CRM Interview Question and Answers Part 1

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Interview Questions

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1. Explain some new features in MS CRM 2011.

Global Customizations

Role-based Forms and Views

Inline Data Visualization

Dashboards

Better Office Outlook Experience

Contextual Document Management

Goal Management

Cloud Development

Solution Management

Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace

Connections

Recurring Activities

Opportunities

Queues

Field Level Security

Teams

Web Resources

2. What is the different web services available in MS CRM 2011?

                Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides two services IOrganization Service, IDiscoveryService. IOrganization service is used to fetch data and metadata from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, whereas IDiscoveryService is used determine your organization and endpoints for IOrganization service to access Microsoft Dynamics CRM data.

3. Which service can be used to access metadata information?

                We can use IOrganization Service to fetch metadata in 2011 and metadata service in 4.0. Metadata means the information about the entity and attribute e.g. Display name, platform name, size of the attribute, datatype of attribute etc. If we want to access any information about any entity (Dynamic or system) we will have to make use of the Metadata service. In the database we can find the metadata table and name of these table begins with keyword Metadata.

4. What are the different ways to consume MS CRM web service from client side?

                We can write Rest or Soap request to consume MS CRM 2011 webservices.

5. Rest vs Soap

            SOAP and REST are both web services to access and modify / manipulate CRM data.

REST(ODATA) : It is the recommended web service to use for tasks that involve creating, retrieving,
updating and deleting records. However, in this release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM the
capabilities of this Web service are limited to these actions

SOAP: Unlike the REST ENDPOINT, the SOAP endpoint uses the Organization service. This is
the same service used when writing applications that exist outside of the Microsoft Dynamics
CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online application. The SOAP endpoint provides
access to all the messages defined in the Organization service. Soap is recommended for
Assign, Retrieve and Execute

XmlHttpRequest:  (sometimes referred to as XHR) provides capabilities to configure and send
requests and define a callback function if the request is asynchronous. The HTTP response from
the server includes a status code indicating whether the request was successful. HTTP status
code values in the 200 range are considered successful.

An XmlHttpRequest provides instructions to the server about the format of any data to be included in
the response. Because the REST endpoint supports both ATOM and JSON formats you have the
option to request data to be returned in the XML ATOM format. However, with JScript code the expected
typical request will use JSON because it is easily consumable using JScript.

6. Difference between Dialog and workflow.

7. What is Solution?

                 Solution is a collection of MS CRM 2011 components that can be exported and imported easily from one CRM organization to another CRM organization.

8. Difference between Managed and Unmanaged solution.

                Managed solution can’t be customized, but can be uninstalled easily.Unmanaged solution can be customized, you can’t uninstall unmanaged solution.
Refer : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334576.aspx for more details

9. Is it possible to register plugin through solution.

                Yes

10. What is field level security?

                Using field level security we can hide information based on user security role in MS CRM 2011. Refer :http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309608.aspx

11. How can we use auditing in MS CRM 2011?

 Auditing can be configured easily through CRM UI. Refer:http://www.avanadeblog.com/xrm/2010/09/crm-2011-feature-of-the-week-9132010-auditing.html for more details on auditing.

12.What is the use if document location entity in MS CRM 2011?

                Document location entity is used to store location of crm record which point to a document folder in share point.

13. How can we create a custom Ribbon button?

                To create a custom ribbon button we need to modify RibbonDiffXml of the entity where want to place our button. We can use different ribbon editor tool in codeplex or can manually modify it, you can refer my post to create custom ribbon button.

14. How can we rename a system Ribbon button?

                We can do this by modifying ribbondiffxml, but we need to get current ribbon button id, that we can get from the sample ribbon generator application that comes with Microsoft CRM 2011 SDK.

15. How can we open a custom webpage from ribbon button?

                We can use Action to open custom page
Refer:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328038

16. How can we use Filtered views in MS CRM 2011.

                Filtered view is a way to enforce security as database level, while working with report we use Filtered view to fetch data based on user security role. Microsoft CRM 2011 contains filtered view for every entity.

17. What is Web resource and what the different types of webresources.

                Web resource is new feature in Microsoft CRM 2011, which is used create reusability of the code and other component. We can create different type of web resource in Microsoft CRM 2011 for example javascript, Image, silverlight, CSS and HTML page.

18. How can deploy a Silverlight web resource in MS CRM 2011.

Refer:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328358.aspx

19. What is the use of sub grids?

                Subgrids are used to display any entity view in another entity, you can add subgrids from Insert tab while customizing entity form and can select entity to display view in that subgrid

20. What ate the basic steps involved in developing plugin?

                Refer : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328490.aspx

21. What is the use of tracing service in plugin development?

This is a new feature in Microsoft CRM 2011, using tracing service we can get more error details and can display them to user.

22. What are the new messages introduce in plugins in MS XEM 2011?

                Microsoft CRM 2011 has introduced many new entities, you can refer new entity and their messages in “message-entity support for plug-ins” files that comes with Microsoft CRM 2011 SDK.

23. What is sandbox plugin?

                Sandbox plugin is a plugin which runs under Isolation mode. All Microsoft CRM 2011 plugin writing for online is registered in sandbox mode.

24. What are the different ways to create custom reoort for MS CRM 2011?

                Fetchxml and SSRS.

25. Difference bwetweeb Early bound and late bound.

                Early bound – Easy to code, you don’t need to remember field’s name, compile type checking, required extra efforts to generate early bound classes.
Out bound- you should know fields name, run time checking, performance wise better than early bound.

Refer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg327971.aspx for more details

26. What is a Plug-in?

27. What is a Workflow?

28. What are the differences between Plug-in and a Workflow?

29. What are the differences between Asynchronous Plugin and a Workflow?

30. When will you use a workflow and when will you use a Plug-in?

            Workflows are more suitable if:

you want to achieve simple tasks faster, such as sending an e-mail or creating / updating assigning records. These actions can be set up very quickly with a workflow without any need of writing code.
you want to easily scale things to managers (if they were setup for user records), as it is possible to assign records to them.
you want to allow an advanced user to make changes to logic. As using the integrated workflow designer is user-friendly, an advanced user would be able to edit an existing workflow and change some rules according to business changes.
the logic should be available to be run on demand. I mean, when you are within an entity and navigates to “workflows” option in the left pane, all workflows marked as available to run on demand can be executed making them independent of an event trigger.
you want to send emails making use of templates and attaching files.

Workflows also allow running child workflows which may make a lot of sense in some scenarios. Nevertheless, be careful if you need the child workflow results in order to make decisions on your main workflow, as child workflows always run asynchronous, which means that it will trigger the child workflow and continue. If you need your primary workflow to wait until child ends, you will need to write a custom activity.

On the other hand, plug-ins are more suitable if:

you need to manipulate data before is saved.
you need to make validations before submitting the operation.
you want to be able to cancel an operation based on your validations.
immediate response to the user is needed.
you need retrieve values and/or take actions after operation has been completed (i.e. getting and autogenerated id).

31. What is an Email-Router?

                Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router is a software component that creates an interface between a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment and the organization’s messaging system. The E-mail Router routes qualified email messages to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system as email activities and fully integrates with different messaging systems, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Exchange Online, POP3, and SMTP. The E-mail Router includes the functionality for sending email through any desired SMTP provider and for receiving email from Microsoft Exchange Server or from a POP3 server. Additionally, the Forward Mailbox feature remains available.

32. What are the steps to configure an Email router?

33. How the Plug-in and workflow will behave in case of Off-line client?

            With the Outlook client, further extending your existing solution. You can choose to have the plug-in execute only against the server, run offline with the Outlook client, or both.

Remember that when a client goes offline and then returns online, any plug-in calls are executed after the data synchronizes with the server. If you choose to have your logic execute both with the server and offline, be prepared for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to execute your plug-in code twice.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not support an asynchronous implementation of a plug-in with offline deployment. If you want to have your plug-in work offline, you need to register it in synchronous mode.