New Open Source Project Aims to Fill Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Developer Toolkit Gap

With the release of Dynamics CRM 2015, Microsoft has stalled on providing an updated version of its CRM developer toolkit for Visual Studio. While developers can carry on with CRM 2015 projects, they do so with fewer tools to help in creating plug-ins, custom workflows, and other add-ons.

To fill the gap, Dynamics CRM MVP and Senior Technical Architect at PowerObjects Jason Lattimer has created a new set of templates for Visual Studio that could potentially replace the old developer toolkit.

Lattimer told MSDynamicsWorld.com a bit about the problem as well as his project, which he has just published to Github as Dynamics CRM Developer Extensions.

"Prior to CRM 2015 Microsoft shipped the CRM developer toolkit with the SDK documentation, which provided developers some templates to help them get started coding against CRM," he says. "Unfortunately they stopped including this with CRM 2015 and the previous versions weren't designed to work with the latest versions of Visual Studio."

The project Lattimer has been working on aims to fill the gap and provide both new and experienced CRM developers a way to get going quickly.

"The templates that will be included will be a bit more complete than the ones that came with the original developer toolkit and will eliminate almost all the manual steps associated with setting up CRM development projects," he says. Developers using the new toolkit will be able to set up projects more rapidly and in a more consistent manner.

Initially, Lattimer says there will be templates for creating and testing plug-ins and custom workflow activities as well as projects for working ...