For a monthly fee a company can get access to new versions of Outlook, Word Excel and the other Microsoft Office applications without having to upgrade their existing infrastructure. Two of Microsoft’s larger on demand products are Office 365 and Dynamics CRM 2013 which both now have cloud hosting capabilities.

If this is a route you wish to follow consider all the Office 365 plans before also deploying the online Dynamics CRM. Microsoft is keen to promote the integration of these two products but the level of integration is dependent on the Office 365 plan you have.

The bottom level for Office 365 is the hosted email service; this gives you a shared email platform for your organisation for only a few pounds a month. If you are considering connecting this platform to Dynamics CRM 2013 you will unfortunately need to install a router on your local network to allow for the flow of emails and tasks. Even though Office 365 and Dynamics CRM are Microsoft hosted there is no direct connection between the two products online. This will certainly appear strange especially as you access Office 365 and CRM Dynamics 2011 from the exact same login page.

The solution you should consider is to take a higher product version of Office 365. For a few quid more per month you can get the Office 365 Midsize business. This gives you a desktop version of Office and especially a desktop version of Outlook which is the true integration tool for Dynamics CRM 2011.  Having this installed on your local PC will bring all the functionality you require to sell, market and service your customers from just one program.