Introduction to Adding Features
Building a SharePoint CRM is a powerful way to manage customer relationships, but adding new features requires careful planning. As your CRM grows, poorly implemented enhancements can lead to performance, reporting, and security issues. In this post, we’ll explore how to add Campaigns to a SharePoint CRM and best practices for securing CRM data when multiple sales representatives are involved.
Adding Campaigns to a SharePoint CRM
In a CRM system, a campaign represents a structured effort to achieve a business goal, such as launching a new product or promoting an event. Within a SharePoint-based CRM, campaigns help organizations track outreach efforts and measure engagement across customer interactions.
If you’ve been following along in this series, you’ve already built lists to capture customer companies, contacts, and interactions. Adding a Campaigns list in SharePoint extends this functionality and enables more advanced reporting.
Steps to Add Campaigns List
Create the SharePoint list “Campaigns” as seen in Image 1. Add, remove, or change any column to work for your solution.
- Add a lookup column to the “Interactions” list pointing to the “Campaigns” list.
- Create a new page named “Campaigns.”
- Add the required SharePoint web parts to display campaign data.
- Use dynamic filtering to connect the web parts.
- Update SharePoint navigation so users can easily move between CRM and Campaign pages.
Before implementing campaigns, consider how results will be reported. Integrating Microsoft PowerBI with the SharePoint CRM data can provide valuable insights but also adds complexity. Clearly defining reporting requirements upfront will help prevent rework and scalability issues later.
SharePoint CRM Security for Multiple Sales Representatives
The CRM developed earlier in this series was quite simple. However, this solution is not suitable for scenarios involving more than one sales representative. Security was previously overlooked because it was unnecessary. Security measures must now be implemented to ensure sales representatives’ peace of mind.
How to Secure a SharePoint CRM by Sales Representative
The following approach provides a practical security model for multi-user SharePoint CRM solutions:
- Add a column named “Owning Representative” to the “Customers” list.
- Enable folder creation in the “Customers,” “Customer Contacts,” and “Interactions” lists.
- Create a dedicated folder for each sales representative in every list.
- Break permission inheritance at the folder level.
- Grant folder access only to the appropriate sales representative and their manager.
- Move existing CRM data into the correct folders if the solution is already live.
- Train users to work exclusively within their assigned folders.
- Create default SharePoint list views using the [Me] filter to display user-specific data.
Although this approach increases implementation effort, it significantly improves data protection and user trust. When adding features to an existing SharePoint mashup, security should always be addressed first.
Conclusion
As you enhance a SharePoint CRM or mashup solution, staying focused on long-term goals is essential. New features—such as Campaigns or advanced security—should align with business requirements and scalability plans. By understanding the complexity behind each enhancement, you can build SharePoint solutions that remain flexible, secure, and easy to maintain.
Key Takeaways
- Adding features to a SharePoint CRM requires planning and testing.
- Campaigns improve tracking and reporting but can increase solution complexity.
- Security is essential when supporting multiple sales representatives.
- Thoughtful design leads to scalable, maintainable SharePoint solutions.
