Sitecore, Webforms for Marketers, OMS and Dynamics CRM Campaign integration

Sitecore is moving a lot these days and releasing almost on a monthly base new and cool functionalities. Not everybody has the ability to work with Sitecore on a daily base an keep up with this new exciting functionality. So time for me to step in and guide you back to the highway by creating small and very focused blog posts. This is the first one about Webforms for Marketers and the Dynamics CRM Campaign Integration.

The following diagram shows how the CMS, OMS, Webforms for Marketers and Dynamics CRM Campaign Integration glue together:

On top of the Sitecore Web CMS you can find the Sitecore Online Marketing Suite(OMS) which is used for gaining more details out of the visitor experience.

The Webforms for Marketers module is added on top of the OMS. It relies heavily on the OMS, so I’ve decided to add it there. Eventually you can run this module without the OMS, but you’ll definitely not gain all the potential out of it.

For integration with MS Dynamics CRM, we have our new Dynamics CRM Campaign Integration module. This module consists of 2 parts:

1. Save Actions: An extension to the Webforms for Marketers module. It allows any business user to import data into any CRM entity. All WYSIWYG. So no coding required.
2. Security Provider: Share Contacts in Dynamics CRM as Users in Sitecore. This means that a contact in CRM can login into your Sitecore website for extranet purposes.

Let’s assume you want to start developing on a similar solution. Then it’s highly advisable for you to setup a sandbox environment. You need the following components:

• Windows Server 2003/2008 Web with IIS installed (you can virtualize this)
• SQL Server 2008 (2005 is possible but 2008 is a speedy animal)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Installer (on your MSDN subscription) or CRM online
• Sitecore 6.3
• Sitecore OMS 1.1.1
• Webforms for Marketers 2.1
• Dynamics CRM Save Actions & Dynamics CRM Security Provider

Then you’re ready to rock!

So far so good for today. We’ve got plent more to talk about. But that can wait for later.

Author: Posted in Sitecore