Wide usage of cloud based solutions triggered the makeover of existing software solutions. In Microsoft’s case it started with MS CRM 4.0 online and continued to MS CRM 2011, MS SharePoint 2010 and its ubiquitous product MS Office to Office 365. Like it always does, Microsoft planned this migration keeping in mind the interconnectivity between its cloud based offerings.
This post talks about such interconnectivity between MS CRM 2011 and Exchange Online through the Email Router.
Sections to follow will explain how to configure email sending and receiving functionality through the Email Router for the MS CRM users’ and queues’. Before continuing, please ensure that the online exchange email account to be used is valid.
1) Create/modify an MS CRM user account and assign it a valid email address and approve that email address.
In this case user’s outgoing email configuration is through the email router whereas the incoming profile is set to none.
2) Create/modify an MS CRM queue and assign it a valid email address and approve the email address.
In this case a queue is used to receive all incoming emails but its outgoing profile is set to none.
3) Open Email Router and navigate to configuration profile tab. Click new button which will open a new Email router configuration profile window. Give the profile a name.
Change the direction dropdown value to “Outgoing” and Email server dropdown value to SMTP. Set the authentication type dropdown value to “Clear text” and check the “Use SSL”.
Enter the Exchange server name in the “Location”. If you’re not sure about the name, please do the below to get the correct value:
i) Open you Office 365(Exchange online account).
ii) Click on Outlook button on the top of the page.
iii) Look for “Help” image in the right side navigation pane and click on that., which will display some links.
iv) Click on “About” link which will reveal the Online Exchange server name.
Set the access credentials to “Other Specified” and enter the Office 365 credentials in the User name and password fields.
Open the Advanced Tab and enter the below values:
Network Port 25
Connection Timeout 300
If you’re not sure, leave the other values to defaults.
Finally, click “OK” to commit the outgoing profile. Now we’re ready to configure the Incoming profile. Again click on “New” button which will display the new Email router configuration profile window again.
Give the Incoming profile a name and set the Direction to “Incoming”. Set the Email Server type to “POP3” and Authentication Type to “Clear Text”. Ensure that Use SSL is checked and specify the Online Exchange server name. Set the Access Credentials to “Other Specified” and enter the Office 365 credentials in the User Name/Password fields.
Open the Advanced Tab and enter the below values:
Network Port 995
Connection Timeout 300
If you’re not sure, leave the other values to defaults and hit OK button to commit the Incoming profile.
4) Go to the “Deployments” tab to give the MS CRM URL. Click on New button which will pop out a configuration window.
Select “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online” option and provide the Organization name. If you’re not sure about it, open MS CRM and navigate to Settings -> Customizations -> Developer Resources and look for the “Organization Unique Name” in the left side pane. All the relevant information in the below image is masked intentionally.
Hit the OK button to commit the MS CRM Deployment configuration and close the window. Hit the “Publish” button to commit all that is done so far.
5) Go to “Users, Queues, and Forward mailboxes” tab and select a CRM deployment.
Hit “Load Data” button which will get all the MS CRM User accounts and Queues whose Incoming/Outgoing profiles are set to Email Router.
Hit the “Test Access” button that will open another window and check whether the Incoming/Outgoing profiles are configured correctly.
Now MS CRM is configured to send/receive emails through the Online Exchange provider. If only Microsoft provides an online version of the Email Router, above will become a true cloud based solution as nothing is needed to be installed/configured on a dedicated server. For the truly adventurous, having a custom email router on the Azure is an option, which is beyond this article and how to have such solution may be posted in the coming days.
Presented By www.Osmosys.asia
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