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Dynamics 365 Community / Blogs / xRMCenter / Entering to xRM World Part ...

Entering to xRM World Part 6 -Metadata & Data model

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Microsoft Dynamic CRM has been released with built-in functions that help customer for managing their customers and automation processes, but requirement of enterprises are unlimited, there are many specific requirement require you to create new table, new field to adapt for your business. 

For other custom application, you can go to SQL database and create table, field, views…but it is strictly recommended that you should not do that in Microsoft Dynamic CRM. All the information for storing customizing & operating your CRM system has been stored in Meta data, it is the core framework for interacting with customization in Microsoft Dynamic CRM. This article will give to you all detail of meta data and data model in Microsoft Dynamic CRM.

What is meta data in Microsoft Dynamic CRM?

Actually, meta data is not new to developer, it has been use for many custom application and enterprise product base on ORM Design patterns. Microsoft uses it for Microsoft Dynamic CRM, and it is a amazing framework for working with Microsoft Dynamic CRM. All meaning of meta data in Microsoft Dynamic CRM can be fully described in 1 word “Entity“.

The following table describe all object of metadata in Microsoft Dynamic CRM.

Metadata object

Description
Entity An entity is a container for data, similar to a table in a traditional database. Each entity contains a set of attributes. For Microsoft Dynamics CRM, there are a set of entities that exist when you first install. Some of these are customizable. In addition, you can create custom entities to contain business data.
Attribute An attribute is a container for a piece of data in an entity. Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports a wide variety of attribute types.
Relationship A relationship defines an association between two entities: one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many, and self-referential.
Option Set An option set defines a set of options provided for a picklist. Several picklist attributes may use a global option set so that the options they provide are always the same and can be maintained in one location.
Option An option is one of the values available in an option set. Each option in an option set has a unique integer value and an associated set of localized labels.

This article will go in detail of specification of meta data in Microsoft Dynamic CRM, hope it will be useful for beginners.

Entity

As previous section, Entity is just presented for table in traditional in database. But it is recommended that you should keep in mind: “There are different types of entities” in Microsoft Dynamic CRM.

Type Specification
 System Entities
  • Entities are created when system is deployed.
    • Some system entities can be modified.
    • Some system entities cannot be modified.
  • System entities cannot be deleted.
  • System entities cannot be locked down by managed solution.
 Custom Entities
  •  Created by customizer of system.
  • Can be created by importing solution.
  • Can be modified or deleted
    • Entities of managed solution cannot be modified.
Activities Entities  These are special entities in system which related to daily activities of users such as email, phone call, task…
  • All activities share common fields with the activity pointer entity.
  • Can be hidden from usual activity menus.
  • Some of properties are predefined and cannot be changed.

Ownership Entity

This is a special property that help system protect data, using ownership help you restrict access to data to authorized users in the organization. There are many enhancement of new version that help you define the sharing data in Microsoft Dynamic CRM, it will write in other article.

You can specify the ownership when you create new entity.

Owner

Specify the ownership for custom entity

Ownership

 Specification
 User or Team
  • 1 owner field will be added.
  • 1 view will added
  • Security privileges have five access level
  • Used for security role
Organization
  •  No owner field
  • Security privileges have two access level.
  • Used when user have to access to all records of the entity, or none.

Properties of entities

There are many properties that can be enable during entity design cycle. Following image are all the properties of entities which you can be enable for specific requirement of business.

EntityPro

This section is all the basic knowledge of meta data in Microsoft Dynamic CRM, but it is very important for beginner to understand the concept. We will go to more detail about entity customization in the next article.

Hope it will be useful for someone.



This was originally posted here.

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