Whenever we’ve added extensions or integrations to our internal CRM and SharePoint implementations, we continually focus on developing these tools so they can be easily deployed for our clients as well. Therefore, in addition to making our own enterprise tools more useful, we’re able to deliver increased value for our clients. The integration between MS CRM 4.0 and SharePoint 2007 enables the creation of client and project sites in SharePoint with a simple CRM checkbox.
This integration solution aimed at automating the creation of SharePoint sites directly from CRM to streamline our sales and project processes, as well as provide a consistent method for representing our customer data. Customer records each have their own corresponding SharePoint site with sub-sites created for each project. In CRM, Altriva customers each have their own Account records and each project is represented by an Opportunity record.
With our integration, SharePoint client sites are auto-generated by checking the “Create Site” check box and saving the account. This triggers a plug-in that calls a custom-built web service, which in turn creates the SharePoint site via the SharePoint API. The web service returns the URL for the new site and the plug-in updates a field on the account with the site URL. An IFrame on a separate tab uses this URL and allows users to fully access the SharePoint site from within CRM.
The same basic integration was implemented for opportunities, except that the plug-in retrieved the URL of the parent account’s SharePoint site and used it as the parent site of the opportunity’s SharePoint project site.
The functionality described so far has been a big win for our sales and project management processes since SharePoint sites are easy to create and access without ever leaving CRM. To facilitate navigating among the growing number of client sites within SharePoint we implemented a SharePoint list called “Clients” that stores customer names and their respective SharePoint site URLs. This list is kept in sync with CRM account records through a plug-in registered on create and update of CRM account records that calls the SharePoint web services to update list members. We then built a web part on our welcome page that linked to each client site by client name to provide a fast way to access a given client site. We have also built custom SharePoint web parts that use the “Clients” list to keep certain documents in one central location (e.g., Contracts, Invoices) but display them within each client site.
With these integrations Altriva has an easy way to build and maintain a full view of our clients by leveraging SharePoint to add document management to our CRM client vision. Best of all, we built this integration to be reusable for interested clients.