Topic: ‘Dynamics CRM’

The CRM E² team released a new whitepaper a few weeks ago titled CRM 4.0 – xRM Application Scalability Study. The paper goes into detail about the multi-tenancy and xRM capabilities of Dynamics CRM 4.0, the virtualization features of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, and more.

If you want to view the related blog on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog, click here to go to the site.

If you want to go ahead and download the whitepaper, click here to go direcly to the Microsoft Download Center.

During my time as a CRM Consultant, I’ve realized something very important. However troublesome the journey, there’s always a silver lining – experience. So even though I’ve only been in the game a short amount of time, I’ve come up with a few best practices that I prefer to follow when implementing Dynamics CRM. For those who know me, I tend to be…opinionated is a good way to put it. So, yes there may be other ways to utilize CRM and still get by.

It’s known that each process flow – sales, marketing, service, SOP – requires a different path, but these should provide you with broad and useful guidance inside of CRM. Do note that the list below is by all means incomplete (Oh yes, I have plenty more…). These statements are an example of the tips that have given my clients – regardless of industry and business practice – the ability to enjoy clean, useful, and more importantly, valuable, CRM systems.

• For DATA ENTRY…Before importing data into the CRM system, spending a little bit of time running through and shaping the spreadsheet. Cleaning up the rows and columns will save you hours of data cleansing down the road. CRM is only as good as the data that is placed into it. And who knows – you may have missed a column that you need inside of the system.
• For PROJECT MANAGEMENT…Document, document, document. There is no such thing as “documenting too much.” Clients love nothing more than to see a clean, printed, color document with their logo on the front (who doesn’t?) and all the CRM information they could need. Documenting too little, however? That (unfortunately) exists.
• For PROCESS FLOW…When converting to Customer records (in the situation where the Customer does NOT exist in the system yet), I always recommend converting to at least an Account and a Contact. This is not only a time saver, but it is proper structure. After speaking with and qualifying a Lead, you are always going to have a company and a person in the system (Who signed the Contract? What organization did you type into Hoover’s before meeting with them to do a demo?). The one exception may be the Opportunity. If there’s no potential revenue to begin working within the next 6 months (depending on your average sales pipeline time and size), you can probably hold off on the Opportunity until you see it in the pipeline and can properly document what is necessary.
• For ATTRIBUTE ADJUSTMENT…When renaming fields, rename from the Attribute level the majority of the time. The main time renaming from the Form level comes in handy is when you have more than one field that needs to be named the same. (Example, “Date”). You can rename them in a unique manner on the Attribute level, and make them uniform on the Form level. The reason for this is mainly due to Advanced Find search capabilities. If you name everything the same, you will have more than one field in the AF search on that particular entity (causes much confusion).
• When CREATING FIELDS…When creating a new field, once you save the record after creation, you CANNOT change the type. So always be sure that you have the correct field type selected, otherwise you will have to create another field. So after I create a Picklist, I cannot “change” it to a character field. Same thing with the schema name – once the field is created, the schema information set in stone. To “change” the field, you would only be able to create a new field and remove the old one. I always document exactly what I need to create BEFORE creating them in the system. If you’re working for a client, create a spreadsheet of the fields (Display Name, Field Type, Requirement Level, Number of Characters (for Nvarchar fields), Potential Values (for Picklist or Bit fields), and any additional information) – this is important for proper generation and understanding. Nothing’s worse than realizing you’ve made a dumb mistake and having to delete and recreate 100 fields. And then justifying (or more accurately, trying to justify) the additional work to the client…
• For WORKFLOW…Always map and plan your workflow first before building the structure: this will help you just in case you make a mistake in the structure. Plus, mapping it out allows you to understand exactly what needs to happen. You may need a wait condition instead of a check condition – you can’t change this after you build the workflow.
• For WORKFLOW…You can’t change conditions in the logic, so always make sure that you’re creating the workflow properly from top to bottom. This statement certainly ties in with the workflow best practice listed above. When adjusting the structure of a workflow, if you are removing/adjusting part of the basic structure, deleting one step will remove everything after it.
• For ADMINISTRATION & TROUBLESHOOTING…Never delete a used security role. I know, you have the ability to do it, but I wouldn’t. Especially if a CRM user (or more than one CRM user) currently has the role. Deleting a utilized security role will kick those respective users out of the system. If you do want to get it out of the system, do this. Copy the role and plan on using the new role. Rename the old one to say “UNUSED” or “OLD.” Spend some time making sure all of the users are not assigned that particular security role. Run reports, AF views, whatever will help you verify that no one currently has that particular role. Then remove it from the system. This will keep you from getting dozens of angry, frantic emails.
• A CRM/OUTLOOK TIME SAVER…Utilize CRM shortcuts from inside of an email. After you track an email or Contact from Outlook inside of CRM, there are two buttons inside of the individual Outlook record that will take you directly to the respective records inside of CRM: View Record and View Parent (this will take you to the actual CRM record). This is really handy if you’re converting an email to an Opportunity.

Do you have any tips or tricks that you use when implementing CRM? If you do, I’d love to hear them!

Use the Microsoft Dynamics® CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP to integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP data. For example, you can integrate Microsoft Dynamics GP customers with Microsoft Dynamics CRM contacts giving you access to up-to-date customer/contact information in both systems.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP is intended to be used in an implementation where Microsoft Dynamics CRM is used to manage business contacts, track leads, enter sales orders, and perform other sales and marketing activities. And where Microsoft Dynamics GP is used to perform accounting functions, manage your company’s chart of accounts, and maintain customer, vendor, item, employee, and other records.

Within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP, separate adapters are used to identify a source system (where data is read from) and a destination system (where data is written to). The source adapter reads data from the source system. The destination adapter writes the data to the destination system.

Record types that are integrated are referred to as “entities.” Some entity information can be integrated only one way between the two systems. For example, a Product that is entered into Microsoft Dynamics CRM cannot be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics GP as a Sales Item, but a Sales Item that is entered into Microsoft Dynamics GP can be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a Product.

You can use this product to integrate the following entities in Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Adapters

Adapters are used to connect the runtime to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Services. This connection is used for reading and writing data from one application to another application.

The following adapters are provided:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 adapter
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 adapter
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 adapter

Transformation engine

At its core, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP moves data from one system in one format to another system, in a different format. The adapters provide or supply the data from the source and destination systems, and the transformation engine changes the data from one format to another. The change that is made by the transformation engine is determined by the map that is associated with the type of data that is being moved. For example, to move a Microsoft Dynamics GP customer record to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM account record, the transformation engine creates a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Account object based on the transformation that is defined in the CustomerToAccount.map file for the Microsoft Dynamics GP customer entity and sends it to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter.

 Map templates

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP includes a series of map templates that provide default field mapping between source and destination entities. You can create and edit new maps from the templates. You may need to do this to meet specific business needs or to ensure that any customizations that you may have made to your source or destination systems are considered. Map template files are stored at the installation location in the Templates folder and have a .map file

 Availability

This adaptor is only available thru your partner and is available at no charge. Installation and implementation can be quoted base on specific requirements where applicable.

The newest edition to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SE Team’s schedule of update rollup downloads is available on the Download Center website.

Click here to download it from the Microsoft Download Center.

Want to read the KB article, too? Click here to view it on the Microsoft Support website.

A new whitepaper has been released by the E3 team at Microsoft regarding Security inside of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online called Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online: Security Features. Here’s an overview from the Download Center:

“Microsoft takes a holistic approach to providing a highly secure environment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. After an overview of the inherent risks to three key areas of the service, the remaining sections of this paper describe how Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft’s core commitment to build software and services that better help protect customers and the industry, is reflected in the design and operation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.”

Click here to download it at the Microsoft Download Center.

How to get AutoUpdates to WORK!

If you have UAC turned on in your environment this will not work!! 

When UAC is enabled even a local administrator must manually run the client auto update process as an administrator for it to succeed appropriately.  If you have UAC installed the user will be prompted to install the update every time they launch outlook.

 First of all, the following keys are required in the client registry, so make sure they are present:

1. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\AutoUpdateDisabled (DWORD). Default value 0, which enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update. When you set this value to 0, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook will check for available updates. You can turn off periodic checks for updates by setting the value to 1. The settings do not bypass the check when the user manually checks for updates by clicking the menu option.

2. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\AutoUpdateCheckPeriod (DWORD). Default value 4. Enables the administrator to specify a period (in hours) between two background checks for updates. The valid values for this setting are between 4 and 24 hours.

3. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\AutoUpdateDownloadUrl (DWORD). <-THIS A STRING TYPE. Contains the URL, such as http://servername/updates/, from where the update will be downloaded.

 Your xml file needs to look like this:

<ClientPatches>
<Create>
<ClientPatchInfo>
<PatchId>{C853A15A-5546-4F07-BF41-FC1C64570AB3}</PatchId> ((Insert the current patchID you are trying to add)
<Title>Update Rollup 10</Title>
<Description>Update Rollup 10</Description>
<IsMandatory>true</IsMandatory>
<IsEnabled>true</IsEnabled>
<ClientType>OutlookDesktop,OutlookLaptop</ClientType>
<LinkId>CRMv4.0-KB979347-i386-Client-ENU.exe</LinkId>
</ClientPatchInfo>
</Create>
</ClientPatches>

 Place the config.xml file in the Tools folder under Program Files/Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Place the rollup file in the updates folder and do not have any other items in that folder.  This may not matter this is just a step we went through to get it to work.

 Update MSCRM_Config db with patch info

• Launch the command prompt and change directories to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Tools
• Run the following command microsoft.crm.tools.clientpatchconfigurator.exe clientconfig.xml

 These are the abbreviated steps.  You can find further detail at the following two links.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2009/05/29/troubleshooting-the-microsoft-dynamics-crm-client-for-outlook.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2009/02/11/update-rollup-2-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-0-more-info.aspx

Once again it is time for a quick “Snack” from Microsoft.  What’s New in Advanced Distribution

CLICK HERE to view webinar.  After viewing this webinar you should be able to:

A recent post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog has some great links to information regarding the May 2010 Service Update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, as well as the expected international availability of CRM Online to 32 markets around the world. Click here to go to the post.

Want to download the most recent rollup for Dynamics CRM 4.0? Click here to access the files on the Microsoft Download Center. Want to read some more about what’s being offered in the rollup? Click here to view the related knowledgebase article.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 has recently been released. For more information, click here to go to the Microsoft Partner Network site.