CRM 3.0 Physical Model

  • I'm just getting started with Reporting Services.  My company just began using CRM 3.0 a month ago.  I found Visio files of the database Logical model on Microsoft.com but I'd really like to see the physical model -- an actual layout of the tables,views and relationships.   I have access to the database here but the diagramming available in Management Studio isn't helping much -- hard to decipher the cobweb of relationshps.

    I did find a view "Incident" which seems to hold most of the fields I'd be interested in for my first report, but I need to add the queue each ticket belongs to.

    thanks for any guidance.

    Randy

     

  • Randy -

    A lot of the answer depends on the amount of customization that has been done to your CRM instance - for good or bad, CRM is highly customizable and things like incidents, even customers, may have been modified from their default locations and behaviors.  You'll need to get a current data model from the folks who installed and/or customized your CRM instance before you'll be able to get too far. 

    Joe

     

  • When writing reports against Dynamics CRM you should always use the Filtered Views.  I would download the CRM 3.0 SDK.  It has a section in it called "Report Writers Guide" which points SSRS developers in the right direction.  All the Filtered Views handle record security and are created and updated by the application.

  • Thanks Ben, I'll check out the SDK.  I did see those filtered views in our database.  Obviously with a database this complicated, doing a select * on every table and view to see what it's contents look like isn't very practical.

    Randy

    When writing reports against Dynamics CRM you should always use the Filtered Views.  I would download the CRM 3.0 SDK.  It has a section in it called "Report Writers Guide" which points SSRS developers in the right direction.  All the Filtered Views handle record security and are created and updated by the application.

  • The views also take care of picklist lookups which saves time as well. 

    If you're dealing with currency look at some of the canned reports.  They have a data set that looks up the formatting options stored in the database by the application.  Then those results are used in the formatting options of the fields in your report. 

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