Microsoft SharePoint and Dynamics CRM -- Better Together: Part 3

Jim Townsend

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SharePoint is a content management system with a portal framework, a search engine and document management. It is a general purpose collaboration tool and may be applied to intranets, extranets and public websites. SharePoint is based on the concept of lists, which are comparable to database tables. Lists are used for a large number of SharePoint features such as calendars, document libraries, content lists, news items and more. Lists may be easily created by end users within their sites, and they do not have to be centrally managed so that these lists may differ from one site to another in a SharePoint implementation.

Dynamics CRM is a database application for tracking a number of entities relating to sales, marketing, customer service and contracts along with related activities and workflow. Dynamics CRM exposes the data model to administrators as entities and attributes (tables and columns). They can easily view all entities and attributes, as well as all locations such as forms where the attributes are used. The data model of Dynamics CRM in inherently centralized compared to SharePoint’s model where centralization is optional.

The following figure shows how SharePoint and Dynamics CRM map to features commonly required in line of business solutions. It shows which features are available out of the box and which require custom development.