Supported Customizations
There are two areas in Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM where you can perform customizations. Each area includes a specific level of support, with upgrade ability, as shown in the following table.
| Area | Support level | Upgrade level |
| Customizations using Microsoft CRM tools | Fully supported | Fully upgradeable |
| Customizations using the Microsoft CRM SDK
(This includes application and Microsoft Office Outlook® integration, post-callouts, and onChange events.) |
Fully supported | Mostly upgradeable |
Note Fully supported means that developer support can provide assistance for customizations and that application support can assist customers running those modifications.
All other customizations are unsupported and might cause problems during updates and upgrades to Microsoft CRM. For more information, see the Unsupported Customizations section.
Customizations using Microsoft CRM tools
There are many tools included with Microsoft CRM that you can use to customize it. All tools and customizations created and developed by using these tools are fully supported and can be upgraded. These types of modifications are the easiest to implement and maintain.
The following is a list of tools that you can use to produce fully supported customizations:
- Deployment Manager (Schema Manager, Entity Mapper, Import/Export Customization)
- Workflow Manager
- Form Editor
- View Editor
- Preview Editor
- Template Editors (E-mail, Knowledge Base, Contract)
Customizations using the Microsoft CRM SDK
The Microsoft CRM SDK, technical articles published on the MSDN Web site (www.msdn.microsoft.com), and information released by the Microsoft CRM SDK Support Team are included in the area of customizations using the Microsoft CRM SDK. The specific actions and their levels of supportability and upgradeability are as follows:
Microsoft CRM SDK. The Microsoft CRM SDK is fully supported and upgradeable.
Important This does not mean that a particular entity's attributes will remain the same in future versions.
onChange event. The ability to add custom logic to forms through the onChange event for drop-down lists (picklists) is supported and upgradeable. However, the user created code contained in the event, and the way the event interacts with the Document Object Model (DOM) might not be supported in future releases. The structure of the forms and the elements on the forms could change in future releases.
ISV.config file. The ability to link Microsoft CRM with third-party applications or actions by using the ISV.config file is fully supported and upgradeable. Microsoft CRM supports calling back to the opening window by using window.opener, or other methods, but it is not upgradeable. The DOM could change in future releases, which, when applying updates or upgrading to a newer version, might break any code you write using the DOM.
Technical articles and samples. Topics covered in technical articles or samples published on MSDN in the Microsoft CRM SDK section are supported and upgradeable. This includes the ability to perform post-callouts, which was not part of the original release of the Microsoft CRM SDK.