Improving the CRM Implementation Guide

Home rss feed email us Microsoft Dynamics CRM website

Improving the CRM Implementation Guide

CRM Team Blog

8 Aug 2006 5:31 PM

Comments 15

Yes! You Can Improve Our Deployment Documentation for the Next Generation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM!

I'll be developing the Implementation Guide (IG) for the next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. As such, I would like to know how our customers, partners, and field feel about the current IG documentation. Any knowledge or opinions that you can share will go a long way in helping me plan and improve the IG for this next release.

For example, it would be of great benefit to provide feedback such as:

What do customers\partners\you like or dislike about the IG?
Is there information that should be in the IG but wasn't?
Is there information that should not be in the IG but was?
Should the IG be broken out into more specific stages of deployment (e.g. separate planning, installation, securing, operating and maintaining, etc. documents)?
Any suggestions on how to improve the IG?

Please use the built in comment feature on this site to provide your comments and suggestions. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Matt Peart

General, Tips and Tricks

Comments

Rocky Sharma

9 Aug 2006 2:04 AM

Some suggestions for improvement:-
- a full checklist for the implementation steps
- more information on SQL & IIS settings/configuration scenarios.
- more comrehensive troubshooting information.
- ongoing Housekeeping/tuning recomendations.
- More discussion on performance optimisation.

Thanks
Ronald Lemmen

9 Aug 2006 2:26 AM

Hi Matt,

Thanks for giving the opportunity to provide direct feedback.

There is indeed a part of the IG which I'd like to see changed. This is regarding installing CRM on another server then SRS. There is information missing regarding SPN's which causes troubles for several users.

If you need more information regarding this, please let me know (ronaldl at avanade dot com).

Kind regards,

Ronald
CRM MVP
Aktualności

9 Aug 2006 6:31 AM

Teraz już możesz...
Jeżeli masz uwagi i/lub pomysły dotyczącego tego jak powinna wyglądać i jakie informacje...
Daniel

9 Aug 2006 11:50 PM

Adding these would be great.

http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2006/07/12/663416.aspx

http://blogs.infinite-x.net/2006/07/16/dynamics-crm-30-exchange-server-setup/

May I also point out the following discrepancies with the IG on SQL Server.

(1)
Page 9-2, paragraph 4, The Service account that SQL Server uses to log on to the network must be either a LOCAL SYSTEM account or a DOMAIN USER account....

(2)
Page 12-10, para 6, The Service account that SQL Server uses to log on to the network must be either a LOCAL SYSTEM account or a DOMAIN ADMINISTRATOR account....

(3)
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/troubleshooting/tssysadmin.mspx

The service account that SQL Server uses to log on to the network must either be a local system account or a domain account with sufficient privileges. Installation of Microsoft CRM will fail if the SQL Server service account is the local administrator.
----------------------------

It would be great if "sufficient privileges" can be explained in details.
Daniel

9 Aug 2006 11:53 PM

I'm sure most if not all of MS CRM implementers out there would be delighted if this is supported.

http://www.cwrmobility.nl/weblog/2006/01/remote-management-and-monitoring-of.html
Daniel

10 Aug 2006 12:01 AM

I find out the hard way (countless hours, 2 weeks of troubleshooting) that Outlook Client for CRM is not supported on a machine with .Net Framework 2.0.

In order for it to be supported, .Net 2.0 will have to be removed.
David Yack

10 Aug 2006 2:10 AM

Overall the IG was great and has a ton of content.

I think I would give consideration to breaking the document into a couple smaller documents one focused on SBS and one on larger environments - on the larger include in the clustering info and other high availablity options.

Expand the troubleshooting section - specificaly include how to do tracing as it is invaluable to solve problems.

While I could go on with other ideas, probably the most important is more frequent updates - This should be a living document - that incorporates feedback from common support problems to save time and reduce calls to support. It would be great if with each update a "update notes" smaller version was created that gave you the info on what was added. I can't speak for everyone but I can't skim a 200+ page document every time a few pages change, so make it easy to do that.
Robert MacLean

10 Aug 2006 2:44 AM

I agree with Ronald around the SPN's. I also would like to see more information around security setup (Roles, Organisation Units etc...) and how those can be effectively implemented, especially in complex situations (multiple OU's with multiple security roles, some customized) etc...
Thomas Valentin

10 Aug 2006 8:29 AM

It would be really useful if there was a list of updated pages. I keep a printed copy of IG, and it would be great if I knew which pages I should reprint and insert. Just a thought.
Olivier Furnémont

11 Aug 2006 7:20 AM

Hi Matt,
Thanks for letting us say what we would like to see changed in the next IG! That's pretty cool!
1. I join Ronald on the Reporting Services and the Kerberos issues. It should be explained in the IG rather than on a KB on Microsoft's site
2. Implementation of Exchange Router with Exchange clusters should figure in the IG as well.
3. Known limitations should be a chapter in itself. It should contain explanations about Outlook roaming profiles being not supported and such...
If I come up with other stuff, I'll post it!
Thanks Matt
Chris Hedlund

11 Aug 2006 8:03 PM

I'd like to see a revamp of chapter 17 - much more detail is needed in the configuration of the Exchange Router.
John

15 Aug 2006 1:13 PM

how do i track the reprints?
Mary Forguson

18 Aug 2006 4:12 PM

Thanks for asking!

We used the PowerPoint Presentation by John.straumann@microsoft.com to do the installation. It's long. But, it was VERY helpful.

In all of the documentation, it would have been better if more was provided about the necessary NTFS permissions along with a complete listing of IIS settings. We also could have saved time had we known about the SQL databases created by the application and SRS.

Other areas for improvement might be a troubleshooting spreadsheet like if you see this, try these steps... Just like the ones that come with a car or DVD player.

I'd also like to see a troubleshooting guide that includes more technical information, log locations, suggested system best practices, etc.
Robert Feenstra

28 Sep 2006 4:18 PM

I was missing the folowing(it was in the older IG):
Configuring and Securing Web Access to Microsoft CRM
The following procedures provide an example of a Microsoft CRM deployment that uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for an Internet deployment scenario where clients will not connect through a proxy server or an intranet deployment scenario where you want to have a secure channel between client and server. Integrated Windows authentication is required for Microsoft CRM. If a client computer attempts to connect to the Microsoft CRM server through a proxy, the connection will fail because Basic authentication is necessary for a connection to the server through a proxy. However, Basic authentication is not supported in Microsoft CRM. A configuration of Microsoft CRM that does support Basic authentication will be defined and made available on CustomerSource in the near future.

It is also not exactly clear what the options are with the desktop client.Does it work with RPC over HTTPS and \ or pop3?
Thanks
Robert
Oky

27 Dec 2006 9:17 PM

I searched a long time after some do and don'ts, in the area of installation. Like:

Is it supported to install multiple CRM servers with different DB on the same domain?

Generally it seems posible, one service need not know of the other. I even belive it is posible to use the same CRM server!

Thanks

Oky