How to connect Act! CRM with SharePoint

This "how-to-connect" documentation will explain the initial configuration of an example connection from Act! CRM to a SharePoint Online List in Office 365. We will be synchronizing data stored in Act! CRM.

This guide presupposes that you have installed the Layer2 Cloud Connector and that you are familiar with its basic functionality. The Layer2 Cloud Connector User Documentation will provide you with all necessary information.

Contents

1. Configuring Act! CRM

2. Configuring the Layer2 Cloud Connector

2.1 Creating a new connection

2.2 Configuring the Data Entity 1

2.3 Configuring the Data Entity 2

2.4 Running your connection

3. Hints and known issues

3.1 Connection direction

3.2 Data model

1. Configuring Act! CRM

To connect to Act! CRM you are going to need together with the username and password the database name and the URL where your Act! CRM is being hosted. To get the database name, log into your Act! CRM and on the top-right corner click on the ? symbol / About Act! Premium.

The URL should look like in the picture. The database you are using can be also seen there.

2. Configuring the Layer2 Cloud Connector

2.1. Creating a new connection

Create a new connection by using the Create New Connection option in the Actions pane (right-hand side). The new connection will appear at the bottom of the Connection Manager List (left-hand side). Click on your newly created connection to open the connection configuration settings.

Choose a meaningful name for your connection and replace the current "New Connection" Connection Title with it.

Connections to Act! CRM are read-only connections. We will choose Left to Right as Synchronization Direction. An initial connection should always be uni-directional to assure that both data entities are identical. Therefore, choose Left to Right as Direction.

2.2. Configuring the Data Entity 1

We will now set up our Data Entities. Go to the data entity “Data Entity 1” to open the configuration settings.

Choose a Data Entity Title. It is recommended to give your entities meaningful names to maintain an overview when you decide to set up multiple connections.

Select the Data Provider for Act! CRM from the data provider list. You can search for Act! CRM by typing into the selection box.

For the Connection String, we need the information mentioned in step 1. You can copy the below connection string and adjust it to match your gathered information. Use the Verify Connection String option to evaluate if the provided connection string is valid.

URL=https://youracturl.act.com;User=youractuser;ActDatabase=youractdatabase;ActCloudName=youractdatabase;	

• "URL=https://youracturl.act.com/;" this property must point to your Act! CRM URL.
• "User=youractuser" this property must be set to a username with rights to access the Act! CRM.
• "Actdatabase=databasename" this property must be set to the database name we got in step 1.
• "ActCloudName=databasename" this property must be set to the database name we got in step 1.

Enter the user account's password into the Password field. The field masks the value for better security.

The Select Statement text box is used to define specific data queries. We will be gathering all the Contacts. You can copy the below select statement and adjust it to match your needs. Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

SELECT * FROM Contacts

To check if all necessary columns are received, you can use the Preview Data option on the right-hand pane which will provide you with a pop-up window showing your sample data from your Act!  CRM entity.

2.3. Configuring the Data Entity 2

We are going to send the data to a custom SharePoint Online list. It's required that you set up this list prior to the next steps. Your list should contain matching columns according to your source entity.

Use the left-hand pane to switch to the data entity "Data Entity 2". We will be using the Layer2 SharePoint Provider for this setup. 

For more information about the SharePoint provider visit:

https://www.layer2solutions.com/support/cloud-connector-faqs/layer2-csom-sharepoint-ado-net-provider.

You can copy the below Connection String which contains the minimum of required properties to connect to your custom SharePoint Online list.

URL=https://your_custom_sharepoint_list_url/AllItems.aspx;Authentication=Microsoft_Modern;

• "URL=https://your_custom_sharepoint_url/AllItems.aspx;" this property defines the URL of your custom list that will be addressed.
• "Authentication=Microsoft_Modern;" this property will determine the authentication method used. Microsoft_Modern is the default authentication method to access Microsoft Office 365 / SharePoint Online and should work in most cases, even if the SharePoint site is connected to an ADFS. This authentication does not need any further connection string settings, other than the URL of the connected system.

• Optional: "User" parameter for information about the account that has been used for the authentication.

Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

In the next step, we will configure our mapping settings. Click on the Mappings option on the left-hand pane. If your fields from SharePoint are named identical to the fields from your source system, the Enable Auto Mapping option will match those columns. Disabling this option allows you to match your columns as needed. We enabled auto-mapping in our setup. Save your changes by using the right-hand pane option Save Changes.

2.4. Running your connection

To run your connection switch back to the main connection configuration node and use the Run Now Button located on the bottom of the setup page. The Run Synchronization Toolbox will also display the synchronization process. 

Below is a data preview of the information we have access in our source entity:

This will be the result in our SharePoint Online list after our initial successful synchronization:

3. Hints and known issues

3.1. Connection direction

As far as tested, this connection supports uni-directional only.

3.2. Data model

To see all the views you can access with the Act! CRM provider, use these queries in the Select Statement:

SELECT * FROM sys_views

If there are more views available, you can load them with the option "load more" in the popup window.

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