Microsoft CRM Integration with Great Plains – overview for consultant

By Andrew Karasev

Alba Spectrum Technologies

USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, São Paulo  help@albaspectrum.com

Initially this integration was created for Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 (now Microsoft Dynamics GP), later on Microsoft released service the patch, which enables integration between GP 8.0 and MS CRM 1.2 (now Microsoft Dynamics CRM).  Integration is created on the BizTalk platform and requires dedicated computer: Windows2003 server with MS SQL instance.  You access settings forms via web interface.  We will briefly review integration capability and give you some technical insights, based on our experience.

• Customers/Accounts.  When you create account in MS CRM – integration automatically creates account in Great Plains Dynamics GP.  It is a bit challenging to make all the features and settings work, especially if you plan to use default class, address, etc.  At the same time it works as it should if you provide parameters, such as credit amount value in MS CRM – then this number goes seamlessly into GP.  Somewhat non-elegant – it is difficult to design automatic increasing numbering for Great Plains customer record.  Out of the box – integration generates CUSTNMBR from Account name in CRM – this means that you should take off CUSTNMBR from all the printed forms in Great Plains.
• SOP Sales Order.  When you release sales order in CRM – it goes to Great Plains.  The most common question is – why Order doesn’t integrate if Customer doesn’t have credit limit setup in Great Plains.  You should find procedural way to deal with this problem.
• Historical customers.  This is another common problem.  When you launch/implement MS CRM – you import your existing customers from Great Plains into CRM.  Then you typically want to move sales quote and order generation process to MS CRM, where you have nice mailmerge mechanism to print quote for customer in the form of Microsoft Word contract or quote template.  When you import customers via MS CRM import tool – they will be automatically duplicated by MS CRM GP Integration.  You need to delete new customer records in Great Plains and then update Integration records in MS GP CRM Integration database.  We provide script below (please use this script only if you first analyzed it and if you are very comfortable with SQL scripting for MS GP and MS CRM, GREATPLAINSSERVER is linked server – you create it from GPCRM integration server side):

update IntegrationEntityInstance set EntityKey=b.CUSTNMBR from

IntegrationEntityInstance a

join [GREATPLAINSSERVER].[GPCOMPANYDB].dbo.RM00101 b on left(a.EntityKey,8)=left(replace(CUSTNAME,' ',''),8)

where EntityType='Customer'

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

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