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Development / Extensions / CRM : Not sure to understand

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Posted on by Remy Letient

Hi,

A few context before my question: I work for a company that provides contract management features in Saas mode, Zendoc.com.

I'm currently working on the opportunity to develop an extension to Dynamics 365, around contact / company entities, to provider also a contract view. The goal is to provide an extension that a client can install inside Dynamics via the App Source directory.

Dynamics 365 has a very complex documentation due to historical products that it covers, and cause of this I'm not certain to read the good documentation each time.

My first question: If I go to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/ . When we speak of CRM solutions, that includes the Customer Service / Customer Service Insights / Sales / Customer Insights, right ? Why all these documents are separated ?

Technically now: My search to understand how to develop a "hello world" case leads me to the "Microsoft Dynamics 365 Developer Toolkit" (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DynamicsCRMPG.MicrosoftDynamicsCRMDeveloperToolkit). This extension seems not updated since; 7/18/2017. What is the state of the art to develop an extension for CRM ? Our developments environments are under Mac or Linux, is there a way to develop extensions without having Windows and Visual Studio?

Regards

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RE: Development / Extensions / CRM : Not sure to understand

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Remy Letient 5 on at

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RE: Development / Extensions / CRM : Not sure to understand

Hi,

Thank you for your rich answer, I really appreciate it.

A short question about the technical aspect: Can I package an application developed via the "Model Driven Apps" way to an extension, to be present inside AppSource for our Zendoc client?

Regards
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AriaConsulting on at

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RE: Development / Extensions / CRM : Not sure to understand

Hi,

Thanks for your questions.

"Contract management" has multiple layers and 2 "Poles": namely, there is the "pole" of vendor/procurement contracts management and the opposite pole of customer contracts management. They each have common and unique needs. Then there are the layers. These include things like document assembly (creating the contract documents themselves from a library of mix-n-match standard clauses), through to all the different metadata required for contract headers and lines as well as the performance obligations such as vendor management on one pole to SLA's and Entitlements on the other pole. And D365 "CE", which MS generally defines as including the Sales, Customer Service (optionally omnichannel), Insights, Marketing, PSA, (deprecated, and now Project Ops Lite or full Project Ops which falls outside the CE stream), and Field Service apps, already has some of the non-document-centric aspects of Contract Management for the customer pole included with Customer Service including SLA's, Agreements, Entitlements, Fulfilment Preferences, and more. So, it makes limited sense to go and build what MS has already built. And since the entirety of the data and functional architecture of the CE stream is pointed towards the customer pole, it is going to be very difficult to try to build and deploy an effective option for the vendor/procurement pole. More so even, since MS has solutions that address some or a LOT of those needs in the other 2 "streams" within the D365 cloud: Business Central and Finance & Supply Chain Management (F&SCM), which are the 2 ERP suite offering in the cloud from MS. And that is where the vendor/procurement pole BELONGS. It does not belong in the CE stream. Hence, not only will you be seriously swimming upstream against a current technically, but also in terms of trying to market/sell your solution.

In terms of the 'document' side of contract management, there are already MULTIPLE available solutions from simplistic and limited all the way up to the gold standard for the M365 and D365 space from Icertis (google it).

Yes, the "CE" (quotes because MS officially only calls the on-prem version CE, but even they will use that term in non-official instances) stream includes Sales, Customer Service, Insights, as well as Marketing, Omnichannel, PSA, and Field Service as mentioned.

If you still want to cause yourself a great deal of pain by pursuing this, you can start at this page to learn how to develop for D365 CE stream: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/model-driven-apps/overview

Trying to do development using VS Code on a Mac or Linux machine is only going to magnify your pain by at least a couple of orders of magnitude. Use Windows. In fact, you may want to investigate a subscription for the brand new Windows 365 (google it) or use an AVD (azure virtual desktop). Definitely cheaper than going and buying a good developer-grade Win desktop machine. Especially right now in the silicon shortage.

Development / Extensions / CRM : Not sure to understand

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