CRM 2011: Integrate Dynamics CRM 2011 with Sharepoint Foundation 2010

Once we have Sharepoint (either server or foundation) installed, we can then integrate it with crm 2011. Some things to keep in mind before we start:

1. Install the crm 2011 list component for sharepoint, if you want your documents in crm to look and feel like they belong in crm. Without it, sharepoint will show up like an iframe with url pointing to your document library.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5283
2. You can have a single org point to multiple sharepoint sites. The corollary is true too: a single sharepoint site can be referenced by multiple orgs. This assumes the right user permissions.
3. You can enable document management for out of the box and custom entites.
4. A single entity (say account), can point to multiple folder locations in the same sharepoint site. For example, one location would have all the account invoices, another folder the account's orders, etc.

Here are the steps to do the integration:

1. Go to Settings/ Document Manager/ Document Manager Settings. Select the entities you want, and enter the sharepoint site url

 

2. If the sharepoint site url is a valid url, you can choose to create the folder structure, which can be based on contact or account entity. If you leave the option blank, folders are created in sharepoint for each entity at the same level

3. Document libraries are created in sharepoint

4. Once folders are created successfully, go to an account and select the documents navigation link on the left. Here you can either give the location of an existing folder, or have crm create a new one for you.

5. And voila! sharepoint, in all its glory, inside crm 2011!