Why two CRM addins within Outlook?

I have recently worked with a string of customers or engineers within Microsoft and they ask me a question which appears to have puzzled a lot of groups for a long time.  "Why are there two CRM addins listed within Outlook after I installed and configured Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook?"  Well, they don't actually give the full and proper name for the CRM Outlook client but we need to ensure we keep product branding intact.  

Additionally, I have seen in other blogs and even the forms some information that is inaccurate and pure speculation.  Heck, I had my own understanding of the two addins which was also inaccurate.  Well I am here to help clear the mystery up of why there are two CRM addins.

I took my request to the top and asked the lead developers and Product Managers for the CRM Outlook client the burning question and this is what I found.

The main reason there are two addins is to extend the CRM Outlook client to be able to use multiple organizations.  Each organization may have their own set of ribbon customization and we can only register one set of ribbon controls with Outlook at a time.  The second addin only generates the ribbon for the current organization and resets it (unload from Outlook and reload) when switching organizations.

To me this made a lot of sense but there are times when only one addin is loaded and the second addin won't load at all.  So I decided to take this information a little further and do some testing and this is what I found:

1. Single organization, disable the addin with Load Behavior of Load at Startup
   • FINDINGS: This removed the Ribbon and the Solution controls from Outlook.  Clicking on the CRM organization folders within the Mail navigation shows CRM failed to load.
2. Single organization, disable the addin with Load Behavior of Loaded
   • FINDINGS: No behavior lost
3. Two organizations, disable the addin with Load Behavior of Loaded
   • FINDINGS: CRM Ribbon is gone for each organization

So realistically, we only need the second addin with the Load Behavior of Loaded and the Description of “This add-in is for Microsoft Dynamics CRM” when we have multiple organizations. 

Hope this officially clears things up. 

Sincerely the Dynamics CRM Demystifier,

Josh