Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 : SharePoint Integration - Store Attachments in SharePoint Using a Custom Solution

SharePoint is one of the market leaders for a document management and collaboration solution. This feature can be used with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to increase team productivity in organizations. For example, although you can attach documents as notes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, that capability has inherent limitations. You cannot, for instance, search the contents of the attachments using the built-in features. Therefore, there is a strong need to leverage the document management and search capabilities of SharePoint inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM because we are offloading the storage of document attachments to SharePoint.

In this example, we show you how to manage and access the documents stored in SharePoint. We create a separate entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM that will allow us to have the same document linked to multiple entities in the CRM. For this example, you need to do the following:

• Create a custom button at the top of the entity in which you want to store the document integration.

  • Create a site to hold the document libraries.^[*]

    ^[*] This can be automatic, to manage growth of the number of documents that will be stored.

  • Create a document library to hold the documents.^[*]

• Create a new entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to store the ID for the document.

  • Attribute for the OrganizationID

  • Attribute for the entity linked to the document in CRM

  • Attribute for the EntityID

  • Attribute for the SharePoint site URL storing the document library

  • Attribute for the SharePoint document library storing the document

  • Attribute for the SharePoint DocumentID

• Create a custom ASPX application to upload documents into SharePoint.

• Customize the isv.config inside the Microsoft Dynamics CRM to show a new attachments link.

• Add a new tab in the entity to show the documents for that entity using URL filtering inside SharePoint.

To create a SharePoint site, follow these steps:

To create a document library, follow these steps:

To create a column in a SharePoint document library, follow these steps:

To create a new entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, follow these steps:

To create the custom attributes, follow these steps:

To create the ASPX file for uploading the documents, follow these steps:

protected void UploadButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            SharePointListsService.Lists listService
= new SharePointListsService.Lists();


            listService.Credentials
= System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
            listService.URL
= Request.QueryString["SharePointURL"];


            string fileName = Path.GetFileName(
fileAttachment.PostedFile.FileName);
            byte[] content;
            using (
Stream fileReader
= fileAttachment.PostedFile.InputStream)
            {
                content = new byte[fileReader.Length];
                fileReader.Read(
content,
0,
fileAttachment.PostedFile.ContentLength
);
            }
            listService.AddAttachment(
                Request.QueryString["DocumentLibraryName"],
                Request.QueryString["SharePointDocumentID"],
                fileName,
                content
                );
}

					  

To customize the isv.config to add the custom attachment link example shown previously, follow these steps:

<Button
Icon="/_imgs/AttachmentIcon.gif"
  Url="http://<serverURL>/<UploadApplication>"
WinParams=""
WinMode="2"
>  <Titles>
    <Title LCID="1033" Text="Test" />
  </Titles>
  <ToolTips>
    <ToolTip LCID="1033" Text="Info on Test" />
  </ToolTips>
</Button>

To configure SharePoint to accept a URL for filtering data, follow these steps. (Before you can configure the CRM, ensure that the QueryString web part is connected to the document library.)

In the following steps, we create an IFrame for each entity with the URL filter, This will show the SharePoint portal application inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Follow these steps to achieve this integration:

crmForm.all.tab4Tab.onclick = function()
{
if(crmForm.all.IFRAME_ SharePointIFrame.url.length < 15)
{
crmForm.all.IFRAME_iBASE.url = "http://<SharePointServer>/SiteCirectory/CRMDocuments? CRMRecordID=" + crmForm.all.accountnumber.value;
  }