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First published by Neil Benson (bMVP, Microsoft Partne)
When: 25 Jul 2011 3:25 PM
Last revision by Scott Sewell, CustomerEffective (dMicrosoft Partne)
When: 27 May 2013 10:40 AM
Revisions: 40
Comments: 19

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Integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM

One key element of any successful CRM project is the ability to migrate data and sometimes keep data integrated between applications. In order to have a stable and viable Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment you need to ensure that all your data integration and migration is done using a supported method. Directly modifying data in the database is not supported. That means that you should not perform direct inserts, updates or deletes. Instead, you should interface with CRM by leveraging the CRM web services. You can find the information needed in the Microsoft Dynamics SDK. There are two supported ways to read data from CRM: one is to also use the CRM web service, the other is to use SQL statements to query the CRM filtered views. Note that the second option is not available if using Crm Online, so you will have to use the CRM web services to retrieve data from Crm Online.

Since there would be significant development effort to build code from scratch to use the CRM web services, and others have already created integration applications, most choose to use one of the available tools. Two of the most common tool types are Scribe Insight and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) when combined with one of a few 3rd party CRM-SSIS adapters. Other ETL vendors have recently begun adding CRM webservice adapters to their own suite of tools.

From a feature perspective all data integration solutions have some similarities and generally include the following basic features:

Source-to-target mapping
Data manipulation and transformation
Scheduling (for batch-based processing)
Error handling

From a performance perspective, all data integration solutions are designed to be able to scale by taking advantage of the server computing resources. However, your choice of SSIS adapters might perform differently depending on whether they have been developed to take advantage of the full power of the SSIS platform.

Another consideration when determining which tool is right for you is to understand the technical resources that are available to you. Do you have inhouse developers who are familiar with SSIS? Maybe you have CRM business analysts or CRM system administrators who might be more comfortable with Scribe or a similar tool. Regardless of the tool you select, all will have a learning curve. While SSIS is more likely a “go to” tool for developers, Scribe might be easier for a business analyst type to use. In either scenario, it is generally a good idea to obtain a trial version of the tool and try it before purchasing.

Most of the tools are designed around a batch processing model, in which a set of records is read from a source system, transformed (if necessary), then written to a destination system. These tools are normally scheduled to run on a periodic basis. Of the tools listed below, Micrsosoft Biztalk Server would typically be described as a middleware tool that uses an alternative model, which is message-based. In this model, the source system would typically write data as it is changed as a message to the middleware tool. The middleware would then perform any transformation or routing logic, then update the destination. There are further differences between a batch processing model, and a message-based one, which are beyond the scope of this article, but may also impact your choice of integration tool

Data Integration Solutions

There are many options for integrating your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system with other in-house and third-party systems. The list below represents some of the data integration solutions available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: