This article provides a concise description regarding availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM extensibility features across the three types of deployments.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 SDK documentation describes many features that enable developers to build distributed, customer relationship management (CRM) applications. This article provides a concise description regarding availability of these features across the three types of deployments:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (on-premise)
  
  
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
  
  
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Internet Facing Deployment (hosted)
  
  

You can extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the areas shown in yellow and orange in the following figure.

The following topics describe each extension area indicated in the previous diagram.

Customization tools allow you to add and rename entities. You can also add and modify attributes, forms, views, relationships and mappings. Configuration tools allow you to create your own business units, teams, security roles, and relationship roles. For more information, see Entity Customization.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook include support for scripting using JScript. For more information, see Client Extensions and Scripting.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM clients are designed to be extensible without requiring changes to the code of the ASP .NET pages of the application. You can add custom buttons, menu items, navigation areas, or IFRAMEs to include custom applications within Microsoft Dynamics CRM clients. Note that for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, your Web pages must be hosted on a server other than the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web server. For more information, see Client Extensions and Scripting.

Use filtered views to create custom reports within Microsoft Dynamics CRM and in applications such as Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Access. For more information, see Report Writers Guide.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK contains APIs to programmatically support import, export, and publish features that are available in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application. For more information, see Import, Export and Publish Customizations.

The data migration and import features let you upload data from various customer relationship management systems and data sources into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The SDK provides additional functionality for data migration that is not available in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application. For more information, see Data Management.

Plug-ins allow you to augment the Microsoft Dynamics CRM business logic with your own code, for both online and offline applications. These extensions can also be used for integration to external systems. In the previous version, this feature was known as callouts. For more information, see Plug-ins.

Call out to external systems from your workflow rules. Create custom workflow activities that can be used by your workflow rules. In the previous version, this feature was known as workflow .NET assemblies. For more information, see Workflow.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides a dynamic Web service interface for applications to use to access and manipulate platform data as well as interact with platform services. These services enable ISVs to write applications using Microsoft Visual Studio or other developer tools by simply referencing the platform Web service. For more information, see the topics for each Web service shown in the following table.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports pluggable authentication. The type of authentication interface that is used depends on if you are authenticated through Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, on-premise, or Internet-facing deployment (IFD). For more information, see Web Service Authentication and Impersonation.

Download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) from the MSDN Developer Center.

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