• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

How to Organize Dynamics CRM Documents in SharePoint

February 19, 2018   Microsoft Dynamics CRM
CRM Blog How to Organize Dynamics CRM Documents in SharePoint

How to Organize Dynamics CRM Documents in SharePoint

Not many companies are aware of the capability of Dynamics CRM and SharePoint integration, and the benefits for their business.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint Integration helps users to view and share stored documents easily, and increase productivity and strengthen the collaboration between the different business units and teams in the organization.

Although SharePoint is included in Office 365 plan, not many organizations are utilizing this service and integrate it with Dynamics 365. In an article published recently (Read Here), we point out the limitations inherent from CRM out-of-box integration with SharePoint:

Documents are stored in complex folders and sub folders structure.

  1. CRM documents are either stored in standalone unrelated SharePoint folders

Or

  1. They are stored in folders related to Account or Contact only, no other entity can be selected to link between related documents

Folder names are the content of the Name field of records:

  1. The content is not unique and can create confusion and duplications
  2. The content is meaningless to the SharePoint users searching for documents

No metadata is saved in SharePoint columns. Relevant metadata is crucial for classifying documents in SharePoint:

  1. To group records in library view (two grouping levels)
  2. You cannot assign Content Type to the uploaded document
  3. Relevant metadata ensures the return of relevant search results

This blog post suggests an organized way to store documents from CRM in SharePoint using these folders and metadata:

  1. Which folder structure suits better for storing documents in SharePoint.
  2. The benefits using metadata with
    1. Views
    2. Metadata Navigation
    3. Content Type
    4. Search

 

Which folder structure suits better for storing documents in SharePoint.
Consider an organization that provides services, quoted by sales people. When quote is won, the client signs Service Contract. During the contract period, the organization raises invoices and client payments are recorded in Payment Receipts entity. The above process is a collaboration between two teams, one is using CRM the other is using SharePoint.

CRM Entity Common type of documents Entity Type
Quote PDF of the quote emailed to client Out of box Entity
Invoice Invoice generated by Accounts or CRM Out of box Entity
Service Contract Signed service contract (PDF) Customised Entity
Payment Receipts Proof of payment (PDF, scanned image) Customised Entity

All the above four document types are related to the company that purchases the service. For the purpose of this blog, we will be using Adventure Works as the Account name.

Entity folder structure – all documents from an entity are stored in a folder that bears the entity name. Documents uploaded from the Quote entity will be stored in SharePoint Quote folder. The assumption is that documents are mostly related to their entity and less to other entities or related entities.

Parent entity folder structure – all documents from all entities relating to a parent entity are stored in a folder that bears the parent entity name. Documents uploaded from the Quote, Invoice, Service Contract, and Payment Receipts entities will all be stored in one folder in SharePoint, Adventure Works folder. The idea is storing together all documents from different entities, which are all related to one “central” parent entity.

Combined: Entity folder with parent entity folder structure – when selecting these two folder structures, the Quote, Invoice, Service Contract and Payment Receipt documents will be saved in Adventure Works folder, together with documents from the Adventure Works entity. Combining all documents related to the parent and the child entities in one folder that bears the parent entity name, is useful when documents from the parent and the child are closely related to each other.

Parent / Child folder structure – documents uploaded from an entity are stored in a folder that bears the entity name, which is a SharePoint sub folder to a folder that bears the parent entity name. In the above example, the parent folder is Adventure Works and it has four subfolders for documents uploaded from Quote, Invoice, Service Contract and Payment Receipt entities. The first document uploaded, also creates the parent / child folder and sub folder structure in SharePoint.

Dynamics SPO users that are already using Dynamics CRM OOB integration with SharePoint, can also select the option to maintain the OOB folder structure in SharePoint, for those entities already using this methodology.

Using metadata fields in SharePoint columns.

When documents are uploaded from CRM to SharePoint, the content of selected attributes / fields from the CRM record are saved with the document in columns. Here are the benefits of using metadata:

  1. Views- use views to filter documents in a library, and list them as it best fits to particular purpose. You can set how documents are sorted in a view or filter them by date range. As an example, if Account Name and Invoice Date are saved as metadata, you can view all invoices for an account, which were created or are over-due for payment, within a date range.
  1. Metadata Navigation- makes it easier for users to find content. Metadata navigation enables users to filter and find documents in libraries by using a navigation tree. You can also apply Key Filters, which work in combination with the navigation tree to refine the list of documents to display.
  2. Content Type- is a reusable collection of metadata columns and other settings for a category of items or documents in SharePoint. In our above example, although Invoices, Quote Receipts and Service Agreement each has different content type, they can share some metadata, such as the client name (Account Name), and Document ID. When documents are uploaded to SP with Dynamics SPO, each document can be associated with its content type.
  3. Search – is a powerful tool to locate documents in SharePoint. Adding metadata column to the crawler contributes to finding relevant documents in search results.

If you are interested in better integration between Dynamics CRM and SharePoint download FREE trial of Dynamics SharePoint organizer (SPO):

http://www.dynamicsobjects.com/Solutions-for-Digital-Transformation/Upload-Documents-to-SP

.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Documents, Dynamics, Organize, SharePoint
  • Recent Posts

    • Dapper Duo
    • AI Weekly: These researchers are improving AI’s ability to understand different accents
    • Why Choose RapidMiner for Your Data Science & Machine Learning Software?
    • How to Use CRM Integration to Your Advantage – Real World Examples
    • WATCH: ‘Coming 2 America’ Movie Review Available On Amazon Prime & Amazon
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited