource to get to grips with all the new features of Dynamics CRM 2011. To make learning fun and engaging, we will build an Airline Compensation Management (ACM) system using Dynamics CRM 2011.The book starts by setting up the development environment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. We will then build a structural architecture for the ACM system and configure it in Dynamics CRM 2011. While doing this, we will learn about the new customization features offered by Dynamics CRM 2011.We will then move on to Data Importing and will cover the Import Data Wizard tool, as well as the Import file/data web service which provides additional capabilities that are not available in the Import Data Wizard.We will use client-side programming to perform data validation, automation, and process enhancement and learn powerful event driven server-side programming methods: Plug-Ins and Processes (Formerly Workflows).The book then steers you towards SharePoint integration, Charts and Dashboards, Customizing the Ribbon and Sitemap, and extending Dynamics CRM 2011 in the cloud. Finally we will package the ACM solution and learn how to deploy it.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 New Features
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Workflow


Workflows are automated business processes that consist of Steps and Actions. A Workflow is an asynchronous processes; it doesn't require user input data. A Workflow can be triggered by an event (automated Workflow) or by a user (manual Workflow).

Note

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 On-premises also supports custom Workflow Activities (like CRM 4.0) and custom XAML Workflows. An XAML Workflow can be visually designed and created in Visual Studio Workflow Designer, without coding.

Workflow versus Plug-ins

There are some major differences between Workflows and Plug-ins:

  • Workflows run asynchronously in the background. Plug-ins can run both asynchronously and synchronously.

  • Workflows can be triggered manually (security context of the user who trigged it), or automatically (security context of the workflow owner) by selected events. Plug-ins can only be trigged by the message (security context of the CRM Web application pool identity) for which they're registered.

  • Workflows provide the flexibility...