3 Advantages of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration with SharePoint

One outstanding feature of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is the ability to easily integrate with SharePoint with an option to view and manage all the documents that are stored for easy reference. This list of documents includes the version number, the date and person who last modified it. Users can edit the document if they need to or can simply read it on the system. Document management and collaboration within a team is now simplified.

SharePoint Overview:
SharePoint is one of the most widely used tool/application that enables the entire team to edit and maintain multiple documents. By giving adequate access rights to the users of the document, management becomes efficient and boosts team collaboration.

Business Advantages of CRM integration with SharePoint:

There are 3 key advantages of managing documents through CRM integration with SharePoint -

1. Direct collaboration: Since documents are continuously referred in many processes during Sales and Marketing, an effective Document Management System is almost a necessity. The benefit of CRM integration with SharePoint is that the user can now maintain important sales or marketing documents and share them with the team. This now allows users to collaborate on documents in a user-friendly way. Business Process issues like version controlling, simultaneous editing, checking in/out are powerfully implemented by default in SharePoint. Users can create a new SharePoint location (folder) to store their documents or use an existing SharePoint location where the documents are already stored. Not only this, but documents can also be easily retrieved and shared with the rest of the team.
2. Quick linking: Documents can also be linked to other entities within the CRM, such as an Opportunity, a Case, or a Marketing Campaign. Overall, Dynamics CRM’s integration with SharePoint allows you to edit and maintain documents from within Dynamics CRM, depending on the user’s access rights.
3. Better security and version control: Users can check in and check out documents, view version history, and change document properties very easily through the CRM instead of having to go into a separate system to do this.

In addition, non-Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can also access the documents as they are stored on a server that is running on SharePoint (if given adequate rights). This flexibility promotes better collaboration and teamwork in the organization where all the collaborators may not have access to CRM.

Integration with SharePoint 2010 is an in-built feature for Dynamics CRM 2011, enabling the user to search and work on documents when required. The good news is that custom code is not needed.

Limitations:
The only limitation of Dynamics CRM integration with SharePoint is the location of the document at an enterprise level. The user would have to explicitly specify the exact URL of the SharePoint site that has the related documents as this cannot be generated automatically.

Nothing’s perfect, but the combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint does come close to being so.

Article author - J. Shalem

Comments by readers will be forwarded to the author. Response to comments will be posted subject to the editorial guidelines & policies of Rishabh Software.

Learn how Microsoft App Development and more significantly Dynamics CRM Integration with SharePoint can help your Business by increasing your sales and marketing teams efficiency. Contact us now or call us on 1-877-RISHABH (1-877-747-4224).

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