Chapter 4. CRM 2016 Online

Microsoft has made substantial investments in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to provide a cost-effective and full-featured experience for users. The integration with Microsoft Office 365 Online has streamlined the process and provides an opportunity for organizations to consolidate their Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online experiences.

This chapter is devoted to the Online version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. In some places, this chapter explicitly notes differences between On-Premises and Online, but where it doesn’t, you can assume that the text is about CRM Online.

For more information about On-Premises installations of CRM, SEE CHAPTER 29, “On-Premises Deployments.”

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is a Microsoft-hosted service that offers tight integration with the Office 365 platform. Microsoft started offering CRM Online during the CRM 4.0 days, with close feature parity with what you would receive using an On-Premises or partner hosted implementation. With the release of CRM 2011, the Online offering was also updated, and the differences between the options narrowed, but limitations imposed because of a shared hosting environment kept some organizations from using this service offering. In 2012, Microsoft rolled out updates that further narrowed the differences and improved security, allowing CRM Online to be a true first-class citizen in the Microsoft CRM world.

Fast deployment—Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online provides all the hosting hardware, software, and infrastructure support as part of the monthly costs. As you will see later in this chapter, you can “spin up” a new organization in as little as 20 minutes. There is no need to install and configure servers and the CRM server software.

Lower initial investment—For many organizations, this is the key to selecting CRM Online. There are no upfront infrastructure costs or licensing costs; instead, all costs are included in the monthly licensing fee. Even a small On-Premises implementation of just 20 users could run $20,000 to $25,000 for servers and license costs.

No IT infrastructure necessary for setup and maintenance—Because Microsoft provides all the hardware and software, there is no need for additional hardware, software, or dedicated IT resources. This means there are no ongoing IT costs related to maintenance, backups, and management of additional servers.

Immediate external access—Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is a hosted solution. Therefore, on day one it is available to any user who has an Internet connection, from a variety of devices, including iPads and mobile phones. On-Premises installations require additional steps and complexity to expose the CRM services outside a company’s network.

High level of redundancy—As you will see in this chapter, Microsoft provides a high level of redundancy with its Online offering. This level of redundancy would greatly increase the initial costs, maintenance expenses, and complexity of an On-Premises installation.

Late in the 2011 life cycle and based on feedback from On-Premises customers, Microsoft moved away from the concurrent release schedule. Going forward, Microsoft would still target UR releases every eight weeks, but now it would only include fixes and not new features. For CRM Online customers, there would be twice-per-year new feature releases, which were automatically deployed to the customer environment and, depending on the size, could include an optional opt-in to help with deployment timing. On-Premises gets new feature releases once per year, putting the CRM Online users in a position to receive new features twice as often.

This new approach has greatly improved the stability of releases and given organizations a chance to evaluate and decide which features to adopt. The different release schedules impact an organization’s ability to move between Online and On-Premises environments, and timing and other considerations are important. Figure 4.2 visually lays out the planned release cycle for URs.

In addition to the real-time replication of data, Microsoft also performs near-real-time replication at the data center at the other side of the region for resiliency and disaster recovery.

Using this architecture, each scale group can support a large number of instances. If one instance starts consuming a large number of resources, it is automatically moved to another scale group that has more capacity. Figure 4.5 shows the scale group architecture.

No advertising—A customer’s data is considered confidential, and Microsoft does not scan the contents of the database or documents to analytic, data-mining, or advertising products.

No mingling—Microsoft uses independent databases to separate one customer’s data from other customers’ data. Each database is provisioned for one customer to maximize data security and ensure integrity.

Data portability—The isolation of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customer simplifies moving data between Online and On-Premises environments. The customer’s data belongs to the customer and can be removed whenever the customer desires.

Just a few of these certifications include:

Independently verified—Microsoft uses independent third parties to verify compliance.

Certified for ISO 27001—ISO 27001 is one of the best security benchmarks available in the world.

EU model clauses/EU safe harbor—At the request of a customer, Microsoft will sign the standard agreements for “EU model clauses,” which address international transfer of data.

HIPAA-business associate agreement—The U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs the use, disclosure, and safeguarding of protected health information.

Enterprise—This top-end license for CRM Online includes all features as well as most of the rest of the items that fall under the Dynamics CRM umbrella, such as Parature and Social Engagement.

Professional—This license includes access to the core functionality, the ability to customize and access all modules delivered by Microsoft, and xRM solutions developed in house or by external vendors.

Basic—This mid-tier license provides basic access to several core entities, such as Contact, Account, Case, and Lead (in addition to xRM solutions). This is a good option for organizations that do not use the Sales Force Automation, Customer Service, or Marketing components that are delivered with CRM.

Essential—The entry point for CRM Online is the Essential license. With this level of license, the user cannot access any of the core components or core entities. A good example is a pure xRM solution, as described in Chapter 3, “Customizing and Designing Applications Within Dynamics CRM 2016 (xRM).”

The availability and licensing options by user vary, and as new products are added, they continue to evolve. Figure 4.8 provides a sample breakout of the features available at each license level, but be sure to check out the licensing and purchasing options available at the time of purchase for changes to this list.

In addition to the access and functional rights provided with each license, as the number of licensed users within an organization grows, additional free capacity enhancements are included. A quirk that existed before Dynamics CRM 2016 was that regardless of the number of users, every organization received 5GB of storage. This meant that organizations with only one or two users had 5GB, and organizations with thousands of users also had 5GB. Luckily, Microsoft has recognized this deficiency and added scaled storage, as described in the next section.

For On-Premises deployments, the following options now exist:

Server

Enterprise users

Professional user or Device client access license (CAL)

Basic user or device CAL

Essential CAL

Although this new licensing is significantly simplified over previous licensing, it still requires some conversation with regard to the actual pricing because Microsoft licensing is as diverse as its many offerings.

Additional production instance—An organization may purchase an additional production instance as an add-on license. Each user licensed in the main production instance has access to this new production instance. The projected cost for this is $549 per month per additional production instance. For example, a service organization may decide to use the additional production instance to segregate a client’s data.

Additional non-production instance—An organization may elect to purchase additional non-production instances for activities such as development, testing, or demonstrations. The cost for a non-production instance is $150 per month for each additional non-production instance. This comes as a great relief for organizations that require additional instances but do not want to purchase full production instances.

Additional storage—For each additional 20 licensed users, an organization is granted 2.5GB, up to a maximum of 995GB total, at no charge. However, if the organization wants to purchase more storage than allocated, it can do so at $9.99 per gigabyte.

Figure 4.9 shows the options available.

Multitier model—Organizations have flexibility to license the right level of functionality for every user; it is no longer one-size-fits-all.

Parity between offerings—Now there are consistent multitier license offerings for Online CRM and On-Premises CRM.

Mobile access—Mobile access for Windows, Android, and iOS devices is included with each license at no additional charge.

Non-production instances—Non-production instances provide better support for organizations with non-production needs.

Updated EA (Enterprise Agreement) availability—Microsoft offers favorable terms for license transitions from On-Premises to Online.

Flexible premium support offerings—Microsoft offers several different levels of premium support for each Online client.

1. Provision an Office 365 account.

2. Configure additional users.

3. Grant security roles to users.

4. Manage your CRM Online subscription.

1. Go to www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-free-trial-overview.aspx, where you see a web page similar to is the one shown in Figure 4.10.

2. Click the Get Started button.

3. On the signup page, fill out the requested information, as shown in Figure 4.11. Be sure to set the organization size to greater than 5, or the trial won’t be created. Key points include the following:

Business Email Address—Use a real email account. A helpful link will be sent to this address, allowing you to log in again in the future.

Company Name—This will be your default subdomain used to directly access your site. You might want to aim for the short version of your company name (for example, http://mycompanyname.crm.dyanamics.com).

User ID—This will be the default administrator for the new organization, as shown in Figure 4.12. It will set you up with an @companyname.onmicrosoft.com address. The recommendation here is to use administrator or admin.

4. Next you are prompted to select Text Me or Call Me and enter a phone number, as shown in Figure 4.13.

At this point, a screen displays, much like the one in Figure 4.14. The provisioning process takes between 5 and 15 minutes. When the provisioning process is complete, you are ready to perform some initial setup.

5. At the top of the screen, as shown in Figure 4.15, click the CRM link.

6. As shown in Figure 4.16, set the purpose (Sales, Customer Service, or Both) of your new CRM Online site, the currency, and the base language. The default is based on the country you selected when you signed up. When you are done with these selections, click Finish to start the last step in the setup process.

7. In the provisioning page that appears (see Figure 4.17), watch the video introduction to CRM if you are relatively new to CRM and this is your first organization. When the setup is complete, you see a button allowing you to launch CRM. When you launch CRM, make sure that you add a link for your CRM site to your favorites.

Congratulations, you have provisioned your CRM organization! Clicking Launch CRM Online takes you to the default screen for CRM, as shown in Figure 4.18.

1. If the Office 365 Admin Portal (or starting at http://portal.microsoftonline.com), go to Users > Active Users and then click + to get to the screen shown in Figure 4.19. You must be a global administrator or user management administrator to access this function.

2. When the Office 365 Admin Portal asks for basic information about the new user, fill out the Display Name and User Name fields, which are required, as well as the other fields (see Figure 4.20).

3. Select the check box Make This Person Change Their Password the Next Time They Sign In and fill in the person’s email address so that an email with the new temporary password will be sent to the user.

4. Assign a license or licenses to this user, as shown in Figure 4.21. A count of the licenses is displayed for each option.

5. Click Create to create the user. When the process is complete, the username and a temporary password are will be displayed, as shown in Figure 4.22. The user will be able to access CRM after one or more security roles are assigned to this user.

For details on how to add security roles to users, SEE CHAPTER 22.

In the active users list in the Office 365 Admin Portal, you can manage the user population in CRM. The four options above the grid are as follows:

Add User—This option repeats the process outlined earlier to add additional users on a case-by-case basis and is the most commonly used of the four options.

Bulk Add—This option allows you to add multiple new users via an upload.

Filter—This option applies a filter to display only a subset of the users listed.

Search—This option allows you to search for a specific user account.

In a federated environment, the users from an organization’s active directory can be synchronized automatically, which allows for local changes to be synchronized with the cloud service.

Subscription management

Resources in use

Both features are available in the administration page in CRM. To get to the administration page, follow these steps:

1. Click Microsoft Dynamics CRM at the top of the page.

2. Select Settings > Administration.

Figure 4.26 shows the standard administration functions you see at this point.

If you click the Subscription Management icon shown in Figure 4.27, you end up at the Office 365 Admin Portal. As shown in Figure 4.28, you can select Billing > Subscriptions on this page.

You can then purchase a license, add users to an existing subscription, purchase additional storage, and view billing history. Here you can also access additional privacy and security supplements.

Many users may not have to view the resources in use under normal circumstances, as this is typically reserved for administration and billing purposes.

It is a good practice to regularly (perhaps monthly) check storage growth in your CRM organization because Microsoft does not automatically allocate additional storage when you run out. Figure 4.29 shows the resources in use for a sample organization. If you exceed the limit, you will not able to change or update your existing data until you make space or purchase additional storage. Microsoft sends a warning at 80% full, but you should not depend on that email; the space can fill quickly under certain circumstances.

One production instance

One non-production instance (if there are at least 25 users)

5GB of storage

Additional instances and storage can be purchased directly from Microsoft. Prices are typically quoted on a per-month basis.

To add additional instances to your Dynamics CRM Online instance, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to http://portal.office.com.

2. Enter your username and password to go to the Office 365 Admin Portal interface (see Figure 4.30).

3. Select Purchase Services from the left-side navigation area.

4. Navigate down to your Microsoft CRM Online instance and select Buy Now. If you are still within the initial 30 days, you see Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Trial (see Figure 4.31), and if you are not on trial anymore, you see Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

The purchase options appear, as shown in Figure 4.32. You have the option to purchase one or more of the following, at the prices shown at the website:

User licenses

Non-production instances

Production instances

Additional storage

5. Select the purchase option you want, and navigate to the checkout to complete for the purchase for your new services. The new services are immediately available for use and can be modified through this interface.

The free 30-day trial and low barrier to entry provide an ideal way for your organization to get started with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. In addition, the rapid tempo of updates provided by Microsoft for CRM Online eases the burden on your IT team and keeps you focused on your business.