The power of Microsoft® Business Solutions Customer Relationship Management (Microsoft CRM) to manage key aspects of your business is extended by the ability to customize it. Customization can occur on two levels: deployment-wide customization that affects all users of the system, and individual, user customization. Deployment-wide customization is typically performed by a system administrator or other person who has system privileges to make changes for the entire organization. This section discusses primarily deployment-wide customization. For personalized settings on the user interface, see Microsoft CRM Help.
The tools defined on this page are provided with Microsoft CRM for you to use to customize many parts of your Microsoft CRM system.
On This Page
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Microsoft CRM Settings Page
Deployment Manager
Customization Transport Manager
Workflow Manager
Workflow Monitor
Crystal Configuration Manager
Microsoft CRM Settings Page
To view the Settings page, click the Settings tab on the Microsoft CRM Home page. The following page will appear.
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Each of the options displayed allows you to customize a variety of items associated with that option.
Deployment Manager
Microsoft CRM Deployment Manager is a tool that system administrators and value-added resellers can use to customize Microsoft CRM.
Deployment Manager is a set of system administrator tools for configuring and customizing the Microsoft CRM application and servers. These tools are located in the console tree:
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Customization Transport Manager provides you with the ability to import, export, and publish customization data. For more information, see the following "Customization Transport Manager" topic.
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Schema Manager provides you with data customization functionality. Using Schema Manager, you can edit schema fields, and edit and create entity mappings.
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Server Manager provides you with server maintenance capabilities, including viewing a list of servers, taking servers online and offline, switching Microsoft SQL Server™ database servers, and restoring databases.
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License Manager provides you with license management capabilities, so you can view your Microsoft CRM licenses, and add and delete them as necessary.
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User Manager provides you with the ability to add new users to a deployment.
Start Deployment Manager
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Make sure your Microsoft CRM server is started, including the Microsoft SQL Server and the Microsoft CRM databases.
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Log on to the Microsoft CRM server computer as a user with Administrative privileges.
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On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft CRM, and then click Deployment Manager.
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If necessary, expand Deployment Manager in the console tree.
For complete information about Deployment Manager, see the Microsoft CRM Deployment Manager documentation located on the Microsoft CRM Documentation CD.
Customization Transport Manager
The Customization Transport Manager consists of three separate tools that you can use to import, export, and publish Microsoft CRM customizations. Customizations can include changes to views (list, advanced, associated), previews, forms, templates (Knowledge Base, e-mail, contract), schema, or mappings. Some Microsoft CRM entities, such as roles and subjects, cannot be transported.
To access the tools in Deployment Manager, select the Deployment Manager node and on the Action menu, point to All Tasks and click one of the following commands:
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Publish Customization. This command is used for one of two reasons: to make customizations available on servers within a deployment or to prepare customization data for export to another deployment. You must publish your customizations to make them visible from the Microsoft CRM Web application.
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Export Customization. This command creates a single XML file for export to another Microsoft CRM deployment. The file contains the last published version of the customization data; therefore, it is wise to publish your customizations just prior to exporting.
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Import Customization. This command prompts you to open and then publish a previously exported customization file.
Workflow Manager
The Workflow Manager tool is available to system administrators for Microsoft CRM deployments with at least one Professional license. Workflow Manager enables system administrators to automate and customize workflow and sales processes. System administrators for deployments with no Professional licenses need to customize forms to include Microsoft JScript® event handlers. For help creating manual workflow rules and sales processes, see "Automating data entry with scripts" in Microsoft CRM Help.
System administrators for deployments with at least one Professional license have the option of using either the manual script method or the Workflow Manager tool. However, you should use one or the other exclusively within the deployment. Therefore, it is important that you consider this when planning your deployment and decide which to use accordingly.
Workflow Manager is used to create, modify, and activate:
Microsoft CRM Setup installs Workflow Manager on the Microsoft CRM server. The Workflow Manager tool is located in the following folder:
<installation root>\Tools\Microsoft.Crm.WorkflowEditor.exe
Start Workflow Manager
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On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft CRM, and click Workflow Manager.
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In the Workflow Manager Logon dialog box, enter the name of the Microsoft CRM server in the Target Microsoft CRM server box, and then click OK.
For complete information about Workflow Manager, see Microsoft CRM Workflow Manager Help. The same information is available on the Microsoft CRM Documentation CD.
Workflow Monitor
You use the Workflow Monitor tool to view logs for and to manage:
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Workflow rules
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Sales process rules
Throughout Workflow Monitor Help, "workflow process" is used to refer to both workflow rules and sales process rules.
Microsoft CRM Setup installs Workflow Monitor on the Microsoft CRM server. The Workflow Monitor tool is located in the following folder:
<installation root>\Tools\Microsoft.Crm.WorkflowMonitor.exe
Start Workflow Monitor
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On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft CRM, and click Workflow Monitor.
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In the Workflow Monitor Logon dialog box, enter the name of the Microsoft CRM server in the Target Microsoft CRM server box, and then click OK.
For complete information about Workflow Monitor, see Microsoft CRM Workflow Monitor Help. The same information is available on the Microsoft CRM Documentation CD.
The Workflow Monitor tool is installed on every Microsoft CRM server in a deployment. For multiple Microsoft CRM server deployments, Workflow Monitor can monitor processes on a different server than the one on which the tool resides.
Crystal Configuration Manager
The Crystal Configuration Manager (CCM) is a management tool that allows you to configure each of your Crystal Enterprise server components. You use this tool to start, stop, enable, and disable servers. You can also use it to view and to configure advanced server settings such as default port numbers, APS database and clustering details, and SOCKS server connections.
Use the CCM to manage Crystal Enterprise server components that are running either on the local computer or on a remote Windows server computer. To use the CCM, you must log on to the computer as a user with administrator rights on the local computer, and if you are managing servers on a remote computer, you must also have administrator rights on that computer. Depending on the configuration of your network, you may be prompted to enter a user name and password when administering a remote computer.
Start the CCM
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On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Crystal Enterprise, and click Crystal Configuration Manager.
For information about Microsoft CRM reports and the Crystal Configuration Manager, see Chapter 17, "Reporting."