MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and configuration exam questions

I have been working on creating some questions for all the security section for the MB2-703 -CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration certification.

I have created some exam type questions to test your knowledge on the security section of the certification.

I have already created some questions for Solutions which you can find on the link below

Blog – Solution Test Questions

Video – Solution Test Questions

and here is the blog with the Security quick fire questions

 MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration quick fire questions

I have uploaded a power point file into slide share because this is a really easy and quick way to do the question. There are 13 questions and doing these should take you 5  minutes, more if you really concentrate.  So come on test your knowledge and see if you are ready to take the real exam

Here is the video where I go through the questions and explain the answers

 

 

 

Don’t forget all the MB2-703 studying information can be found here

https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/mb2-703-crm-2013-customization-and-configuration-certification/

CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – Access Teams and Access Team Templates how to use them and key facts

A new feature in CRM 2013 is Access Teams.  For those people studying for the MB2-703 – CRM 2013 customization and configuration exam, you will need to know the difference between access teams and Owner teams.

I personally have not understood the real benefit of Access teams and access team templates, I understood it was an quick way to share individual records but I wasn’t sure how this was different to the current sharing functionality.

First I will go through the Access Teams functionality and then we will focus on the differences

I will also mention Microsoft have a very good white paper on Access Teams which you can download by going to the link below

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=41190

Before I went through sharing and teams in the previous blog\video which you can see using the links below go through more tradition teams and sharing

Blog – CRM 2013 – MB2 703 – Manage user access, Teams and sharing

video – CRM 2013 – MB2 703 – Manage user access, Teams and sharing 

 

Access Teams And Access Team Template Demo can be seen in the video below

The standard owner team/user functionality allows you to share records and components (views, dashboards) to users or owner teams.

This functionality is very useful but the sharing process is not very visible and can be difficult to manage.  Sharing records is done by an individual user and the only way to see what records are shared and to whom is by going to the record/component and clicking the sharing button

access team1

 

Access Teams and Access team templates are a method to share permissions and records, which is easier to manage, quicker to add/remove users/teams because Access team templates will applying a standard set of privileges (read, write, delete, append, append to) rather than having to set this up for each individual user/team.

An overhead  of Owner Teams and sharing is they write records to the POA (Principal Object Access)  table and this may eventually can result in performance overhead.  It should be noted that sharing records with teams is a lot more efficient than sharing records with individual users because it only writes less records to the POA table (for the team) rather than each individual user.

 

 Enable the entity

Access Team templates are enabled on an entity basis and you have to enable Access Teams on the entity in the communications and collaboration as you can see below on the screen shot.

access team2

Once you have ticked the access teams check box, save and publish (I don’t think you have to publish but just to make sure).

 

Create your Access Team

Go to SETTINGS –> Administration –> Access Team Templates

Click the New button

You now have to create you team name, specify the entity the Access Team will work on and the access rights

access team3

 

Now the next step is not straight forward, when I say that I don’t mean it’s difficult but I do mean most people would never guess what to do next.

Add the Access Team sub grid to the form

You need to customize the form of the entity you want to add the Access Team Template to and in my case it’s the account form

You need to add a sub grid to the form

Records – All Types

Entity – Users

Default View – Associated Record Team Members

Team Template – Hosk Account Access Team – this is the team template I created in the step before, yours is probably called something different.

access team4

save and publish the changes

 

now you can go to account records and there will be a sub grid which will allow you to add users to it. These users

access team5

Odd things happen when you add a user to the user grid it will automatically create an Access Team but the odd things is you can’t view this team in the Teams section in Administration even if you select All Teams or Access Teams.

The only way to view the teams is to create an advanced find, search for Teams and choose of type Access.

You will then see some odd teams with Guid names

access team6

if  you click on one you can then view the details.  So you will get a new team for each entity and access template type.

To help identify the different teams you can put something in the description

access team7

You can also add and remove members in this screen.  If you remove all members the team will disappear until you add another user to it.

 

Facts and stats about Access Teams, the bits below are useful for those study MB2-703

  • You can more than one Access Team template for each entity
  • The default number of access teams templates for each entity is two
  • The number of access team templates you can have for each entity is controlled by the MaxAutoCreatedAccessTeamsPerEntity deployment setting.
  • MaxEntitiesEnabledForAutoCreatedAccessTeams deployment setting has a default value of 5.  This controls the number of entities it’s possible to enable for auto-created access teams.
  • You can change the MaxEntitiesEnabledForAutoCreatedAccessTeams , MaxAutoCreatedAccessTeamsPerEntity  only on Premise installations and you cannot edit them for Online.
  • A system generated Access Team isn’t created for each record until you add a user to the sub grid on the entity.
  • if you delete the team, this is the same removing all the members in the sub grid on the record.
  • if you change the access rights on Team Template this will only change the access right to new entity records/access teams.  Any records already created will use the previous set of privileges.
  • Access teams with Share access right ticked will mean any user who is in access team will be able to add (share) others to the access team for that record.
  • Users cannot grant privileges they do not have.  So a user can only add new members to an access team where the access team template has create privilege only if that user has the create privilege for the entity.
  • Access Teams created automatically by adding users to them are not shown in the system team views
  • Access Teams created automatically can be seen by doing an advanced find and select Team Type = access
  • Access Team created automatically have the is system managed field set to true
  • Access Teams can be un ticked on an entity (unlike Queues)
  • If you want to delete a Access Team Template you will need to remove all the sub grids using that specific Access Team Template before you can delete it.

Access teams don’t user the POA table

The final import thing about access team is they do not write to the POA (Principal Object Access table).  This table holds all the rules about sharing for users/teams for each entity.  The POV table holds information about sharing and security/access and is read every time a user accesses a record to make sure they have privileges to view and then update/delete it.   A big POA table with lots of sharing of records can in some cases slow down the system.

After reading CRM MVP Adam Vero’s comments it seems access teams do write to the POA table so this isn’t where the advantage of Access teams comes from.  On the efficiency side Teams do write fewer records to the POA table than sharing to individual users.

Owner teams are good when you want to share records to teams and those teams should have their privileges set by security roles.

access teams are good for quick ad hoc sharing of records where the users who will need to use a record may change often.  Access teams allow you to quickly add and remove users.

 

Reading the White paper it has a good summary of the key features

 

Owner Team

  • As teams in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with security roles
  • Can own records
  • Privileges are granted by security roles and change dynamically as the role definition changes
  • Needs to be manually or programmatically created and managed
  • Will be cached in CRM Server when a user accesses the application
  • Can act as resource in service scheduling

Access Team

  • Can’t be granted security roles
  • Can’t own records
  • Accesses records through sharing
  • Sharing privileges are defined by an access team template but don’t change dynamically for existing records if the template changes
  • Won’t be displayed in most team views
  • Can be system managed, directly from the form of the record that it relates to
  • Won’t be cached because it doesn’t derive privilege or ownership checks
  • Can’t be scheduled as a resource in Service Scheduling
  • Not shown in team views as typically used at high volumes

 

Hosk’s Top CRM 2013 articles of the week 9th May 2014

I had two interactions with readers of my blog this week

one person was criticizing a blog post written in December 2011, saying the title wasn’t very good and I should include some pictures.  This was fair enough and I’m all for constructive criticism and the blog post did look a bit boring but it did also resolve his problem.  The blog post is how to add code in WordPress blogs

https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/how-to-highlight-code-in-hosted-wordpress-blogs/

Then the person went to far and said I should change the title of the blog because Hosk’s Dynamic CRM Blog was boring.  Woah there tiger, step back and leave the Hosk name alone there big boy.

The second interaction was more positive, he said he liked the weekly round up because he didn’t have enough time to keep up with all the blogs being written.  This highlights the reason I Hosk’s weekly picks.

I want to list the really good/useful articles I read in the week.   I only want to list the good ones, so some weeks it’s a big list and other weeks there is a small list.

 

If you come across any good blog post please email me or or tweet the link and mention and add my twitter account @BenHosk, thanks to Bartłomiej Steidel for recommending a couple of good CRM blogs this week.

I wasn’t really sure people liked the my weekly round up but it seems people do enjoy me scurrying around collecting great CRM articles for them to read on a Friday.
Lets bring some postivity into this weekly round up, thumbs up people

Article of the week

This is a great blog post about Auto Save, it shows you how it works and ways to interact, turn it off and a few gotcha’s.  This article seems to collate many articles I have read on auto saving into one handy blog post.

All you want to know about Auto Save

 

It’s a bumper crop this week

The Best of the Rest

Service pack 1 is choc full of fixes

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will be available in the second quarter (Q2) of 2014

 

Microsoft Support give us a sneaky trick to make fields appear in the bulk edit window, very useful

Dynamics CRM Parent Account lookup field is greyish in bulk edit

 

working out what sql querys are generated from your CRM FetchXML queries

Use SQL Tracing to find the SQL query generated for Dynamics CRM Platform Operations for CRM On-Premise

 

Microsoft have finally made CRM 2011 compatible with Windows 8 and IE11

CRM 2011 – Rollup 17 – IE11 is now compatible with CRM 2011

 

This is a question that pops up regularly on the CRM forum, so it’s good to have an answer to it.  It’s also not something I do very often, so it’s good to have a step by step guide.

How to Import Marketing List Members in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

 

if you have ever raised a support call, you will have had to run the support diagnostic tool, this article explains why

Support Diagnostics Tools

 

A good article from Robert Peledie, he has been on good form on the last few weeks, so keep up the good work Mr P.  This article shows you how you can override the created on date, this can be very useful thing to know

Override The Created On Date on Import

 

The marvelous Dave Berry is in the firing line and rises to the challenge like an Eagle on Red Bull

CRM MVP Question and Answer – Dave Berry

 

Every time I create a new entity, I stop for a few minutes to debate the question, should this entity be user owned or organisational.  Knowing that once you press the button you can’t go back and change it, ramps up the pressure.  So let this article guide you on that subject.

User-Owned or Organization-Owned Entities?

A blog post by the Hosk, going through creating a plugin which is triggered after a new account is created, we created a follow up task.  It’s simple, it will only take you twenty minutes.

CRM 2013 Plugin – Step by Step guide for a Post Account Create Plugin using the Developer Toolkit

 

I wasn’t sure about Access Teams, I understood you create them to give quick and ad hoc access to a record but never really understood why I would do that and for what scenario but as I read more articles on the subject I am slowly seeing the benefits e.g. access teams don’t use the POV table!  Good article, I will also be going through this soon for my MB2-703 – CRM 2013 customization and configuration studying.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Owner Teams vs Access Teams

Did you know that if you own a workflow and disable your user the workflow will refuse to work, well you do now.

Workflow ownership and disabled users

Hosk goes through the process of creating a dialog and don’t be fooled by the title, dialog’s are not easy they are odd, like an upside down workflow

CRM 2013 – Simple Dialog with a CRM Query

cheeky little trick on how to set a bookmark in IE which pops up an alert of the record you are on.

Retrieving a Record’s GUID in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Article from CRM MVP Scott Durow the creator of the mighty Ribbon Workbench.  This article shows you how to create a command bar button if you create a new entity and you tick the activity checkbox.  This article is useful just to show you how to use the Ribbon Workbench which can take a little bit of time to get used to (because there are so many options)

Create a command bar button for your custom activities

A dev tip, also add Id to lookup fields in CRM.  Everyone else is doing it and so should you.

Hosk CRM Dev Tip – add ID suffix to lookup fields

You may have heard me waffle on about Badges before but you could be collecting lots of badges to boast to your CRM buddies about.  Microsoft could tweeting about your new level upgrade.  There are also some good screens hidden away to show your ranking on answering forum questions

What are Microsoft Dynamics Community Badges and how to get started collecting them

Creating a no code approval process in CRM 2013 using lots of new CRM 2013 functionality

http://benitezhere.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/a-simple-approval-process-in-crm-2013.html

Tools

A useful tool for showing pins on bing maps
Dynamics CRM Bing Map custom Chart

 

This is a very cool tool by kingswaysoft,  it will convert SQL statements into FetchXML. WOW

http://www.sql2fetchxml.com/

 

videos

a video for those studying for the MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and configuration exam
CRM 2013 – MB2 703 – Manage user access, Teams and sharing

 

learn some more about access teams

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Application New Features – Access Teams

 

If you want more great articles, why not go back and read last weeks top CRM articles again, did you read them?

https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/hosks-top-crm-2013-articles-of-the-week-2nd-may-2014/

 

if you find reading to difficult today, why not go and watch some CRM videos on my youtube channel

Hosk’s CRM Dev

CRM 2013 Tool – Advanced Find on record forms for CRM 2013

One of the most frustrating changes to the new UI in CRM 2013 is the disappearance of the Advanced Find button from the majority of menus.

For those of you who like to watch and hear the Hosk

for the rest of you, read on my friends

For some reason I struggle to find the advanced button and I’m not sure what level I have to go up to to get it.   This seems an unusual thing to do because Advanced Find is one of the most useful and import tools to users.

Luckily for us someone has helped to ease the pain of CRM 2013 users by creating a solution to simply add an advanced find onto every record

This person is CRM MVP Damian Sinay and you can follow him on twitter if you want

https://twitter.com/damiansinay

There isn’t much to the tool, except it puts a nice juicy advanced find on every

Here you can see a screen shot of the Advanced Find button.  You might at first think the solution hasn’t worked because you can’t see the Advanced Find button but it it’s hidden in the 3 dots (more buttons).

advanced find tool

The really good thing about the solution is you will now see an advanced find on all entities, even the custom entities.  Here is a screen shot of a custom entity and there is the advanced find.

advanced find tool 2

I had a look at the solution files and there really isn’t much in there.  The only real change is in the customization file and you can see the changes below.  I’m not quite sure how it works and how you can add a button to all entities but it works so it is good stuff.

advanced find tool 1

 

 

 

 

CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – Business Units and Security Roles Study Information

15 percent of the exam is based around security so you need to know it and know it good.

In this blog I will cover one part of the security concepts

This topic may include: describe Business Units; describe Microsoft Dynamics CRM security features; describe privileges and access levels

I have found 3 blog posts which I often find my way to when searching for CRM Security.  So I would recommend you go through those because they will give you a good idea how security roles work in CRM 2013, links to them can be found in the blog post below.

To learn about security and business units the best way is to get into your CRM trial and try adding business units and security roles.

First have a good look

second get in there and add some new business units and security roles

thirdly get renaming and deleting them

I will run through this in the video but I recommend you do it yourself, this will help cement the knowledge into your brain and provide more paths to the information (which means you will be able to recall it easier in the exam, yippee).  The blog post and the video work together, the video shows you security roles and business units in CRM and the blog post is a succinct summary of it.

 

I am only going to skip through what I think are the vital points, I expect you to read the three blog posts below, watch my video explanation and have a play in your CRM trial

I will first start with this great table from the power objects blog, this is a good introduction to security

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2014/02/14/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013-business-units-and-data-silos/

 

To help understand how this works, consider the following definitions of the Dynamics CRM security components:

Component Description
Business Unit A scoping mechanism that defines a grouping of users for security modeling purposes; business units are hierarchical in nature. Business Units are a framework upon which a security model is built.
Security Role A collection of privileges (that are given a name) that reflect common user roles of your organization and/or business units; security roles are assigned to users or owner teams. See below for more details on Security Roles.
Privilege (access rights) The definition of a specific type of data access or action that can be granted as a right; privileges are granted through a security role and are cumulative. The following Privileges that can be assigned:

  1. Create
  2. Read
  3. Write
  4. Delete
  5. Append
  6. Append To
  7. Assign
  8. Share
Access Level While the Privilege defines the type of data access, the Access Level defines exactly to which records the privileges apply. You can assign the Access Levels of:

  1. None
  2. User
  3. Business Unit
  4. Parent: Child Business Unit
  5. Organization

For example, if you assign Read privileges to a Security Role at the Access Level of “Business Unit”, users with that Security Role will only have the privileges to see records owned by a user within their Business Unit.

Business Units

As you can see the security in CRM is created from a few pieces of functionality working together.  You have business units and security roles, within these you have privileges and access levels.

Access level controls what the user can see(read)/edit

Privilege controls what you can do to the entity

 

It all starts with business units and the Parent Business unit which is also known as the Root business unit, you can think of this as the mother of all business units.

The Root business unit is a default business unit which has the same name as the organisation.

You cannot delete the Root business unit, you cannot disable it

You cannot create a business unit above the Root business unit, e.g. you cannot give it a parent.

 

Business Units = Tree Structure

Business units are used to create a hierarchy and this is in a tree structure.  The Root business unit will be at the top.

Here are two examples of some very simple Business unit structures.  The common way people use business units is geographical or departmental, although you can split up your organisation and business units anyway that suits you.

Here is a geographical structure

business units 2

 

Here is departmental

business units 1

 

You can see from the pictures above that the business units have create a hierarchy and the root business unit is at the top.

 

What can you do to Business Units

Classic certification questions usually revolve around what you can and can’t do in CRM.  Examples of things they will test

You cannot delete or disable the root business unit

you can rename, disable non root business units (e.g. all the other business units)

 

Disabling Business Units

You need to know what happens when you disable a business unit, what happens to all the users who have that business unit as their default business unit?

When you disable a business unit, it also disables all the child business units below it (and thus all the users who those business units as their default business unit).

none of the data is affected by disabling business units, its only the users who cannot then log in but it is important to take into account all the child business units will also be disabled.

The users are not disabled but cannot login into CRM whilst the business unit is disabled.  As soon as the business unit is enabled they will be able to log into CRM again.

Deleting Business Units

It’s possible to delete business units (not the root business unit) but you have to clear them up ready to be removed.

Firstly you have to disable the business unit and you can only do this when

you have removed any the child business unit, now you can either disable and delete them or you can re-parent them.  To re-parent a business unit you can select a new parent business unit.

If you re-parent a business unit this will have the effect of removing all the security roles from the users, this is because security roles are inherited and can be different in each business unit.  This will mean all the users in the business unit you are re-parenting will now have no security roles and won’t be able to log into CRM.  This is explained by an excellent comment by CRM MVP Adam Vero (also a CRM Master)

if you want to delete the business unit then you will need to change all the users/teams that are assigned to that business unit.  You also need to disable the business unit before you delete it.

You cannot delete the default business unit team but it won’t stop you deleting the business unit because this will be deleting automatically when you delete the business unit.

Like all things in CRM, Microsoft recommend you disable business units rather than delete them, the reason being disable business units just like disabled records can be re-enabled but once something is deleted it’s gone forever.

 

Security Roles

Security roles are a vital part of the security in CRM because if a user doesn’t have a security role he cannot access the system, so every user must have at least one security role.

Security roles are linked with the user business unit to calculate what records the user can access.

Users receive their permissions to work on records or use features based on the combination of Security Roles they are assigned and the Business Units to which the users belong.

Security roles can also be assigned to teams and if the team a user is a member of has higher security privileges then this will override their individual security roles.  The user will also use the highest security levels it is assigned, whether that’s from a security roles assigned to the team or individual security role

Users can be assigned multiple security roles, this means it’s possible to create security roles just for single purposes.

 

Default security roles

There are 15 default security roles in CRM, this provide a good basis to start creating your security roles.  The default security roles are all created in the root business unit.

You need to understand how security roles work with business unit, they can be a bit cheeky.  A security role stays in the business unit it is created in and they copy down to any child business units.

The above line is import because if you create a security role in the root business unit then the security role will be copied to all the child business units below it.

So you should be careful about creating security roles not in the root business unit because this means you will have a security role that doesn’t exist in any parent business units and in particular the default business unit.  Another consideration is only security roles which exist in the root business unit can be added to a solution file.

What I am saying is don’t create security roles not in the root business unit because you cannot export these out and it may cause a bit of headache if you need the parent business units to use the same security role.

User can be assigned any security role which exist in their business unit.

 

Modify, Don’t create security roles

When you set up a new security role there are hundreds of settings you need to setup, there are 8 privileges for each entity.  The quickest and easiest way to do this is to copy an existing role and modify it.

Microsoft recommend you don’t delete the default security roles so you can have them as a reference but once you have a few security roles I personally don’t think it matters but remember the MB2-703 certification is written by Microsoft and they want the answers they are expecting.

 

System Administrator Role is all powerful

All security roles are the same except the System Administrator role which is a super role.

The System Administrator role automatically has access to all records and entities, including all custom entities.  It has the default access level of organisation for all privileges.

One user must have the System Administrator role, this is by default given to the user who installed CRM.  Multiple users can be assigned the System Administrator role and you can remove the role from users but you cannot remove the role if that user is the only user who has the System Administrator role.

The System Administrator role also is given the System Admin field level security role, which as I’m sure you can guess gives them access to all field level security.

It’s possible to copy the System Administrator role and it will create a security role but the security role will not automatically have access to any new custom entities added and it basically won’t have the special powers of the System Administrator role.

 

Security roles Privileges and access levels

At this point I am going to refer you to the excellent blog on security roles written by CRM MVP Richard Knudson, this blog post has 40 comments, which shows you how many people have read it.

I would also say that this part of the CRM security can be tricky to understand but with regards to the exam does not have as many gotcha’s.

http://www.dynamicscrmtrickbag.com/2011/07/20/dynamics-crm-2011-security-roles/

This blog post about understanding access levels and roles is also very useful

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/understanding-access-levels-and-roles-in-microsoft.html

There are some privileges which do not have organisation levels these are always show under miscellaneous privileges and these are either true or false.  These are things like

Go Offline

Export to Excel

Publish articles

 

This is a good place to leave security with more to come

I published the video before the blog article and very kindly Adam Vero (CRM MVP and an expert on CRM as he wrote some of the MOC’s on the subject) left me a couple of excellent comments where I got slightly mixed up in the video.

 

When you disable a Business Unit, it disables the BUs below it, that is correct. But it does NOT disable the users in the BU or any of the children. They are prevented from logging on while they are in a disabled BU, but when you re-enable the BU they can. (If it disabled them all then when you re-enabled the BU it would have no way to know which users to re-enable if some were already disabled manually previously).
Reply
 ·

good point, I think you have basically said what I was thinking and meant to say.  I guess it can seem like the users are disabled because they can’t login but you are right because they aren’t disabled but stopped from being able to login.

Great Comment thanks CRM Master.

Notice that when you change the parent business unit of a BU, this is not just changing the position in the hierarchy and therefore changing the impact of the access levels that people have to records in that BU. It will also REMOVE all inherited Security Roles (and rebuild them) – it does not move the roles with it. So at the moment you move it, the users in that BU have no roles other than any that exist directly in that BU (which often is zero, if everything is always created in the root or imported via Solutions). In most cases this means those users just stopped being able to log on, and you’d better remember who had which roles originally. Users may be able to log on if they are a member of a team that has a suitable role, and they have logged on at least once before, but this is an edge case – expect problems with logons when you move a BU.

so changing the parent business unit of a BU can remove all the security roles from the users in that business unit.  I guess this makes sense because it (as you say) has to rebuild the security roles because you are potentially removing all the inherited roles it had.

This is a good point to consider for the CRM exam.  I will include this in my Security role exam cram notes and maybe make a test question on it.

Thanks again Adam, excellent comment.

 

 

 

CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – Customization and Configuration Certification Solution Exam Cram Notes

Here are the exam cram notes for solutions, I am assuming you have

read my blog post on solutions and you understand how solutions work and the functionality

CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work

watched the youtube video running through adding solutions

CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work in CRM 2013

The video going through the Solution Exam Cram notes is here

All the study notes for the MB2-703 exam can be found on the page link above or clicking the link below

https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/mb2-703-crm-2013-customization-and-configuration-certification/

These notes are the to revise the key concepts of solutions for the MB2-703 – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration certification

  • Config – teams, security roles, business units, Entities, views
  • Customization – standard GUI changes, forms, entities, views, GUI workflows, business rules
  • Extending CRM – Code changes – javascript, .NET, plugins, custom workflow, console application
  • Configuration and customization could be used when talking about changing the same components e.g. Entities, Views
  • Extending = code related changes.
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Software Development Kit is used to create and deploy plugins, Web Resources and custom workflows.

 

What cannot be added to a solution

  • Business Units

  • Teams

  • Queues

  • Goals

  • Subjects

  • Product Catalog

The items above must be either created manually or imported.  If you want to create manual data and use the same guids between systems then you will need to export and import the data so you can specify the guids used.

What Can be Added to a Solution?

The following is a list of solution components that you can view within a solution

  1. Application Ribbon

  2. Article Template

  3. Business Rule

  4. Chart

  5. Connection Role

  6. Contract Template

  7. Dashboard

  8. Email Template

  9. Entity

  10. Entity Relationship

  11. Field

  12. Field Security Profile

  13. Form

  14. Mail Merge Template

  15. Message

  16. Option Set

  17. Plug-in Assembly

  18. Process

  19. Report

  20. Sdk Message Processing Step

  21. Security Role

  22. Service Endpoint

  23. Site Map

  24. Web Resource

 

  • Solutions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a method to let you group and manage your custom components for a particular set of functionality or release

  • solutions are optional

  • When an organisation is created a Default Solution is created which contains all the components

  • You can export the default solution but only as an unmanaged solution

  • Solution best practice is use it to split up business requirements probably either in Sprints/releases or in business requirements.

  • It’s possible to export the Default Solution and import this solution into another CRM Instance but you cannot export Default solution from  a CRM On Premise to a CRM On line or vice versa.

  • There is no limit to the number of solutions you can create

  • Before you can create a solution you must create a publisher, Publisher is a business required field on solution

  • A publisher has a prefix, The prefix will then be added before the schema name for the entity or field e.g.

    • hosk_newField

    • hosk_entityName

  • Managed solutions cannot be exported

  • unManaged solutions can be exported

  • Managed solutions can be deleted, this will delete the solution and all the entities and data

  • Managed solutions can’t be changed or altered, except by the publisher/owner

  • There are privileges needed to import a solution and publish it.

  • Managed solutions use managed properties

  • Managed solutions automatically publish on import

  • unmanaged solutions have to be published

  • Unmanaged solution components cannot be uninstalled

  • when you delete an unmanaged solution you are only deleted the solution file, all the changes remain in the default solution

  • Unmanaged solutions can be exported as an unmanaged or managed solution

  • Managed solutions can expose some components to be customized by the end user

  • solutions have built in versioning, if version 1 is imported and then solution 2 is imported, CRM will prompt you to see if you want to overwrite the changes in version 1.

  • Solution version is major.minor.build.revision

  • Custom solutions developed using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can be imported into Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online organizations.

  • Custom solutions developed using future versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM cannot be installed into earlier versions without first being ‘down-leveled’ to match the earlier version.

  • When you export a managed solution, you can’t import it back into the organization it was imported from.

  • be careful when importing an unmanaged solution because those changes cannot be removed and they will overwrite any current changes

  • Solutions are additive, you cannot delete any components by importing a solution

  • You need the System Administrator role to import solutions

  • You cannot import entities or fields with the same schema name to components that exist in the CRM database.

  • All imported security roles are created in the root business unit

  • managed properties are fully customizable by default.

  • Solutions created in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 cannot be imported into a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 database.

  • The maximum size for a solution file for Microsoft Dynamics CRM online is 29.296 MB

  • For On-premise CRM 2013, the default maximum size for a solution is 6 MB but this can be increased.

  • You must have the System Administrator security role to import , organization settings,  security roles, plug-in assemblies, sdk message processing steps.

 

CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Study information

I will be covering the information in the exam but whilst I am making some study information, you will also need to do some studying yourself and below I will go through what material I would advise you to use.  If you are not sure if you want to take the exam read this and then come back ready to study.
Looking at the exam criteria you may think that the MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration exam will be easy because most of the topics and functionality you use on a regular basis

  • Create and Customize Solutions (10-15 percent)
  • Customize Entities and Entity Relationships (10-15 percent)
  • Customize Fields (10-15 percent)
  • Manage Forms (10-15 percent)
  • Manage Views (10-15 percent)
  • Create and Customize Charts and Dashboards (10-15 percent)
  • Manage Security (10-15 percent)
  • Manage Business Processes and Rules (10-15 percent)

HA, don’t be fooled the exam is still hard, you need to get 70 percent that isn’t many you can get wrong   You will need to know the topics in exact detail, this means you will need to revise and be able to answer precise questions.  Roughly knowing the answer won’t be good enough because in most questions there will be two possible answers which could be right   What I am basically saying is you will have to study and revise so the knowledge is

Exam Criteria

Make sure you know what is going to appear on the certification, look at this document regularly and make sure you have revised and tried out all the functionality http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam.aspx?id=mb2-703

CRM 2013 Trial

The best way to learn about features and functionaity in the exam is get stuck in and try it.   I have even made a video to walk you through getting a CRM 2013 setup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRSyOEt-MUQ

MOC

Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

If I were to use only one source material to study for the exam, then the MOC above would be it, it goes through all the functionality that will appear in the exam.  It has examples and tasks, not to mention practice questions.  I think you have to work for a Microsoft partner

MB2-866 study notes from mscrmgeek.com by Buddy Guido took the exam and he has given some hints and tips to me and everyone, he also has a link to the study notes from mscrmgeek.com.

The study notes are very useful, 46 pages of good notes about the CRM 2011 Customization and Configuration exam. http://www.crmanswers.net/2014/01/crm-2013-mb2-703-exam-my-experience.html

The “Overview” and “Skill Measured” sections give you a good summary of the exam, and clarify the targets. Because this exam is the natural evolution of the CRM 2011 version and several concepts are still the same, I studied again the MB2-866 study notes from mscrmgeek.com (the site is currently offline, so I made a doc from the google cache and shared here: http://sdrv.ms/1bzq6Ny)

Notes From Dynamics CRM Chat

This blog has a great page on what you need to know to pass the exam and then some very detailed and free notes helping you study for the certification.

Microsoft Exam MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customisation

CRM SDK 2013 – Customizing CRM – Entities, forms, dashboards, views

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328235(v=crm.6).aspx

Solutions – FROM CRM SDK

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/DynamicsCRM2011/Solutions-Managed–UnManaged

CRM SDK Solutions

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334530.aspx

The Exam will focus on new features in CRM

Access Teams White Paper

Access Teams with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Good blog from powerobjects

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/11/06/access-teams-in-dynamics-crm-2013/   http://blog.customereffective.com/blog/2014/02/design-and-scalability-considerations-when-using-access-teams.html

Business Process Flow

Describes business process flows in CRM 2013 and how to use them in your custom solutions

Business Process Flows White Paper

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2013/11/11/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013-business-process-flow.aspx

youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cXoivs0ZMA

Business Rules

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/10/24/become-pseudo-developer-business-rules-crm-2013/ http://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2013/10/business-rules-in-crm-2013-equals-more-power-to-the-business/

Quick Create forms

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/10/29/quick-create-forms-in-dynamics-crm-2013/ http://msdynamicscrmblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/quick-create-forms-in-dynamics-crm-2013/

MOBILE

http://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2014/02/go-mobile-with-dynamics-crm-2013-tablet-apps-frequently-asked-questions-answered/

Hosk CRM 2011 – Exam Cram Notes Finally I have some study notes I made for the CRM 2011 Configuration and Customization exam, these notes are not detailed but for the final revision stage of the exam, they are basically exam cram notes My exam notes will show you the detailed knowledge you will need for the exam because any of the information below could appear in the exam.

  •          a maximum of 2 columns can be used to sort a view
  •          The CRM Administrator can see everything
  •          Audit logs management is done by a system job
  •          decimal precision is set on each currency attribute AND in system settings
  •          Connection roles, security roles, optionsets, Web Resources, templates, field security profiles are all included in Solutions
  •          editing CRM website files is unsupported
  •          Auditing is enabled in System settings and then for each individual entity
  •          business units can have separate security roles, even with the same name!
  •          When assigned a security role to a user, the choice is filtered by business unit and the security roles in that business unit
  •          Disabling a business unit (and child business units) will mean all the users in that business unit won’t be able to login to CRM.
  •          Teams have security roles (this can affect which form is used)
  •          moving business units is done by changing the business units parent
  •          Managed solutions cannot be exported
  •          unManaged solutions can be exported
  •          Managed solutions can be deleted, this will delete the solution and all the entities and data
  •          Managed solutions can’t be changed or altered, except by the publisher/owner
  •          There are privileges needed to import a solution and publish it.
  •          Managed solutions use managed properties
  •          Managed solutions automatically publish on import, unmanaged solutions have to be published
  •          when you delete an un-managed solution you are only deleted the solution file, all the changes stay.
  •          To add 3d effects or modify charts you need to export the chart, change the XML and then import it.
  •          Optionsets can be used by many entities
  •          Many to Many relationships can be either Manual or Native
  •          Native many to many (N:N)  is done automatically by CRM (it creates the intersect entity but hides it)
  •          Manual Many to Many relationships are done manually an entity to sit between the two entities and have a 1 to many relationship with them both.
  •          Custom fields can be used for field level security
  •          built in fields cannot be used for field level security
  •          Each form has a fallback form
  •          A Teams  security role can influence what form is used
  •          Queue functionality cannot be unticked once it has been ticked
  •          Relationships – Cascade active – assigns active entities
  •          Relationships – Cascade all – assigns all entities
  •          Primary keys, created by, creation on, modified on cannot be audited
  •          Find columns are set in the Quick Find view for entities
  •          Business required fields don’t have to have a value if they are not included on a form
  •          importing data does not go through the same validation (e.g. business required) because validation is done only on the forms.
  •          an entity can only have one 1:M (one to many) parental relationship
  •          Display option must be filled in for Many to Many relationships
  •          WEB RESOURCE – Silverlight  XAP
  •          WEB RESOURCE – Web page HTML
  •          WEB RESOURCE – Script (JSCRIPT)
  •          WEB RESOURCE – Data (XML)
  •          WEB RESOURCE – Style Sheet (XSL)
  •          WEB RESOURCE – graphics – JPG, PNG, GIF
  •          Mapping fields must be the same type
  •          mapping optionset values must be the same
  •          APPEND – the entity you want to append
  •          APPEND TO –  The entity have things appended to it
  •          fields used in reports do not create a dependency and can be deleted