The Crew Portal website needs a URL in order for crew members to access the website. Because we will deploy the portal on the Windows Azure platform, we need to register the URL prefix on Windows Azure (all Hosted Service URLs end with "cloudapp.net"); and because we use Windows Live ID to authenticate users, the web application URL must be registered on Windows Live, and the domain (Crew Portal URL) must be verified by Windows Live as well.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 supports integration with the AppFabric Service Bus feature of the Windows Azure platform. For more information about CRM/Azure integration, please visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309276.aspx.

We may set up the DNS zone (cloudapp.net) on the development workspace to make Windows Live authentication work on the development workspace as well.

Go to the development workspace and run DNS Manager (dnsmgmt.msc):

We need to create an IIS website on the development workspace in order to deploy the Customer Portal solution.

Go to IIS Manager (InetMgr.exe), and delete the Default website (port 80) if it's not used by any application. Right-click on Sites, select Add Web Site, and call the new site Crew Portal:

After performing the last step, the Crew Portal website content should be created in CRM. You can browse it by selecting ACM Content Management | Websites, as shown in the following screenshot:

Open the solution file CustomerPortal.sln.

Now that everything is ready, let's go ahead and test the portal site:

At this stage, the system will trigger the workflow "MSA-Customer Portal: Setup basic portal privileges" to assign the "Contact Access" privilege to Portal Admin.

You also need to manually run the workflow on Portal Admin: "MSA-Customer Portal: Customer portal sign-up invitation". This will send an invitation e-mail to Portal Admin.

Because we haven't set up the Email Router or Outlook, the e-mail won't be sent out. The workaround for development purposes is to open an Internet Browser from the developer server, and browse the following URL to complete the registration process (replace the InvitationCode with Portal Admin's one):

http://acm.cloudapp.net/login?InvitationCode= 882FDC25E527472D8B2BC0EC1A45C212 

You can sign into the portal using any Windows Live ID during this registration verification process. Then, this Live ID will be your portal logon ID. See the next screenshot:

The portal site is very well designed, and you can perform many customizations for the portal site by clicking the blue Edit button when logging in with Portal Administrator privileges.

It's fairly easy to rebrand the website through the portal with the Portal Administrator privilege. You can also fundamentally change the look and feel by editing the Masterpage/CSS/PageLayouts in Visual Studio.

Following is an example of how to replace the logo with a custom picture:

So the portal will look like:

Although this solution provides a flexible non-coding customization experience, for some customizations you do need to look into the code behind in Visual Studio, and make changes accordingly.

In our case, we want to add the MiddleName column to the profile page. So open the solution in Visual Studio 2010, navigate to the CustomerPortal | Pages | eService folder in Solution Explorer, and open the file Profile.aspx.

Add the MiddleName section between FirstName and LastName:

<div class="row">
<crm:Snippetrunat="server" SnippetName="Profile/MiddleName" DefaultText="Middle Name:" />
<asp:TextBox ID="MiddleName" runat="server" />
</div>

Then open the file Profile.aspx.cs, and add the MiddleName statements in the following classes:

protectedvoidPopulateContactForm(Contact contact)
{
  ...
  FirstName.Text = contact.FirstName;
  MiddleName.Text = contact.MiddleName;
  LastName.Text = contact.LastName;
  ...

  if (!ContactPermission.Adx_Write.GetValueOrDefault())
  {
    FirstName.Enabled = false;
    MiddleName.Enabled = false;
    LastName.Enabled = false;

    ...
  }
  ...
}

publicContactSetContactDetails(Contact contact)
{
  ...
  contact.FirstName = FirstName.Text;
  contact.MiddleName = MiddleName.Text;
  contact.LastName = LastName.Text;
  ...
}

Next, rebuild the solution and publish it to the development workspace IIS path: http://acm.cloudapp.net. You will see that MiddleName now appears on the Profile page.

Next, we also want to change the text of the label "Zip/Postal Code:" to "Postal Code:" You can do this through Visual Studio – that's for sure. However, for such label changes, you can also do it through CRM. Go to ACM Content Management | Content Snippets, open the record Profile/ContactZip, change its value to Postal Code, and save it. This will rewrite the default value in Visual Studio, so you may see that the text has also changed on the Profile page.

The crew members can see and update their information online, and the information will be updated in to the ACM system via the portal. Now we want to create a page for the crew members to see their compensation per flight.

To create a compensation page, open the Customer Portal solution in Visual Studio 2010, right-click on CustomerPortal and select Pages, select Add | New Item, then select Web Form using Master Page, change the name to Compensation.aspx, and then click Add.

In Compensation.aspx, change the code to:

<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/MasterPages/Default.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Compensation.aspx.cs" Inherits="Site.Pages.Compensation" %>
<asp:ContentContentPlaceHolderID="Breadcrumbs" runat="server" />
<asp:ContentContentPlaceHolderID="Content" runat="server">
  <asp:GridView ID="CompensationGridView" AutoGenerateColumns="false" runat="server">
    <Columns>
      <asp:TemplateFieldHeaderText="Subject">
        <ItemTemplate>
          <asp:Label ID="Label1" Text='<%# Eval("subject")%>' runat="server" />
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:TemplateField>
      <asp:TemplateFieldHeaderText="Crew Name">
        <ItemTemplate>
          <asp:Label ID="Label2" Text='<%# Eval("acm_CrewMember.Name") %>' runat="server" />
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:TemplateField>
      <asp:TemplateFieldHeaderText="Flight Name">
        <ItemTemplate>
          <asp:Label ID="Label3" Text='<%# Eval("acm_Flight.Name") %>' runat="server" />
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:TemplateField>
      <asp:TemplateFieldHeaderText="Compensation">
        <ItemTemplate>
          <asp:Label ID="Label4" Text='<%# Eval("acm_Compensation") %>' runat="server" />
        </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:TemplateField>
    </Columns>
  </asp:GridView>
</asp:Content>
<asp:ContentContentPlaceHolderID="ContentBottom" runat="server" />

In the file Compensation.aspx.cs, change the code to:

using System;
usingSystem.Collections.Generic;
usingSystem.Linq;
usingSystem.Web;
usingSystem.Web.UI;
usingSystem.Web.UI.WebControls;
usingXrm;

namespaceSite.Pages
{
  public partial class Compensation : System.Web.UI.Page
  {
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      //Get the current logon user
      varcurrentUser = Microsoft.Xrm.Portal.PortalContext.Current.User;

      if (currentUser != null)
      {
        varxrm = new XrmServiceContext("Xrm");
        //Get user's compensation information
        varmyCompensations = xrm.acm_compensationSet.Where(c =>c.acm_CrewMember.Id.Equals(currentUser.Id));
        if (myCompensations != null)
        {
          CompensationGridView.DataSource = myCompensations;
          CompensationGridView.DataBind();
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The Compensation.aspx page also make sure the current signed-in crew member can only see his/her compensation records.

Rebuild the solution, and publish it to the development workspace IIS path: http://acm.cloudapp.net.

The ASPX page is created and published; now we need to create a compensation page on the portal. Sign into the portal using the Portal Admin account. On the floating toolbar, click New | Child page, and create a compensation page, as shown in the following screenshot:

On the primary navigation toolbar, click Add, and then create a Compensation link:

Now that the compensation link has been added, you can click and see compensation information related to the currently-signed-in user. This is just a demo of the page; you can add whatever you want to see, from CRM onto the Crew Portal.