NEIL PARKHURST

This post is the next in my series covering revision topics for the MB2-712 certification. (Microsoft Dynamics CRM 0216 Customization and Configuration).

This time I will look at teams.

Teams have several uses in CRM. Teams are essentially lists or groups of users and can be used to manage security, reporting and sharing.

Business Units and Teams

Each business has a default team. This is a “special” team that cannot be removed. Users are automatically added as they are assigned to the business unit. Below you can see the default team for my International Sales Department. Notice the description highlights the fact that this is a default team.

Security Roles

I will cover security roles in more detail in a future post but it is important to understand that owner teams can have a security role. Members of the team will inherit the permissions granted by the team’s security role(s). Also, should you wish records to be owned by the team it will require a role which grants access to whatever entity is to be owned.

Team Types

Owner teams are the original / traditional type of team found in CRM. Owner teams have members and the team can own records. (Assuming granted permissions to do so with a security role!) For example, an account might be owned by the “International Sales Team” rather than by an individual user.

Access teams are a special type of team giving record sharing capabilities.

Owner Teams

The membership to owner teams can change but tends to be static. Someone joins the team and remains part of that team for all “activities” conducted by the team. An owner team has a finite number of members at any point in time.

Owner teams are useful when reporting on the team as a whole is required. For example, the team could have a goal and be measured as a group against that target.

Owner teams are associated with a business unit. As they will need to be assigned a security role from that business unit. But the members of the team do not have to belong to the same business unit. This is useful when a group of people need to collaborate across business units.

Access Teams

Access teams are used to share individual records. T

They are by implication very fluid / dynamics and will be formed or dissolved almost at will.

The number of members, who those members are or even if the team will exist is not a given.Consider an access team used on opportunity to reflect the sales team. It might be the deal is very small and an access team is never required for that opportunity. Or it might be a large deal that needs multiple people from sales involved.

On my opportunity form I’ve added a sub grid in which I list the access team members for the opportunity. Any users added will be part of the access team for that specific opportunity. Giving them all rights to maintain that opportunity. (Based on an access team template.)

NOTE: When users are added to the sub grid in background an access team for this specific record is automatically created. By default you aren’t going to see this team in the security settings area of CRM. But you can do an advanced find on teams to view it if required.

Before you can use an access teams on an entity it must be enabled for access teams. To do this you will need to use the customizations option in CRM. And under Communication & Collaboration enable the entity for access teams.

Once enabled you CAN disable access teams if required.

Having enabled the entity for access teams you will need to create an access team template. Access team templates are defined in security settings in CRM. Below you can see an example of an access team template for the opportunity entity. This is used to grant members of the access team privileges on individual opportunities.

A subgrid for the team members will need to be added to the entity. Below I have shown the access team I added to my opportunity form. (Again using the CRM customizations option.)  Notice that in the data source the records field is set to All Record Types, I have then selected Users as the entity. And I have set the default view to Associated Record Team Members. Then finally I have selected the required access team template opportunity.

You can have more than one access team template for each entity. So that each group of user may have different permissions. Although out of the box the maximum number of access teams per entity is 5.

If the access team template is changed, the revised permissions will not effect any existing access teams. Only as new record are created will the revised permissions take effect.

If an access team member has the share privileges. When they share the record their access team privileges will be shared. Meaning if someone has share ability but cannot delete a record. The people they share the record with will also not be able to delete it.

Hopefully I have given you a flavour for teams and what you might need to learn for the MB2-713 exam. As always I suggest you get some hands-on practice. Create some owner and access teams then “play” around with how they operate.
J