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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / CRM or SharePoint
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

CRM or SharePoint

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Posted on by Ivailo Chipev 60

My colleagues and I are trying to evaluate the Pros and Cons of CRM or SharePoint for a field service management process. CRM is traditionally marketing/sales oriented - although the hype about xRM is supposed to indicate that it would fit any workflow - while SharePoint Server is content/document management, but is very cost-effective.

 Please share your thoughts

Cheers

 

 

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  • Leon Tribe Profile Picture
    Leon Tribe 7,034 on at
    I'm biased, being a Dynamics CRM consultant but it depends on what aspect of the process you're talking about. Often a solution uses both products, taking the best of both worlds. For managing complex relationships between business entities, integrating with Outlook and managing a flow of activity, Dynamics CRM works very well. For collaborative document management, SharePoint is the better product. Both products allow communication to a team of users, either through SharePoint alerts or through CRM workflow and activities. Leon Tribe Want to hear me talk about all things CRM? Check out my blog http://leontribe.blogspot.com/
  • Alberto Gemin Profile Picture
    Alberto Gemin 155 on at

    Hey Ivailo,

    We do both, and what we use as discriminating factors are the following two broad principles:

    - If you have the need of representing structured data (entities with attributes and relationships) you're gravitating towards Dynamics. If your data is unstructured (documents) you are better off with MOSS.

    - If you look for a Rapid Application Development platform, Dynamics is your choice. MOSS as a RAD pays back only if you use methodology and guidelines suited only for very large enterprise applications. Example: in MOSS there is no way to deploy an application from one environment to another, unless you write *a lot* of overhead code upfront.

    This said, in your case MOSS might cost less in terms of licenses, but writing a field service application for MOSS will get you past the TCO of CRM in a blink of an eye.

  • Ivailo Chipev Profile Picture
    Ivailo Chipev 60 on at

    Thank you all for the valuable feedback. Our team tends to agree with Alberto and the real-life implementation cases do point to a combination of both. For us RAD is an issue so we will follow the CRM path + possible add ons.

    One issue raised in our research - in terms of licenses - is it legally ok to have a group of users who update tasks and statuses and input data into CRM through a SharePoint page without being CRM users and without the need to have licenses. This could save us 50% of license costs. We need those users to be fed with tasks and to update task fields. Has anyone of you gone along this path?

    Cheers 

     

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