Group,

I've got some question about integration with Microsoft CRM.
We are planning to build the system and integrate it with CRM. We
will use CRM/Greal Plains integration as basis.
Here is the question:
Our entity schema in CRM will be significantly updated. We are
planning to add number of fields to account and product. My question
is: does CRM/Great Plains integration honors schema changes. Will it
send the new fields back and force? Will changes in new fields in CRM
trigger updates in our external system?

Thanks,
Sergey Zelvenskiy
Sr. Software Engineer
Encore Development
sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com

Re: Integration BizTalk and schema changes. by Daniel

Daniel
Wed Dec 03 13:28:53 CST 2003

Sergey,

We created an integration between Navision and CRM, and my piece of advice:
DO NOT START with the Great Plains method. It will lead you nowhere, and you
will use a LOT of valuable development time discovering it. The GP-CRM
integration is written specifically for Great Plains and MS-CRM, there is
NOTHING generic about it that you can possibly use for anything else.

Me and another developer at my company spent more than 3 weeks investigating
this route (both me and him spent like 60 hours a week on it, so that is
amost 400 hours of development time), without any success. If you go that
way after all, don't come complaining that I didn't warn you :).

What you need in a nutshell (I am assuming you know how to set up BTS):
1: a way to send records as XML documents to BTS. You could even just create
files in a network folder and have BTS poll this folder for new files.

2: a component (we created an ASP.NET aspx page to do this) that receives
XML documents from BTS and uses the CRM SDK to create/update data in CRM.

3: a post-callout component that creates XML files out of
new/updated/deleted records in CRM (to make this work, you need to follow
the instructions on the TK article to the letter, there's a number of
threads on this subject in this newsgroup). We had this component create XML
documents in a folder that is polled by BTS.

4: a component that receives XML documents from BTS that sends it on to your
other application. Navision already has a generic AIC for this, so we didn't
have to develop anything for this.

It's kind of a quick and dirty way of doing it (we can think of a number of
things we could do better), but it got us where we needed to be for our
customer. Of course you can make it a lot more sophisticated if you really
wish to create a generic integration solution, but this worked for us in the
short run, and it made the customer happy.

BUT, no matter what you do, if you add a field to CRM, you'd also have to
add that field to the other application, and yo'd also have to update the
BTS setup (document definitions, mappings, etc.) to include the new fields.

HTH,
Daniel.

"Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5a40e3ec.0312021309.2a9fd443@posting.google.com...
> Group,
>
> I've got some question about integration with Microsoft CRM.
> We are planning to build the system and integrate it with CRM. We
> will use CRM/Greal Plains integration as basis.
> Here is the question:
> Our entity schema in CRM will be significantly updated. We are
> planning to add number of fields to account and product. My question
> is: does CRM/Great Plains integration honors schema changes. Will it
> send the new fields back and force? Will changes in new fields in CRM
> trigger updates in our external system?
>
> Thanks,
> Sergey Zelvenskiy
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Encore Development
> sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
>



Re: Integration BizTalk and schema changes. by szelvenskiy

szelvenskiy
Thu Dec 04 09:58:43 CST 2003

Group,

Never mind, we just figured it out.
What has been accomplished:
1. We installed CRM/GP integration.
Now if the client get's created or updated in CRM, CRM callouts from
CRM/GP integration will throw the message to MSMQ. This works even if
custom fields been updated.
2. Then we configured BizTalk to pick up the message from MSMQ,
translate in to our application schema and reroute it to our AIC,
which will save it to database.
We've got one hint. CRM Integration piece need one user name which it
will use, this user name can not be used for other purposes, but must
login to CRM once before the integration was installed. So to make it
work you need at least two user licenses for CRM.

Thanks,
Sergey Zelvenskiy
Sr. Software Engineer
Encore Development
sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com



"Daniel Rimmelzwaan" <rimmelzwaan@xhotmail.com> wrote in message news:<O0JmzOduDHA.2304@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>...
> Sergey,
>
> We created an integration between Navision and CRM, and my piece of advice:
> DO NOT START with the Great Plains method. It will lead you nowhere, and you
> will use a LOT of valuable development time discovering it. The GP-CRM
> integration is written specifically for Great Plains and MS-CRM, there is
> NOTHING generic about it that you can possibly use for anything else.
>
> Me and another developer at my company spent more than 3 weeks investigating
> this route (both me and him spent like 60 hours a week on it, so that is
> amost 400 hours of development time), without any success. If you go that
> way after all, don't come complaining that I didn't warn you :).
>
> What you need in a nutshell (I am assuming you know how to set up BTS):
> 1: a way to send records as XML documents to BTS. You could even just create
> files in a network folder and have BTS poll this folder for new files.
>
> 2: a component (we created an ASP.NET aspx page to do this) that receives
> XML documents from BTS and uses the CRM SDK to create/update data in CRM.
>
> 3: a post-callout component that creates XML files out of
> new/updated/deleted records in CRM (to make this work, you need to follow
> the instructions on the TK article to the letter, there's a number of
> threads on this subject in this newsgroup). We had this component create XML
> documents in a folder that is polled by BTS.
>
> 4: a component that receives XML documents from BTS that sends it on to your
> other application. Navision already has a generic AIC for this, so we didn't
> have to develop anything for this.
>
> It's kind of a quick and dirty way of doing it (we can think of a number of
> things we could do better), but it got us where we needed to be for our
> customer. Of course you can make it a lot more sophisticated if you really
> wish to create a generic integration solution, but this worked for us in the
> short run, and it made the customer happy.
>
> BUT, no matter what you do, if you add a field to CRM, you'd also have to
> add that field to the other application, and yo'd also have to update the
> BTS setup (document definitions, mappings, etc.) to include the new fields.
>
> HTH,
> Daniel.
>
> "Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:5a40e3ec.0312021309.2a9fd443@posting.google.com...
> > Group,
> >
> > I've got some question about integration with Microsoft CRM.
> > We are planning to build the system and integrate it with CRM. We
> > will use CRM/Greal Plains integration as basis.
> > Here is the question:
> > Our entity schema in CRM will be significantly updated. We are
> > planning to add number of fields to account and product. My question
> > is: does CRM/Great Plains integration honors schema changes. Will it
> > send the new fields back and force? Will changes in new fields in CRM
> > trigger updates in our external system?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Sergey Zelvenskiy
> > Sr. Software Engineer
> > Encore Development
> > sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
> >

Re: Integration BizTalk and schema changes. by Daniel

Daniel
Thu Dec 04 11:45:03 CST 2003

How did you install the CRM/GP integration without installing GP first?
our's errored out becuase it couldn't find GP.

"Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5a40e3ec.0312040758.1839479f@posting.google.com...
> Group,
>
> Never mind, we just figured it out.
> What has been accomplished:
> 1. We installed CRM/GP integration.
> Now if the client get's created or updated in CRM, CRM callouts from
> CRM/GP integration will throw the message to MSMQ. This works even if
> custom fields been updated.
> 2. Then we configured BizTalk to pick up the message from MSMQ,
> translate in to our application schema and reroute it to our AIC,
> which will save it to database.
> We've got one hint. CRM Integration piece need one user name which it
> will use, this user name can not be used for other purposes, but must
> login to CRM once before the integration was installed. So to make it
> work you need at least two user licenses for CRM.
>
> Thanks,
> Sergey Zelvenskiy
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Encore Development
> sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
>
>
>
> "Daniel Rimmelzwaan" <rimmelzwaan@xhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<O0JmzOduDHA.2304@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>...
> > Sergey,
> >
> > We created an integration between Navision and CRM, and my piece of
advice:
> > DO NOT START with the Great Plains method. It will lead you nowhere, and
you
> > will use a LOT of valuable development time discovering it. The GP-CRM
> > integration is written specifically for Great Plains and MS-CRM, there
is
> > NOTHING generic about it that you can possibly use for anything else.
> >
> > Me and another developer at my company spent more than 3 weeks
investigating
> > this route (both me and him spent like 60 hours a week on it, so that is
> > amost 400 hours of development time), without any success. If you go
that
> > way after all, don't come complaining that I didn't warn you :).
> >
> > What you need in a nutshell (I am assuming you know how to set up BTS):
> > 1: a way to send records as XML documents to BTS. You could even just
create
> > files in a network folder and have BTS poll this folder for new files.
> >
> > 2: a component (we created an ASP.NET aspx page to do this) that
receives
> > XML documents from BTS and uses the CRM SDK to create/update data in
CRM.
> >
> > 3: a post-callout component that creates XML files out of
> > new/updated/deleted records in CRM (to make this work, you need to
follow
> > the instructions on the TK article to the letter, there's a number of
> > threads on this subject in this newsgroup). We had this component create
XML
> > documents in a folder that is polled by BTS.
> >
> > 4: a component that receives XML documents from BTS that sends it on to
your
> > other application. Navision already has a generic AIC for this, so we
didn't
> > have to develop anything for this.
> >
> > It's kind of a quick and dirty way of doing it (we can think of a number
of
> > things we could do better), but it got us where we needed to be for our
> > customer. Of course you can make it a lot more sophisticated if you
really
> > wish to create a generic integration solution, but this worked for us in
the
> > short run, and it made the customer happy.
> >
> > BUT, no matter what you do, if you add a field to CRM, you'd also have
to
> > add that field to the other application, and yo'd also have to update
the
> > BTS setup (document definitions, mappings, etc.) to include the new
fields.
> >
> > HTH,
> > Daniel.
> >
> > "Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:5a40e3ec.0312021309.2a9fd443@posting.google.com...
> > > Group,
> > >
> > > I've got some question about integration with Microsoft CRM.
> > > We are planning to build the system and integrate it with CRM. We
> > > will use CRM/Greal Plains integration as basis.
> > > Here is the question:
> > > Our entity schema in CRM will be significantly updated. We are
> > > planning to add number of fields to account and product. My question
> > > is: does CRM/Great Plains integration honors schema changes. Will it
> > > send the new fields back and force? Will changes in new fields in CRM
> > > trigger updates in our external system?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Sergey Zelvenskiy
> > > Sr. Software Engineer
> > > Encore Development
> > > sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
> > >



Re: Integration BizTalk and schema changes. by Daniel

Daniel
Thu Dec 04 11:52:54 CST 2003

Also, are you able to make that work for tables that are not included in the
CRM/GP integration, like Incidents?

I am impressed by your account, because we've tried really hard to make that
work, but after a long time we just gave up on it, there were just too many
components to recreate for tables that were not included in the CRM/GP
integration. In the end all we had to do was make the post callout work
ourselves and make an AIC-like component talk to CRM.

"Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5a40e3ec.0312040758.1839479f@posting.google.com...
> Group,
>
> Never mind, we just figured it out.
> What has been accomplished:
> 1. We installed CRM/GP integration.
> Now if the client get's created or updated in CRM, CRM callouts from
> CRM/GP integration will throw the message to MSMQ. This works even if
> custom fields been updated.
> 2. Then we configured BizTalk to pick up the message from MSMQ,
> translate in to our application schema and reroute it to our AIC,
> which will save it to database.
> We've got one hint. CRM Integration piece need one user name which it
> will use, this user name can not be used for other purposes, but must
> login to CRM once before the integration was installed. So to make it
> work you need at least two user licenses for CRM.
>
> Thanks,
> Sergey Zelvenskiy
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Encore Development
> sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
>
>
>
> "Daniel Rimmelzwaan" <rimmelzwaan@xhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<O0JmzOduDHA.2304@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>...
> > Sergey,
> >
> > We created an integration between Navision and CRM, and my piece of
advice:
> > DO NOT START with the Great Plains method. It will lead you nowhere, and
you
> > will use a LOT of valuable development time discovering it. The GP-CRM
> > integration is written specifically for Great Plains and MS-CRM, there
is
> > NOTHING generic about it that you can possibly use for anything else.
> >
> > Me and another developer at my company spent more than 3 weeks
investigating
> > this route (both me and him spent like 60 hours a week on it, so that is
> > amost 400 hours of development time), without any success. If you go
that
> > way after all, don't come complaining that I didn't warn you :).
> >
> > What you need in a nutshell (I am assuming you know how to set up BTS):
> > 1: a way to send records as XML documents to BTS. You could even just
create
> > files in a network folder and have BTS poll this folder for new files.
> >
> > 2: a component (we created an ASP.NET aspx page to do this) that
receives
> > XML documents from BTS and uses the CRM SDK to create/update data in
CRM.
> >
> > 3: a post-callout component that creates XML files out of
> > new/updated/deleted records in CRM (to make this work, you need to
follow
> > the instructions on the TK article to the letter, there's a number of
> > threads on this subject in this newsgroup). We had this component create
XML
> > documents in a folder that is polled by BTS.
> >
> > 4: a component that receives XML documents from BTS that sends it on to
your
> > other application. Navision already has a generic AIC for this, so we
didn't
> > have to develop anything for this.
> >
> > It's kind of a quick and dirty way of doing it (we can think of a number
of
> > things we could do better), but it got us where we needed to be for our
> > customer. Of course you can make it a lot more sophisticated if you
really
> > wish to create a generic integration solution, but this worked for us in
the
> > short run, and it made the customer happy.
> >
> > BUT, no matter what you do, if you add a field to CRM, you'd also have
to
> > add that field to the other application, and yo'd also have to update
the
> > BTS setup (document definitions, mappings, etc.) to include the new
fields.
> >
> > HTH,
> > Daniel.
> >
> > "Sergey" <szelvenskiy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:5a40e3ec.0312021309.2a9fd443@posting.google.com...
> > > Group,
> > >
> > > I've got some question about integration with Microsoft CRM.
> > > We are planning to build the system and integrate it with CRM. We
> > > will use CRM/Greal Plains integration as basis.
> > > Here is the question:
> > > Our entity schema in CRM will be significantly updated. We are
> > > planning to add number of fields to account and product. My question
> > > is: does CRM/Great Plains integration honors schema changes. Will it
> > > send the new fields back and force? Will changes in new fields in CRM
> > > trigger updates in our external system?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Sergey Zelvenskiy
> > > Sr. Software Engineer
> > > Encore Development
> > > sergey.zelvenskiy@encoredev.com
> > >