Branding in CRM2015 SP1

How many times do customers ask to add branding to their dynamics CRM solution? The answer is that they have been asking for this from the good old CRM 1.2 days. At last it is here in CRM2015 SP1. It still does not provide full fledged branding functionality, but is a good start.
To add branding to your CRM solution, follow the following steps:

1. Go to Setting>>customization>> as shown in the following screen shot
   
   
   
2. Click on “Themes”. The system will display “CRM Default Theme” in the grid. As the name suggests, it is the default theme for the CRM.
   
   
   
3. Open the “CRM Default Theme” and click the Clone button on the command bar. The system will clone the default theme.
4. Make the changes to the theme and click save. There are a few options available in the theme. I have made 3-4 changes to my theme for this blog.
   
   
   
5. Click on “Preview” button to preview the changes.
6. If you are happy with the changes, click “Publish Theme” to push the changes to all the users.

CRM Screen shot of with default theme

CRM Screen shot of with my theme

Note

1. Themes are not solution aware. To deploy the theme to other environments, use export to excel functionality and import it in the target environment.
2. A new field named color is added to the entity customization screen. This color is used to represent the entities in the navigation bar as shown below.
   
   

Limitations

You will not be able to change the color of the entity forms, they are still white as I write this blog.

Best Practices

Check the following link for the best practices and color contrasts.
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/21a166a0-d25e-4260-a1e4-2ddc528787c2