Chapter 17. Settings
Proper setup and configuration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM are critical to a successful implementation.
As you have seen in previous chapters, and as this chapter makes clear, the Settings area drives most of the core functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. From user setup to template management to language options and customizations and processes, the Settings area is the place to go for proper configuration and tuning of your business.
Note
The Settings area should be a carefully controlled access point. If you want to remove access (aside from role membership, as discussed later in this chapter), you can modify the Site Map entity so that it does not appear. See Chapter 22, “Customizing Entities,” for more information about working with the Site Map entity.
Components of a Good Implementation
A good Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation consists of at least two main processes:
Physical setup—For On-Premises solutions, this includes everything from loading the application on the server to ensuring that a proper backup strategy is in place. For hosted solutions, this includes proper setup and configuration of client access.
Configuration and customization of the application—Configuration and customization in this case refer to how the application works compared to how you need it to work. For example, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has several business processes when it is first loaded. Your business might never need to use them, but most businesses that use Microsoft Dynamics CRM can really benefit from them when they’re configured to work like their business.
Refer to the workflow information in CHAPTER 26, “Process Development,” when considering building any workflow.
Additional considerations related to configuration include the processes mentioned earlier: setting up users, choosing which languages to deploy, selecting the currency types, and so on.
This chapter focuses on the options in the Settings section, which is divided in the following groups:
Business
Customization
System
Process Center
This chapter covers the Business and System groups.
The Customization group is covered in CHAPTER 22, and the Process Center group is covered in CHAPTER 26.
Business Management
The Business Management group gives you the following options (see Figure 17.1):
Fiscal Year Settings
Goal Metrics
Business Closures
Facilities/Equipment
Queues
Resource Groups
Sales Territories
Services
Sites
Subjects
Currencies
Connection Roles
Automatic Record Creation and Update Rules
The following sections describe all these options except for the last one, as they are covered in Chapter 10, “Working with Service”.
Fiscal Year Settings
The Fiscal Year settings determine how your calendar year and fiscal year are divided and are commonly used for managing goals.
Caution
Be careful with the fiscal period; you should not change this setting unless absolutely necessary because doing so will affect reporting.
The following fields are available in the Fiscal Year Settings dialog (see Figure 17.2):
Start Date—The date the fiscal year starts.
Fiscal Period Template—A description of how the fiscal year is divided. Typically, this is set to Quarterly, but it can be any of the options in the drop-down: Annually, Semiannually, Quarterly, Monthly, or 4-Week Period.
Fiscal Year—The fiscal year display options.
Named Based On—Whether the displayed name is based on the start or end of the fiscal year.
Fiscal Period—The fiscal period abbreviation.
Display As—How the fiscal year is displayed.
Goal Metrics
Dynamics CRM 2016 offers an easy-to-use and easy-to-manage option for goals. Selecting Goal Metrics from the Business Management interface brings you to the All Metrics page in the Settings section (see Figure 17.3).
For more information about goals, refer to CHAPTER 7, “Working with Sales.”
Business Closures
The Business Closures option is useful for managing service activities. A user cannot schedule activities during a time when a business closure is designated unless the Do Not Observe option is selected. (The Do Not Observe option is selected when working with resources and setting up work hour schedules.)
When creating a business closure, you have the option to create it as a full-day, multiple-day, or part-of-the-day event (see Figure 17.4).
You can create business closures for any time period, and when you create one, you prevent service activities from being scheduled (unless the Do Not Observe option is selected for the resource).
To learn more about service functionality, refer to CHAPTER 10 “Working with Service.”
Facilities/Equipment
Services use the Facilities/Equipment option when scheduling resources (see Figure 17.5). You use the Facilities/Equipment area when performing service scheduling because it works with the resources component. It differs from a business location because it involves the necessary services to complete a service task. If a business location is needed, you need to add a site, as explained later in this chapter.
For more information on service scheduling, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Queues
Queues serve as general access areas that are used to store items. You can set up custom queues to automatically process incoming email and convert them to activities (awaiting assignment in a queue).
There is a default queue set up for every user and team in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, and these queues are available for everyone to use. If you click View on the command bar, you see all the queues, as shown in Figure 17.6.
Note
Notice that the users’ queues (refer to Figure 17.6) are surrounded by < and >. These symbols indicate default queues, which are provided so that items can be routed automatically when an item is created (or is assigned via a change of ownership). The < and > symbols are the default format, but on the user setup page you can specify a different symbol for the default queue assignment.
To create a queue, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to Settings > Business Management > Queues. Select New to create a new queue. The form shown in Figure 17.7 appears.
2. Enter the queue name and owner.
3. Optionally enter the email address that the queue will use to gather incoming emails and automatically convert them to activities.
4. In the Email Settings section, select how Microsoft CRM should work with emails received by the email address entered for the queue. By default, the system processes all incoming email messages and converts them to activities. However, you can select to process only incoming emails that are in response to other emails previously sent from CRM; or only emails received that resolve to existing CRM leads, contacts, or accounts; or only emails that resolves to exiting CRM email-enabled entities.
5. Click Save. The mailbox for the email configuration is created for this queue as soon as the queue is created.
For more information about configuring email access, SEE CHAPTER 20, “Email Configuration.”
Queues can be activated, deactivated, or deleted. If a queue is deactivated, all items are removed from it, and if it is reactivated, it remains empty until it is used again. Before you can delete a queue, you need to move all of its items to another queue.
You can set security on queues by using roles (as explained later in this chapter). In addition, one of the most significant features is the concept of Working On; the owner of a record maintains ownership, but another person can be a Working On user. (This option is found on the Queue Item record, via the Queue view navigation.)
Note
New features have been added to queues since Dynamics CRM 2013 to help in configuring the automation of email activity to case or from social activity to case, for example. See Chapter 10.
Resource Groups
A resource group consists of users, teams, facility/equipment, or other resources grouped for the purposes of service scheduling.
To create a resource group, in the Resource Groups area, select New and enter the name of the resource group (see Figure 17.8).
After you save the resource group, you can add resources to it (see Figure 17.9).
For more information on service scheduling, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Sales Territories
A sales territory groups users into one territory, with a common manager specific to the territory (see Figure 17.10).
The territory manager is not necessarily the user’s manager. Because users can be assigned to only one territory, if you want to assign a user to more than one of your existing territories, you must create a new territory that covers the existing ones and assign the user to that new territory.
To create a new territory, in the Sales Territory area, select New and enter the territory name and, if applicable, the territory manager. Users in territories are either users or a manager. The territory manager is used for reporting/workflow purposes.
Click Members in the left navigation pane and then select users to add to the territory. Because a user can be assigned to only a single territory, each one is removed from any previously assigned territories when assigned to a new one.
Territories are very useful for summarizing data in sales reports, as well as obtaining various metrics data on activities by territory.
Services
Services are activities performed by one or multiple resources that are scheduled using the Service Scheduling module.
For more information about working with services, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Sites
Sites are the physical locations where work is done. They are assigned in using the Service Scheduling module. When you create a site, the only required information are the location name and the time zone (see Figure 17.11).
After a site has been created, you can assign resources consisting of either users or facility/equipment to it by selecting Resources from the left navigation pane (see Figure 17.12).
For more information on service scheduling, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Subjects
Subjects are the individual topics that make up your organization. They provide context and are required relations when you’re working with and creating the following entities:
Case
Sales Literature
Knowledge Article
Product
Generally, subjects include information related to these entities and are hierarchal in nature (see Figure 17.13).
To create a new subjects, select the node of the subject tree under which you want to add a new subject and then click Add a Subject. By default, the parent subject populates with the subject you selected (see Figure 17.14). Enter a value in the Title field, as well as any corresponding description. Then click Add to add the entered- subject to the subject tree, where it is then available for selection when working with the previous entities.
Note
Carefully consider setting up the subject tree for your products. Although an association is not required, subjects let you effectively categorize products for searching and reporting. When you are setting up the subject tree for products, the subjects are usually at a more general level than the actual product. For example, a subject might be Computers, and actual products associated might be Laptop, Desktop, and Handheld.
Currencies
When you add and activate currencies, they are available to the user. When a currency other than the base currency is used, the values associated with the record are converted (based on the conversion rate entered for that currency) to the base currency.
Although you cannot delete a currency if it has been associated with a record, you can disable it, which prevents it from being used on any new records.
To add a new currency option, select New. In the form that appears (see Figure 17.15), select the code from the Currency Code field lookup (or select Custom for Currency Type to enter a new custom currency). The Currency Name and Currency Symbol fields populate automatically, but you can change this information, if necessary. Finally, enter the currency conversion rate, which is the rate at which the selected currency converts to the base currency rate.
Note
The conversion rate entered for a currency remains in effect until a system administrator updates it. Inaccurate data can potentially be reported if the conversion rate is not updated relatively frequently, based on the selected currency conversion fluctuations. You might want to extend the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM by calling a web service to automatically calculate conversion monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly.
For more information on extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SEE CHAPTER 22.
After new currencies are created, different currencies can be assigned to transactions such as quotes, orders, invoices, and price lists. When this happens, Microsoft Dynamics CRM converts the money fields to the base currency, using the exchange rate entered for the selected currency.
It is important to understand when this conversion might happen because the exchange rate may change between the time of a transaction and the time of its conversion. For example, if a quote is created but waits for approval for three months, during that time, the exchange rate could adjust several times.
Exchange rates are updated when quotes, orders, invoices, or price lists are created and when any field that relates to currency is updated. In addition, if the state of the entity changes, exchange rates are recalculated.
Changing a currency rate has no effect on any entity that is using that currency unless one of the conditions previously mentioned (update or state change) is met. Therefore, you could view a transaction that has an old exchange rate unless you explicitly update it by changing the values or changing the entity state.
Connection Roles
Meant to replace relationship roles, connection roles are a more flexible variant of establishing a relationship (or connection) to other records. Figure 17.16 shows the default connection roles available.
To create a new connection role, in the Connection Roles option, select New and fill out the form shown in Figure 17.17. After you establish connection roles, they are available on the entity level (as selected in step 2 in the form shown in Figure 17.17) for reporting/management.
Relationship Roles
Relationship roles are available only for accounts, contacts, and opportunities. They are designed to enable users to configure relationship types that might exist between records of these entities in the system. Relationship roles can be used for any kind of relationship (such as business, family, and social).
To create a new relationship role, in the Relationship Roles option, select New and enter the role name (see Figure 17.18). Account, Contact, and Opportunity settings are not required; however, if you do not make selections for them, the relationship role will be active but not available to use on any entity.
When creating a relationship, you can set the type of relationship based on the relationship roles that have been created. For this example, select the Vendor relationship role you created earlier but select it only for the sample contact not for the sample account shown (refer to Figure 17.18).
Select ... > Relationships > Customer Relationships for the sample contact record, and you can see the roles in the drop-downs after you select the Party 2 field. Figure 17.19 shows the Relationship dialog with the various options.
After you do this setup, users can easily query on any roles; however, the results are not displayed in any kind of graphical format without a third party add-on.
Templates
Templates facilitate the management of predefined articles, contracts, emails, and both Word and Excel mail merges. You can build email templates to dynamically include context-sensitive information such as senders and receivers.
A Templates tile is available in the navigation bar, as shown in Figure 17.20.
If you click the Templates tile, you see five template categories:
Article Templates
Contract Templates
Email Templates
Mail Merge Templates
Document Templates
The last option, Document Templates, is a new addition to Dynamics CRM 2016 that better integrates Microsoft Word and Excel with Dynamics CRM.
Templates can be active or inactive, and they can be in any language that the system administrator makes available.
Note
You can find templates for data import under Settings > Data Management, not here. You can also find the entitlements templates under Settings > Service Management, not here.
Article Templates
You use article templates when working with the built-in knowledge base (found in the Service section of Microsoft Dynamics CRM). They can include formatted titles, sections, and section titles.
Contract Templates
You use contract templates to manage contracts. They include information such as billing frequency and service allotment.
For more information about templates, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Email Templates
Email templates are the richest templates because they allow for customizations specific to the sender and receiver. Email templates have several core properties that affect how they work:
Template Type
Viewable By
Language
Template Type
You select an option from the Template Type drop-down when you first create a template (see Figure 17.21).
The template type determines what data fields are available to work with on the template. Table 17.1 describes which entities’ data fields are available with the various template types.
Viewable By
The Viewable By property identifies where the email template is available. The entire organization can view and use templates created in the Settings area (assuming that everyone has adequate permission from their security roles).
Users can create their own email templates from their personal options, and, by default, the permissions on their personal templates are set at Individual. You can promote these templates to Organizational and use them across the organization by selecting Make Template Available to Organization from the Actions drop-down menu.
Tip
A user who owns a personal template or an administrator can promote it by navigating to All Email Templates and setting Viewable By to Individual.
Language
The Language property specifies the language of the template. By default, templates are displayed in the view as All Email Templates, and only the base language templates appear there. If a new template is created and another language is selected, it does not appear in All Email Templates; you must select All Language Email Templates to see the templates that exist outside the base template.
As with the rest of the system, the only language options are those that the system administrator has loaded and made available in Settings > Languages.
To create a template, follow these steps:
1. Select New > Template Type.
2. Select the language, the title, and (optionally) the description. These are specific to the template properties, and the recipient will not see them. The recipient will see the subject and the body, and these are available for dynamic content.
3. To enter dynamic content, place the cursor in either the subject or the body and click the Insert/Update button at the top of the form. (If the cursor is in the title or the description, the dynamic fields will be placed in the body by default.) The Data Field Values dialog then opens, enabling you to add data fields. Click Add to add a data field (see Figure 17.22).
Tip
The Default Text field enables you to enter alternative text that appears when the selected data field is blank.
4. Select the record type to work with. By default, the user record information will always be available, along with content-specific information related to the template type. (See the previous discussion about template type.)
5. Select the attribute from Record Type and add it to Data Field Values dialog. Selecting more than one value causes Microsoft Dynamics CRM to add only one value from the list—whichever one it finds first. In addition, each data field must be added uniquely. (For example, for the name of the contact, if you select First Name and then Last Name as part of the same data field, Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses the first name (if available), not the last name. If the first name is not available, CRM uses the last name. If neither is available, CRM uses the default text entered. If there is no default text, CRM leaves this field blank.) Format the text/dynamic areas as desired (see Figure 17.23).
Note
Templates can have attachments. To add an attachment to a template, scroll down to the bottom of the template and add an attachment.
Tip
You can include an image in a template as an attachment, or you can copy and paste the image from any public website. To do this, navigate to the website and then copy and paste the image directly into the body of the template.
Another use for templates is in the creation of an email signature. You can create a template with Template Type set to Global and add the desired signature values. Then, when you create an email, select the Insert Template option and insert the signature template.
Mail Merge Templates
Mail merge templates are powerful because they allow for the creation of formatted Word documents with data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
To create a new mail merge template, navigate to the templates and select New and complete the required fields. The Categorization field enables you to select the associated entity: Quote, Opportunity, Lead, Account, Case, Profile Album, Contact, or any custom entity that is mail merge enabled. The ownership defaults to Individual, but you can change that to Organizational later. Template language is limited to the language options installed and made active by the system administrator.
In the File Attachment area, you specify the merge document that is associated with the mail merge template.
Note
The only acceptable file type for mail merge templates is Microsoft Office Word documents saved in Office XML format.
Figure 17.24 shows a mail merge template associated with the Contact entity.
Document Templates
Document templates, as mentioned earlier, are a new addition to Dynamics CRM 2016 that better integrate Microsoft Word and Excel with Dynamics CRM.
Refer to CHAPTER 21, “Office Integration,” for information about working with document templates.
Product Catalog
Information about the products being sold is managed in the Product Catalog section, where you can provide information in four areas:
Families & Products
Price Lists
Discount Lists
Unit Groups
Tip
Although they’re not listed here, products associated with currencies are classified by subject. If you’re setting up a large product list, it might make sense to build the subject categories and add whatever currencies you want to work with before you start working with products. If you need to make changes after the products have been created, you can select the Reclassify option from the command bar.
Figure 17.25 shows the Product Catalog section and its four areas.
Many Microsoft Dynamics CRM users will undoubtedly be interested in having their product catalog managed by another application, typically their accounting or ERP system. This is a best practice and highly recommended. This management is usually handled programmatically and can be configured for almost any type of ERP/accounting system using integration software such as Scribe (www.scribesoft.com).
Families & Products
There have been some enhancements made in the Families & Products area: You can now create families, products, and bundles. Products can now have dynamic properties defined, and they can be hierarchically related. You can also manage drafts of products that need to be published in order for users to be able to use the products in quotes, orders, and invoices.
Families
A product family doesn’t require you to set a unit group, a default unit, or the decimals supported. You use a product family to set Dynamics CRM properties that can be inherited by other products that belong to the product family. This extends the use of the product catalog in a flexible way.
Refer to CHAPTER 7, “Working with Sales,” for information about working with products.
Products
You can set up and maintain the products you sell, using the following options:
Product Details
Substitutes
Price List Items
Kit Products
Note
It is possible for users to create products as write-in products. Write-in products are products that are not set up in the product catalog.
Tip
Be sure to monitor the use of write-in products by your users. Salespeople often use write-in products to manipulate the system to sell products that are in the product catalog but create product discounts or solve other limitations that aren’t normally available.
In the Product Designer, you use the Summary tab to set required information such as product ID, product name, unit group, default unit, and decimals supported (see Figure 17.26).
You can also enter vendor information. This is helpful for automation and shipping routines that might be incorporated into the system related to e-commerce situations.
In the Substitutes section, you can specify products from the product catalog that can be substituted for the product being created or edited. Substitutions are not the same as write-in products, which can consist of any item; rather, they are predefined substitutions for the product being edited.
In the Price List Items section, you specify the product groupings applicable to the product, as well as their associations to the actual product and units.
Another important option is Quantity Selling Option, which enables you to sell in any fashion. This is good, for example, if you have selected hours as your product, and you want to invoice in only 15-minute increments, or 1/4 quantity.
In the Kit Products section, you can specify a number of products bundled as a kit for purposes of selling as a group. A kit product has a single price for all the items in the kit. To create a kit product, select the product and select ... > Convert to Kit. (Similarly, if you want to demote a kit product to a regular product, select ... > Convert to Product.) An example of a kit product might be a 1-hour service call on a computer that includes a new mouse and a new computer (see Figure 17.27).
Bundles
A product bundle allows you to group different products in a bundle so salespeople can sell products together in a combo, possibly at a special price.
Refer to CHAPTER 7” for information about working with products and product bundles.
Price Lists
Price lists are groupings of products with associated pricing. If you don’t have varied pricing for some reason, you could easily set up a single price list (called Standard Price List, Default Price List, or something similar) with all your products and their pricing on it. In addition, you might have only a small number of price lists, such as Retail and Wholesale. However, no limit governs the number of available price lists; you can create multiple price lists by customer, region, time of year, or based on some other consideration.
Tip
Having too many price lists can create confusion when your salespeople are attempting to build quotes, orders, or invoices. If you use many price lists, be sure to use a comprehensive naming strategy to ensure that the right list is used.
Although you need to create price lists next in the hierarchy, they aren’t completed until you add products to each list. Fortunately, you can do this in the final step when the products are built, and, if necessary, you can return to the price list items for each price list to edit the items.
A price list consists of the name, currency, and start/end dates that the price list is applicable for, as well as price list items (see Figure 17.28).
Note
Although you can configure the start and end dates for a price list, these dates are not enforced, and users can continue to use a price list after the end date has passed. You must manually deactivate or delete a price list after the date has passed to prevent it from being used.
Tip
You can easily set up price lists in conjunction with discount lists for promotional and seasonal pricing for specific products. To do this, create a new discount list with the discount and quantity of discount (see the next section). (For this scenario, in which the promotional pricing would apply to every item, regardless of quantity, the beginning quantity would be 1, and the ending quantity would be whatever maximum level you wanted to set.) Then create a new price list and add existing products and units, as well as the discount list you previously set up. Be sure to name both the price list and the discount list appropriately so that you’ll know what they are for.
A price list is active by default when you create a new one unless you explicitly deactivate it.
Discount Lists
Commonly referred to as discount schedules, discount lists allow discounts to be given based on quantity. Discounts can be based on either percentage or amount or quantity ordered within a specified range (see Figure 17.29).
When you’re thinking about setting up a discount list, consider how you want the discount to be applied. The following example shows how a discount list might work using percentages:
If you wanted to set up a discount list with amounts, you could do it as follows:
In both cases, no discount is applied if the quantity ordered is less than 1,000.
You can create as many discount lists as necessary and, although not required, you can associate them with different price lists and price list items. (See the “Price Lists” section, earlier in this chapter.)
Unit Groups
Unit groups determine groupings for selling products. A good example of unit groups is for cans of soda. The quantity (or unit group) is determined by how the soda is purchased because it is possible to purchase a single can, a six-pack, a case consisting of 12 cans, or a case of 24 cans. Unit groups could also consist of minutes, hours, and days for services offered. These are just a couple examples. Unit groups can comprise any level of quantities for whatever products or services your company sells.
Each of the quantities for a unit group consists of a primary unit, which is the lowest level of unit available and, in the case of services, could be at any level. The example shown in Figure 17.30 illustrates a services company that sells its services by the second. (Granted, this is a somewhat far-fetched scenario, but it clearly illustrates how to set up quantities.)
Note
In this example, note that you can charge for an hour of time in a couple different ways, but the base units differ depending on whether you’re using minutes or seconds. Unit groups are associated with products and the default units for the products.
Service Management
Service Management is a new area in Dynamics CRM where you find all the necessary configurable components in a single page. This area has the following groups (see Figure 17.31):
Case Settings with Record Creation and Update Rules
Service Terms
Knowledge Base Management
Templates
Service Scheduling
Refer to CHAPTER 10 for information about working with services.
Customization
The Customization area allows you to modify Microsoft Dynamics CRM extensively. In this area you get the following options:
Customizations
Solutions
Dynamics Marketplace
Plug-in Trace Log
SEE CHAPTER 22 for information about working with customizations.
System Administration
The System features are features that should be carefully controlled and be given limited access, as the changes to these features can have severe effects, including revoking permissions for intended users. Organizations typically limit access to the System features to only one or two system administrators.
There are two main System categories: Administration and Security.
Administration
Administration is where a majority of the system setup, configuration, and maintenance is performed. The Administration page has the following options:
Announcements
Auto-Numbering
System Settings
Languages
Privacy Preferences
Subscription Management (CRM Online only)
System Notifications (CRM Online only)
Resources in Use (CRM Online only)
Product Updates (partner hosted or On-Premises only)
Yammer Configuration
Microsoft Social Engagement Configuration
Note
When working with CRM Online, the options on the Administration screen may be slightly different, depending on whether your organization is using an upgraded version or not. For example, you may or may not see the Subscription Management, System Notifications, and Resources in Use options.
Figure 17.32 shows the Administration screen from the Settings area with the On-Premises options visible. The following sections describe all the possible options on the Administration screen.
Announcements
Announcements previously enabled you to communicate with CRM users by creating messages that could be displayed to users in the system. With this version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the announcements home page has been removed and is not available to end users unless you either customize the interface (by adding back the /home/homepage/home_news.aspx URL in a SubArea to a SiteMap entity) or implement it programmatically inside a web resource or an IFRAME inside a dashboard.
Announcements are listed by creation date, with the most recent at the top. When creating announcements, select New and complete the required information (see Figure 17.33). Announcements have four properties:
Title—This field is required.
Body—This field is required.
More Information URL—This field is optional. However, when entered, it displays on the main announcements page, allowing users to navigate directly to the entered URL.
Expiration Date—This field is an optional value that automatically hides the announcement after the date has expired. After the announcement has expired, you can reactivate it by changing the expiration date to a future date.
Note
Announcements do not support either rich formatting or having documents attached. If you need to refer to external documents, consider placing them in a common web directory and inserting the More Information URL into the announcement record.
Auto-Numbering
By default, Microsoft Dynamics CRM auto-numbers the following entities incrementally:
Contract
Case
Article
Quote
Order
Invoice
Campaign
Knowledge Article
With the exception of Article and Knowledge Article entities, you can adjust the Suffix Length setting to 4, 5, or 6.
Changing a prefix number to a new value applies to newly created records; it does not change existing records.
System Settings
Located on the main Administration page after you select Settings -> Administration, the System Settings interface is similar to (and often confused with) the User Options interface. Here, unlike with the User Options interface, you make systemwide settings that affect all users.
The System Settings interface is divided into 13 tabbed sections in On-Premises and 14 tabbed sections in CRM Online (see Figure 17.34):
General
Calendar
Formats
Auditing
Email
Marketing
Customization
Outlook
Reporting
Goals
Sales
Service
Synchronization
Previews (CRM Online only)
General
In the General section, you can set and change the following options:
Default Save Option for Forms—You can set this to enable or disable auto save on the forms. This setting affects all entities.
IM Presence Option—You can set whether instant messaging will display the current presence status for users, contacts, opportunities, or leads for either Lync or Skype. If you are sure you don’t want to use Lync or Skype, you should disable this option to increase the web application performance.
Full-Name Format—This is the default way the user and customer names are displayed when using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. You can set whether you want the first name or the last name displayed first and also whether to show the middle name.
Note
If you select to change the Full-Name Format setting, your change affects the format only for new records added to the system. All existing records continue to display in the original format. Although it can take some effort (and is not recommended because you lose any related record associations), one way of correcting this for existing records is to export all of them, delete or deactivate them, and then reimport them. They will take on the new format during reimport. Be sure to carefully consider this prior to attempting it, though, because it might be more trouble than it’s worth.
Currency Precision—When working with currency fields throughout Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can set the level of precision (from 0 to 4) for the decimal.
Reassigned Records Are Shared—This option enables you to specify whether an entity is shared with the original owner by default when it is reassigned or whether the new owner assumes complete ownership of the entity. By default, this is set to No.
Blocked File Extensions for Attachments—By default, the listed file extensions are blocked and prevented from being uploaded. Attempting to upload a document with one of the blocked file extensions listed results in an error (see Figure 17.35). These are the recommended and default extensions designed to keep your system safe and prevent malicious files from being uploaded. However, you can edit this list as you see fit.
Currency Display Options—You can choose to display either the currency symbol (in the case of U.S. dollars and euros, this would be $ and €, respectively) or the currency code (again, in the case of U.S. dollars and euros, this would be USD and EUR, respectively).
Set Up Search—Enabling Quick Search record limits sets a performance throttle of 10,000 records and alerts users to try a different search. The search on CRM for tablets allows users to select which entities are searched on tablets. Because tablets and now also the full web client application allow multi-entity search, this is an extremely helpful feature, but users need to be sensitive to the performance impact of selecting too many fields (see Figure 17.36). There is a still limitation of 10 entities for a multi-entity Quick Search. The Dynamics CRM On-Premises has an option to allow the use of full-text search for Quick Search. Using this feature, introduced in CRM 2015 Update 0.1, drastically improves Quick Search performance. For example, a search using wildcards that might take 74 seconds with this feature set to No would take 0.067 seconds with this setting set to Yes. By default, this setting is set to No, so you must enable it manually here if you want to use it.
Enable Bing Maps—You can show Bing Maps natively on the records that have Bing Maps enabled (see Figure 17.37). The key is set by default for online users, but On-Premises users need to manually procure a key to enable this functionality.
Note
To obtain a Bing Maps On-Premises key, navigate to www.bingmapsportal.com, register your instance, and select the Create Key option from the left navigation pane. Set Create Key to the key value you obtained from the web page.
Default Country/Region Code—You use this for dialing purposes. Microsoft Dynamics CRM attempts to prefix the number with the country/region code.
Telephony Provider—You can set whether the clicked telephone number dials either Skype or Skype for Business/Lync by default.
Note
This setting has no effect on mobile devices.
Whether Users See CRM for Tablets Message—If this is enabled, users who access CRM on a tablet are prompted to download the tablet client.
SEE CHAPTER 18, “Mobility,” for more information related to the tablet options.
Custom Help—These settings allow you to point to a custom web application that will be responsible for providing help for custom and customizable entities. Make sure you include the protocol in the URL (for example, https:// or http://). Setting the Append parameters to URL will help you identify in your custom web app for what entity and what language the user is trying to get help. This URL will be fired when users go to a custom entity and click the ? sign in the top-right corner of the application.
Disable Social Engagement—Social Engagement is enabled by default, but you can disable it with this system setting.
Refer to CHAPTER 14, “Microsoft Dynamics Social Engagement,” for more information related to this feature.
Welcome Screen—Every time a new user accesses the CRM web application interface, a welcome screen is displayed, with some links to find additional help that is useful for starters. However, if you also remove the cookies every day, you will find this welcome screen annoying. As a system administrator, you can turn off this feature by setting this value to No.
Use Legacy Form Rendering—Dynamics CRM 2016 has new redesigned forms called turbo-forms that might not work properly on upgraded organizations with custom code. While you can take the time to fix problems on the customization, you can set this option to Yes to be able to use the forms but reduce the form load performance.
Calendar
You can use the Calendar section to set the scheduling options with regard to the maximum durations of an appointment in days.
If you try to schedule an appointment and it exceeds the amount of time set here, you get the error message shown in Figure 17.38. You have the option to ignore the error, save, and continue.
Formats
The Formats section enables you to customize how Microsoft Dynamics CRM formats data such as dates, times, and numbers.
Selecting a value from the drop-down menu populates the default values for the selected region in the Format Preview, showing you how the information will be formatted. If you need to further edit the values for regional settings, custom formats, or other settings, select Customize and make the necessary advanced configurations.
Auditing
To enable auditing, you can use the Auditing options shown in Figure 17.39. Regardless of your individual entity or attribute settings, auditing will not start until this is enabled. See “Auditing,” later in this chapter, for more information about working with this feature.
The Email options involve configuration changes to how Microsoft Dynamics CRM works with email (see Figure 17.40):
Configure Email Processing—This option helps the email router by processing only emails that have met the selected criteria.
SEE CHAPTER 20 for more information about working with email options.
Folder-Level Tracking—This new feature in CRM 2016 allows a folder to automatically track emails that are moved to it. This requires the server-side sync option to be enabled, and it works with Exchange servers.
Email Correlation—As with previous versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you are not required to use a tracking token to track emails. Instead, CRM uses smart matching to automatically track emails using the From, To, and Subject information to match the email. For a variety of reasons, this correlation might not be 100% accurate. (Common reasons you might lose correlation are someone changing the Subject line or the email being forwarded to another individual.) If you require 100% correlation, use the tracking token, which automatically appends itself to the subject of all outbound emails in whatever form you select in this section.
Note
The prefix of the tracking token cannot be blank, it can contain spaces, and it allows a maximum value of 20 characters.
Figure 17.41 shows how the tracking token is structured, as well as options available to tune the smart matching feature:
CRM User Tracking Options—By default, when a user sends a CRM email to another CRM user and the second user replies, both emails are recorded as an activity for the selected record (one activity of type email outgoing and one activity of type email incoming).
Email Form Options—You can select whether to restrict email message content via secure frames and whether to allow messages with unresolved email recipients. Secure frames are used to prevent malicious code execution that might exist when opening emails in CRM. Unresolved email recipients are recipients that are not found in the Account, Contact, Lead, or User Email Address fields.
File Size Limitations—You can enter the file size allowed for uploading attachments to emails. The default is 5,120Kb (5MB), and the maximum value is 131,072Kb (128MB), which has been increased since the previous versions of Dynamics CRM.
Tip
The File Size Limitations setting also affects attachments added to notes.
Configure Alerts—You can turn off or on the alerts related to system errors, warnings, or information to CRM users. This global setting applies to all the options/users.
Marketing
The Marketing options allow for powerful and easy management related to marketing when using Microsoft Dynamics CRM (see Figure 17.42):
Enable Direct Email via Mail Merge—By default, users can send email as campaign activities by using mail merge. If you want to prevent this functionality, change the value here.
Create Campaign Responses for Incoming Email—If email tracking is enabled, you can configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM to automatically create a campaign response for incoming email. This is enabled by default.
Auto-Unsubscribe—If email tracking is enabled, you can configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM to change the value on the customer record of Do Not Send Marketing Material to True if an unsubscribe email is received. Furthermore, you can configure whether the customer will receive an acknowledgment of the unsubscribe request and select a template for this acknowledgment.
The Unsubscribe option is available when you’re preparing marketing: You can insert an option that allows users to click a link to unsubscribe from future marketing campaigns.
SEE CHAPTER 8, “Working with Marketing,” for more information about working with the Unsubscribe feature.
Customization
You can set whether Microsoft Dynamics CRM opens in Application mode (full browser screen for CRM usage only), as shown in Figure 17.43.
When working in Application mode, you can press Ctrl+N to open a new window. The application opens and has Application mode off for as long as that new browser is open.
A new setting has been added here for plug-in and custom workflow activity tracing. This option is disabled by default but is useful for developers who want to debug plug-in and custom workflow activities so that they can be seen in the Settings > Customization > Plug-in Trace Log.
For more information about plug-ins, SEE CHAPTER 25, “Plug-ins.”
Outlook
Distinctly separate from the Email options, the Outlook options are specifically designed to optimize the Outlook Client (see Figure 17.44):
Email Promotion Options—Incoming email is automatically promoted to CRM based on the user settings configured. The options here set whether the email is eligible for promotion as it arrives, performs the actual promotion at specified intervals, and sends pending CRM-specific email at the specified interval.
User Schedule Synchronization—You can set whether users can manually schedule synchronization from Outlook and at what interval synchronizations should occur. For optimal performance, set this to no less than the recommended default of 15 minutes.
Local Data Synchronization—You can set whether and how often users can update the data that is stored on their computers for use offline.
Address Book Synchronization—Like the User Schedule Synchronization option, this option enables users to schedule background address book synchronization and set the time interval between synchronizations.
Get the Outlook Client—Sets whether users see the option to download the client (if not already downloaded).
For more information about configuring the application to work with Outlook, SEE CHAPTER 19, “Outlook Configuration.”
Reporting
The Reporting options enable you to create and manage the categories in to which reports are grouped (see Figure 17.45).
Reports can belong to none, one, or multiple categories, and you can easily group together different kinds. When you edit an existing report or create a new report, you assign the categories listed here.
Note
If you add a new category here, you can assign it to new or existing reports; however, it is not an available option in the report views until you create a view for the new category.
Goals
The Goals options enable you to set the expiration time and rollup recurrence frequency (see Figure 17.46).
Languages
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is incredibly multilingual. It can serve as many languages as it has available, and users can select the language they want to work with. Table 17.2 shows the languages available at press time.
When you select a language, Microsoft Dynamics CRM translates most of the labels within CRM to the selected language. In rare cases when the language is unavailable for translation, Microsoft Dynamics CRM falls back to the installed base language. Note that setting a different language does not translate the data contained within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Although customizations must be done in the base language, they can be translated so that they are viewed in a different language.
To allow a different language, select Languages and select the language you would like to have deployed on the system. Click Apply and then click OK (see Figure 17.47).
Tip
Unlike with CRM Online, where all the languages are available for deployment, On-Premises versions of CRM require that a languages be downloaded and installed on the server first. You can download languages from Microsoft by searching for “CRM 2016 Language Pack” or by going directly to www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50371.
The system provisions the language and makes it available to users. This process might take several minutes and may disrupt users’ ability to use the system, so you should consider adding the languages after hours or when nobody else is using the system.
Tip
By default, any installed languages are disabled and must be enabled.
Users can now select which language they want to work with by navigating to the gear icon in the top-right corner and selecting Options and then selecting the Languages tab (see Figure 17.48). Only the languages that have been enabled are available for selection in this dialog.
Note
There is a special setting in the business management role under Miscellaneous Privileges called Language Settings. It allows the enabling and disabling of languages. If you’re unable to perform language configuration changes, be sure to check your role settings for this permission.
Tip
Check the mail merge templates after the language packs have been installed. Several different ones are loaded with each language installed.
Privacy Preferences
Privacy preferences are different depending on whether you are in CRM Online or On-Premises. In CRM Online, you can specify both whether you will see an error message and whether that error message will be sent to Microsoft. You also have the option to specify an external URL with you own privacy statement; if you do, users can then access it by going to the gear icon and selecting Privacy Statement.
With Dynamics CRM On-Premises, you have the option to select whether you want to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program. The default for this is established when Microsoft Dynamics CRM is installed. It is a good idea to participate because doing so will help Microsoft improve future releases and products.
Subscription Management (CRM Online Only)
In CRM Online, the Settings > Administration area has a Subscription Management option that allows CRM Online administrators to set payment and billing options. When you select the Subscription Management option, a new window takes you to the Subscription Management interface for your CRM Online account (the Office 365 Admin Portal). From this interface, you can add subscriptions, view your payment details, and see what licenses you are using.
System Notifications (CRM Online Only)
The System Notifications options are found only with CRM Online in Settings > Administration. The System Notifications status screen shows information related to your CRM Online account.
Resources in Use (CRM Online Only)
The Resource in Use options is found only with CRM Online in Settings > Administration. This option shows you the usage of the resources, such as the storage, which by default is 5 GB, and the number of custom entities. The limitation in CRM Online is 300 custom entities (see Figure 17.49).
Product Updates (Partner Hosted or On-Premises Only)
The Product Updates options enable you to sign up for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Update newsletter so you can receive email notifications when a CRM update is released.
A Windows Live ID is required to complete the registration. When you are subscribed, you can receive communications from Microsoft related to Microsoft Dynamics CRM product updates.
Note
A Windows Live ID is an account that is set up, verified, and administrated by Microsoft. With Windows Live, you can verify your identity with any system using the Live/Passport network.
Keep in mind that Microsoft Dynamics CRM product updates are now delivered through the update service automatically. The signup described here is simply for a newsletter informing you of information related to the updates (not the actual updates themselves).
Yammer Configuration
You can use the Yammer Configuration section to configure the integration between Yammer and Dynamics CRM.
Refer to CHAPTER 15, “Yammer,” for details related to Yammer configuration and usage.
Microsoft Social Engagement Configuration
You can use the Microsoft Social Engagement Configuration section to configure integration between Social Engagement and Dynamics CRM.
Refer to CHAPTER 14 for details related to Social Engagement configuration and usage.
Security
You use the Security section to set up and configure users, roles, and permissions. It has the following options (see Figure 17.50):
Users
Teams
Security Roles
Business Units
Field Security Profiles
Hierarchy Security
Positions
Access Team Templates
Users
You can go to Settings > Security > Users to create and manage Microsoft Dynamics users (see Figure 17.51).
When working with the Users section, you can perform several operations:
Add a new user(s)
Enable or disable users
Manage roles
Reassign records
Change business units
Change managers
Change position
Open mailbox
Approve/reject emails
View users
Adding a New User
To add a new user, select + New > User and follow the steps outlined next for your implementation of Dynamics CRM (Online or On-Premises) to complete the user addition.
Note
If you do not have a + New option here, you might not have sufficient rights or privileges to create new users.
Note
After you add users to the CRM system, you can only deactivate them; you cannot delete them. Therefore, you can add a user as new only once. If you have already added a user and you don’t see him or her, be sure to check the Disabled Users view to see whether that user has already been added.
Tip
If your organization is not using another tool for user management, such as a human resource management tool, you might want to consider using the Dynamics CRM User Management for your user management. You can customize it to include other fields, and you can easily report on it using Advanced Find.
Adding users for CRM Online is slightly different from adding them for On-Premises because the Online implementation uses the email address as the primary key rather than doing a lookup into Active Directory (as shown later in the chapter), and the users must be configured in the Office 365 Admin Portal.
1. Select New.
2. When you are prompted to navigate to the Office 365 Admin Portal (see Figure 17.52), click Add and License Users.
3. Once in the Office 365 Admin Portal (as shown in Figure 17.53), manage your users.
Note
After you set up a user in the Office 365 Admin Portal, you still have to navigate back to CRM to set up the user’s security permissions.
Working with the Office 365 Office 365 Admin Portal is explained more fully in CHAPTER 4, “CRM 2016 Online.”
Users receive an email, asking them to join the organization, and can start using the system immediately after they’ve accepted the terms and conditions.
Adding New Users: On-Premises
To add a single user in Dynamics CRM On-Premises, follow these steps:
1. Click +New on the navigation bar. A blank new user form opens.
Note
Selecting New Multiple Users opens the Add New Multiple Users Wizard, which is explained later in this chapter, in the “Adding Multiple Users (CRM On-Premises Only)” section.
2. Enter a value for the User Name field. When you move to the next field, CRM attempts automatic resolution on the entered value and populates other fields. If autopopulation does not occur, be sure to enter the exact first name and last name as well as the email address for the user that exists in Active Directory (for example, domainusername, where domain is the domain for your organization, and username is the domain username).
3. For richer reporting, fill out the remaining fields in the User Information section. You should complete at least the Primary Email field so the user can receive emails. If no email is entered, events (such as workflows and system alerts) that need to send emails to users will fail.
Organizational Information
The default master parent unit automatically populates business units, but you can change this to any available business unit before you click Save. After you save a record, you can also click Change Business Unit on the navigation bar to change the business unit. Remember that changing the business unit to a user removes all the roles that were assigned to the user, so you must reassign a role after you change the business unit.
As with business units, you can set the manager before you click Save. After you save the record, you can select Change Manager on the navigation bar to change or set the manager.
Similarly, you can set the position before you click Save. After you save the record, you can select Change the Position on the navigation bar to change or set the position.
Territory and Site are optional lookup fields. If you have not created any territories or sites in the system, you can leave these blank.
Although not required, you can set service activities to use sites.
For more information about configuring service activities, refer to CHAPTER 10.
In the Administration section, with regard to the client access license (CAL) information, you can set the access mode for users to the following:
Read-Write—Allows full access to the system, provided that users have the security permissions needed.
Administrative—Grants permission only to limited administrative areas of the system.
Read—Allows full access in a read-only capacity to the system.
License type can be set for the following:
Professional
Administrative
Basic
Device Professional
Device Basic
Essential
Device Essential
SEE CHAPTER 29, “On-Premises Deployments,” and CHAPTER 4 for more information about the licensing models.
Once a user is created and when you are in the user form, you can see more options by clicking the down-pointing arrow that appears to the right of the username in the navigation bar (see Figure 17.54).
These options are divided in three main groups, Common, Service, and Process Sessions:
Common
Teams
Security Roles
Field Security Profiles
Work Hours
Connections
Audit History
Service
Services
Resource Groups
Process Sessions
Background Processes
Real-Time Processes
The following sections explain the additional options that are not found in their own dedicated chapters (such as Service, found in Chapter 10, “Working with Service” and Processes, found in Chapter 26, “Process Development).
Teams
Users can belong to one or many teams. If they belong to a team, they benefit from team record sharing and permissions.
After you have successfully created and saved a user, you can have that user join an existing team by selecting Teams. By default, a user belongs to a team with the name of the CRM organization, and the user cannot be removed from that group. To join another team, click the + in the Teams subgrid and click the lookup icon to view all the available teams.
For more information about teams, SEE the “Teams” section, later in this chapter.
Security Roles
For users to be able to do anything in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, they must be assigned security roles. However, after a user has been created, or if a user has had the business unit changed, that user has no security roles and must be assigned a role before he or she can use the system.
To grant the user access to a role, select Manage Roles and then select the roles you want the user to belong to (see Figure 17.55).
Note
A user must belong to at least one role, and the user’s permissions are based on the highest role selected. If the user has both the restrictive Customer Service Representative role as well as the System Administrator role (the highest role possible), that user will have System Administrator rights throughout the system.
Field Security Profiles
As explained later in this chapter, you can establish field security profiles per user by selecting Field Security Profiles from the top navigation bar.
Work Hours
The Work Hours section enables you to control user schedules and schedule activities.
CHAPTER 10 discusses how the service calendar and scheduling engine work with work hours.
Services
When you are viewing an existing user record, any service records associated with the user are available by selecting Services from the navigation bar (refer to Figure 17.54). A service is any work performed for a customer by a user and resources. By default, a new user has no services associated with it.
For more information about creating and working with services, refer to CHAPTER 10.
Resource Groups
You can add users to existing resource groups by selecting Resource Groups from the navigation bar. A resource group is a collection of users, facilities, or equipment. The advantage to having them is that they can be scheduled interchangeably. For example, a resource group of everyone who works for you who is qualified to service a particular line of cars can be grouped. Then, when you need to schedule that service, you can pick from that group instead of among individual employees.
For more information about resource groups, refer to the “Resource Groups” section, earlier in this chapter.
Process Sessions (Background Processes and Real-Time Processes)
In the Background Processes and Real-Time Processes sections, you can see any completed workflows or dialog sessions that were run on the User entity. For a new user, you don’t see any completed workflows or dialog sessions here unless you have a workflow built for the Create event of the User entity from initial setup of your system (such as a welcome email).
For more information about process development, SEE CHAPTER 26, “Process Development.”
Adding Multiple Users (CRM On-Premises Only)
You can easily add multiple users at one time. To do so, select New Multiple Users. The adding users wizard opens. To complete the wizard, follow these steps:
1. Select the business unit and click Next (see Figure 17.56).
2. Select which security roles the users should belong to (see Figure 17.57). As with individual users, all users must have at least one security role to be able to use the system. When setting the roles for multiple users, all users who will be added will have the same security roles selected. Click Next.
If you don’t select security roles, the users will still be created, but you will receive an alert after they have been added, saying that you must assign at least one security role to the new users. When you are adding many users, this can be time-consuming, so consider adding the role here.
3. Select the licensing for the users (see Figure 17.58). The access type, the license type, and the email access configuration selected will apply to all users to be added. Click Next to continue.
4. Select the domain or group from Activity Domain to which the users belong. If you select Select Users from All Trusted Domains and Groups, all available users on the current trusted domain/groups are presented on the next screen. If you select Select Users from the Following Domain or Group, the option to select the specific group is presented. Be sure the group node you select contains your users; if a node is selected that does not have the users, it does not show up on the next screen; you have to navigate back to this screen to select an alternative node containing the users. Click Next.
5. Select the users you want to add by either typing their names, separated by semicolons, or searching for them by selecting the lookup icon. When the lookup dialog box opens, either enter your users’ search criteria or leave it blank to return all users available to be added to CRM. After you have confirmed the users to be added, they are added to the text box, and you can selectively remove individuals, if necessary.
6. Click Add > Create New Users. The users are added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This step might take several minutes. When this is finished, you see the Finish screen. Any alerts or problems with the addition process display here. Select either Add More Users to add more users or Close to complete the wizard.
Enabling or Disabling Users
You can use the navigation bar to enable and disable selected users. By disabling a user, you remove the license from that user, and you can add a new user to use that license if you want.
Note
Disabling users might cause any existing workflows or system jobs that the user has created or owns to fail. It can be a good idea to reassign the records of the disabled user to another user; you do this by going to the disabled user record and clicking the Reassign Records button on the navigation bar.
Managing Roles
From the navigation bar, you can manage selected users’ roles. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is role based, which provides a powerful mechanism to manage users. Because users must belong to at least one role but are allowed to belong to more than one, it is important to remember that a user will have the permissions of the higher role (refer to Figure 17.55).
Note
When you’re managing roles, you can select multiple users at the same time by selecting one or more on the left check box option. So if you select a single user, only the existing roles display. If you select multiple users, no roles are selected, by default.
Changing Business Units
By clicking the ... on the navigation bar, you can select Change Business Unit to open the Change Business Unit dialog, where you can change selected users’ business units (see Figure 17.59).
For more information about business units and the effects of changing users’ assigned business units, refer to the “Business Units” section, later in this chapter.
Changing Managers
By clicking the ... on the navigation bar, you can select Change Managers to change the selected user manager. You can set another user as the manager, provided that the selected user is not one previously selected as the change manager.
Changing Position
By clicking the ... on the navigation bar, you can select Change Position to change the selected user position (see Figure 17.60).
Viewing Users
When working with the main Users interface, built-in views allow you to select subcategories of users. These are helpful when users need to work with a small group of users, such as only the enabled users.
Teams
The concept of teams in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed around the idea that members of a team can share records that those members wouldn’t ordinarily have access to. An example of this is users in different business units belonging to the same team and being able to view records across the business units by sharing them. Figure 17.61 shows the teams form found in Settings > Security.
A default team is established when an organization is deployed. The default team is the same as the root business unit, and a new team is created for each business unit created. The only way to delete a created team is to first delete the correlating business unit.
Note
If your organization is upgraded, a new team is automatically created for each business unit in the organization.
The process of creating and managing teams in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is very straightforward. To create a new team, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to Settings > Security > Teams (refer to Figure 17.61). Select New.
2. Enter the team name and select the business unit and the administrator. (The administrator is the owner of the team.) By default, the root business unit is selected.
3. Click Save to enable the options.
4. Select the users from the system who will be part of the team by clicking Add Members. Click Add and then click OK.
5. Because teams can have record ownership in this version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, they need to have security roles set for them. Just as with new members, they are created without security roles and need to have at least one set. In addition, you can set up the field security profiles for the team at this point.
Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 offers users the ability to assign records to teams (unlike earlier versions, which only allowed sharing), it is important to outline the differences between sharing and assignment.
Sharing a record has the following effects:
You retain ownership of the record.
You give permission for the record to be read, edited, or deleted.
Assigning a record has the following effects:
You lose ownership of the record (and the new owner has permission to do whatever his or her security context allows).
So be sure to assign or share appropriately.
Once you have created a team, sharing records with the team is simple. Follow these steps:
1. Navigate to a lead record and select ... > Share.
2. In the Sharing interface that appears, select Add User/Team.
3. Select to share the record with either a user or a team.
4. Select from the available teams and add them. Click OK to continue. The selected team is now available on the Sharing interface, and you can give it access for Read, Write, Delete, Append, Assign, or Share.
5. Select a record to assign to the team and click Assign in the navigation bar.
6. Navigate to and select the team to assign the record to and click OK. The record is now assigned to that team.
If you have not yet assigned a security role to a team, you see the Team Error message shown in Figure 17.62. To correct this, navigate to the team and assign the appropriate security role.
Access Teams
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 has a new type of team, known as an access team. Access teams don’t have security roles or records directly assigned to them. Instead, they have record access via sharing (explained earlier in this chapter).
You might want to use access teams in the following situations:
When it is not known in advance (that is, during initial design/implementation of Microsoft Dynamic CRM) what the required team composition might look like
When the members of the team need different access privileges for the shared records
To assign a team as an access team, on the teams form, set the Team Type field to Access (rather than Owner).
Caution
You can change an owner team to an access team by selecting the Convert to Access Team option on the navigation bar. However, you cannot convert access teams into owner teams.
Security Roles
Microsoft Dynamics CRM controls user permissions with security roles by business units.
Note
Although Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrates tightly with Active Directory (AD) to determine its user base, permissions established in AD have no correlation with users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Therefore, it is quite possible to have an AD membership of enterprise administrator but be in read-only user mode or have a minimal role setting in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and vice versa.
By default, the following security roles are included with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016:
Activity Feeds
CEO-Business Manager
CSR Manager
Customer Service Representative
Delegate
Knowledge Manager
Marketing Manager
Marketing Professional
Sales Manager
Salesperson
Schedule Manager
Scheduler
System Administrator
System Customizer
Vice President of Marketing
Vice President of Sales
With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, security roles are flexible, they are easily created and maintained, and they extend to new entities added by users. By default, new security roles are created on the organizational level and inherited by child business units, regardless of which business unit is selected from the Security Roles Administration screen. In addition, consider the following with regard to how security roles are inherited:
New security roles are automatically created on the selected business unit (which is the master by default) and inherited to all child business units.
Copied security roles are created on the selected business unit, are available only on the selected business unit, and are inherited by all child business units of the selected business unit (not any parent business units).
Inherited security roles cannot be modified or deleted. To make changes to inherited security roles, you must select the business unit that the security role is assigned to and then make changes there. All changes are inherited by the child business units. Another option is to copy the security role to another name and make your changes on the copied version.
If a specific security role is required on a child business unit, you can now create a new security role for that specific business unit. The security role also will apply to any child business unit where it was created.
To view the specific access granted by any role, double-click the desired role to bring up the role settings screen (see Figure 17.63).
The tabs across the top of the role settings screen break out the major access points within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (see Figure 17.64):
Details
Core Records
Marketing
Sales
Service
Business Management
Service Management
Customization
Custom Entities
Before looking at each of the sections, it is important to review the key at the bottom of each form: It applies to all tabs except the Details tab. The symbols here indicate how permissions are granted on the records for the selected security role. Records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 have either organizational permissions or user permissions. When applying permissions, you select the entity (for example, Account, Contact, or Lead) and then associate the action with the record (Create, Read, Write, and so on) and, finally, the level of access (as indicated in the key).
The levels of access are as follows:
None Selected—The user cannot perform the selected action.
User—The user can perform the selected action only on the records that he or she owns.
Business Unit—The user can perform the selected action on records owned by anyone in the business unit that this user belongs to but cannot perform the selected action in records owned by those in child or parent business units.
Parent: Child Business Units—The user can perform the selected action on records within his or her business unit and perform the selected action on any child business units of his or her business unit (but not the parent business unit).
Organization—The user can perform the selected action on any record within the organization.
Note
Some entities either can’t have permission levels set on them or have only limited options. In the first case, where there is no ability to set a permission level, this is usually because that functionality doesn’t exist, so there is no reason to set permissions on it. An example of this is on the Business Management tab, for the entity User and the action Delete. Because users can’t be deleted (they can only be deactivated), there is no capability to set a permission level on it.
Carefully consider how you want to set permissions and select the level of access for each role; users might have trouble accessing records if they don’t have the correct permissions.
Tip
If you want to share only some records between users, consider using teams. Team membership is often used to allow access to records that users normally don’t have access to. For more information about teams, see the “Teams” section, earlier in this chapter.
You can set security levels across all entities horizontally by clicking Actions at the top of the screen or by clicking the entity name to apply security levels vertically.
Note
When setting permissions for security roles, no option enables you to secure individual fields or individual records through this interface. Instead, the permissions selected apply to all records of the selected type. (For example, if Read permission for Account is granted to a role, the user will have the capability to read all account fields.) Review the “Field Security Profiles” section, later in this chapter, for more information about how to secure individual fields.
Tip
You cannot update or modify the System Administrator role. This restriction ensures that permissions aren’t accidentally denied within that role, preventing access to make corrections.
Details
The Details tab displays the security role name and the business unit that the role applies to. If the security role is an inherited role (as previously described), you cannot change the role name.
Core Records
As its name implies, Core Records is where you set permissions for general or core access to the system. Access from everything to accounts to contacts to leads and so on is controlled on this screen.
Note
Entities that you can’t set on the Core Records screen are available on the other tabs. For example, the capability to set permissions on the Case entity is not available in the Core Records interface because Case is a service entity and, therefore, is found on the Service tab. If you don’t find the entity you want to set, be sure to check all the tabs across the top.
The permission options are presented across the top of the Core Records tab, whereas the entities affected are listed in rows. The permissions (or privileges) are as follows:
Create—The ability to create a new record
Read—The ability to open and read an existing record
Write—The ability to make and save changes to an existing record, including deleting data from the record (however, not to delete the entire record)
Delete—The ability to delete an existing record
Append—The ability to append the current record to another record
Append To—The ability to append a different record to the current record
Assign—The ability to assign the record to another user or team
Share—The ability to share the record with another user or team
Note
The difference between Append and Append To is that Append enables you to append the current record to another record, whereas Append To gives enables you to append another record to this record.
An additional option is Miscellaneous Privileges, located at the bottom of the form, which includes options such as the capability to publish various objects and add reports.
Marketing
The Marketing tab has the same permission options listed in the Core Records tab. The Marketing Miscellaneous privilege allows management of the Create Quick Campaign option. Quick campaigns differ from campaigns; the only permission for a quick campaign is the ability to create one.
Refer to CHAPTER 8, “Working with Marketing,” to review the differences between campaigns and quick campaigns.
Sales
The Sales tab has the same permission options listed on the Core Records tab. The miscellaneous privileges give a user with this role the ability to override pricing on a quote, an invoice, or an order.
Refer to CHAPTER 7 for more information about sales.
Service
The Service tab has the same permission options listed in the Core Records tab. The ability to publish articles and the ability to approve and/or publish the articles are the only other miscellaneous privileges available on the Service tab.
Refer to CHAPTER 10 for more information about services.
Business Management
The Business Management tab has two groups of additional settings:
The privacy-related privileges associated with business management include several settings that can affect usage of CRM, including important features such as CRM for mobile, Go Offline, and Export to Excel.
The miscellaneous privileges associated with business management include settings like allow the user to change the language, send email as another user, and more.
Service Management
The Service Management tab has the same permission options listed in the Core Records tab. The miscellaneous privileges for service management enable the user to search and browse as well as manage the user’s calendar.
Refer to CHAPTER 10 for more information about services.
Customization
The Customization tab has the same permission options listed in the Core Records tab. Miscellaneous privileges include the capability to work with ISV extensions; execute processes; and export, import, and publish customizations.
SEE CHAPTER 22 for more information about customization.
Custom Entities
The Custom Entities tab gives options to set permissions only if a custom entity exists (as shown in Figure 17.65). When an entity is created, permissions need to be established across the security roles, and they are the same as those listed in the Core Records tab.
Business Units
You control access to information across the organization by using business units, teams, and territories. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can create multiple child business units and assign users that have access to only the information within their business unit, not their parent business unit.
When Microsoft Dynamics CRM is first installed, you specify the root business unit as the organization name during the installation. This is the default business unit that will derive any child business units. If your organization is relatively small or has no separate business units (other than the organization itself), there is little reason to make any changes to the business units because you would end up with one business unit with the same name as your organization. However, if you have multiple business units, you should configure them here.
You may have multiple child business units (see Figure 17.66), but you cannot disable the parent business unit (which is created during setup). In addition, you can change the parent business unit (to correct a spelling error or because the wrong business unit was assigned as the parent, and so on).
Because of the way the security roles work, it is important to consider setting up both business units and security roles. In addition, because users must be assigned business units for their setup, when you disable a business unit, all users assigned to that business unit (and any child business units) are deactivated and cannot log in to the system until they are reassigned to an active business unit.
For more information about security roles, SEE the “Security Roles” section, earlier in this chapter.
Users are not deactivated or deleted if their business unit is deactivated. They remain valid/active users in the system, but they cannot log in because their business unit is disabled. This is an important distinction because they continue to consume a client access license (CAL), even though they have no access to the system. A user can be moved to a different business unit after the original business unit is deactivated, if necessary; however, the roles for that user are removed and need to be reassigned.
For more information about working with users, SEE the “Users” section, earlier in this chapter.
By default, when you view the business units on the Security screen, the active business units appear with their parent business unit. By selecting More Actions on this screen, you can enable a deactivated business unit, disable an active business unit, and change the parent business unit of a child business unit. To create a new business unit, select New on the main Business Units screen.
The New Business Unit screen has two required fields that must be populated: Name (of the business unit) and Parent Business Unit. By default, the Parent Business Unit field is populated with the organization business unit (or master business unit), but you can change this to a child business unit if you want. As mentioned previously, you must have a parent business unit for any new business units that are created.
Note
You can disable business units after creating them, but you cannot delete them until they are disabled.
After you enter a name and select the parent business unit, enter specific address information related to the business unit, as well as other details specific to the business unit (see Figure 17.67).
Tip
Although the parent business unit appears to be locked, you can easily change it by selecting Actions > Change Parent Business.
Security roles are specific to business units, with certain limitations. The Business Units options are as follows:
Users
Business Units
Teams
Facilities/Equipment
Resource Groups
Users
Selecting Users shows you who is assigned to the selected business unit.
User assignment to business units is explained in greater detail earlier in this chapter, in the “Users” section.
When adding users, be aware of the following:
Only users who have not been added to CRM can be added to newly created business units from the New Business Unit screen. If you want to assign to a newly created business unit users who are already in the system, you must first navigate to the user (Settings > Security > Users) and select Change Business Unit from the navigation bar.
You cannot move the current user (that is, the user who is logged in) to a business unit. Instead, you must delegate access to another user and either request that the other user make the changes or log in as the other user and make the changes. (Be sure to grant the necessary security role System Administrator to the other user before you attempt to make this change.)
Only users who are assigned to the business unit you’re working with appear on the Users screen. To see users of child business units, you must select the child business units separately.
When users are moved from an existing business unit to a new business unit, all role information is removed, and it must be manually reassigned.
Business Units
Business Units displays the child business units of the selected business unit (see Figure 17.68). From here, you can easily create a new child business unit by selecting New Business Unit. You can also enable and disable any existing business units displayed.
Only the direct child business units display on the Business Units screen. To view child business units that might exist, you must select the child business unit and navigate to the Business Units section of the child business unit.
Teams
Because teams are specific to business units, selecting Teams shows you which teams are assigned to the selected business unit. This example of teams is specific to business units.
The concept of teams is explained in greater detail earlier in this chapter, in the “Teams” section.
Facilities/Equipment
Like teams, facilities/equipment is specific to business units. Selecting Facilities/Equipment shows you what facilities/equipment are assigned to the selected business unit.
Facilities/Equipment is explained in greater detail earlier in this chapter, in the section “Facilities/Equipment.”
Resource Groups
As with both teams and facilities/equipment, resource groups are specific to business units. Selecting Resource Groups shows you what resource groups are assigned to the selected business unit.
Resource groups are explained in greater detail earlier in this chapter, in the section “Resource Groups.”
Note
Every time a business unit is created, a new team is created with the new business unit name.
Field Security Profiles
Field-level security (FLS) allows users to set up security on specific fields. When working with FLS, you have to create field security profiles and then apply them to either teams or users.
Note
The profiles created are completely separate from the security roles created.
Note
Field level security was previously available for only custom fields/attributes. With Dynamics 2016, Field level security is an option for almost every field. To dig deeper into which fields can be secured, users need to check whether the setting for field level security is allowed in either the customization area for that attribute, or browse the metadata browser solution found in the SDK called EntityMetadata.xlsx.
If you create field security profiles and then select Field Permissions but don’t see any records, it is because you haven’t set the field security value to allowed for any of your attributes.
Figure 17.69 shows what the various profiles look like from the Administration page.
Figure 17.70 shows an example with a field called Drivers License Number added to the case form and with Field Security set to Enable.
Once the field is added to the form (as shown in Figure 17.71), it is shown with a key icon to indicate that it has some level of security applied to it.
To enforce the security, select one of the profiles and select Field Permissions and the field whose security you want to edit. Clicking Edit opens the field security settings specific to that field and gives you the ability to set the permissions in a variety of ways.
When you have multiple profiles, the same field can be reflected differently depending on which profile is assigned. This results in a very dynamic and flexible approach to security.
Note
As with security roles, users can receive multiple FLS profiles, and the least restrictive one wins.
Hierarchy Security
The Hierarchy Security option lets you configure hierarchy modeling, and then you can enable it to select the model, which can be Manager Hierarchy or Custom Position Hierarchy. You can also exclude some entities to use this new model. This adds another level for controlling the security of the records in addition to the business units and security roles. This model is useful for simplifying the security configuration when you have a large number of business units. This feature was introduced with CRM 2015. Figure 17.72 illustrates the hierarchy.
Positions
The Positions option lets you configure the positions that will help you configure security if you want to use hierarchy modeling. Creating new positions only requires that you enter a name; you can also select a parent position if you like and assign users to each position.
Access Team Templates
The Access Team Templates option lets you configure access team templates. By default the system comes with one predefined access team template, called Opportunity Sales Team Template.
You can only create access team templates for the entities that have the access teams feature enabled. These templates are used only by access teams. All the changes you make in an access team template are applied only to new access teams and not to existing ones.
Other Settings Navigation Options
Other options available under Settings include the following:
Data Management
System Jobs
Document Management
Auditing
Email Configuration
Activity Feeds Configuration
Activity Feeds Rules
CRM App for Outlook (only available for CRM Online)
Most of these options are discussed briefly in the following sections, while the other sections have dedicated chapters for them.
Data Management
The Data Management section is designed to easily manage the following:
Duplicate Detection Settings
Duplicate Detection Rules
Duplicate Detection Jobs
Bulk Record Deletion
Data Maps
Imports
Templates for Data Import
Sample Data
Add Ready-to-Use Business Processes
Data Encryption
Export Field Translations
Import Field Translations
System Jobs
Just as every entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM has a workflow entity association with it that displays any workflow used by that entity, the system itself has a workflow. This workflow is referred to as a system job, and it generally runs in the background. The System Jobs interface provides the capability to view the status of system jobs and cancel, postpone, pause, or resume them. Some examples of system jobs are the calculation of rollup fields that is executed every hour and the mass calculation of rollup fields that is executed every 12 hours.
By default, the interface displays the system jobs and their status. You can open any of the displayed jobs by double-clicking them, and any errors are displayed here.
Document Management
Document Management is where you can manage your SharePoint settings. There are six options here:
Document Management Settings
Install List Component
SharePoint Sites
SharePoint Document Locations
Enabled Server-Based SharePoint Integration
Enable OneDrive for Business
Document management is covered in CHAPTER 27, “SharePoint.”
Auditing
Auditing enables you to record changes made by any record update, creation, or deletion—on either the attribute or entity level. The four options are as follows:
Global Auditing Settings
Entity and Field Audit Settings
Audit Summary View
Audit Log Management
Global Auditing Settings
You can select Global Auditing Settings to open the System Settings interface (as explained earlier in this chapter), where you can turn the global setting Start Auditing on or off (see Figure 17.73). By default, it is not selected; however, it must be on for auditing of any type to be active.
Audit User Access allows you to audit when a user logs in to CRM. This is very useful for seeing who is using the system as most of the time they might only do read operations, which are not tracked by the auditing.
The System Settings page also provides check boxes to enable entities in the following categories:
Common Entities—Enabling this option automatically enables auditing in the following entities: User, Contact, Goal, Goal Metric, Lead, Marketing List, Product, Quick Campaign, Report, Rollup Query, Sales Literature, Security Roles, and User.
Sales Entities—Enabling this option automatically enables the auditing in the following entities: Competitor, Invoice, Opportunity, Order, Quote, and any other entity configured to be displayed in the Sales area.
Marketing Entities—Enabling this option automatically enables the auditing in the Campaign entity and any other entity configured to be displayed in the Marketing area.
Customer Service Entities—Enabling this option automatically enables the auditing in the following entities: Article, Case, Contract, Queue Item, Service, Social Profile, and any other entity configured to be displayed in the Service area.
Note
If you see any of the check boxes just described disabled, they might be disabled because one of the entities under that area is be configured differently than the other entities in the same area.
Entity and Field Audit Settings
When you select Entity and Field Audit Settings, the Default Solution for Edit opens, allowing you to set auditing for any entity or field. This is critical because even though you can enable auditing on the attribute level, if you have not enabled auditing on the entity level, auditing will not occur.
To enable auditing on the attribute level, expand the entity you want to work with and select Fields. Select a field on which you want to enable (or disable) auditing and double-click to open the details. Change the value on the attribute to Auditing and select Save and Close. Auditing now occurs on that field.
Audit Summary View
Audit Summary View provides a summary view of both the audits that have occurred in the system and any audit changes (such as enabling or disabling auditing).
If you double-click a record’s row, you can see the details related to the record change (as shown in Figure 17.74). If you have selected System Access Auditing, you can see when users access the system (see Figure 17.75).
Note
Auditing user access is a great mechanism for validating usage of the system. Users who frequently complain about the system are often user who rarely log in to it, and auditing user access is a great way to hold your staff accountable.
Audit Log Management
Audit Log Management allows users to delete audit logs. When you delete a log, however, you lose the audit history.
Process Center
The Process Center is where you can access the processes to manage actions, business process flows, dialogs, and workflows.
Refer to CHAPTER 26 for information about working with processes.
Summary
This chapter reviews the areas that make up the Settings area for CRM and discusses how they are important and relevant to setting up, maintaining, and managing your business. In addition, this chapter details how to configure the security of CRM through the use of roles, teams, and business units.
You will visit many aspects of the Settings area only occasionally, but others (such as adding and removing users and permissions, activating and deactivating product lists, and creating customizations for the system) you will use often.
This chapter illustrates the importance of becoming familiar with the different Settings areas, and it can be a frequently accessed resource area for system administrators.