Dynamics Brings More Capabilities In-House: Updates on GP to CRM Integration, Integrated Reporting, Master Data Management

A new Dynamics CRM integration to Dynamics GP is available now and will pave the way for other CRM-to-ERP integrations developed by Microsoft in the future, including AX to CRM. 

The new integration is the first in some time to be built by Microsoft, arriving several releases after an older integration that was considered less than successful. "Customers gave us a lot of feedback that let us know we needed to take a different approach," said Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mike Ehrenberg.  In developing the new integration capabilities for Dynamics CRM, GP was logical place to start because it has no built in CRM capabilities. 

Presently, customers wishing to integrate Dynamics CRM to a Dynamics ERP system have relied on third party solutions from vendors like Scribe, Solugenix and Celenia. 

Integrated reporting tools are still a relatively new arrival in Dynamic product line.   Makingthe change from third party reporting to integrated, according to Ehrenberg, was no easy task. "We worked hard to develop integrated solutions based on SQL reporting and SQL Analytics Services."

Integrated reports are taking into consideration 3 different concerns:

1)     BI as part of the solution -Typical BI reports in new Dynamics product releases like AX 2009 and NAV 2009 are pre-built to align with the role tailored experience.

2)     Data security and permission is modeled into the application so there no need to manage it separately in another layer or with additional logic built around database queries or result display.  "By having an integrated solution we give [customers] a better way to manage security and lower TCO," said Ehrenberg.

3)     Simplified authoring environment.  "Top feedback is always that it is too hard to ...