Microsoft® Dynamics CRM 2011 Administration Bible

Chapter 20. Understanding the Development Options

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding development terminology

• Envisioning custom solutions

• Selecting the best development tools for your project

• Setting up a development environment

Up until this point in the book, we have focused on customizing Dynamics CRM without coding. You have learned about the broad range of customization options that are available to you through the user interface. These options can be combined with "coding" options that range from simple to very sophisticated. This chapter introduces you to the development options without yet getting into writing code (which comes in later chapters). Later in the chapter we discuss the options for deploying a development environment — an important topic that is often overlooked.

Our goal in this chapter is to provide content to three audiences. First, for the system customizer who has no intention of writing code, our goal is to aid you in understanding the options so you can better partner with a developer when needed. Secondly, for administrators who want to do a bit of coding, we want to lay a foundation to prepare you to begin writing code yourself. Lastly, for the experienced developer, our objective is to familiarize you with the development options as well as some of the best practices for drawing the line between using the built-in tools and writing code.

A recurring theme you will hear in this chapter is the idea of "leveraging the framework." The idea is that most customization ...