Integrating Dynamics NAV 2016 with CRM Online

In this post I would like to explain the initial setup required and steps for integrating Dynamics NAV 2016 and CRM Online. This enables you to integrate and synchronize data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities such as accounts, contacts, and products, with equivalent record types in Microsoft Dynamics NAV such as customers, contacts, and items, respectively.

Dynamics NAV 2016 has a default integration setup which can be used to enable this integration. NAV 2016 includes new objects to support this integration.

Setup:

To start with the integration, we need access to NAV 2016 and CRM online. I will be using the NAV 2016 W1 version with Cronus Database and CRM online with demo data.

Step 1: This step is optional but, I would recommend this step as it adds more features to this integration ( and because this step is pretty simple :))

we need to import NAV solution into CRM online. Within CRM, click on  Settings–> Solutions

Next, in the window that opens, click on Import–> Browse. In the browse window, find the DynamicsNAVIntegrationSolution file. This is located in the NAV DVD–> CRMCustomization folder. After this import is done, you will be able to see the solution as shown below:

Step 2: In CRM, create a user for this integration. (I have created user: NavInt@navcrm001.onmicrosoft.com) Assign System administrator role for this user in CRM. You can access users in CRM under Settings–> Security–> Users and you can assign roles to the users by clicking on Manage Roles.

Step 3: Login to NAV 2016 with the user ID which we can use for this integration. In my case I login as FAREAST\test user and the authentication email of this user has to match the email address of the NAV integration user in CRM.

Step 4: In NAV windows client, open Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connection Setup page and fill in the details for Dynamics CRM URL, User Name and Password. Next click on Enabled to enable the connection between NAV and CRM.

Additionally, enter or enable the remaining values as shown below:

Click on Test Connection to test this connection. This completes the connection setup.

Tables Mapping:

Click on Integration Table Mappings to see the tables mapping available by default. Here the NAV tables are mapped to CRM entities.

In the Integration table mapping page, you can specify if you want to synchronize the data for all the modified records or only coupled records. You can do this using Sync Only Coupled Records field here. If the Sync Only Coupled Records  = TRUE then, records have to be coupled before synchronizing. If Sync Only Coupled Records  = FALSE, all the modified records will be automatically created and synched between these 2 products.

I my case Sync Only Coupled Records  is set to TRUE .

Coupling the CRM users with NAV Sales People:

It is important to map the NAV Salespeople with CRM Users first. Hence, all the sales people in NAV (at least the active ones) need to be users in CRM. They can also have Salesperson role assigned in CRM.

Hence, I have 2 salespeople in NAV who have sales documents in their name and for these 2 salespeople, I will create user logins for CRM and assign Salesperson role for both.

These salespeople records have to be coupled. The coupling of records can be done in NAV.

Open the Salespeople page in NAV and you should be able to see Dynamics CRM section under Navigate Tab (If you don’t see this, you can add it to the ribbon by customizing the page ribbon).

we need to couple the sales people with the users in CRM.

Select the line for John Roberts in NAV Salespeople page, click on Coupling –> Setup Coupling. A small window opens where you can choose the user from CRM to couple with the current salesperson in NAV.

Similarly, set up coupling for Peter Saddow as well. This completes coupling of salespeople.

Mapping and Synchronizing Customer data:

Next we’ll look at NAV Customers and  CRM Accounts mapping.

For example, Open a customer card for Customer No. 10000 (The Cannon Group PLC) in NAV 2016. You can click on Coupling –>Set up Coupling. If the same account already exists in CRM, you can couple it by selecting the Account dropdown. Otherwise, you can select Create new Account and click on OK which will create a new account in CRM using the details in NAV. Now, this customer record is coupled with an Account in CRM.

Select the coupled customer record and click on Account to open the CRM account:

This can be done vice versa as well. In CRM, you can find Dynamics NAV button as shown above to open the customer card in NAV. This opens the customer card in NAV web client.

With this, any changes made to this customer in NAV will also reflect in CRM when synchronized.

let’s update the Phone No. of customer Cannon Group in NAV and click on Synchronize Now. You need to choose the option Send Data Update to Dynamics CRM and click on OK. With this, you should be able to see the Phone No. updated in CRM account as well.

Similarly all the other NAV tables and entities can be coupled and synchronized.

Scheduling Synchronization of Data:

The synchronization between CRM entities and NAV tables can be scheduled using Job Queues. In NAV, open Microsoft Dynamics NAV Connection Setup page and click on Synch. Job Queue Entries. Here, you can schedule the synch. jobs to run periodically.

There is much more to this integration and you can find more details at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt574380(v=nav.90).aspx

Hope this was helpful! Feel free to leave your comments. Thanks :)