Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting

By : Damian Hernan Sinay
Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting

By: Damian Hernan Sinay

Overview of this book

All of the data entered into a CRM means nothing if it is unable to report the important information to our managers and executives in such a way that they can easily and quickly get the results they need. A better reporting system would enable them to make the necessary improvements to the processes that any business needs in a dynamic business world.For users and developers wishing to take advantage of using the report capabilities of Dynamics CRM, this is the book for you. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting is a practical and excellent reference guide that provides you with a number of different options you can use to create and empower the Reporting capabilities of Dynamics CRM. This will give you a good grounding in using the reports in your Dynamics CRM 2011 implementations. This book looks at all the different options we can use to create reports in Dynamics CRM 2011, starting with SQL Reporting Services and custom reports, created in either CRM Report Wizard, SQL Report Builder, or Visual Studio. It will also show other options we can use such as dashboards, charts, and different ways to optimize and automate reports.We will also learn how to build our own reports either using the different wizards for basic reports or using Visual Studio for more complex reports. We will explore the options mobile CRM users have who want to run and see reports on these mobile devices.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

ERD basics


Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 uses SQL Server as its database backend. There are two main databases that are created after the CRM server is initially set up. The MSCRM_CONFIG database, which is the one that holds different organizations' data and general configurations. The other is a database for the organization itself, with a name like <organizationname>_MSCRM. Depending on the number of CRM organizations you have in the system, you will have the same number of databases ending with _MSCRM with similar database schemas. The only difference between the organizations' databases would be the specific customizations on the entities and fields.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 uses the concept of entities to name, which in a database language would be like a table. An entity is usually a noun such as a person or house. Dynamics CRM comes with lot of entities already created in the system, such as Account, Contact, and Invoice.

As in any table, the entities contain fields. Each field...