Overview of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 | Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Customization & Configuration (MB2-866) Certification Guide

Architecture of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offers a rich set of marketing, sales, and service features for managing customers. It also offers a rich set of extensibility features for configuring and customizing the standard features, or creating custom features, to meet your requirements.

Multi-tier architecture

Previous generations of business software often had a two-tier, client-server architecture with most of the application logic contained in a rich client that had to be installed on the user's computer while the database was installed on a server.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a web-based application that uses a multi-tier client-server architecture. This architecture provides greater scalability, flexibility, and extensibility than a two-tier, client-server architecture. In the multi-tier architecture, the CRM application tier separates the presentation tier from the data tier. The computing resources in the application and data tiers can be increased or decreased depending upon the performance requirements and workload.

Presentation tier

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 provides user access through the CRM web client, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile Express. The presentation tier can be customized using:

The user interface customization features native to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 such as the ability to customize forms and views.
Client-side integration with on-premise or cloud-based systems.
Using web resources, such as JavaScript and Silverlight, enables rich user-interface customization, data validation, and other client-side features. For example, a Bing Maps integration where a customer address is passed to the Bing Maps service and a map displaying the customer's location is displayed in CRM.
Custom reports by using SQL Server Reporting Services.
Custom charts and dashboards by using the CRM's customization features.

Application tier

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM server runs the application tier (also known as the CRM platform tier) components.

The application tier can be customized by using:

Server-side integration by using the CRM Web services to integrate with on-premise or cloud-based systems.
For example, when an enquiry form is submitted from a website, a lead is created in the CRM system.
Workflows and dialogs can be configured, using the CRM's customization features. This enables you to automate business processes in the application tier. Processes are triggered by events when specified actions are performed or conditions are met.
For example, when a sales opportunity's stage is updated to Negotiating, the probability is updated to 90 percent and a notification e-mail is sent to the commercial manager.
Plugins and custom workflow activities can be developed as .NET assemblies in Visual Studio to provide event-based customization.
For example, when an account's address changes in CRM, the addresses of all the contacts associated with the account are updated. Custom .NET development is outside the scope of the MB2-866 exam.
Security can be customized by creating business units, security roles, field-security profiles, and teams.

Every application that interacts with CRM does so through the web services in the CRM application tier.

Data tier

Microsoft SQL Server provides the data tier components of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment.

The data tier can be customized by using the metadata changes such as creating custom entities, relationships, attributes, forms, views, and option sets. Metadata changes can be made by using the CRM's customization features, importing a solution, or programmatically using the web services. Direct interaction with the data tier—for example, using a SQL statement to create or update records in the CRM database—is not supported.

Filtered views provide an efficient method for securely retrieving the CRM records, using custom SQL-based queries and displaying the data to a user based on their Microsoft Dynamics CRM security roles.

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Customization & Configuration (MB2-866) Certification Guide

By : Neil Benson

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Customization & Configuration (MB2-866) Certification Guide

By: Neil Benson

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