Activity Feeds in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Activity Feeds:

Activity Feeds can be downloaded from the  Dynamics Market Place. Click Settings - Dynamics Market
Place - Click on More Solutions tab. As soon as you click the more solutions tab
a new page will be opened where you can search for the Microsoft Dynamics
Activity Feeds. Click on Microsoft Dynamics Activity Feeds and hit the Try It
button on the left side of the page. When you hit the try it button you can
download the Cab file which can be imported into your
organization.

Importing Activity Feeds:
After downloading the
Cab file you can import the solution back into CRM by navigating to Settings -
Solutions - click on the import button and select the cab file which is
downloaded. Import the customizations back into CRM. After importing all the
customizations publish all customizations.

Changing the profile picture in activity feeds:
Click on the What's new button in the workplace

As soon as you click on What's new button you can edit hyperlink which will allow the user to add a new
picture.

Activity Feeds Configuration:
To enable activity feeds in Microsoft Dynamics crm you have to configure set of entities to use
them in activity feeds. Following are the steps to configure entities in
activity feeds:

1) Click on settings work area and you can see Activity
Feeds Configuration in the left navigation pane as shown in the below
figure.

2) Click on new button in the activity feeds configuration screen. As soon you hit the new
button you can see a new form where you have the text box to enter the entity
name. In the entity name the user has to give the schema name of the entity. Ex:
For case entity the schema name is going to be incident.

3) After writing the schema name in the entity name text box you can save the record to create the
post configuration rules. In the left side of the form you can see a checkbox
called "Enable walls for this type of record form". This checkbox is used to
make the wall enabled for the entity you have selected as shown in the below
figure.

4) After making all the modifications publish all customizations by clicking on the All
Customizations button in the customize tab in the ribbon.

Follow Records in activity feeds:

1) To follow records or users using activity feeds you have first configure the activity feeds. Take for example you have configured the activity feeds for the entity systemuser.
Now any user can follow or unfollow records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. To follow users in Microsoft Dynamics following are the steps to be followed

a) Post Configuration records should be created with entity systemuser

b) After creating post configuration record click on the advanced find button in CRM.

c) Look for System Users and click on results button as shown in the below figure.

d) Now after hitting the results button you can see the list of records that are available in your
organization. Select the user who is to be followed and click on the follow button at the top of the ribbon as shown in the below figure.

Note: Follow button
will be enabled only when the post configuration record is created for the
systemuser entity.

e) If you want to unfollow a user you have to click on the unfollow button.

f) When you follow a user all the posts that are posted by the user are going to be visible
in your personal wall and the user's wall.