Dynamics CRM – Interview Questions

1. General Questions (Services, Field/Form security, Auditing, etc.):

Level 1

1. What are the different types of Authentication methods supported in Dynamics CRM
2. What are the services available in CRM 2011?
3. What is the main difference between CRM 4.0 and CRM2011 services?
o We had web services in CRM 4.0 / We have WCF services in CRM 2011
o We had separate services for “CRM Service” and “Metadata” in CRM 4.0. In
CRM 2011 we have both in same service “Organization.svc”
4. Any idea on current version of CRM?

Level 2

1. What is Discovery service and purpose of it?

http://www.magnetismsolutions.co.nz/blog/roshanmehta/2012/07/04/the_microsoft_d
ynamics_crm_2011_discovery_service

2. What are the REST calls in CRM?

3. What is early binding and late binding. How is it used in CRM?

http://www.magnetismsolutions.com/blog.aspx/roshan-mehtas-
blog/2012/05/04/dynamics_crm_2011_early_vs._late_binding_overview

https://woodsworkblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/crm-2011-early-binding-vs-late-
binding-performance/

4. What is PrinciplalObjectAccess table why is it used?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2011/06/09/principalobjectaccess-
performance-recommendations.aspx

5. What is the use of stringmap table?

Level 3

1. Explain details about “Event Execution Pipeline”

2. What is field level security?
3. What is form level security?
4. Can we control the field level security based on security role?
5. Can we control the entities in site map with security roles?
 6. Will auditing slow down my system? No, it will not slow down CRM system because
all auditing data is stored in a single audit table. This design keeps the audit logs
completely separated from other CRM data.
7. Does audit data count against my CRM storage quota?

Yes audit data occupies the CRM storage. Hence, as a best practice we need to clean up
the audit data on a regular basis as part of yearly maintenance.

“Settings / Auditing / Audit Log Management “ will show the space that occupied by
audit data in CRM DB.

8. Can I audit just changes done by a couple users?

Auditing is turned on or off based on the entity or attribute. If auditing is only desired for
a couple users custom code is needed.

9. Can I schedule auditing to be turned off during data import?

Yes. Auditing can be scheduled to be turned off during a data import but this requires
custom code.

10. What type of operations and data can be audited in CRM?

Below data and oprations can be audited in CRM:

o Create, update, and delete operations on records.

o Changes to the shared privileges of a record.
o N:N association or disassociation of records.
o Changes to security roles.
o Audit changes at the entity, attribute, and organization level. For example,
enabling audit on an entity.
o Deletion of audit logs.
o When (date/time) a user accesses Microsoft Dynamics CRM data, for how
long, and from what client.

2. Customizations (Entity, field, form, view, Ribbon, dashboard):

Level 1:

1. What are the different data types we have in CRM?

2. Can we create a new field from form customization? (Yes)
3. Where we need to change the prefix for custom components? (Under Publisher
record)
4. Can we add different BU related users to a single Team? (Yes)
5. Can we have 2 BU’s for a single user? (No)
6. What is the max chars limit for “Multiline textbox”? (1048576)
 7. What is the lookup data type and where it will be placed? (It will be created on 1:N
relationship mapping and will be placed at “N” side entity)
8. What is the char limit for custom components pre-fix? (2-8)
9. Where does CRM store Option Set values in SQL Server? (StringMapBase)
10. What are requirement levels we have to create a new field for an entity?

 Optional
 Business recommended
 Required

1. What are the features we can’t rollback for an entity after enabling them?
2. What are the default settings for Field level security and Auditing?

Field level security: Disable

Auditing : Enable

Level 2:

1. What is the difference when the ownership is user vs organizaion for a custom entity?
2. How many types of relationships are available in crm?
3. What are the “Relationship behaviors” in CRM and explain each of them?
4. Where the Option set field options are stored in CRM?
5. How can you add Custom buttons to Ribbon?
6. How can you Hide system ribbon buttons?
7. How can you override system ribbon button functionality?
8. Is there any way to get Intelligence for Ribbon customizations in VS? If yes, how?
9. What are filtered views?

Level 3:

1. What are the types of Ribbons we have in CRM 2011?

2. How many tables and Views are created on creation of a “Custom Entity”?
3. What are the different ways to create “N:N” relationships in CRM?

3. Solutions

Level 1:

 What are types of solutions in CRM 2011?

 Can we export Default solution as “Managed Solution”?
 What is Managed Solution?
 What is unmanaged solution?
 Can we update the components in Managed solution?
 What is the process to update Managed solution?
 How can we know the Owner of Managed solution?
Level 2:

 What are components we can add from solutions?

 What is meant by web resources and how many types of web resources we have?

Level 3:

1. What are the minimum privileges required to create solution?

o Read write of Customizations
o Read write of solutions
o Read write of publishers
o Read write of web resources
o Import and Export customizations
o Publish customizations
2. What is meant by Managed Properties?
3. What is meant by publisher and why we are using it in CRM 2011?

4. Differences

Level 1:

1. Discovery service Vs Organization service

Discovery Service

The IDiscoveryService Web service is used to determine the organizations that a user is a
member of, and the endpoint address URL to access the IOrganizationService Web service
for each of those organizations. This discovery service is necessary because Microsoft
Dynamics CRM is a multi-tenant environment—a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM server
can host multiple business organizations. By using the discovery Web service, your
application can determine the endpoint address URL to access the target organization’s
business data.

Organization Service

It is a primary web service that accesses data and metadata of an organization. This web
service contains the methods that you use to write code that uses all the data and metadata in
Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

1. Managed Solution Vs Unmanaged Solution

http://www.felinesoft.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/what-are-the-differences-between-
managed-and-unmanaged-solutions-in-crm-2011/
 1. Plug-in Vs Workflow
2. Workflow Vs Dialogue
3. Sync Vs Async Plug-ins
4. Global Option set Vs Normal Option set field in CRM
5. Append Vs AppendTo
6. Share Vs Assign
7. Organization owned entities Vs User Owned entities

Level 2:

1. Query Expression Vs Fetch XML query

http://madcomputerist.blogspot.sg/2014/07/difference-between-querybyattribute-vs.html

1. Query Expression Vs Query by Attribute

https://srmscrm.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/difference-between-querybyattribute-and-
queryexpression/

1. Form level security Vs Field level security

https://crmbusiness.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/crm-2013-how-to-set-up-field-level-security/

1. Pre-Image Vs Post Image in Plug-ins

2. Plugin deployment: Difference between GAC, DataBase, Disk deployments.
3. SQL based Vs Fetch XML based SSRS reports

Level 3

1. Async Plug-in Vs Custom Workflow

2. Pre-Validation step Vs Pre-Operation step
3. Secure configuration Vs Unsecure Configurations in Plugin

5. Plug-ins

Level 1:

1. What is the process to develop the Plug-in?

2. What is the process to register the Plug-in in CRM?
3. What are stages we have in CRM?
4. What is the namespace for IPlugin Interface? (Xrm.Sdk)
5. What is the method we need implement from IPlugin interface?
[Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)]
 Level 2:

1. Do we have all attributes on the form in “Target” attribute of Input parameters in

CRM?
2. Which type of plug-ins contains “Output Parameters”

sSynchronous post-event and asynchronous registered plug-ins have OutputParameters

populated as the response

1. When can infinite loop occur in a plugin? How do you avoid infinite loops in
plugin code?
2. Different fields in context object
3. When we can go for pre-validations and when we can go for pre-stage?
4. At what events “Images” are not available
o Only synchronous post-event and asynchronous registered plug-ins have
PostEntityImages
o The create operation doesn’t support a pre-image
o Delete operation doesn’t support a post-image.
5. What is the advantage of adding “Pre or Post” images to a plug-in

Registering for pre or post images to access entity attribute values results in improved
plug-in performance as compared to obtaining entity attributes in plug-in code through
RetrieveRequest or RetrieveMultipleRequest requests.

Level 3:

1. How can you debug the Plug-in code?

2. What is plug-in profiler and importance of it?
3. What is the secured configurations and how can we access from plug-in code?
4. What is the unsecured configurations and how can we access from plug-in code?
5. What are the minimum privileges a user should have to register a plug-in in
CRM?

There is a security restriction that enables only privileged users to register plug-ins. For plug-ins
that are not registered in isolation, the system user account under which the plug-in is being
registered must exist in the Deployment Administrators group of Deployment Manager. Only
the System Administrator user account or any user account included in the Deployment
Administrators group can run Deployment Manager.

The system user account under which the plug-in is being registered must have the following
organization-wide security privileges:
  prvCreatePluginAssembly
 prvCreatePluginType
 prvCreateSdkMessageProcessingStep
 prvCreateSdkMessageProcessingStepImage
 prvCreateSdkMessageProcessingStepSecureConfig
2. What are different methods of Plug-in storage?

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309620.aspx#bkmk_pluginstor

6. Workflows

Level 1:

1. What is the process of creating sample UI workflow?

Level 2:

1. How can we create Timeout conditions in workflow?

2. Difference between Timeout and Wait conditions?

Wait is more dependent on a value in a field which is not of a type date or time. Wait
postpones a workflow until a condition changes depending on a value in a field. For example
Wait until the “Appro val” field is set to “Yes” by the manager. On the other hand Timeout is
more dependent on date and time. Timeout postpones a workflow until a date/time condition
relative to a value in a specified CRM record’s date/time field.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11291.microsoft-dynamics-crm-
2011-workflows-wait-and-timeout.aspx

1. What is the importance of scope option in workflow?

http://blog.profad.com/crm-3/defining-scope-using-workflows-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-
2011/

Level 3:

1. What is CorrelationToken in workflows and importance of it?

A CorrelationToken contains a counter and a one-hour “self-destruct” timer. When we

schedule a workflow to run frequently with a specified time interval. If the interval is more
than one hour then the CorrelationToken got expired and it set to one hour again. If the
interval is less than one hour then the CorrelationToken won’t get expired so that the worked
will be failed after 8 iterations.

1. Generally, workflows are getting failed after 8 iterations. Is there any way to
overcome this?
Security Roles

Level 1:

1. Explain the difference between Append & Append To?

2. Can you explain the difference between Share and Assign?
3. What are the different access levels we have in CRM?
4. What are the different types of privileges we have in CRM?

Level 2:

1. What is the default role assigned to user if it created from OOB import tool?
2. Which roles will get access by default on creation of custom entity?
3. Can we export child business unit security roles?

Level 3:

1. What are the minimum privileges required to track the outlook appointments into CRM?

Scenarios:

1. User wants add notes to an account record. Which privileges he should have on account
and notes?