Branding in CRM2015 SP1

How many times do customers ask to add branding to their dynamics CRM solution? The answer is that they have been asking for this from the good old CRM 1.2 days. At last it is here in CRM2015 SP1. It still does not provide full fledged branding functionality, but is a good start.
To add branding to your CRM solution, follow the following steps:

1. Go to Setting>>customization>> as shown in the following screen shot
   
   
   
2. Click on “Themes”. The system will display “CRM Default Theme” in the grid. As the name suggests, it is the default theme for the CRM.
   
   
   
3. Open the “CRM Default Theme” and click the Clone button on the command bar. The system will clone the default theme.
4. Make the changes to the theme and click save. There are a few options available in the theme. I have made 3-4 changes to my theme for this blog.
   
   
   
5. Click on “Preview” button to preview the changes.
6. If you are happy with the changes, click “Publish Theme” to push the changes to all the users.

CRM Screen shot of with default theme

CRM Screen shot of with my theme

Note

1. Themes are not solution aware. To deploy the theme to other environments, use export to excel functionality and import it in the target environment.
2. A new field named color is added to the entity customization screen. This color is used to represent the entities in the navigation bar as shown below.
   
   

Limitations

You will not be able to change the color of the entity forms, they are still white as I write this blog.

Best Practices

Check the following link for the best practices and color contrasts.
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/21a166a0-d25e-4260-a1e4-2ddc528787c2

CTI integration between CRM USD and Microsoft Lync - Part 2

This is the second part of the blog CTI integration between CRM USD and Microsoft Lync - Part 1. The last blog covered how to receive the CTI event in USD. In this blog we will use the telephone number provided by the CTI system to pop up a customer record in USD.  To achieve this we have to create a windows navigation rule record.

Creating a Window Navigation Rule

1. Logon to CRM.
2. Navigate to Settings>>Window Navigation Rules
3. Click “New” and fill in the following fields
   
   

   Field Name	Value
   Name	LyncIntegration Route
   Order	1
   Hosted Control	LyncCTIManager
   Direction	Both

   
   
   
4. Save the record.
5. Click + in the CTI search section of the form, as shown below, to create a new CTI Search record.
   
   
   
6. Fill the form with the following values as shown below.
   
   

   Field Name	Value
   Name	LyncIntegration ContactSearch
   Order	1
   FetchXML	<fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="false">   <entity name="contact">     <attribute name="fullname" />     <attribute name="parentcustomerid" />     <attribute name="telephone1" />     <attribute name="emailaddress1" />     <attribute name="contactid" />     <order attribute="fullname" descending="false" />     <filter type="and">       <condition attribute="telephone1" operator="eq" value="[[cti.telephone1]]" />     </filter>   </entity> </fetch>

   
   To create the fetchxml use the advance find functionality in CRM and then download the xml. The highlighted part in the xml [[cti.telephone1]] represents the parameter passed as a query string by the LyncConnector middleware application
   
   
   
7. Save the record and return back to windows navigation rule.

Based on the result of the CTI Search, we can configure the behaviour of the windows navigation rule.

Single Match (Single contact is found)

1. Under Single Match, in the Decision field, select Create Session, Load Match then Do Action.
   
2. Under Single Match, in the Action field, click the search icon to select a value, and then click New.
   
   
   
3. It will open up a new “Action Call” record. Fill this form with the following values:
   
   

   Field Name	Value
   Name	LyncIntegration Open Contact
   Hosted Control	CRM Global Manager
   Action	Open CRM Page
   Data	Id=[[$Context.Id]] LogicalName=[[$Context.LogicalName]]

   
   
   
4. Save the "Action Call” record and return back to the windows navigation rule record.
   
5. Under the Result area, fill the Destination, Target Tab and Show Tab field as shown in the screen shot below.
   
   
   
6. Save the window navigation rule record.

No Matches (No contact is found)

1. Under No Matches, in the Decision field, select Do Action.
   
2. Under No Matches, in the Action field, click the search icon to select a value, and then click New.
   
   
   
3. It will open up a new “Action Call” record. Fill this form with the following values:
   
   

   Field Name	Value
   Name	Search Contact Action Call
   Hosted Control	Search
   Action	Find
   Data	contact

   
   
   
4. Save the "Action Call” record and return back to the windows navigation rule record. This action will open a USD search screen with the contact tab selected.
5. Save the windows navigation rule.

Multiple Matches

I did not find a way to display multiple results. I will try to come up with a custom hosted control in the future. If anyone has any idea please let me know.

Testing the Integration

1. Logon to USD.
2. Ring the Lync number.
3. If everything is working properly and system has found the matching contact, the system will then display the contact record and it will start a session as shown in the screen shot below
   
   
4. If no contact is found with the matching number USD will display the search screen with the contact tab selected as shown in the screen shot below. There is an issue with this solution; USD does not set the focus on the “Search” tab.
   
   
    

Where to From Here

This is the simplest example of the integration. The middleware built in this blog is just posting the URL on a generic listener port. It can be modified to send Lync chat and contact information.
Going forward, middleware can be used to retrieve the interaction history from Lync and create CRM records as required.
Some people suggested to process the call in the LyncConnector, pass the customer id to USD, and create the session.  I am just exploring USD and would rather create my custom search control in USD.
Please keep the suggestions coming.