Topic: ‘Best Practices’

Microsoft has recently announced that the next scheduled service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is going to be released in Q2 of this year. Codenamed “CRM Anywhere,” the release is going to concentrate on the following categories:

• Mobile Solutions – improvements to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile application
• Browser Flexibility – this will include Firefox, Chrome, and Safari!
• “Rapid View” Forms – a view-only form version for quick customer information access
• Social Media – Facebook/Twitter-ish functionality (i.e. “Like” or “Dislike” Activity Feed posts)
• Industry Templates – Life Annuity Insurance Sales, Non-Profit, Health Plan Sales, and Wealth Management templates are going to be available
• SQL Server 2012 – enhanced query performance, support for up to 25 cores, use of SQL Azure Data Sync, and more
• BI Insights with Power View – Product Sales Analysis & Sales Pipeline Analysis reports via “Power View,” also known as “Project Crescent”
• Certifications – Microsoft has achieved a variety of new certifications, such as ISO 17001, Sarbanes-Oxley, and Safe Harbor
• Portal Framework Enhancements – set up standards-based pages within your CRM instance (think Facebook, Yahoo, Google) that require sign-on authentication; Office 365 will be supported as well!
• Custom Workflow Activities – for CRM Online, Microsoft is now allowing custom .NET workflow activities! Read the rest of this entry »

Creating personal Advanced Find views from within the Dynamics CRM application is a very helpful analytical tool. You can leverage preferred column headers and filter criteria, and you can access the views anytime you need to without having to recreate the criteria. Sharing is simple, allowing you to give other members of the CRM application access to the filter criteria that you’ve created. But static analysis of your CRM data can only be so beneficial – especially for those of us who rely on more visual analytics.

Now, it’s good to know that from within the 2011 version of Dynamics CRM, you have access to charting, which allows you to leverage a visual depiction of your CRM listviews. There are numerous out of the box charts that provide value, and you have the ability to create new charts if you wish to do so. There are some limitations, such as multi-series charts and scatter graphs, but the options available are very robust. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you still using the 4.0 version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM? Good news – a new Update Rollup release! Rollup 20 is now  available for download.

Want to go to the Download Center to access the downloadable files? Click here. These EXE files should be downloaded based upon the bit version of your server (they are available for 64-bit server and 32-bit server versions). A Client download EXE file is also available for the 32-bit version of MS Office ONLY. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had a request from a client who wanted to see, in Advanced Find, all waiting workflow System Jobs that were associated to a specific subset of Lead record that had a related Phone Call Activity in a Closed state AND had a certain field not filled out. The client wants to cancel the workflow jobs in bulk that are waiting in association with already Closed Phone Calls. Read the rest of this entry »

They’re finally available! The User’s Guide and Administrator’s Guide for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 are now available for download:

• The Dynamics CRM 2011 User’s Guide, now “only” 645 pages compared to the CRM 4.0 User Guide content count of 493 pages, runs through all of the CRM 2011 functionality available for both the CRM Online and On-Premise versions. The User Guide is immensely helpful, covering a full range of topics from basic Lead, Contact, and Account Management to Workflow and Reporting. The Outlook Client is also covered, providing some great insight into the new features of the 2011 Client.
• The Dynamics CRM 2011 Administrator’s Guide is a handy document to have when functioning as the Administrator of any Dynamics CRM application. The document, around 137 pages, covers everything you need to know when implementing your CRM system, including Business Units, email settings, Security Roles, Products & Price List, Auditing, and System Jobs. This document is a must have for any system administrator.

Happy reading

A new study by Forrester Research, a top information technology research company based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, concludes that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 not only reduces marketing, sales, and service costs throughout organizations using CRM 2011, but also increases revenue productivity and collaboration throughout the company.

Using a risk-adjusted ROI cost analysis method, Forrester determined that organizations can see a total return of investment in as little as 4.1 months. After gathering information and feedback from executives currently working for 9 Dynamics CRM 2011 customers in their initial implementation phases, Forrester conducted a composite case study with 50 CRM users working for an organization with 2,000 employees. Read the rest of this entry »

Want to know more about Dynamics CRM 2011 on a technical level? Want to download and peruse the 2011 SDK? Want to view some tecnical articles specifically geared towards Dynamics CRM 2011?

Microsoft TechNet has a library with technical information that is very helpful for any technical consultant working with Dynamics CRM 2011. Click here to navigate to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 section of the TechNet library.

This simplifies things – the MSCRM Team Blog has released a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online Check-List (compliments of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Technical Support Team) that you can review prior to going live, allowing you to ensure that your settings in both Internet Explorer and Outlook are set up properly.

It includes information on settings in Outlook 2010, 2007, and 2003. It also includes information those settings required inside of your Internet Explorer browser.

On the final few pages, there are some very useful links to Dynamics CRM 2011 Online resources, such as eTraining and the MSCRM Community, as well as links to support websites, such as the CRM Knowledge Base.

Click here to review the post and download the Check-List.

The concept of merging inside of CRM is immensely helpful, especially if you are taking data from multiple databases and placing them inside of one database, like Dynamics CRM. Merging allows you to select two records that are duplicates, transfer data from one to the other, and deactivate the secondary record.

While this is helpful, it can also be dangerous – no data will be truly lost, but it will no longer be searchable on the primary record, and it will be tedious and difficult to transfer. Also, without correct planning, you may end up doing more warranty work than you originally signed up for. Read the rest of this entry »

There are several different ways to create records inside of CRM – well, as you use the CRM application, you’ll find there are several different ways to do just about everything, which can be a bit overwhelming. Fear not – there is always a BEST way to do each (at least in my opinion).

In this specific article, I’ll chat a bit about the creation of new child records – for example, a new Contact record, or even a new Activity record. For some, the creation of a new record is easily done by using the Dynamics CRM toolbar in 4.0, located at the top of your interface below the Microsoft Dynamics CRM logo. Another location is on each of the listviews, located throughout the CRM application. HOWEVER – if the record you are creating is a CHILD record of another record currently inside of the system, there is a better way.

Best practices encourages the use of what’s called data mapping, the transfer of data from one record – i.e. a parent record – to another record – i.e. a child record. A great example of this would be the transfer of information from an Account to a new Contact. There’s never really a need to retype all the information that should transfer over.

To utilize data mapping and follow best practices, the correct location to navigate to in order to create a child record is the ASSOCIATED VIEW of the child records, located underneath the parent record. For example, the Associated View of the Account’s Contact records would be inside of the Account form. Once you click on Contacts on the left-hand side of the Account form, you will now be viewing the Contact’s Associated View underneath the Account. The Activities section would be the Activity Associated View underneath the Account, and so on and so on.

Click on the New button from inside of the Associated View. Once the window opens, you will see the data transfer. Now just to be clear, this is all contingent on whether or not the information is actually FILLED OUT at the Account level. As long as that information is filled out and SAVED on the form, the information will transfer based upon the mapping configurations.