Server software considerations

The 2024 R2 Hardware and Software Requirements posted on the Sage CRM Help Center provide an overview of supported software for a standard implementation.

You must set up the Sage CRM server and database server before you install Sage CRM. You can run Sage CRM in a virtual environment. Configuration, setup, and performance of the virtual environment are the responsibility of your IT department.

Sage CRM server

To display charts, Sage CRM uses HTML5.

You must ensure IIS is installed as a Server Role on the Sage CRM server and that ASP, ISAPI Extensions, and ISAPI Filters are selected. You can import an HTTPS server certificate into IIS to encrypt sessions between the server and a user.

  1. Click Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools | Server Manager | Roles.
  2. Select Add Roles and click Next.
  3. Click Web Server (IIS).
  4. In the Role Services section of the Add Roles Wizard, ensure the following role services are selected.
    • Application Development | ASP .NET
    • Application Development | ASP (set Enable Parent Paths to True)
    • Security | Windows Authentication (if Auto Logon is required)
    • Management Tools | IIS Management Console and IIS Management Compatibility.
  5. Ensure that the Anonymous Authentication Credentials are using Application Pool Identity or are hard-coded with a local administrator account. If they are not, you may experience issues when editing CRM System Settings.

Database servers

  • Enable TCP/IP for SQL Server installations.
  • Use a dedicated SQL Server user for Sage CRM rather than the sa user. Alternatively, ensure there's a back-up user with the same privileges as sa in SQL Server. Both measures prevent access issues if the sa user gets locked out of Sage CRM.
  • In a high-availability environment, Sage CRM can be used with a Microsoft SQL server cluster in an active/passive configuration. This configuration provides resiliency in the database layer. You should configure a Microsoft SQL Server cluster according to Microsoft’s specifications and guidelines. Provide the SQL cluster address and SQL logon credentials when prompted in the Database Server Login dialog box during the Sage CRM installation. For more information, see Installing Sage CRM.
  • The default setting for the initial database size in Microsoft SQL Server is 0.5 GB (512 MB), but you can change it during installation.
  • The Sage CRM Setup creates the following default collations in the Sage CRM database.

    Collations created in
    Microsoft SQL Server

    Collation created in a
    Microsoft Azure SQL solution

    • English: Latin1_General_CI_AS

    • French: French_CI_AS

    • German: Latin1_General_CI_AS

    • Spanish: Modern_Spanish_CI_AS

    English, French, German, and Spanish:

    SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS