In this post I’m not going to compare modern MS Dynamics Crm portals but
two main models which vendors use to create their products. First one we’re
going to call “crm data driven” model and let’s name another one “crm loosely
coupling”.
Data Driven model (DDM) means that frontend pages, views and controls replicate
the crm forms and respect most of crm filters and validations. DDM dictates
vendor develop a platform to reflect crm architecture and rules on the front end.
Vendor’s platform can provide additional enhancement inside portal and crm. It
can be frontend content management system CMS, pre-installed solutions for
better web engagement experience, deployment tools, ALM kits, portal plugins, service
workflow etc.
The main benefit of the DDM is ability to manage portal design and create
simple business flows without writing code. It’s a true for simple pages but
for complex projects it doesn’t work.
A significant plus of DDM for advanced crm users is intuitive portal management
in the well-known environment.
Loosely Coupling model (LCM) gives more freedom to portal providers. “Portal”
is not a correct word. A “Web Site” that knows to connect to crm and has
controls dedicated to work with crm data base. Such website still can respect
crm rules and filters, execute crm workflows “on demand” and validate data but
user has a freedom to build its own portal pages, filters, views etc. without
crm customization.
The main feature here is frontend CMS, responsible for pages’ design and
configuration, grids, charts etc. As CMS is more powerful as user experience is
better. And, in case of crm, usage of such interface demands advanced knowledge
of crm data base and programming skills like FetchXml. Hmm, doesn’t look like
routine for crm business analyst.
Features
|
DDM
|
LCM
|
Overview
|
A web enchantment (or portal) for crm
with its own sdk based platform and data driven controls. Crm data play role
of portal’s metadata.
|
A website with powerful front end
CMS. The challenge for crm experts and users is to remove a "dynamics
crm thinking" model and accept it as independent product with its own
features and benefits that knows to connect to crm data base and utilize it
for customer benefits.
|
Required skills
|
Crm customization
Vendors platform configuration
|
Crm customization
Vendor’s CMS
JavaScript, JQuery, FetchXml
|
Pre-Installed Solutions
|
A rich selection of pre-installed
solutions for different sectors
|
Minimal number of solutions of
basic level
|
The overview stars only main features
and benefits of two different crm portals approaches. The features may vary by
vendor.
The most
famous vendor using the DDM model is ADX.
A good example for LCM is Crm Connector that
uses Sitefinity platform to implement its CMS.
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