RTM’d today: Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

We’re super happy to announce that Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, by Mike Snyder, Jim Steger, and Kristie Reid, has shipped to the printer.

Configure, adapt, and extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011—guided by three of the leading implementation specialists in the field. Whether you’re an IT professional, a developer, or a power user, you’ll get pragmatic, hands-on insights for customizing CRM in your organization—with or without programming.

You can pre-order the book from here. We’ll let you know when it’s available, and we’ll publish a longer excerpt from the book then.

Here is a list of the contents and a sample from the book’s Introduction.

Contents at a Glance

Part I Overview and Configuration
1 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Setup and Common Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3 Managing Security and Information Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4 Data and Document Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Part II Solutions
5 Solutions Overview and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6 Entity: Fields and Option Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
7 Entity Customization: Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
8 Entity Customization: Views and Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
9 Entity Customization: Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
10 Entity Customization: Custom Entities and Activities . . . . . . . . 343
11 Solutions: Web Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
12 Solutions: Client Extensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
13 Reports and Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Part III Processes
14 Workflow Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
15 Dialog Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Introduction

We love Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, and we hope that by the time you finish reading this
book, you will love Microsoft Dynamics CRM, too. We understand that you might be skeptical
about the possibility of falling for a piece of software, but we want you to know right up
front that our goal is to show you all of the wonderful and amazing benefits the Microsoft
Dynamics CRM application can provide for your business.

Who Should Read This Book

We wrote this book for the people responsible for implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM
at their organization. If you’re the person responsible for setting up or confi guring Microsoft
Dynamics CRM software on behalf of other users at your company, this book is for you. You
might be an information technology professional or simply a Power User from the sales or
marketing departments. You should be comfortable with technical concepts and understand
the role of various Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft
Active Directory, and Microsoft SQL Server. You don’t need to be a coding expert to benefi t
from this book, but we hope that you can edit an XML fi le and that you understand how
relational databases work.

This book can also help prospective customers with their software selection process as they
evaluate the customization options that Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers. If you want to learn
more about the software’s capabilities before you make a purchase decision, we hope that
this book provides some of the technical details you’re looking for.

Who is this book not for? It’s not for end users interested in learning how they will use
Microsoft Dynamics CRM on a day-to-day basis because their company just went live with
the software. If you don’t have System Administrator rights, you won’t be able to perform
most of the steps in this book, so it probably won’t provide much benefi t for you. If you’re
not sure whether you have System Administrator rights, then this book probably isn’t for you
either. If you’re interested in end-user topics, consider purchasing Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2011 Step By Step from Microsoft Press.

This book also does not tell you how to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM software
and troubleshoot any installation-related issues. We don’t cover upgrading an existing
Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. The Microsoft
Dynamics CRM Implementation Guide gives excellent and detailed advice on the installation
and upgrade processes, so we don’t need to repeat that information here.

Organization of This Book

We divided Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 into 2 parts and 15 chapters.
The two parts break down as follows:

■ Part 1, Overview and Setup Provides a quick overview of the various components
of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and explains how to configure some of the more
frequently used areas of the software.
■ Part 2, Solutions Goes deeply into how you can modify Microsoft Dynamics CRM to
match the way your business works. Topics include adding new data fields, revising the
user interface, creating reports and dashboards, and automating business processes by
using workflow.

In resources such as the Implementation Guide, the software development kit (SDK), the
User Interface Style Guide, and the online Help, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 includes
more than 1,500 pages of product documentation on how to use the software. This book is
only 624 pages, so obviously it can’t possibly cover every nook and cranny of how Microsoft
Dynamics CRM works. Rather, our goal is to focus on the key areas most companies will
need to set up, customize, and extend the software while providing plenty of examples
and real-world advice. This book assumes that you can install the software and that you
have a decent understanding of how to navigate the user interface. Consequently, if you
want to learn more about using the software (as opposed to customizing the software), we
recommend that you take advantage of the many Microsoft training options available for
Microsoft Dynamics CRM, such as eCourses, classroom training, and the Foundation Library.
Because of this book’s space constraints, we decided not to repeat any information or
samples already covered in the product documentation. Therefore, we frequently refer you
to the SDK and the Implementation Guide.

One last thought regarding the organization of this book: We tried to eliminate any
“ marketing fluff” so that we could cram as much information as possible in this book. To that
end, you will not read the reasons why customer relationship management (CRM) projects
fail or read a discussion about the future of CRM software. We’re straightforward and direct
people, so we appreciate it when books present information in the same manner. We hope
that you like this style, too.

System Requirements

We recommend that you refer to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Implementation Guide for
detailed system requirements. From a high level, you’ll need the following hardware and
software to run the code samples in this book:
Client
■ Microsoft Windows 7 (both 64-bit and 32-bit versions), Windows Vista (both 64-bit
and 32-bit versions), or Windows XP Professional SP3 operating system
■ Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or a later version
■ Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Office 2007 with SP2, or Microsoft Office 2003 with
SP3 ( if you want to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook)
Server
■ Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64-based computers Microsoft SQL Server 2008
■ Computer/processor: Quad-core x64 architecture 2 GHz CPU or higher such as AMD
Opteron or Intel Xeon systems
■ Memory: 8 gigabytes (GB) or more of RAM recommended
■ Hard disk: 40 megabytes (MB) free space
■ Network card: 10/100