Is Sitecore Connect customizable? - sitecore

I am sitting with a project where I need to do a 2-way synchronize between Sitecore 8.2 and Microsoft Dynamics 365. From what I have been able to find, I see that version 1.4.1 can connect the following out of the box.
-Campaigns
-Contacts
-Marketing lists
I need to synchronize far more than that, and I am curious about whether or not Sitecore Connect is customizable to synchronize with everything there is in Dynamics 365. I have read all the documentation I could find, without finding an answer.
There is also the option of upgrading to sitecore 9, and using Dynamics CRM Connect 2.x. But again, I can't find much documentation about the possibilities of 2.x
Is Sitecore Connect 1.4.x/2.x customizable to a point where you can synchronize everything?

Yes, you can customize what data is being sent back and forth. Some example mappings are shown in the documentation for 2.0.1: http://integrationsdn.sitecore.net/DynamicsCrmConnect/v2.0.1/adding-custom-data/dynamics-to-sitecore/custom-contact-facets/index.html
For v1.4.1, you can check the documentation for additional CRM entities: http://integrationsdn.sitecore.net/DynamicsCrmConnect/v1.4.1/cookbooks/supporting-additional-crm-entities/index.html
Ultimately, this is all based on the Data Exchange Framework which is a fully customizable connection framework.

Related

Forum module for Sitecore 7.*

I'm building a website which requires forum integration to a Sitecore build - I've checked on the Sitecore website and they suggest YetAnotherForum and Telligent Community Integration Module. Both of these modules tho only support up till 6.4.1 and 6.4 respectively - I'm using Sitecore 7.0.
Logged a ticket with Sitecore and they came back with the following:
We have no information about Forum modules that are compatible with Sitecore 7.1. I would recommend you to contact your regional office and check whether they could advise you something.
Any suggestions?
First of all Telligent supports Sitecore 7.
Reference link
I have been working with Sitecore and Telligent Community integration from quite time and from my experience i have this opinion.
For deep integration it is quite a lot of work and requires much knowledge of both the product and costs will be high for licensing & deployment. But i can assure you that Telligent will work in Sitecore newer version also. However with higher costs you will get more rich functionality, Facebook like Activity Stream, and Apart from Forums it also has Blogs, Wikis, Media Gallery.
Telligent supports two kind of integrations:
1. Side by Side Integration - In this Sitecore and Telligent both will be user facing.
2. Integration mode - In this user will be mostly in Sitecore.
Reference link
If you are Sitecore Partner you will get trial license of Telligent. For details check 'Social Starter Kit' on Sitecore SDN site. Also there is video on YouTube regarding Sitecore & Telligent Integration in Sitecore Virtual User Group community.
I have no experience on YAF module so can't suggest on that.
Did you try to install YAF integration module, https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/YAF_integration.aspx, i think it would run on Sitecore 7, since this module mainly integrate YAF with Sitecore security, i don't see why it should not run on Sitecore 7.
The Telligent product was renamed, I suggest you take a look at http://www.zimbra.com/products/zimbra-community/sitecore-starter.html and contact them. I'm unaware of what version they're targeted at right now.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (2013) - Get number of tickets via API

I use Dynamics CRM Online (2013) to manage daily incident tickets, daily requests and change requests. I'd like to use their API and pull this information into a custom application to display them on a dashboard.
Basically what I want to do is to be able to grab the number of open tickets using my application. Then it'll publish this information to elsewhere. It's a Java application running on a Windows server.
Can you please point me in the correct direction?
MSDN lists a walkthrough (click here to see it) (it's related to CRM Online 2011, but since most of the info is still accurate I'd say it's worth a try) aimed exactly at connecting to CRM Online fom Java.
The prerequisites listed are
Java SE SDK 1.6 update 23 or later
Eclipse 3.7.x and above or NetBeans 6.9x or later
Apache Axis 2 ver. 1.6.1
Apache HTTP Components Client 4.1.3
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
You're going to have to generate the classes (in .NET you use crmsvcutil.exe, it's roughly equivalent) and then you should be all set.

Redmine project data for all projects

I am working on creating a dashboard which would access Redmine project data. This dashboard will be a consolidation of project data (delivery date, manager, start date, total issues, open issues, closed issues, bug count etc.) for all projects in the Redmine database.
Any ideas on how to do this? An SQL query to achieve this would be a good start. I have Redmine setup on my local system and can access the Redmine database.
I plan on creating an HTML5 .Net based web application. Once I figure out the queries to be used, I would write an IIS (or REST) service to fetch the desired data from the Redmine production database.
Any help/pointers would be deeply appreciated.
Regards,
Pranjal
You have basically three options:
use the REST API
develop a redmine plug-in
do some custom SQL stuff
REST API
The best you could do is to use the redmine REST API. Using it, you can fetch the data directly from redmine without any SQL queries or manipulating the server. It should even work when the redmine server is updated.
Redmine Plug-in
The next best thing is probably to develop a redmine plug-in. Your plug-in can access redmine classes (Project, User, etc.). For example, you could do something like Projects.all.map {|p| [p.id, p.identifier]} to get the id and identifier of all projects in an array. This approach is way more powerful than using the REST API, but you have to modify the redmine server (install and maintain your plug-in). A plug-in is probably more fragile when redmine changes internal structures, than the REST API.
Custom SQL stuff
I do not recommend developing custom SQL solutions, but it is an option. Such a solution is harder to develop, more fragile, harder to set up, but might offer better performance.
You can see the the redmine database structure listed in db/schema.rb. Having the right schema, you could develop your custom SQL queries and return them to your dashboard.
Think about security
Apart from the usual security stuff (which you should consider too :)), remember that redmine has a rich permission system. Consider which object you make (publicly) available. This is most important for the last two options. When using the plug-in approach, you should have a look at the User#allowed_to method.
With the little information I have about your requirements, I have the feeling that you should go for the REST API.

Realtime Interfacing with Dynamics NAV via Webservices

I want to write a .NET application that will interface in realtime with Dynamics NAV 2009 and 2013. The application will have to read and update entities such as customers and stock items.
Using the provided webservices seem to be the best candidate as a point for integration, and I've tried some basic tests reading, updating and creating items using webservices based on Pages and a .net client.
Unfortunately, I am very new to Dynamics, and I have some questions that probably reflect that lack of experience.
First - webservices can expose either Page or Codeunits. Is Page the correct option to use for interfacing to say - create a customer?
Secondly - My understanding is that Dynamics NAV is rarely deployed without customisation. Would a typical customisation in NAV e.g an addition of a field involve changing a standard Page, and will this change then be reflected in the webservice definition?
You are right - given your requirements, webservices are probably the best option for interfacing with NAV.
Regarding your first question: page web services know how to handle concurrency, and, thanks to the way Visual Studio encapsulates them, expose rich types that you can interact with from your .NET code. All the basic CRUD operations can be carried out using the exposed methods. For a more detailed comparison between codeunit web services and page web services, please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd355398.aspx.
I think most developers choose not to publish the normal pages (the ones aimed at the NAV Windows Client; previously known as the Role Tailored Client), but instead, create separate, tweaked pages for publishing as a web service. But, if you prefer, I guess you could add your custom field to the standard page and publish that as a web service.
Hope this helps! Good luck! :)

With Sharepoint 2007, how to update a datasheet from a program?

I writing a tool to automatically update a datasheet on a sharepoint 2007 site. The tool runs on JVM, and seems like 2007 has no REST service support, so can anyone point me to some good resource of using webservice to update datasheet object on sharepoint?
Thanks,
The DataSheet is just a UI view in front of a SharePoint list, therefore you should be looking to update the List, not the DataSheet UI.
This will give you a start, its written for C# but can be ported to Java.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms440289(v=office.12).aspx
This programming task shows how to use
the UpdateListItems method of the
Lists Web service to update items in a
list through a Microsoft Windows
application.
For Java specific example see - http://davidsit.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/creating-sharepoint-list-items-with-java-tutorial/