Microsoft® Dynamics CRM 2011 Administration Bible

Chapter 16. Tailoring CRM to Your Organization

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Customization and configuration concepts

• Working with publishers and solutions

• Managed and unmanaged solutions

Dynamics CRM 2011 was built from the ground up to be customized. In fact, if your organization is using only the functionality available directly out of the box, then you are tapping into only a small fraction of the power available to you. Moreover, much of the customization available in Dynamics CRM can be accessed without writing any code — bringing customization within reach of nondevelopers. This chapter provides an overview of the concept of developing applications without coding (also referred to as "model driven development") by customizing Dynamics CRM.

With the release of Dynamics CRM 2011, Microsoft has introduced the solution framework. Solutions serve as "containers" that contain multiple customized components in an easy-to-manage package. Solutions provide a way to more easily manage the process of deploying customizations within your organization or from third-party organizations. For individuals who will be making customizations to Dynamics CRM, it is important to understand the solution framework explained in this chapter in order to ensure that your customizations are easy to manage and take advantage of best practices in working within the solution framework.

The purpose of this chapter is to cover customization concepts and how to work with the solution framework. Subsequent chapters will focus ...