Technical Articles: Overview

Technical Articles

Microsoft Business Solutions publishes technical articles on various aspects of developing with MBS products and technologies. Look here for the latest guidance.

Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Microsoft Axapta)

Periodic Processing in Axapta, Part I
Learn how to set up periodic (job-based) processing within Microsoft Business Solutions—Axapta. (This is the first of two articles about processing.)

Communicate with Microsoft Axapta Using XML Web Services
Learn how to use XML Web Services and the Microsoft Axapta Business Connector to transfer information between a web-based app and Microsoft Axapta.

Integrating Microsoft Axapta Using the Axapta Business Connector and Visual Basic .NET
See how to use the Axapta Business Connector to integrate a third party-application with Microsoft Axapta. This knowledge can easily be transferred to other .NET based applications.

Microsoft CRM 3.0

Displaying Microsoft CRM Business Data in SharePoint Web Parts

Learn how to build portals and dashboards in SharePoint sites by using Web Parts that display Microsoft CRM data. This article accompanies a sample Visual Studio .NET solution that contains sample Web Parts for a Customer Service Portal. This article includes information about how to install and use Web Parts, and explains how to retrieve and display Microsoft CRM data in Web Parts.

Easy Microsoft CRM 3.0 Data Access Using RSS

Learn how you can combine Microsoft CRM and RSS technologies to set up dynamic business data feeds. Receive dynamic updates to critical company business data that directly affects how you do business. This article accompanies a working sample Web application for accessing business data feeds from Microsoft CRM using RSS technology. You'll find information here about how to install and use the sample software, and you'll learn how to dynamically retrieve and display Microsoft CRM data in commonly available RSS reader applications.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0: Accessing Selected Records in a Grid

Learn how to determine programmatically which entity records a user has selected in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Web application grid. Develop custom code to perform a desired operation on each entity selected in the grid.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0: Bulk Import

Learn how to programmatically import bulk data into Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 system and custom entities. Also, learn best practices, such as creating multiple threads and using unsafe connection sharing, for better performance during bulk import using the Microsoft CRM 3.0 SDK.

Microsoft CRM 1.2

Microsoft CRM: Exporting Custom Reports to Excel
Learn how to develop a custom report that displays aggregate (summary) business data within the Microsoft Customer Relationship Management Web application and then export the report data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for analysis. You can also set up a live data feed between the custom Microsoft CRM report and a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for dynamic business data updates.

Customize Information Bridge Framework for Microsoft CRM
Learn to customize the Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework for Microsoft Business Solutions CRM to meet the unique needs of your business organization.

Adding a Custom Application to Microsoft CRM: Account Team Management
This article describes how to build and integrate a custom Web application into the Microsoft CRM Web client. Using the demonstrated techniques, a Microsoft CRM developer can build a Web application that adds new capabilities to the Microsoft CRM Web client.

Audit Business Data in Microsoft CRM
Study this sample solution to learn how you can implement auditing of changes to business data in the Microsoft CRM system.

Microsoft CRM 1.0

Add a Custom Application to Microsoft CRM
Use this sample integration scenario to learn how to integrate Microsoft CRM with Microsoft Business Solutions and third-party applications.

Business Logic Extensions to Microsoft CRM: Post-Callouts
Use this COM-based callout model to simplify performing business logic in response to Create, Delete, and Update events.

Integrate an External Database into Microsoft CRM
Integrate your custom database and Microsoft Customer Relationship Management.

Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Microsoft Great Plains)

Creating SQL Tables for an Integrating Application Using Dexterity
Discover how to create Microsoft SQL Server tables that reside in an integrating (third party) application written in Dexterity, and how to grant permission to those tables.

eConnect Serialization Example using Visual Basic .NET and ADO .NET
See how to serialize data from a custom Microsoft SQL Server table and use eConnect objects to integrate the records into Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains.

Integrating with the Sales Transactions Smartlist Object Using Dexterity
This article demonstrates how to add a string field from a custom table as an extra column in the Sales Transactions Smartlist Object. This information can be utilized to add columns to other objects in Smartlist.

Microsoft Great Plains: Dev Tools and Guidelines for ISVs
Get started with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains, a comprehensive accounting and business management system for mid-market and corporate customers. Learn about the tools you’ll need to integrate and customize Microsoft Great Plains with your applications.

Using a .NET Assembly from a Dexterity-Based Application
This article demonstrates the creation of a class written in C# in such a way that it is callable by means of COM in an application. In addition, sample Dexterity code is included, demonstrating this ability.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Microsoft Navision)

Talking with Navision: Say Hello to Navision and Expect Navision to Be Polite
Navision is perceived by many as a closed application, in the sense that integrating the ERP with other technologies is not possible. The main purpose of this article is to show a way through this concern.

Talking with Navision: Accessing Navision Business Layer through a Web Service
In this second article in a series, learn how to build a Web service that exchanges data with the Navision business layer.

Talking with Navision: Exposing .NET Components to Navision

This article gives guidance on how to bring the Navision and .NET worlds together, as well as on how to develop .NET components bound for Navision consumption, so that Navision is kept away from the implementation details as much as possible.

Microsoft Dynamics SL (formerly Microsoft Solomon)

Microsoft Solomon: Development Tools and Guidelines for ISVs
Discover the tools needed to integrate and customize your apps with Microsoft Business Solutions–Solomon, a complete accounting and business management system for small to mid-sized organizations.

Microsoft Small Business Financials

Microsoft Small Business Financials: Development Tools and Guidelines for ISVs
Learn about how to integrate your application with Microsoft Business Solutions Small Business Financialsor customize your own solution using the right development tools.

Business Portal

Business Portal Configuration Entity Settings
This article describes the configuration entity settings of the BusinessFramework.config file in the Business Portal, and how you can use them to change the behavior of the Business Portal application.

Entity Persistence
Review some of the goals of the entity persistence subsystem in the Microsoft Business Framework, and review some of the classes and methods developers can use in their Business Portal applications to handle entity persistence related tasks.

Using Event Broker in the Business Portal SDK
Learn to use the MBF Event Broker to assign event handlers to specific events in the Business Portal.