Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook Released

This is not a book I have written, but rather one that, like the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications (MB2-868) Certification Guide, I have done some technical reviewing on behalf of the publisher, Packt Publishing. This is basically assisting the publisher to verify that the content of the book is technically accurate and can be successfully followed. Well, while I was working on the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Cookbook I was also doing technical reviewing of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cookbook by Dipankar Bhattacharya;

The author, Dipankar Bhattacharya, obviously has a good understanding of Dynamics CRM and has given good coverage in each of the chapters along with a number of good quality screenshots throughout to add to the step-by-step guides. One of the criticisms I would make of the book, and one I make of a lot of books written by non-English people, is that the sentances are often very short with multiple sort sentances per paragraph. In contrast, many English writers will use a more complex sentance structure; I often do so using semi-colons to join related sentances together when an American, or other non-English, writer seems to use a full stop and starts a new sentance.

Now that I have my usual (minor) complaint out of the way. Some of the chapters of the book cover:

• Deployment of Dynamics CRM 2011 in a multiserver environment
• Creating an internet facing deployment (IFD)
• Optimising database server performance
• Sceduling of data duplication jobs
• Create 1:N, N:1 and N:N relationships
• Customise the Ribbon by adding a button
• Create Mail Merge templates using Microsoft Word

Like the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Cookbook and indeed the other cookbooks published by Packt Publishing, this book presents quick and easy to follow recipes which break the content down into easy to digest chunks. Cookbooks generally require a basic understanding of the system in question and this one is no different in that a basic knowledge of Dynamics CRM and SQL Server is required.

The book contains several dozen recipes on how to deploy, configure and customise Dynamics CRM. I’ve been dealing with Dynamics CRM for about 18 months and have deployed it live for a number of organisations and there are a few items the book covers, both in terms of deploying and customising, which I have not as yet experienced. For example, amending the Site Map or adding a button to the ribbon bar. The coverage of Site Map in particular is very detailed with a fair amount of sample XML provided, and which can be downloaded, to show how to customise the site map.

I’d say that I’m going to take a little time soon to work through some of the examples, but I have to be honest and say I’m not sure when I will get a chance to do so as there are a number of other things I have on the go (such as writing a second book, sorting out a number of blog posts for azurecurve), but I definately intend, at some point, to revisit the book and work through some of it.