Connecting CRM 2013 instance from CRM 2011 outlook client

I was asked an interesting question today regarding CRM 2013 upgrade. Will CRM 2013 client work with existing 2011 outlook client or we need to roll out CRM 2013 client?

The answer is CRM 2013 can be used on CRM 2011 outlook client if data is not required in offline mode. Users do not need to roll out CRM 2013 outlook client in a huge rush. It would be a good idea to roll out 2013 outlook client in a near future though but can be planned out when it best suits each organisation.

Here is the link for both the outlook clients:

CRM 2011 Outlook Client
http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=27821

CRM 2013 Outlook Client
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40344

So how does it look inside outlook? From within outlook the page has got 2011 view but when you double click and open the form it is CRM 2013 screen.

Here is how it looks from within outlook which is standard CRM 2011 outlook client look and feel.

Role Based Dashboard

Another existing feature of CRM 2013. Role based Dashboard. In CRM 2013, you can now define role based Dashboard just like forms.

To define the Role Based Dashboard, select Enable Security Roles button and select the roles just like Role Based Forms. It also has the same feature as Set as default.

 

This is a good enhancement and was a limitation before. Great little addition.

No Extension table!!!

I am very excited about the new CRM 2013 release. There are a lot of new functionality coming out with the new release.

There are couple of obvious ones like better look and feed and flatter UI as mentioned in the posts below:

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/09/06/top-10-new-features-of-crm-2013/

http://www.preact.co.uk/preact_blog/whats-new-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013

From technical point of view there are few features that will help performance for sure.

There is no more extension tables. Till CRM 2011 each entity had extension table and data was retrieved using filtered view which would fetch data from 2 base tables. With CRM 2013, extension tables are merged with the base table. Hence there is only one table / entity. This is a huge gain from performance point of view for sure.

CRM 2013 loving it.