Dynamics CRM : Difference between Site and Sales Territory

Question

I am creating organization architecture in dynamics CRM.

I have one question regarding - Site vs Sales Territory or BU vs Site When exactly we should create Site, Sales Territory or BU ?

Or we can say what are the limitations of them ?

I have gone through many forums and websites but not able to find any good document on this.

Any online book which I can read to understand this difference ?

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Mittal.

Answer 1

Those are all quite different things used for different purposes. You may find you will need all three or just a couple depending on what you are trying to do. E.g. If you are not doing any sales you wont need sales territories, if you want to model a security model where only some users can see some data you will want business units.

I would suggest digging into each area in more detail (scheduling, sales, security) as described below to make that decision.

Sites are part of the scheduling engine.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, a site entity represents a location or branch office where an organization does business. Many Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers have multiple sites. Sites enable resources, services, and appointments to be defined at a particular location with an associated time zone. Location, correct selection of resources, and time zone are important elements in the scheduling of service appointments when multiple locations of doing business are involved. You can use sites to limit what resources, such as users and equipment, can be scheduled for a specific service activity.

When you search for an available service activity resource calendar time slot, to avoid making an appointment in the wrong location, the scheduler must be able to select the site or delivery location as a constraint to the search. For example, a customer may ask for an appointment at the Seattle office. To support this, there must be a site named Seattle and there must be required resources assigned to the service type to be performed. When generating appointment proposals, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 must be able to avoid proposing appointments with resources that cannot physically be together to provide the service. The site entity serves this purpose. Sites provide for the grouping of resources, such as users and facility/equipment, services, and appointments, according to a location with an associated time zone and locale.

Sales Territories are part of the sales process.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 uses the fiscal calendar entities and the territory entity to track sales information for a salesperson. A salesperson is a user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM who has to meet sales objectives, such as sales quotas. A territory is a geographical area that is assigned to a salesperson.

Business Units are part of the security model.

An organization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, such as a holding company or a corporation, is made up of business units. A business unit is a unit of the top-level organization. Business units can be parents of other business units (child business units). The first business unit created for an organization is called the root business unit.

A business unit can own records as defined in the ownership type in the metadata definition for an entity.