Microsoft CRM Integration with Navision – overview for programmer
 by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is very good budget alternative to Siebel and actually be-loved by Microsoft-oriented IT department system. Considering the fact that in many cases Microsoft CRM should somehow fit into and cooperate with existing legacy business applications, integration question maybe the first to place. It is probably good to mention that Microsoft Navision has its own CRM module (and Navision will probably have MS CRM Navision integration tool for MS CRM 2.0 – at this moment we do not know when). We would like to give you, software developer highlight on how you allow Navision data lookup from Microsoft CRM screens: Account (which is customer), contact, lead.

We suppose that Navision is installed with native C/SIDE database, because in the case of MS SQL Server this topic doesn’t make sense

Microsoft CRM web interface is built on .Net architecture and Microsoft CRM SDK is married with .Net. We suggest you to use Microsoft tools to connect to Navision database via ODBC.

    * Native C/SIDE Database. If Navision sits in C/SIDE database, then create ODBC linked server to Navision via C/ODBC

    * Configure web.config to enable Microsoft CRM customization

    * Configure isv.config to place the button or navigation bar on one of your MS CRM customizable forms: Lead, Account, Contact, etc.

    * Use MS CRM SDK sample code to come into Microsoft CRM Security realm

    * Create separate Database on the same SQL server where Microsoft CRM is hosted and place heterogeneous stored procedures or views – which will be pulling data from Navision C/SIDE linked server

    * Program ADO.Net calls and returned dataset processing in Visual Sudio.Net (preferably C#.Net, because Microsoft CRM SDK is C# oriented)

    * We probably should mention that isv.config buttons allow you to transfer GUID of the Contact, Lead or Account to your integrated web application

    * Crystal Reports caution – MS CRM has built-in Crystal Reports Enterprise, licensed for MS CRM data access only. So, if you like to integrate web Crystal report into your application – you should resolve licensing issue and check with Microsoft on purchasing full version of Crystal Enterprise. The other way is to separate your Crystal web application and MS CRM by placing them on separate hardware

    * Additional tip – in your stored procedure use this directive: DBCC TRACEON(8765), which allows working with the data results of variable length returned by C/ODBC driver

Good luck with integration! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Denver, UK, Australia, Canada, Europe and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: [email protected]