Dynamics 365/CRM - Access and Owner Teams

Teams in Dynamics CRM/365 helps you to put a set of users in one group sharing a set of permissions, with teams you can easily share business objects and collaborate with users across multiple business units in the organization, a team belongs to a business unit, however, users from different business units can be in a group, and a user can be a part of multiple teams at a time.

Owner Teams VS Access Teams

Owner Teams can own records, and have security roles assigned to the team, the team’s privileges defined in the security roles assigned to it, plus, every team member has his/her own security roles and the security roles assigned to the teams they are part of, an owner team has the full privileges on the records they own.

Access Teams cannot own records, and there are no security roles can be assigned to these teams, The records can be shared with an access team, therefore the team is granted access rights on the shared records such as Read, Write and Append.

Scenarios to which type of team to use:

 Owner Teams:

-          The Company wants to let a group of users or teams to own entity records.

-          The manager requires teams to report results daily.

-          Team members are equally given access rights, there is no variation between any two users.

Access Teams:

-          The manager wants to give a team access rights to records without owning them.

-          You want to grant multiple teams different access rights to the same records, for example: Team A has Read access right to a specific record, while Team B has Write and Append access rights to the same record.

-          If you want to add team members to a team from different business units.

There are two types of Access Teams:

-           User Created Access Teams
By using the Team entity and by setting the team type to Access, you can share multiple records with user created teams, and to provide team members with different access rights on the records, create several teams and grant each team a different set of access rights.

-          Auto Created Access Teams

Auto Created access teams are created for a specific record and can’t be shared for other records, to be able to create an auto created access team you have to use a team template, and you can create team templates by using team template entity, in the new template entity you have to specify the entity you want to create the team for and to choose the access rights you want to grant for team members.

Auto created access teams are created once you add the first user to the team record, By adding users, you are granting them the access rights to that record that are defined within the access team template, even if their base security role does NOT grant them those rights. Note, the access rights are ONLY being granted for that specific record.

It is important to note that when using access team templates, a new team is created based on the template EACH time the first user is added for a record. If you change the access rights for an access team template subsequent to teams having been created based on it, those new access rights will only apply to future teams, not previously existing teams.

Table From Microsoft TechNet :

Quick reference to teams

Team type	When to use it	What entity to use	User team template?	SDK message for adding or removing team members	Owns records?	Records owned or has access to	Are security roles assigned?
Owner-created	Record ownership by the team is required The number of teams is known at design time	Team	No	AddMembersTeamRequest RemoveMembersTeamRequest	Yes	Can own multiple records	Yes
Access: User-created	Multiple records have to be shared with the team The number of teams isn’t known at design time Team members require different access rights on the records	Team	No	AddMembersTeamRequest RemoveMembersTeamRequest	No	Can access multiple records	No Provides access rights on the records
Access: Auto- created	Unique set of users works on a single record Team members require different access rights on the records Creating teams automatically per record is desirable	Team Template Team	Yes	AddUserToRecordTeamRequest RemoveUserFromRecordTeamRequest	No	Can access only one record

Steps to create an Auto Created Access Team:

Enable an entity

1. Make sure you have the System Administrator security role or equivalent permissions in Dynamics CRM
2. Go to Settings > Customizations
3. In the Customization window, choose Customize the System
4. In the navigation pane, expand Entities, and then choose the entity you want to use in the team template
5. On the Entity Definition form, in the Communication & Collaboration section, select Access Teams
6. On the Actions toolbar, choose Save
   

 

 

 

 

 

Create a team template

      1- Go to Settings > Security and choose Access Team Templates

         

     2- On the Actions toolbar, choose New, complete the required fields, and then Save

Add a team template to the entity form

1. make sure you have the System Administrator security role or equivalent permissions in Dynamics CRM

2. Go to Settings > Customizations

3. In the Customization window, choose Customize the System

4. In the navigation pane, expand Entities, expand the entity you want to use in the team template, and then choose Forms

5. In System Forms, select Active Forms > Main form

6. On the Main form, open the Insert tab

7. On the ribbon, choose Sub-Grid (Set Properties dialog box appears)

8. In Set Properties, complete the required fields, and then select Display label on the Form

9. In the Records drop-down list, select All Record Types

10. In the Entity drop-down list, select Users

11. In the Default View drop-down list, select Associated Record Team Members

12. In the Team Template drop-down list, select the desired template and choose Set the team template you selected now appears on the Main form.

13. On the Actions toolbar, click or tap Save, and then choose Publish

14. Refresh the CRM and then navigate to any record of this entity, and then you can add users to the record.

Steps to Create Owner/ User Created Access Teams:

-          Go to Settings > Security and choose Access Team Templates

-          Create new Record and Choose the type of the Team

-          Then Add users to the Team using the Sub grid.

This functionality given by Microsoft in Teams supports the Organization to speed up the work progress, and to make sure which Business Objects are being shared with the right people, Based on your business needs you can choose which type of team you need and when.

Thanks