COMPREHENSIVE SEARCHMicrosoft Dynamics SnapBusiness Data Search Snap-inFor Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 / Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Technical White PaperFebruary 21, 2007 Microsoft Dynamics Snap SandboxTable of ContentsEXECUTIVE SUMMARY3INTRODUCING MICROSOFT DYNAMICS SNAP3MICROSOFT DYNAMICS SNAP FOR BUSINESS DATA SEARCH4SALIENT FEATURES OF BUSINESS DATA SEARCH SNAP-IN4HIGH LEVEL ARCHITECTURE5USAGE STEPS8CHARACTERISTICS OF SEARCH RESULTS11SEARCHABLE ENTITIES AND ATTRIBUTES13CUSTOMIZING BUSINESS DATA SEARCH SNAP-IN13PRE-REQUISITES FOR INSTALLING BUSINESS DATA SEARCH SNAP-IN14EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Many corporations implement business application systems like Microsoft Dynamics to automate their back-office business processes. Once those systems are in place, there are usually a select number of employees in the organization who are given access to them. However, the majority of information workers are not licensed to use these systems. Those employees tend to spend most of their time using the Microsoft Office suite of applications to do their jobs. Although those workers could definitely benefit from access to relevant business data, they must either learn to do without-often using data that is outdated and no longer accurate, or they have to find someone with access to the system and get their help in order to get the information they need. What if there were ways to enable those information workers to access the data in Microsoft Dynamics applications from within Microsoft Office? INTRODUCING MICROSOFT DYNAMICS SNAPMicrosoft Dynamics Snap applications do just thatthey allow information workers to interact with Microsoft Dynamics business information, thereby increasing their productivity and enabling them to make decisions with confidence all from within the Microsoft Office applications they are most comfortable with and with which they are most familiar. Now all employees can get timely and accurate data out of or into the Microsoft Dynamics applications without ever having to leave Microsoft Office. Microsoft Dynamics Snap applications help companies maximize their investment in Microsoft technology by delivering the power of the Microsoft Dynamics business applications to every single employee. MICROSOFT DYNAMICS SNAP FOR BUSINESS DATA SEARCHOne of the key principles involved in establishing and sustaining a successful business environment is information management. However, the critical business information for an enterprise is usually located across various back-office information systems and searching each of these can be tiresome and time-consuming. Moreover, as this data is dispersed across locations, comparing and analyzing data becomes another time-consuming task. The Business Data Search (BDS) snap-in is a solution created by the Microsoft Dynamics Snap team that makes the task of searching information easier and readily accessible from within Microsoft Outlook 2007. The Business Data Search snap-in helps business users to search for business information in multiple locations including Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 portals. The search can be initiated from within Microsoft Outlook 2007 and the search results obtained are collated and presented in a format similar to the way Microsoft Outlook displays search results. For example, consider a scenario where a Sales representative receives an email from a customer reporting that certain item in the last delivered shipment was defective. Before taking any action the sales rep decides to do some research about this particular item. She simply uses the Business Data Search snap-in, available from within her Microsoft Outlook window, and searches for this item across her back-office ERP and CRM systems and Microsoft Office SharePoint sites by entering the item name as the search text in Business Data Search snap-in search box. This retrieves all the relevant matches found in the various systems within her Microsoft Outlook window for her to see. For instance, she can see the latest quality reports for this item stored in a Microsoft Office SharePoint site, past and present Opportunities and Orders present in the ERP system, as well as Customers who have been recently serviced for this item. This enables her to get a very good perspective on the overall state of the item in question and make the right decisions before following up with her customer.SALIENT FEATURES OF BUSINESS DATA SEARCH SNAP-INBelow is a list of the salient features of this snap-in: Searches for data across multiple search locations simultaneously and displays the search results within Microsoft Outlook. Respects and maintains the security access rights configured within the data sources for various users. This means that the search results comprise o