How the Data Syncs
When ClickDimensions interacts with D365 web services we do not make any direct connections to the SQL Server. So to synchronize data, our application connects to D365 web services via the D365 Discovery web service. The Discovery service then returns the Organization service endpoint which we authenticate and connect to it.
Our data is synchronized almost in real-time, but in order to not overwhelm D365, the email statistics data is throttled to CRM at a rate that can create hundreds of records per minute.
A message may consist of data for one or more records, such as an Email Event and its associated Sent Email record. This throttling rate can be increased by contacting our support team, however, this change should be done incrementally to ensure that your CRM can handle the increased rate.
TIP—due to the high volume of records created for some of our entities (Sent Emails, Page Views, etc.), plugins or workflows triggered by created/updated ClickDimensions records, could result in performance issues or interference with the regular data being synced from ClickDimensions.
SQL Server Performance
Because ClickDimensions is deeply integrated within your D365 deployment, it is important that your D365 deployment is well-optimized for performance. While ClickDimensions does not directly interact with your SQL Server it does interact with the D365 web services; those web services rely on SQL Server performing quickly.
Key Optimizations
D365 infrastructure
- Broadband internet connectivity between the D365 web application layer and the internet. A minimum of a 10Mbps connection should be used but 20-50Mbps connections are recommended.
- SQL Server(s) on a separate server from the D365 web application server(s). Consider your SQL Server deployment carefully. You may also wish to consider splitting out the SQL log files to a separate server with fast hard disks for optimal disk I/O.
SQL Server Maintenance Plan
By default, D365 includes indexes on the tables in the database. However, these indexes will quickly become fragmented and out-of-date with the addition of new data. If no steps are taken to implement a maintenance plan, the indexes will never be updated and D365 performance will degrade over time.
The maintenance plan should run at least weekly, though nightly is recommended, and it should include . . .
- Re-organizing and rebuilding indexes on heavily used tables. The ClickDimensions tables mentioned previously should be re-indexed regularly, as well as your Contact and Lead tables where recipient data is stored.
- Recalculating index statistics. Shrinking the database to remove empty data and log pages