Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook

By : Dipankar Bhattacharya
Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook

By: Dipankar Bhattacharya

Overview of this book

Without a comprehensive understanding of deployment scenarios and steps, it is really difficult to install and maintain Dynamics CRM 2011 within complex IT infrastructures. Done badly, it can cause serious future maintenance and optimization issues. Administration of CRM systems is equally complex and important; unless efficiently done, it can create fuss in the system and potentially bring down end user satisfaction. Configuration and customization of the system has to be done very carefully too so that it can meet the functional needs appropriately.“Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook" is a hands-on guide, providing clear, step-by-step instructions to deploy, maintain, optimize, and administer Dynamics CRM 2011 along with advanced configuration and customization processes, to give us a strong advantage in creating successful CRM applications.This book introduces Dynamics CRM 2011 by describing the important aspects of the system. It will take you through a number of clear and practical recipes from successful deployment, hassle-free maintenance, and effective administration to advanced level configuration and customization techniques.You will learn from a range of deployment and maintenance topics such as how to configure CRM to use claim-based authentication using AD FS, how to enable tracing in CRM servers, how to recover from server failures, and how to optimize server performance. This book will also discuss how to schedule Data Duplication detection jobs, enable auditing, export and import managed/unmanaged solutions, create 1:N, N:1, or N:N relationships between entities, configuring role based forms, adding a new button in the ribbon, SharePoint integration with CRM, and configuring a dialog or workflow.You will learn everything you need to know, from deployment, administration, and maintenance to configuration, integration, and customization for your Dynamics CRM 2011 application.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Configuring Microsoft Dynamics E-mail Router


After installing E-mail Router, it has to be configured. Certain configuration tasks are mandatory; whereas a few are optional. The configuration tasks can be listed as follows:

  • Task 1 (Mandatory): Setup profiles are (optionally) set up deployments using the E-mail Router configuration manager

  • Task 2 (Mandatory): Dynamics CRM users must have their incoming e-mail access type set to E-mail Router

  • Task 3 (Optional): We can set up the forward mailbox

  • Task 4 (Optional): As part of configuration, inbox rules can also be deployed

E-mail Router has several options, and before running the E-mail Router configuration manager, we need to be certain about the choices to be made here:

  • Incoming configuration: For incoming e-mail messages, E-mail Router supports the Exchange Server 2003/2007 or POP3 e-mail systems

  • Outgoing configuration: For outgoing e-mail messages, E-mail Router supports SMTP e-mail systems

  • Mailbox monitoring type:

    Two types of mailbox monitoring can be configured, they are as follows:

    • Forward mailbox: Forward mailbox, also known as sink mailbox, allows Dynamics CRM to monitor one central mailbox instead of monitoring the mailbox of each user who needs Microsoft Dynamics CRM e-mail capabilities. CRM Organizations, which has a large number of mailboxes to monitor, can opt for this alternative.

    • E-mail Router: If e-mail messages can be forwarded as attachments but the e-mail system does not allow rules, each user must be configured to use the E-mail Router setting.

    Note

    If Exchange Server is used, forward mailbox monitoring is recommended.

    To use a forward mailbox with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment that interfaces with a POP3-compliant e-mail system, the e-mail system must be able to forward e-mail messages as attachments.

How to do it…

We will take a look at all the previously mentioned tasks one by one:

Task 1 – Setting up profiles

Please follow the ensuing steps to configure the E-mail Router settings:

  1. To start E-mail Router Configuration Manager, click on Start | All Programs | Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 E-mail Router | E-mail Router Configuration Manager.

    The E-mail Router Configuration Manager application will be launched. It has three sections as follows:

    • Configuration Profiles: This section contain information about the e-mail server and the authentication methods the E-mail Router will use.

      At least one incoming e-mail profile and one outgoing e-mail profile have to be configured to enable E-mail Router to route e-mails to and from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Organization.

    • Deployments: For E-mail Router to use the incoming and outgoing configuration profiles we just created, it has to be linked with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Deployment.

      We have to select from the following options:

    • My company: Select this option if Microsoft Dynamics CRM is deployed on premises

    • An online service provider: Select this option if the deployment that E-mail Router will connect to is an online service provider deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online: Select this option to connect E-mail Router to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online organization

    • Users, Queues, and Forward Mailboxes: Once the configuration profile and deployment have been completed, we need to manage the users, queues, and forward mailboxes that will be used by E-mail Router.

  2. To create a configuration profile, click on New in the Configuration Profile tab.

  3. Provide a profile name and then select the intended values for Direction and E-mail Server Type. Finally, provide values for Location and Access Credentials as shown in the following screenshot.

    By repeating steps 2 and 3, multiple incoming and outgoing profiles can be created:

  4. To link a Dynamics CRM Deployment, click on New in the Deployment tab.

  5. For Deployment Type, select between My company, An online service provider, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

    In the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server box, please provide the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Discovery service followed by the organization name, which is case-sensitive.

    In the Access Credentials section, please specify the credentials that E-mail Router will use to log on to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server.

    Note

    Use a Local System account if the machine account can be used to connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server. In such a case, E-mail Router must be in the same domain as the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server and the E-mail Router machine account should be added to PrivUserGroup in Active Directory.

    Alternatively, the Other Specified account can be used to specify the credentials of a user of with the system administrator role to connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

    In the Incoming configuration profile field, select an incoming profile already created, and in the Outgoing configuration profile field, select an outgoing profile already created.

    Finally, click on OK to finish the deployment:

  6. The next step would be that of loading the users and mailboxes from CRM Deployment, and this can be done by clicking on the Load Data button as shown in the following screenshot:

Task 3 – Setting up the forward mailbox

  1. To set up forward mailboxes, once the data is loaded, click on the Forward Mailboxes tab. Click on New to create a new forward mailbox, or click on Modify to change an existing forward mailbox.

    In the Forward Mailbox dialog box, fill in the following boxes, and then click on OK:

    • Name: This field will bear the name of the forward mailbox.

    • E-mail Address: This field will bear the e-mail address for the forward mailbox.

    • Incoming Configuration Profile: This field will bear the name of the incoming configuration profile to associate with the forward mailbox. We can have multiple forward mailboxes that use different incoming configuration profiles.

    To delete e-mail messages in the forward mailbox after they have been processed by E-mail Router, select the Delete messages in forward mailbox after processing option.

  2. Finally, click on Publish.

  3. Then restart the Microsoft CRM E-mail Router service. To do this, click on Run, type services.msc, and then press Enter. Right-click on the Microsoft CRM E-mail Router service, and then click on Restart.

Task 2 – Configuring user e-mail settings

By default, incoming and outgoing e-mail access types in Dynamics CRM are set to Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. Unless this is changed, Outlook will be unable to send and receive e-mails.

To configure E-mail Router for incoming and outgoing e-mail access types, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to Dynamics CRM with system administrator access.

  2. Navigate to Settings | Administration | Users, select the user record, and open it.

  3. On the user record, modify the incoming and outgoing e-mail access types to E-mail Router.

Task 4 – Configuring rules using Rule Deployment Wizard

To deploy these Microsoft Dynamics CRM user inbox rules, the Rule Deployment Wizard can be used. Rule Deployment Wizard can be run at any time to add or change the inbox rules for Microsoft Dynamics CRM users.

Note

The Rule Deployment Wizard can only deploy rules to Exchange Server mailboxes. The Rule Deployment Wizard cannot be used to deploy rules to POP3 e-mail servers.

To run Rule Deployment Wizard, the user must:

  • Be logged on as a Microsoft Dynamics CRM user with a security role

  • Be a local administrator on the computer on which the wizard is running

  • Have Exchange administrative permissions

The following are the steps to run the Rule Deployment Wizard:

  1. Navigate to Start | All Programs | Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 E-mail Router and click on Rule Deployment Wizard.

  2. Click on Next to start the wizard.

  3. For Deployment, select a Microsoft Dynamics deployment type.

    Enter the URL of the CRM Organization for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server.

    For Access Credentials, provide the correct credentials of a system administrator of the Dynamics CRM Organization.

    Then click on Next to proceed:

  4. Type the e-mail address of the forward mailbox and click on Next to proceed.

  5. Select the Microsoft Dynamics CRM user(s) or queues to whom/which we want to deploy the rule. Then click on Next.

  6. Click on Deploy rule to user mailboxes, and then click on Next.

  7. After the rules have been deployed, click on Cancel to close the wizard.

How it works…

E-mail Router Configuration Manager configures the deployment and enables Dynamics CRM users and queues to send and receive e-mail messages. The E-mail Router configuration steps remain the same irrespective of whether E-mail Router is installed on a single machine or multiple-machine clusters. With this recipe, the E-mail Router installation activities come to a close.