Dynamics CRM and NAV Integration

BenSydney

Hi,

The 'Connector for Dynamics' only synchronises the standard customer and account fields (address, phone no, etc.).
One of our clients is interested in implementing CRM and using the standard 'Connector' to link to NAV. They however want to see customer statistics on the account in CRM. What is the 'easiest' or 'best' way to also show NAV customer statistics on the CRM account? Has anybody done something like this or can recommend a possible solution?

Thanks,
Ben

vasilis6669

Dear Ben,

I have just started working with NAV and CRM integration. As I am aware CRM has .NET extensions where you can write custom code in .NET. Because customer statistics change on every transaction, i would recommend to write a nav web service call in CRM that retrieves customer statistics when customer card is opened.

Regards,
Vasilis

jwilder

Writing a Web Service is one approach but requires your CRM vendor to know what they are doing to retrieve the info. This approach would be skipping the use of the Connector as well.

Another approach would be to expose a page within the Customer page that has statistics on it already (I think the Customer Statistics FactBox is already there and might have the info you need). Or you could right some functions on the Customer page that return the statistics as fields. This basically exposes the data on the page just like if it were a real field. Anything listed as a "Field" Type on the page should be available to the Connector.

Then you will need to create the fields on the CRM side to store the data

Finally you will need to map the fields in the Connector which is a piece of cake.

Stark

here is one disadvantage to using Connector for Customer Statistics:
Connector will sync Customer only if Customer Table modified. So, when statistic changed, connector will not triggered until you modify Customer or run sync manually.

Here is possible solution for that situation:
- Define all tables,which participated in Statistic data calculation (e.g. CLE), as a children to Customer Table (CDU5150, as example see Sales Header and Sales Line definition)

After this configuration, any changes in related to Statistic tables will trigger customer sync process.

Cheers,
Konstantin

jwilder

Very good point and it all comes down to the number of customers you have. Web Services becomes very attractive if you have a lot of customers because it is on demand and always up to date.

If you go the Connector route because you do not have a ton of customers you could update all customers once a night to get fresh statititics out there.