Aug 21, 2005
Using the Power of Microsoft Windows Desktop Search for Microsoft CRM
Thanx to the power of Microsoft Windows Desktop Search (WDS) it is very easy to integrate it with Microsoft CRM. I just had a few free minutes, so instead of spending my time with my girlfriend I decided to create a small article for my crm friends :-)
By integrate Microsoft CRM with WDS users can easily search from the desktop to find any object inside of Microsoft CRM. This is just one more step to reduce the number of steps/clicks to find the relevant information. This example will show how you could integrate WDS with Microsoft CRM to make Accounts and Contacts searchable from the desktop: See the screenshot:
Microsoft CRM and Windows Desktop Search
A few comments: Instead of creating a new iFilter for WDS I used a much simpler approach: by using the WDS Shortcuts you can point to any web based application. So all we need is a small web application which will execute the search and show the result. Than we can define a new shortcut in WDS to point to our seach application.Thats it!
Steps to install:
- Download the example project here: Example Project
- Install it into your crm web application
- Edit web.config to point to your crm server
- Create a new Shortcut for Microsoft Windows Desktop Search by using the following command in the search textbox: @crm, http://crmserver/Custom/Search/SearchGrid.aspx?q=$w where crmserver is the address of your crmserver
How to use it:
Just type in "crm SEARCHSTRING" in your Microsoft Windows Desktop Search, where SEARCHSTRING is your search string.
Have fun, Joris