Dynamics 365 CRM - Introduction to Solutions (Classic UI)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE– Introduction to Solutions  (Classic UI)

Solution is a place where all the customization components are placed. Solutions allow customizers or developer to author, package and maintain unit of software extend Microsoft Dynamics 365. Any configuration and customization done in CRM are packaged, managed and distributed using solution. Creating solution helps in moving components from one environment to another.

Types of Solutions

There are three different types of solutions: default, managed and unmanaged.

1.      Default Solution: Out-of-the-box solution available in your CRM instance known as default solution. Components available in default solution pre-deployed customizations are part of Microsoft Dynamics 365 software. Many of the components available in default solution are customization and can be used in managed solution or un-managed customizations. You can access a default solution by navigating to 

Dynamics 365 > Settings > Customizations > Customize the system. This option directly customizes the default solution.

 

2.      Managed Solution: A managed solution is a completed solution that is intended to be distributed and installed. Managed solution created by exporting unmanaged solution. Managed solution is to restrict any further customizations installed in the new organization. Managed solutions can be installed on the top of system solution or other managed solutions.

 

3.      Unmanaged Solution: An unmanaged solution is one that is still under development or isn’t intended to be distributed. When the unmanaged solution is complete and you want to distribute it, export it and package it as a managed solution. An unmanaged solution contains all the unmanaged customizations of CRM components including any added, modified, removed or deleted components. By default, any new solution is an unmanaged solution. However, you can export an unmanaged solution as a managed or unmanaged solution.

 

Important facts of Managed Solution vs unmanaged solution:

 

1. Managed Solution: we cannot directly customize the components in managed solution, like delete field, create field. If require to create any field or component we can use unmanaged solution or default solution.Unmanaged solution allows customizing its components.

2. We cannot export a managed solution.
3. If we delete managed solution all the managed components, attributes and data will get deleted from system, unmanaged or OOB fields will not get deleted. And deleting unmanaged solution all the published components or elements will be in default solution.

4. Importing a managed solution automatically publish the solution, and unmanaged solution we need to publish after import.
5. If a managed solution is installed in system and if you try to import same solution as unmanaged it does not allow you to import or vice versa.
6. Managed solution customization property (like Display name, new forms, new charts, new views etc.) set at entity level, Entity-> Managed Properties.

Solution components:

The following table shows the types of solution components can be customized using default, unmanaged or managed solutions.

Schema	User Interface	Analytics	Process/Code	Templates	Security
Entities	Application Ribbon	Dashboards	Processes – Dialogs and Workflows	Mail-merge	Security Roles
Attributes	SiteMap	Reports	Plug-ins – Assemblies and Processing Steps	E-mail	Field Level Security Profiles
Relationships	Forms	Visualizations		Contract
Global Option Sets	Entity Ribbons			Article
	Web Resources

 

Creating Solution:

1. Navigate to Dynamics 365 > Settings > Solutions. Click on New.

2. In the window that follows, enter the following details and click Save / Save and Close.

 

1. Display Name: Practice Solution (this can be any name that you want)
2. Name: Will be automatically set based on the Display Name. However, you can change this.
3. Publisher: Demo Publisher. Solution publisher provides a common customization prefix and option value prefix. Defining a solution publisher controls how your managed solutions can be updated once distributed. However, for this example we used our custom created publisher here.
4. Version: Specify a version with the following format: major.minor.build.revision, for example: 1.0.0.0.

 

Adding or creating components in unmanaged solution:

You can create new components or add existing components available in your system by clicking buttons available in solution. Also you can perform more actions in solution like delete, remove component, publish solution, export solution and many more.

 

Exporting Solution:

Once we have all the changes in place that we want to package as a managed or unmanaged solution, we can export our solution as below.

Step 1: Open the source organization and navigate to Settings -> Solutions. Select the solution that you want to export and click on Export button. Or Open the solution use export solution button.

Step 2: In the Publish Customizations window, click on Publish All Customizations and click Next.

Step 3: In the window that follows, you can optionally select any system setting like auto-numbering, calendar settings, etc. to be exported with the solution. For now, you can avoid selecting any option and click on Next.

Step 4: In the Package Type window, you can select whether you want to export the package as a managed or unmanaged solution. For this example, let us export it as unmanaged. Click Next.

Step 5: In the next window, you can see the source version of CRM that you are using and can select the target version. Click Export.

Step 6: Once you click Export, the solution will be exported as a zip file. Save this zip file at some location on your system.

 

Importing Solution:

Now, we will import the solution zip file that we exported in the last section to a new target organization.

Step 1: Open the target organization and navigate to Dynamics 365 > Settings -> Solutions. Click on Import.

Step 2: Browse the zip file that downloaded from the export step and click Next.

Step 3: From the next window, you can view the solution package details if needed. Clicking on Import will start the solution import process.

Step 4: Once the import process completes, it will show the status of success or failure. If the process succeeds, click on Publish All Customizations. In case the solution importing fails, it will give you a detailed error log on which step of the import process failed.

Step 5: We’re done. The solution will be successfully imported to the target organization. Click Close.