MrDave's (David Yack) CRM Blog!

Unlike CRM 3 there's no XML file that lists the plug-ins that are installed that information is now stored and managed by the platform.  Since Titan is now Multi Tenant having a single XML file would impose each organization to have the same plug-ins. 

There are currently 3 ways to register a plug-in 1) using the Plugin Registration Tool - 2 ) Plug-in Developer Tool - 3) Calling the API Directly

Plugin Registration tool is provided in the SDK in the Tools directory and requires interactive input - it can register, query existing data as well as unregister plug-ins.  This tool works ok for a single plug-in but gets to be tedious if your doing a lot of changes or have a lot of plug-ins you are registering.

Plugin Developer tool - this is new to CTP3 and gets it's information from an XML file that provides plugin assembly and type information allowing you to register the concept of a solution with the platform.  This tool is ideal for repeative testing of a plug-in because you can re-use the info over and over.  While not as clean as a setup program calling the API, this could in a pinch be used for installing on a target server.

The API - Great news for Titan is provioning of plug-ins can now be done via the API, this makes it possible to write custom setup programs that install and uninstall your plug-ins from a target system.  In fact the two tools Plugin Registration and Developer internally use the API to register your plug-ins and query information.  Since their source is part of the SDK they make a good way to understand more that is going on to register using the API.  Stay tuned for more SDK docs on the registration API it's still a work in progress so for now the sample tools are your best source of information.

Last updated on October 3, 2007 by David Yack