Integrating Dynamics Applications: Five Ways to Smooth Potential Organizational Conflict

Given how easily Microsoft's desktop productivity applications integrate, you might expect the same kind of plug-and-play ease between the Dynamics ERP applications on the back-end and the specific CRM, RMS, and POS systems on the front-end.

You'd be wrong. That's the nature of enterprise applications. "There's always some customization required because of a retail process or a supply chain process being different in the back-end," says Asher Mathew, Channel Manager for Claremont, Calif.-based Nodus Technologies, which integrates Dynamics GP and Dynamics RMS applications. As Microsoft introduces new versions of Dynamics products, though, the integration process becomes steadily less time-consuming and intimidating.

Here are five tips to make the integration easier, both at inception and throughout data exchange.

Determine dataownership. The integration experts we polled consistently cited data ownership as one of the key hurdles for integration projects. "You have to understand who acts as the ultimate owner of the record, which can be difficult when you're dealing with sales and accounting," says Peter Bertell, CRM Practice Manager for IBIS, a Norcross, Ga.-based consulting firm specializing in Dynamics applications. "This is a challenge we run into on almost customer implementation. "The key to success: determine who owns which pieces of information, and give other groups read-only access.

Consider data flow. In allowing this access, you also have to consider data access. For instance, think about what customer financial information needs to appear in a CRMsystem. "The customer credit limit, their outstanding receivables, aging schedule, order history, and the ...