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Seamless OneNote Integration with Dynamics CRM 2015 Spring Wave Update 1

Post Author: Joe D365 |

For those of you who are already OneNote aficionados, you will be stoked to know that the 2015 SP1 Spring Release incorporates seamless OneNote integration.  And for those of you who haven’t discovered the productivity and collaborative power OneNote puts at your fingertips… be prepared to be blown away. OneNote allows users to quickly add and organize notes, pictures, drawings and voice notes.  Now think of that power integrated right into CRM!  Sweet!

So, where will the CRM notes be stored?

Notebooks are created using SharePoint Integration, so that means that the entities must be enabled for both document management and OneNote. By default these entities include: Account, Article, Lead, Opportunity, Product, Quote, and Sales Literature. But you can add others, too!

Each enabled record will have its own notebook where all users can share and collaborate on the web, on their tablets and on their phones. Think about the ability to quickly capture, organize and store notes and images on the device of your choosing AND link them right to CRM - this is productivity and collaboration at its best!

Let's take a look at this integration from the browser perspective. You'll see OneNote has been enabled for the Account. Once enabled, OneNote is easily accessible on the Activity Wall. It's simple to setup pages to capture and store key account planning and management information such as sales proposal, meeting and customer information.

 

Here's the same view, just looking at it from OneNote in CRM:

Here's the same view, just looking at it from OneNote:

 

What's the difference between CRM Notes and OneNote Integration?

This integration doesn't replace the current Notes feature, but gives users another way to access notes stored in OneNote. Let's take a look at the differences between using out-of-the-box Notes in CRM vs. using OneNote. The chart below provides a great overview. You'll see a mention of Office Lens. You definitely have to check out this new document scanner and whiteboard image enhancement App available for Windows, iOS and Android devices.

So think about it…how many times do you get back from an event or trade show with a bunch of business cards need to deal with? With Office Lens you can take a picture of those cards, quickly export them to OneNote and, using OneNote's "Copy Text from Picture" functionality, quickly convert the information into text to use to create contacts.

What are the integration requirements?

Are you ready to get connected? Let's look at what it takes to get up and running with OneNote and CRM:

Requirements:

  • Currently the integration is available for CRM Online Only
  • SharePoint Integration must be enabled
  • The Entity must be enabled for SharePoint Integration
  • The Entity must be enabled for OneNote Integration

Additionally, On-premise SharePoint supports OneNote integration. This requires Server Side Integration. Additional requirements include:

  • Externally facing on-premises SharePoint
  • SSL (HTTPS) enabled
  • User Federation between on-premises directory and Azure Active Directory

 

We are excited about this new functionality. Make sure to stop by our main blog page for even more Dynamics CRM 2015 fun!

Happy CRM’ing!

 

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

6 comments on “Seamless OneNote Integration with Dynamics CRM 2015 Spring Wave Update 1”

  1. Wow, the possibilities for this sound really cool! We are currently using One Note as our Knowledge Base. It would be fantastic to make this available in our CRM Service management solution!

    1. We are super excited about this feature too. This is one of the first items we tested in the beta org and worked great!!!

  2. Hi Joe. We enabled this feature on our Dynamics CRM Online system (2015 Update 1), but instead of being a value add, it messed up our SharePoint account by replacing our account folders with OneNotes files (using the same name). I guess this is by design, but OneNote doesn't work right, and the net result is that we have lost access to the root share of every Account in Dynamics CRM. Until we can figure out what went wrong with OneNote, we want to revert back to NOT using OneNote, but cannot find any way to change the OneNotes files back to SP folders. Any idea?

        1. I did discover something, obviously some bad coding. If the SharePoint account folder doesn't exist and you click on OneNote in CRM under an account, a new SharePoint folder and OneNote notebook gets created correctly. Microsoft, please fix so we can use these features!

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