When considering the needs of an enterprise-class deployment of MSCRM, there are a number of things to take into account which were not necessarily factors in previous versions. In this post I will try to cover the primary factors that should be considered during a large-scale deployment. The assumption is that for this scenario the CRM E-mail Router will be used to process incoming and outgoing e-mail.
Defining the Requirements
The needs of the organization need to be taken into consideration before any deployment activities should begin. The following are common questions which should be answered.
- Does the organization have a need to use queues?
- Are the CRM user and queue mailboxes located in more than one location, region or country?
- Where will the IT department allow the E-mail Router to be installed?
- Will the IT department allow the creation of one or more Forward Mailboxes?
- Will the IT department allow the deployment of Forward Mailbox rules?
- What type of e-mail traffic is expected (volume per user, average attachment size, etc)?
The Scenario
Once these types of questions have been answered, the CRM e-mail deployment can begin. We will work with the following to illustrate a possible deployment scenario. Part of the power of the CRM e-mail integration is the flexibility it gives. This scenario is used for illustrative purposes only, so your mileage may vary.
- 1 CRM organization with 1 Exchange organization encompassing 2 regions:
- 1 CRM server and 1 Exchange server located in the US
- 1 CRM server and 1 Exchange server located in Japan
- 500 CRM users in the US, each receiving 30 e-mails per day, small attachment size, all in US business unit
- 2 CRM queues in Japan, each receiving 10,000 e-mails per day, large attachment size, both in Japanese business unit
- IT department will allow installing CRM E-mail Router directly on Exchange server machines.
- IT department will allow deployment of Forward Mailbox rules for CRM users in US.
Suggested Solution
With the above scenario, we will want to implement the most efficient solution. Given the fact that the organization is globally split and that the IT department will allow the creation of a Forward Mailbox along with deploying rules to user’s mailboxes, the following would be a good solution.
- Create a Forward Mailbox on the US Exchange server and deploy the Forward Mailbox rules to the 500 CRM users in the US.
- Install the e-mail router on the US Exchange server configured to process incoming and outgoing e-mail via the Forward Mailbox
- Install the e-mail router on the Japanese Exchange server configured to directly monitor the 2 CRM queues
The reasoning behind this solution is that we want to have the 500 US users’ e-mail forwarded to a central location to maximize efficiency. The e-mail router will only have to monitor a single mailbox, logon credential management is easier, and mailbox size is manageable since the router will delete the forwarded e-mails after processing.
In the case of the 2 queues in Japan, we do not need the added overhead of creating a Forward Mailbox and deploying the Forward Mailbox rules. In addition, we want to have a local e-mail router to avoid the expense of monitoring Japanese mailboxes from the US router, and it would be non-performant and inefficient to forward the 20,000 e-mails with large attachments to the US Forward Mailbox.
Implementation
In order to implement the connection for the E-mail Router in both locations and to configure and deploy the Forward Mailbox rules to user mailboxes in the US, you will need to configure the system user records, queues, and e-mail routers in both locations. These tasks require a number of steps to be followed in order to work properly, so please view the following videos which cover these topics very well in a much clearer forum than a simple blog post.
- The CRM 4.0 E-mail Router with POP3
- The CRM 4.0 E-mail Router with Exchange
- The CRM 4.0 E-mail Router with Forward Mailbox
Cheers,