sharepoint attachment extractor and metadata manager for

SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata

Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Release Notes

Release Date: October 2016

SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft

Dynamics CRM

Release Guide

Version 1

Email: [email protected]

ii SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Release GuideOctober 2016

Revision History

Date Description of Change Author Information

October 2016 Initial Release Debajit Dutta

mailto:[email protected]


1 SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Release GuideOctober 2016

Overview

Microsoft SharePoint Server is a collaboration and content management application that

simplifies how people store, find, and share information. It helps people to collaborate

effectively by having secure access to documents and information that they require to

make business decisions.

Off late SharePoint integration enables document management capabilities in Microsoft

Dynamics CRM. Despite many evolutionary features still there are lot of scenarios Where

Dynamics CRM users face in their day to day life which cannot be achieved by Out Of

Box Dynamics CRM SharePoint integration. Some of the features which are still missing

in the Out of box integration are as below

❖ Managing Sharepoint Metadata from within the Dynamics CRM application.

❖ Multiple File upload at one go.

❖ Automatically moving attachments from Notes (annotation) entity to Sharepoint.

❖ Implementation of CRM security on Sharepoint point attachment section.

❖ Seamless Sharepoint attachment from within CRM entity forms.

SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics

CRM Tool developed by XrmForYou is designed to achieve all the above functionalities

for Dynamics CRM – SharePoint integration.

Installation Requirements

Components Supported Version

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Online & On-Premise)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (8.1 Version) (Online & On-

Premise)


Premise)





Premise)

SharePoint

SharePoint Server 2016 (Online & On-Premise)

SharePoint Server 2013 (Online & On-Premise)

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Your CRM environment must be enabled for Out Of Box SharePoint Integration to use

our SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft

Dynamics CRM Tool.

This tool can be can be used on all the versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and

SharePoint which are available and supported for Microsoft Dynamics CRM and

SharePoint integration.

Deployment Steps

❖ Login into your Microsoft Dynamics CRM application with a user having System

Administrator role (also Deployment Administrators for On Premise).

❖ Import the “XrmForYou.SharePointIntegrator “solution into your CRM

application and publish it.




Setting Security Role to Users

❖ You should assign “Sharepoint Metadata Reader” security role (which comes

with the tool) to all the users who want to use Sharepoint integration.

Note

❖ The SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Tool works based on the security model of CRM

and access to files in sharepoint attachment section is based on the User’s

access level in CRM.

Navigation

Once SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics

CRM Tool is deployed to CRM, Please navigate to “Settings” area and you can find the

“Manage SharePoint Metadata” menu under the “SharePoint Metadata” subarea.

This lands the users in the Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations page where

you configure and manage all the sharepoint metadata settings and also settings for

Dynamics CRM entities which are enabled for the Sharepoint integration.




Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations page helps to configure and manage

all the sharepoint metadata settings and also settings for Dynamics CRM entities which

are enabled for the Sharepoint integration.

Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations Page




Key Features

SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics

CRM will allow you to easily configure and manage all the sharepoint metadata settings

from inside Dynamics CRM application.

The tool provides the following functionalities

❖ The tool provides an option to register a sharepoint user credential which have

elevated privilege in Sharepoint through which Sharepoint metadata will be

created in sharepoint from Dynamics CRM application.

❖ Create, Update and Manage Sharepoint metadata (attributes).

❖ Can create and manage entity based or file based metadata in sharepoint to

manage your sharepoint integration efficiently.

❖ The tool works based on the security model of CRM and access to files in

sharepoint are based on the User’s access level in CRM.

❖ Attachments are automatically moved to sharepoint from Notes entity from CRM

based on User’s configuration.

❖ The Tool will dynamically inserts a Sharepoint Document attachment section on

the entity forms based on the User configuration.

❖ Can Upload multiple files (Max up to 5 files).




Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations

Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations page helps to configure and manage

all the sharepoint metadata settings.

Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations page consists of two main sections as

below

➢ Register Sharepoint User

➢ Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations

Register Sharepoint User

This section is where you can register your sharepoint User which have elevated

privilege to add or modify metadata (attributes) in Sharepoint.

This registered credential will be used to create or update metadata (attributes) in

sharepoint when you add Sharepoint metadata (attributes) from Dynamics CRM using

the SharePoint Attachment Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft

Dynamics CRM tool.

Note

The User Name and Password registered here will be encrypted and stored securely in

Dynamics CRM so the credentials are secure.




Manage Sharepoint Metadata Configurations This is the section of the tool where you will have the options to configure and manage

the settings for Dynamics CRM entities which are enabled for the Sharepoint integration

and manage all the sharepoint metadata settings.

First select an entity from the “Select an Entity” dropdown for which you want to

configure the settings.

Note

Only the entities which are enabled for Sharepoint integration in CRM will be available

in the “Select an Entity” dropdown.

If you see in the above screenshot only the four entities “Account”, “Contact”,

“Opportunity and “Lead” are enabled for sharepoint integration.

Manage Entity Settings

Once an entity is selected, let us see the different settings available in detail:

i. Move attachments to Sharepoint when uploaded in CRM : This is the

setting by which you can configure to automatically move attachments from

Dynamics CRM to sharepoint the moment the file is attached to the records of

the entity in CRM.

For Example : If the above setting is enabled for “Account” entity then

whenever an user attach an attachment for any account record then that




attachment will be automatically move to Sharepoint and the file will be

showed in the Sharepoint attachment section on the form(s) of the entity.

Once the above setting is enabled then there will be another setting “Delete

attachments in CRM once moved to CRM” available to configure.

ii. Delete attachments in CRM once moved to CRM : This is the setting by

which you can configure to automatically delete the attachments from

Dynamics CRM once the file attachment is moved to sharepoint.

iii. Enable for Embedded View :

This is the setting by which you can configure to dynamically insert (embed)

the Sharepoint Attachment section into forms of the selected entity.

This setting works together along with the “Form(s) to show Embedded

View”.

iv. Form(s) to show Embedded View :

This is the setting by which you can configure to which form of the selected

entity, the Sharepoint Attachment section should be dynamically inserted and

shown.




This setting will only list all the available main forms of the selected entity and

not any other forms of the entity like “Mobile form”, Quick Create form or

Quick view form.

Once a specific form is selected in this setting then the “Sharepoint

attachment” section will only be available on the selected form of the entity.

For Example: As per the above screenshot I have selected the “Sharepoint

attachment” section to be embedded only on the “Information” form of the

Account entity not on the “Account” form of the Account entity then if see on

the Account entity forms will be like the below.

“Information” form on which “Sharepoint attachment” section embedded




“Account” form on which “Sharepoint attachment” section not available

Add / Edit Sharepoint Metadata

Note

Please remember to first configure the CRM entity form settings accordingly which are

described above before you create Sharepoint metadata for the entity.




This is the section of the tool where you will have the options to create, manage

and delete the Sharepoint Metadata (attributes) settings for the selected

Dynamics CRM entity.

Click on the icon to add the sharepoint metada in Sharepoint for the

attachments of the selected Dynamics CRM entity.

Once is Clicked, there will be a popup where you have to enter the below

mandatory details of the Sharepoint metadata you want to add.

i. Display Name : This is the Display name for Sharepoint metadata field

which will be displayed in Dynamics CRM.

ii. Name in Sharepoint : This will be the name for the Sharepoint metadata

field in Sharepoint side.

iii. Metadata Type : This is the field which represents the type of the

metadata field and this has two options as

a. Map To Existing Values: If the CRM administrators wants to restrict

the users to select the value for a Sharepoint attribute (metadata) from

a predefine list of options then they can create a global option set with

the predefined options and then set the Option set in the” Map To

Existing Values” in the Metadata type property of the Sharepoint

attribute (metadata) so that the users can select only the options from

that particular global Option set.

Example: For Example, consider if you are creating a

Sharepoint metadata (attribute) named “Document type” for

Account entity and you want users to choose from only two

options as “financial” and “Non-financial” for Document type

attribute while uploading a document for an account, then this can

be achieved by creating a Global OptionSet which contains two

options as “financial” and “Non-financial” and set it for Metadata

type of the Document type attribute (metadata).




b. Write In: If the CRM administrators wants to give the option for the

users to text in the values for the SharePoint metadata then they can select

“Write In“ for the metadata property for the Sharepoint metadata

(attribute )so that the users can enter the text input for the metadata while

uploading a document for the entity.




Example: For Example, consider if you are creating a Sharepoint

metadata (attribute) named “User Remarks” for Account entity and

you want users to enter their remarks for the documents they

upload for accounts, then this can be achieved by selecting “Write

In” option for the “metadata type” property while creating the

“User Remarks” attribute (metadata) for sharepoint.




iv. Show in CRM : This is the setting by which you can configure whether you

want to show the particular sharepoint metadata in CRM view or not.

Example: For Example, consider the already Sharepoint metadata

(attribute) named “Document Type” for Account entity and you

can control whether this metadata (attribute) to be shown it or not

by configuring the “Show in CRM” property of the metadata

accordingly.




v. Edit the Sharepoint Metadata : All the existing Sharepoint metadata can

be edited by clicking the Edit icon ( ) against each metadata.




vi. Delete the Sharepoint Metadata : All the Custom Sharepoint

metadata added for each entities can be deleted by selecting the

metadata you want to delete and then clicking on then Delete icon ( ).

The Metadata (attribute) named “fourth Field” is deleted from sharepoint.




Sharepoint Attachment Section on the Entity Forms

Once the XrmForYou.SharePointIntegrator “tool has been setup in CRM

environment, you can configure the sharepoint attachment section to be

appeared on specific forms of respective entities based on your needs. This

can be controlled by the “Form(s) to show Embedded View” setting on the

Manage configuration page.

Example: In the below example, Sharepoint section is configured to show on

the “Information” form of the “Account” entity.




Now Let us see the features and Options available on the “Sharepoint” attachment

section.

NEW ( ):

This option is only available and more useful in CRM online where you can click

on the icon to directly create documents using Microsoft office online directly

from inside the attachment section on the CRM entity form and this will be attached as

attachment in Sharepoint for the respective CRM record.

Note

Please note that NEW ( ) will not be available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-

Premise SharePoint integration.

The below are the supported document format wwhich can be directly created from the

option. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, One Note.




Since the tool allows you to enter and manage Sharepoint Metadata (attribute) from

CRM so when you create a new document from the attachment section you will have

option to fill in the values for the sharepoint meteadata already created for the

respective CRM through the configuration page of this tool.




Note

If you create a document using the option with the same name as of other

existing attached document of same type for the same CRM record then the existing

document will be overwritten with the contents of the newly created document.

Upload :

This is the option which is used to upload the files from your computer

(files) to sharepoint as attachment for CRM records through our sharepoint attachment

section on the entity forms.




Note

Users can configure the File formats they want to upload using the SharePoint

Constant entity.

The below file formats are some the supported file formats for upload.

'.doc', '.docx', '.xls', '.xlsx', '.ppt', '.one', '.txt', '.png', '.jpg', '.gif', '.pdf', '.zip',

'.pptx', '.jpeg', '.xml', '.html', '.rar', '.cab', '.bitmap','.rtf'




Points to Remember

❖ Maximum of five files can be uploaded at one go.

❖ Users can configure the Maximum file size to upload using the SharePoint

constant entity and advisable size of individual files should not exceed 20 MB.




❖ There is option to enter values for sharepoint metadata while uploading the

file




Overwrite Existing files: If this option is checked and when you try to upload a file with

same name of same type as an existing file then the existing file will be overwritten with

the new file.

If this option is not checked and when you try to upload a file with same name of same

type as an existing file then the new file will be created with the same name appended

with current time stamp.

Sharepoint path: Will be the path of the folder of the current CRM record in sharepoint.

Edit Document : This is setting by which you can edit the already attached

document.Once you click on the button an Edit Properties will open which allows

you edit the metadata for this document.

To edit the content of the already attached file you can just upload a new file of the

same filetype with the edited content then the content of the existing file will be

overwritten with the new content.




For Example : In the below record I have an file x.txt with contents as shown below




Now I will overwrite the content of x.txt from the contents of other file y.txt

y.txt




New Content of x.txt

: This is used to delete the attachment from Sharepoint.




Open Location: This is the setting which on click takes you to the respective folder in

the sharepoint for the CRM record.




Search

This feature can be used to search specific text in the contents of all the available

attachments is sharepoint in the context of the particular CRM record. This is a wild card

search.

Searching in sharepoint




Drag &Drop Files to Upload:

You can drop files into our Sharepoint control on the entity form to upload the files to

Sharepoint from Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Contact us

For free trial and further info on SharePoint Attachment

Extractor and Metadata Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Please feel free to write to us @ [email protected]

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