With the release of Microsoft Dynamics Marketing there comes a need of synchronizing data (Account, Contact, Lead, etc records) with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Microsoft has provided a solution for this using which we can synchronize data between Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and MS CRM 2011, 2013, 2015 (Online/On-Premise).
The Entities being Synced and their fields are elaborated in the Technet article below:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn749500(v=crm.6).aspx
This article is focused mainly on Integrating Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Online and MS CRM 2015 Online.
Before we begin with the Integration there are a few pre-requisites:
1. Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Online Trial or Production Instance.
2. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Online Trial or Production Instance.
3. Active Azure Subscription.
Next we need to follow the steps below in order to complete the Integration Process:
1. Create a new User in MS CRM 2015.
2. Import the Managed Connector Solution inside MS CRM 2015.
3. Assign the “Dynamics Marketing Connector” Role to the User.
4. Create a new ServiceBus Namespace in Azure.
5. Prepare and Configure Microsoft Dynamics Marketing for Integration.
It is advised that you take a look at the architecture for the connector solution. The diagram below is taken from MSDN:
Create a new User in MS CRM 2015:
1. Go to the Office 365 Portal and log in with an administrative user.
2. Navigate to the Office 365 admin centre then click on Users -> Active Users then click on the “+” sign to add a new User.
3. Enter the New User details and assign the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional License.
Import the Managed Connector Solution inside MS CRM 2015
1. Download the Microsoft Dynamics Connector Installer Package and install the setup on your local machine.
2. Inside MS CRM 2015 goto Settings -> Solutions ->Import then click on choose file on the dialog that appears.
3. Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics Marketing\Solutions\CRMConnector and then select DynamicsMarketingConnector_for_CRM2015_managed.zip. Click Next and then after the import is done successfully click on Close.
3. Assign the “Dynamics Marketing Connector” Role to the User
1. Goto Settings -> Security -> Users and then select MSDynamics Connector user.
2. Click on Manage Roles then check Dynamics Marketing Connector Role and click Ok.
Create a new ServiceBus Namespace in Azure
1. Since we need to create an ACS based Service Bus Namespace and currently the Azure Portal doesn’t allow us to do so, we will be using Microsoft Azure PowerShell to create the Service Bus Namespace. You can download the Microsoft Azure Powershell and install it on your local machine and then start it from Start -> Microsoft Azure Powershell.
2. Enter the command “Add-AzureAccount” and enter your Azure credentials. Next enter the command line “New-AzureSBNamespace –Name YOUR_NAMESPACE -Location “YOUR_LOCATION” -CreateACSNamespace $true” to create an ACS based Service Bus Namespace. Enter “YourLocation” as the location of the datacenter (East Asia in my case) and “YourNamespace” can be of your choice.
3. After successful completion you should get the following message on your shell.
4. To configure the Service Bus follow the steps “Create a Service Indentity (issuer)”, “Create a rule group and a rule”, “Configure the scope” from this article.
5. Prepare and Configure Microsoft Dynamics Marketing for Integration
1. Goto Microsoft Dynamics Marketing -> Home -> Settings -> Integration Options.
2. Under “CRM Endpoint” make sure “CRM Mod” is set to Online. Next click on the gear icon and enter the Dynamics CRM details as below:
The Service Account should be the one we created in Step 1. Click on “Verify” and then “Submit”.
3. Next under “Service Bus” click on the gear icon. Enter the “Azure Namespace” and for the Queue names you can keep them as is since queues with these names will be created automatically inside Azure.
Next click on “Configure Azure ACS”.
4. For the “Management Key” goto Azure Portal -> Service Bus then click on the Service Bus Name Space. Click the “Connection Information” button below. From the dialog copy the “Default Key” to the “Management Key” field in MDM.
5. You can get the “Dynamics CRM certificate issuer name” and the “Dynamics CRM service certificate” from Dynamic CRM -> Setting -> Customizations -> Developer Resources.
6. Finally add the CRM account with administrator priviliges and click on Ok.
7. Click on “Save” and then “Submit”.
8. Click on “Save” and “Submit” again.
9. For successful completion of the Integration Steps under Service the “MDM Listener” “MDM Publisher” and the “CRM Listener” should be in the “Running” state. If after completion of all the above steps these services are not started then “Disable” and then “Enable” the services again and luckily your services should be started as this is what worked for me.
10. You can check the Synchronization details under “Initial Synchronization”.