Document Management in Dynamics CRM 2011

Roshan Mehta, 04 April 2011

There has been a lot of frustration around maintaining a link between records in Dynamics CRM 4.0 and documents relating to those records. Many users have tried settling with out-of-the-box functionality in CRM 4.0 (such as uploading documents to Notes) which doesn’t always work, while others have gone for highly customized solutions to integrate their CRM 4.0 implementation with sites they have setup on SharePoint.  Today I am going to give you an overview of the new Document Management feature available in Dynamics CRM 2011.

Traditional Approaches

• Uploading documents to CRM notes. Problem – difficult to update the document. You need to download it, make changes, and re-upload the document. No versioning support.
• Custom fields to point to SharePoint document locations. It works, but everything is handled inside SharePoint.
• iFrames hosted within CRM forms displaying SharePoint document repositories – Getting closer, but everything is still handled inside SharePoint.
• Custom portals to communicate with CRM and SharePoint – Now we’re not working inside SharePoint, nor are we working inside CRM.

What is Document Management?

The Document Management feature of Dynamics CRM 2011 allows out-of-the-box integration between CRM 2011 and SharePoint 2007, 2010, or SharePoint Online. It allows you to create records in CRM and maintain a link between the record and its related documents stored inside SharePoint. Integration with SharePoint 2010 offers the best user experience, as SharePoint documents are displayed within a familiar CRM user interface. SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint Online are also supported, but are displayed inside an iFrame hosted within CRM.

The SharePoint List Component

The SharePoint List Component is an add-on which you install and activate in SharePoint 2010 to obtain a rich integration with CRM 2011. The component is responsible for displaying SharePoint documents inside a familiar CRM grid control, as well as providing SharePoint functionality in a CRM grid toolbar. The List Component also controls automatic folder creation inside SharePoint to allow a tidier and more organised folder hierarchy.

Supported Versions of CRM 2011 and SharePoint

Document Management is supported in the on-premise and online versions of Dynamics CRM 2011, as well as the Outlook clients for CRM 2011. Note that Document Management does not work inside the Outlook client when you are working offline. Document Management is configurable with SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, and SharePoint Online. However, there is currently no List Component available for SharePoint 2007 or SharePoint Online, so Document Management will be displayed inside an iFrame in CRM.

So what are the Benefits?

• Access, edit, and create SharePoint documents from a single environment within CRM.
• No more fiddling with separate applications.
• Very simple to setup in 5-10mins.
• No need to setup permissions to SharePoint sites or documents inside CRM. All security is handled through SharePoint.
• Link records in CRM of any entity (including custom entities) to documents stored in SharePoint.
• Check-in/check-out documents to prevent other people from working on a document while you are.
• Versioning history to track the lifecycle of a document.
• Create and manage SharePoint locations within CRM.
• Point multiple CRM instances to a single SharePoint location.

Stay tuned for my next post where I will show you how easy it is to setup Document Management in Dynamics CRM 2011.