When I started my CRM and .net journey about 7.5 years back, I was always wondering when people will say using out of the box feature.

I always kept thinking what people mean when they are referring this term. Then, recently in another discussion I got in terms with the same thing.

Basically, we CRM techies understand what we mean by out of box but for broader people in the business term doesn’t make the “literal” sense.

So, Out of box features in Dynamics CRM are basically all the system entities, sales process for instance, readymade forms, views, dashboards and

customizable options the CRM product gives.

Now, over time I have been hearing the term “outside of the box”, meaning a feature CRM product does not offer as it is installed

and we need to extend the functionality to achieve it by using extending features of CRM.

A very nice example is multi select checkbox on CRM forms.The key lies within the text that you used to coin the phrase:

“Out of the box” = turn-key, prefabricated.

“Outside the box” = non-traditional, unusual.

Hope it helps!