Topic: ‘Outlook Client’

This blog will focus on the new version of the Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook Client. We’ll dive into three new features that will simplify and greatly enhance your Dynamics CRM experience:

• Applying conditional formatting from within Outlook Client listviews
• Sending CRM templates, articles and sales literature from within your Outlook application
• Using Outlook to set up categories, follow-ups, and reminders on CRM records Read the rest of this entry »

A key feature of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 version is the incorporation of recurring appointments inside of CRM. The new feature allows you to set up these recurring appointments within CRM – and even maintain historical Activity records! As we all know, if you change a recurring appointment’s time, location, description, etc. inside of Outlook, the historical records on your calendar are modified, as well. CRM uses a different technique in order to maintain the historical information – check out the Microsoft CRM Team Blog’s post on this topic for a more in-depth explanation.

The Outlook Client for Dynamics CRM has plenty of benefits. Most people work out of their Outlook application daily, and during a Dynamics CRM implementation, using something inside of Outlook provides a seamless integration between what they’re used to and what they’re now learning. Some additional benefits are:

• Visibility into email records and communication with potential and current clients
• Ability to view and accomplish Tasks without being in CRM
• Less data entry by pushing current Contacts into CRM through syncing Read the rest of this entry »

Explore the new Outlook client for CRM 2011 and how to use it most efficiently.

Title: Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011: Outlook

Speaker: Kristen O’Connor, I.B.I.S. Consultant

Understanding how to pull various CRM data into your Outlook for CRM 2011 Client from your CRM application is very helpful. Understanding how to do it outside of the defaults is even better.

This recent post on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog sheds some light on how to modify what are called Local Data Groups. These settings determine what data is pulled into your Outlook application from CRM. Read the post by clicking here.

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!

This toolbar is frequently neglected, and very commonly unnoticed by a large majority of CRM Users. However, if used correctly, this toolbar can save you hours of valuable time down the road.

Here’s a quick highlight of what the Basic CRM Toolbar has to offer:

1. New Activity creation: You can quickly create brand new Activities from this dropdown. A lot of people will create brand new Activities from the Account, Contact, Opportunity, etc. in question. However quick typers and CRM experts can save time by creating them from scratch from this toolbar. Click Save & New at the top of the screen if you’re creating more than one, and you can create 10 Activities in less than 2 minutes.

2. New Record creation: There’s no reason to navigate all the way through the system to find what you’re looking for in order to create a brand new record. By creating a new record from here, you can save time by not hunting for the entity listview.

3. Go To: This allows you to only click once and land on the location to which you want to navigate. Are you going to Duplicate Detection Rules inside of Settings? This would take you three clicks to go to. IF you use the Go To, you only click once – just scroll down to Settings, Data Management, and then Duplicate Detection Rules.

4. Tools: Want to set your personal options? Are you trying to import 500 Leads into the system? Are you wanting to run a Duplicate Detection job in one click? This is where you need to go. No need to travel all the way to the Settings area.

5. Advanced Find: Hands down my absolute favorite part of CRM – Advanced Find (Workflow almost ties for first, but I’ve been on an AF high for a while). You can search for just about anything inside of CRM with a few simple lines of criteria. Editing columns is easy as pie, and you can export anything you pull to Excel in a flash. And it’s real-time….there’s no “wait until the next morning to see the updated results.” Nothing beats instant gratification.

Really like the toolbar, but work from Outlook? The Basic CRM Toolbar is there, too! Just look for the CRM ribbon among your toolbars at the top of Outlook.

Click here to view an article illustrating the basics of Outlook synchronization. Here’s a snippet from the Microsoft Download Center regarding the article:

“Both the online and offline versions of the CRM Outlook Client support synchronizing CRM contacts and CRM activities to Outlook folders, or Outlook synchronization. Outlook synchronization enables Outlook users to view Dynamics CRM information, including contacts, tasks, phone calls, letters, faxes, appointments, and e-mails, within the Outlook interface.”

Please note: you need to have Update Rollup 7 or newer in order (or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online November 2009 Service Update or newer) for this to be applicable to you.

Not on a recent rollup? Click here to download Update Rollup 9.

An Internet-Facing Deployment allows users that are not on the internal network of your organization to access Microsoft Dynamics CRM through the web.  This functionality is great for those that are in and out of the office or on and off the local network.  Like most of us, having CRM accessible through the web is great, but what about the Outlook Client?  We all live in Outlook, so below is a scenario and a few helpful hints about configuring users’ Outlook Clients for an Internet-Facing Deployment.

Scenario

• The customer has an IFD set up for its CRM 4.0 users.
• Users outside the domain have configured their outlook client using “Service Provider.”
• Currently, when these users are outside of the local network, they do not have an issue accessing CRM. (They can get to CRM through both the Web and Outlook)
• When users are in the office and connected to the local network, they CANNOT connect to CRM through OUTLOOK. 
• When users are in the office and connected to the local network, they CAN access CRM through the web successfully.

Process

It is important to have the users configure their Outlook clients while at the office on the local network.  The only time that we can configure the Client for both internal and external URLs is while the client workstation is in the office on the local network.

•  When the users are on the local network, have them configure the Outlook Client using “My Company.”
• During the configuration, users will come to the option to enter an internal and external URL.
  • There will be a check mark between the text boxes.  Remove the check mark and enter the internal URL used to access CRM.  For example:  http://crm
  • Then enter the URL that they are using to access CRM through IFD while outside the office in the external URL text box at the bottom.  For example: http://crm.infinity.com

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• Continue to step through the configuration until it completes.
• Restart Outlook.
• Disconnect from the local network, and confirm that the outlook client can still be accessed with full functionality.

Assessment

What we have successfully accomplished is the ability for users to work in the Outlook Client, both on and off the local network.  When the users are connected internally, the Outlook Client will connect to CRM using the internal URL by default. Once they leave the internal network, the Outlook Client will attempt to connect using the internal URL, but when it sees that it cannot, it will then use the URL used to connect through IFD.

If we were to configure the Outlook client as ‘Service Provider,’ we do not give users the ability to use the Outlook Client on the local network.  This occurs because they have not defined an internal URL for CRM.

As always, if information such as this does not resolve your issue, documentation from Microsoft should be referenced.  This post should not replace documentation from Microsoft; however it can serve as a guide to solving your problems and as a helpful reminder.

I was recently asked to do a little research regarding CRM 4.0 Client for Microsoft Outlook configuration through Terminal Server. I needed a quick answer, so I called on Microsoft. Here is what I got in return:

Question: If the CRM 4.0 Client for Microsoft Outlook is installed on a terminal server, will every user that accesses outlook be able to use the CRM outlook client? For example, we want 2 people to be able to use the outlook client, and 2 people to not use the outlook client going through terminal server.  Is this possible?

Answer: The user will have to be setup as a user in CRM and they would have to run through the configuration wizard. If the user is in CRM and the outlook client is installed locally on the users’ machine, each user will have the ability to configure the outlook client. Follow the configuration wizard and confirm that the toolbar exists in the users’ outlook. This is standard procedure for MS CRM 4.0 Outlook Client install.

If you wish to take away the configure button from certain users you can add the following registry* keys:
1. HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\crmaddin.Addin\LoadBehavior DWORD 2
2. HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\crmexceladdin.Addin\LoadBehavior DWORD 2

*This solution involves making changes to the registry. It is not suggested that changes made to the registry be used as a first option. If possible, alternatives such as a MS Hotfix or MS rollup should be used to try to solve the issue, before modifying the registry. If you do decide to modify the registry, it is suggested that the modifications are rolled out through a group policy in active directory, by an IT Director, Technical Specialist or MIS department. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. Be sure to backup the registry before making changes in the registry editor. Any problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. I.B.I.S,. Inc. cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Registry Backup

Go to Start - Run - and type ‘Regedit’

a. Make a backup of the registry by (in the Registry Editor) right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Export.

b. Select a location for the export file and name it.

c. Click Save.

Hope this helps!