Neil McDonald's Dynamics 365 Blog

Another nice new feature of Dynamics CRM 2011 is the ability to create solutions. A solution is a way to package up your CRM business application into an easy to manage and deploy package.

To create a solution, first you must give it a name, select a publisher and give it a version number. A publisher typically contains the details of the ISV which will be listing an application in the Dynamics Marketplace. Versioning is method of determining whether you are running the most up to date solution inside your CRM 2011 system.

You can add both existing and new entities to a solution. Familiar customisations such as templates, entities and workflows are still here but there are a few new additions. These include: –

Web resources – These allow developers to extend Dynamics CRM 2011 using familiar technology such as HTML, javascript, Silverlight and CSS. You can also use external resources such, as Bing and Google, by importing them into forms and dashboards

Dashboards – Dashboards offer a new way to view and analyse real time CRM data. I’ve wrote a little but about dashboards in my previous post

Service Endpoints – A nice way to integrate directly with hosted web services

Connections – These extend the relationship functionality found in CRM 4. You can now set up any type of connection between almost any CRM record e.g. Family, social networking, colleague, pet etc

Finally, the most exciting part of solutions is the abilty to buy and sell them via the Dynamics Marketplace. Much like an app store, the marketplace will help people find applications and services to extend their CRM system. Partners can showcase and sell their products, and visitors can download solutions and connect directly with Microsoft partners.

You can learn more about creating solutions by watching video 9 on the CRM beta site.