CRM 2013 MB2-703 Exam - My Experience

Preamble: My job position is Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer, I hold the CRM 2011 Customization and Configuration certification, in the past months I worked with CRM 2013 (online instance mostly)

Yesterday I passed my first CRM 2013 exam: MB2-703 Customization and Configuration, one of the four exams currently available for CRM 2013. (you can find the complete list here)

The exam has just been published, normally I don't rush on certifications but I had a voucher due to expire, in addition I didn't feel ready for the other exam I'm currently preparing.

I had few days to prepare for the exam, but Microsoft released the exam details some days ago, and that was my starting point (and should be your too):

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam.aspx?ID=mb2-703

The "Overview" and "Skill Measured" sections give you a good summary of the exam, and clarify the targets. Because this exam is the natural evolution of the CRM 2011 version and several concepts are still the same, I studied again the MB2-866 study notes from mscrmgeek.com (the site is currently offline, so I made a doc from the google cache and shared here: https://1drv.ms/w/s!AlhBTblgMrjkinvNdNH63asH0vtm)

Of course not all the things are still the same, so my suggestion is to study/check these notes with a CRM 2013 instance.

But this is still a CRM 2013 exam, what else did I study? As I wrote before I worked with CRM 2013, but I wasn't able to see all the new stuff, so I googled "crm 2013 new features" and I found relevant entries:

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2013/09/06/top-10-new-features-of-crm-2013/

http://www.crmsoftwareblog.com/2013/11/top-7-new-features-in-crm-2013/

http://www.mohamedibrahim.net/blog/2013/10/11/whats-new-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013-new-features-comparison-of-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-versus-crm2013-msdyncrm/

As you can see CRM 2013 is a big step forward for Dynamics CRM, so I made a list of the relevant arguments (keeping an eye on the official exam details), I searched other articles and watched youtube videos, for example I learned about Actions capabilities (http://inogic.com/blog/?p=12), an argument that I didn't face previously with the customers.

I also have a Windows RT tablet, useful to test the mobile features (but the app is available also for Windows 8, so no excuses to try it)

My final thoughts:

• Try to pass the CRM 2011 certification (MB2-866) first, CRM 2011 is still relevant and will be useful when you face upgraded environments
• CRM 2013 is not only a new UI, test by yourself the new features, with real word examples you can memorize them faster
• Ask if you have doubts, Dynamics Community and MSDN forums are there for you

Good luck with your Dynamics CRM exams!