Back in the 1.2-3.0 days it seemed like some of the major ISVs got caught a bit flat footed and did not have their upgrades and newer versions ready for the 3.0 launch back 2 years ago. It sounds crazy but it was true. MSFT had delayed the release of 2.0 then canceled it and then delayed other releases etc. It was about a year of changes and delays.
Then all of a sudden they popped up and released 3.0 EARLIER then most expected. Not sure what to make of it.
So far I have seen announcements that two major ISV partners C360 and SCRIBE have already released their new TITAN products or are about to. This is great news. This shows MSFT and the partner channel are really starting to hit on all cylinders as the CRM delivery team they are designed to be.
Congrats to SCRIBE and C360 and other vendors that are on the ball. For more info go to the below links:
http://www.scribesoftware.com/
http://www.c360.com
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - www.productivegap.com
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Top 5 Ways the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Implementation Guide Improved
From the CRM team Blog:
For about the past 18 months I have been planning, researching, communicating, and writing in an effort to improve the implementation documentation for our next major release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. During this exercise, it has led me to many changes in the documentation, which I think are the right decisions. I hope you do to.
To give an idea of the channels I have used to make decisions on how develop the IG, here a list of resources to name just a few that I have researched and or communicated with:
· Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Team
· MVPs
· Knowledge Base and Support customer incident databases
· Newsgroups
· Documentation Feedback from CTP programs
· Our own MSCRM product team
· Convergence Conference Meetings
· VAR Partners
· Dynamics Sure Step virtual team
· Blogosphere (I’ve requested feedback about how to improve the IG on 2 separate occasions)
And the top 5 reasons why the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide (IG) is improved are...
1. No longer a single monolithic document. The IG has been separated into three documents. Each doc represent three primary phases of implementation:
· Planning- contains conceptual information about how Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed as well as system requirements and supported topologies.
· Installing - contains procedural information about how to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
· Operating and Maintaining - contains information about operational tasks, monitoring, troubleshooting, and known issues.
2. Word doc format. The English version will be in Word 2003 and Word 2007 formats. I know many of you print your IG, so I want to make it as easy and formattable as possible. Word rather then a bit-map format, such as PDF, gives you more control over the printed results that you want. (e.g. increasing margins for space to make notes, etc.).
3. Superfluous content removed. Several topics that contained non-CRM specific content have been removed and replaced with specific CRM content. For example, basic information about how to install and configure other technologies such as Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server etc. have been removed. So, you will no longer see steps to install another product as in past version of the IG such as, 2. Insert the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 CD or click on the setup.exe file in the root of the Exchange Server 2003 CD (a direct excerpt from the previous IG). For those unfamiliar with the task of inserting a CD into a PC, links to this type of documentation in the IG will be provided.
4. Feedback channel is incorporated. At the end of every chapter, there is an e-mail link that populates an e-mail message with information about the IG. The reader only need type their comment in the e-mail message and click send. Don’t touch the subject line or e-mail address and I’ll have everything I need to receive and review your comments. The subject contains information about what document and chapter the comment pertains to and the language the document is in (it can be one of nearly a dozen languages). This helps me locate where in the doc the comment is stemming from. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly as it pertains to the content. I want to know.
5. Regular update improvements. After the initial release, the IG will be revised every three months. A revision sheet will be included that summarizes each revision and where the revision occurs in the document.
Thanks for reading.
Matt Peart
LINK to this post: http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/crm/archive/2007/10/25/top-5-ways-the-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-implementation-guide-improved.aspx
Published Thursday, October 25, 2007 11:04 AM by crmblog
Filed under: Documentation, Titan
For about the past 18 months I have been planning, researching, communicating, and writing in an effort to improve the implementation documentation for our next major release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. During this exercise, it has led me to many changes in the documentation, which I think are the right decisions. I hope you do to.
To give an idea of the channels I have used to make decisions on how develop the IG, here a list of resources to name just a few that I have researched and or communicated with:
· Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Team
· MVPs
· Knowledge Base and Support customer incident databases
· Newsgroups
· Documentation Feedback from CTP programs
· Our own MSCRM product team
· Convergence Conference Meetings
· VAR Partners
· Dynamics Sure Step virtual team
· Blogosphere (I’ve requested feedback about how to improve the IG on 2 separate occasions)
And the top 5 reasons why the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide (IG) is improved are...
1. No longer a single monolithic document. The IG has been separated into three documents. Each doc represent three primary phases of implementation:
· Planning- contains conceptual information about how Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed as well as system requirements and supported topologies.
· Installing - contains procedural information about how to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
· Operating and Maintaining - contains information about operational tasks, monitoring, troubleshooting, and known issues.
2. Word doc format. The English version will be in Word 2003 and Word 2007 formats. I know many of you print your IG, so I want to make it as easy and formattable as possible. Word rather then a bit-map format, such as PDF, gives you more control over the printed results that you want. (e.g. increasing margins for space to make notes, etc.).
3. Superfluous content removed. Several topics that contained non-CRM specific content have been removed and replaced with specific CRM content. For example, basic information about how to install and configure other technologies such as Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server etc. have been removed. So, you will no longer see steps to install another product as in past version of the IG such as, 2. Insert the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 CD or click on the setup.exe file in the root of the Exchange Server 2003 CD (a direct excerpt from the previous IG). For those unfamiliar with the task of inserting a CD into a PC, links to this type of documentation in the IG will be provided.
4. Feedback channel is incorporated. At the end of every chapter, there is an e-mail link that populates an e-mail message with information about the IG. The reader only need type their comment in the e-mail message and click send. Don’t touch the subject line or e-mail address and I’ll have everything I need to receive and review your comments. The subject contains information about what document and chapter the comment pertains to and the language the document is in (it can be one of nearly a dozen languages). This helps me locate where in the doc the comment is stemming from. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly as it pertains to the content. I want to know.
5. Regular update improvements. After the initial release, the IG will be revised every three months. A revision sheet will be included that summarizes each revision and where the revision occurs in the document.
Thanks for reading.
Matt Peart
LINK to this post: http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/crm/archive/2007/10/25/top-5-ways-the-microsoft-dynamics-crm-4-implementation-guide-improved.aspx
Published Thursday, October 25, 2007 11:04 AM by crmblog
Filed under: Documentation, Titan
Friday, October 26, 2007
CRM 4.0 TOP 20 features from Partner Readiness Event
This past week our team attended the CRM 4.0 partner readiness event in Dallas. It was a great deal of information in a short period of time. Also one of the Microsoft Executives gave a great presentation to kick off the day. All in all it was a great primer for CRM 4.0 for some of the folks on our team that have been heads down and not gotten too much time on CRM 4.0 yet. We have been very busy with some large projects.
The new code is supposed to be locked down and ready to send to the disk manufacturers next week! (Estimated Time Nov 1.) This means that the new product could be available for purchase and install some time in Late November or early December. That is coming up fast.
At the high application level not too much has changed on the front end. Nothing like the move from 1.2 to 3.0. There are a ton of new and needed features that are great, but nothing like the last version upgrade. It seems to me that most of the budget and hard work was done on the back-end of the application. I believe a lot of hard work under the hood was done to enable a robust multi-tenant and multi-national data model and architecture. It will be hard for most clients to really appreciate this. Nevertheless it is there and works really well. I have implemented the milti-tenant instances on one server and it only took minutes. Pretty amazing!
Here is a quick rundown of the Top 20 features the product team illustrated in the readiness event:
1. User Productivity Improvements to Interfaces
2. End User Report Wizard - For going beyond Views and Excel Spreadsheets
3. Workflow improvements - Windows Workflow Foundation
4. Real-time Visibility & Collaboration
5. Resource Center - For building internal community and external access to community
6. Better email interaction tracking and management (no more GUID option)
7. Intelligent Data Import and Migration
8. Data Integrity, Hygiene, and Duplicate Detection management features
9. Multi-National - Currency, Language
10. Business Process Management
11. Many-To-Many Relationships - System, Self, Core Entities
12. SDK improvements and Offline SDK
13. Leverage Technology Platforms - supports POP3 and Exchange 2007
14. Expanded Deployment Choices - CRM LIVE added into mix
15. Multi-Tenancy Options
16. Run CRM without VPN - Basically works in RPC over HTTP but called "Internet Facing Deployment"
17. Security and Outlook syncing improvements in speed.
18. Better Admin and Settings Management - Admin in Outlook folders too.
19. Performance, Scalability, & Availability Improvements
20. Clean Upgrade from CRM 3.0
That is a pretty solid list of improvements and Enhancements. Looking forward to the launch!
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
The new code is supposed to be locked down and ready to send to the disk manufacturers next week! (Estimated Time Nov 1.) This means that the new product could be available for purchase and install some time in Late November or early December. That is coming up fast.
At the high application level not too much has changed on the front end. Nothing like the move from 1.2 to 3.0. There are a ton of new and needed features that are great, but nothing like the last version upgrade. It seems to me that most of the budget and hard work was done on the back-end of the application. I believe a lot of hard work under the hood was done to enable a robust multi-tenant and multi-national data model and architecture. It will be hard for most clients to really appreciate this. Nevertheless it is there and works really well. I have implemented the milti-tenant instances on one server and it only took minutes. Pretty amazing!
Here is a quick rundown of the Top 20 features the product team illustrated in the readiness event:
1. User Productivity Improvements to Interfaces
2. End User Report Wizard - For going beyond Views and Excel Spreadsheets
3. Workflow improvements - Windows Workflow Foundation
4. Real-time Visibility & Collaboration
5. Resource Center - For building internal community and external access to community
6. Better email interaction tracking and management (no more GUID option)
7. Intelligent Data Import and Migration
8. Data Integrity, Hygiene, and Duplicate Detection management features
9. Multi-National - Currency, Language
10. Business Process Management
11. Many-To-Many Relationships - System, Self, Core Entities
12. SDK improvements and Offline SDK
13. Leverage Technology Platforms - supports POP3 and Exchange 2007
14. Expanded Deployment Choices - CRM LIVE added into mix
15. Multi-Tenancy Options
16. Run CRM without VPN - Basically works in RPC over HTTP but called "Internet Facing Deployment"
17. Security and Outlook syncing improvements in speed.
18. Better Admin and Settings Management - Admin in Outlook folders too.
19. Performance, Scalability, & Availability Improvements
20. Clean Upgrade from CRM 3.0
That is a pretty solid list of improvements and Enhancements. Looking forward to the launch!
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
CRM Performance Scalability White Paper Information and Link
This is a great validation of the architecture of MS CRM. From the MSFT website:
Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM application software is designed to meet the performance and scalability requirements of large, global enterprises.
Benchmark results demonstrate that a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 instance can achieve sub-second response times with 6,000 concurrent users executing a heavy workload against a large, complex database.
Large enterprises often deploy multiple parallel CRM instances in order to meet the diverse needs of different business units or geographies. Distributed across multiple instances, a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment can scale to meet the needs of the largest enterprises.
Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM application software is designed to meet the performance and scalability requirements of large, global enterprises.
Benchmark results demonstrate that a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 instance can achieve sub-second response times with 6,000 concurrent users executing a heavy workload against a large, complex database.
Large enterprises often deploy multiple parallel CRM instances in order to meet the diverse needs of different business units or geographies. Distributed across multiple instances, a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment can scale to meet the needs of the largest enterprises.
This white paper details the benchmark results of tests conducted on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.The technical white paper includes:
- A summary of the benefits Microsoft Dynamics CRM can provide to enterprise-class organizations.
- A description of the methods and CRM implementation used to obtain the 6,000 user benchmark.
- Details of the hardware configuration and optimization settings used in this test.
- A summary of key test parameters and results achieved in this test.
Happy Reading, Jon Petrucelli - www.productivegap.com
Monday, October 22, 2007
Dynamics CRM 4.0 Versions, Deployment Options and Payment Models
The following Versions, Deployment/Delivery Model Options and Payment Plan Options will be available to get at Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (aka TITAN) (aka "The Next Big Thing"):
VERSIONS:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Workgroup Edition - This version is limited to 5 or fewer users. It can be installed on Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, any of the supported Windows Server 2003 editions, or Microsoft Windows Server 2008. This version is limited to a single organization and a single computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Server.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Professional Edition - This version has no user limit and is limited to a single organization. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Professional Edition Server can, however, be installed to more than one computer.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise Edition - This version has no user limit. Additional features include support for multiple organizations, multiple server instances, and role-based service installation. Role-based services let you increase performance by installing component services on different computers.
DEPLOYMENT/DELIVERY MODELS AND OPTIONS:
On-Premise - This is where the client buys the software and deploys internally on their own domain or premise. The traditional enterprise applications delivery model. Very good for Complex server side integration requirements or compliance driven organizations that need to tightly control their data at all times.
Partner Hosted - This delivery options gets you the same robust code set, APIs and applications but a partner typically hosts the system outside the clients domain and firewall. Very good option for someone that does not need or want the application internally which would require support costs.
Microsoft Hosted/SAAS/Software-As-A-Service/ASP/Application Service Provider/On-Demand/In the Cloud - Geez how many ways can you say this?? - This model has been around a long time but changed names to re invent itself. As the Internet and Internet security has gained acceptance over the last 10 years, it has become a rage for smaller businesses that do not have or want IT costs and can be more flexible with the platforms as Costs management is critical. This solution will be hosted in the Microsoft LIVE data centers and promises to really shake up the Hosted CRM on-demand world a bit. There are some limitations currently on what can be put on the server side at this time. We expect those to fall away in the distant future. One can never be too cautious with all the "Nefarious" code out there looking to take down the big M in the cloud. CRM LIVE cometh! Seriously, we are in the beta program for this and I work on the CRM Live Beta/early access system daily and it is great. So we expect and embrace this as a great delivery model for MS Dynamics CRM! Cant wait.
One of the greatest things about these delivery models in 3.0 and 4.0 especially is the code is portable and transferable easily from each mode to the next!
PAYMENT OPTIONS:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be purchased six different ways from Sunday. You really have a lot of options.
1. Full payment up front for all users and server cal and maintenance. This can be a bit pricey but for the amount of software power, training, API, maintenance etc you get it is really pretty reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
2. OPEN - Buy the Software under the Open Business Licensing plan and you get to divide the costs into three payments over three years. Covers Software users, servers, maintenance and enhancements. This is really a great deal cause there is no interest.
3. MS Financing - Competitive rates and you can bundle software, services, hardware, maintenance and anything else you want into the purchase!!! All for one monthly payment over 36-60 months I believe. What a great deal. Some Interest applies here but it is part of doing business this way.
4. Partner Hosted - Pay Monthly service provider amounts from your partner. Varies based on SLA and partner. Generally $50-$125 from what I have heard.
5. CRM LIVE (March 08) - Pay monthly - About $40 - $65/user/month depending on version. Very competitive! - Deploy in minutes too. Pay on a Credit Card.
Either way you slice it or pay for it MS CRM is a great value.
For an exercise you can run the costs in a spreadsheet to amortize them accross three years. Take all the costs for the Software (users, server, maintenance) and spread it across 36 payments/3 years it comes to an average of $35/user/month! Wow that is cheap especially for all the value you get. Some say Dynamics CRM is now the fastest growing business application ever. 475,000 Users across 11,0000 companies. Almost all in 2-3 years. 100%+ growth a year!
Microsoft is all about giving you choice!
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
VERSIONS:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Workgroup Edition - This version is limited to 5 or fewer users. It can be installed on Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, any of the supported Windows Server 2003 editions, or Microsoft Windows Server 2008. This version is limited to a single organization and a single computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Server.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Professional Edition - This version has no user limit and is limited to a single organization. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Professional Edition Server can, however, be installed to more than one computer.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise Edition - This version has no user limit. Additional features include support for multiple organizations, multiple server instances, and role-based service installation. Role-based services let you increase performance by installing component services on different computers.
DEPLOYMENT/DELIVERY MODELS AND OPTIONS:
On-Premise - This is where the client buys the software and deploys internally on their own domain or premise. The traditional enterprise applications delivery model. Very good for Complex server side integration requirements or compliance driven organizations that need to tightly control their data at all times.
Partner Hosted - This delivery options gets you the same robust code set, APIs and applications but a partner typically hosts the system outside the clients domain and firewall. Very good option for someone that does not need or want the application internally which would require support costs.
Microsoft Hosted/SAAS/Software-As-A-Service/ASP/Application Service Provider/On-Demand/In the Cloud - Geez how many ways can you say this?? - This model has been around a long time but changed names to re invent itself. As the Internet and Internet security has gained acceptance over the last 10 years, it has become a rage for smaller businesses that do not have or want IT costs and can be more flexible with the platforms as Costs management is critical. This solution will be hosted in the Microsoft LIVE data centers and promises to really shake up the Hosted CRM on-demand world a bit. There are some limitations currently on what can be put on the server side at this time. We expect those to fall away in the distant future. One can never be too cautious with all the "Nefarious" code out there looking to take down the big M in the cloud. CRM LIVE cometh! Seriously, we are in the beta program for this and I work on the CRM Live Beta/early access system daily and it is great. So we expect and embrace this as a great delivery model for MS Dynamics CRM! Cant wait.
One of the greatest things about these delivery models in 3.0 and 4.0 especially is the code is portable and transferable easily from each mode to the next!
PAYMENT OPTIONS:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be purchased six different ways from Sunday. You really have a lot of options.
1. Full payment up front for all users and server cal and maintenance. This can be a bit pricey but for the amount of software power, training, API, maintenance etc you get it is really pretty reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
2. OPEN - Buy the Software under the Open Business Licensing plan and you get to divide the costs into three payments over three years. Covers Software users, servers, maintenance and enhancements. This is really a great deal cause there is no interest.
3. MS Financing - Competitive rates and you can bundle software, services, hardware, maintenance and anything else you want into the purchase!!! All for one monthly payment over 36-60 months I believe. What a great deal. Some Interest applies here but it is part of doing business this way.
4. Partner Hosted - Pay Monthly service provider amounts from your partner. Varies based on SLA and partner. Generally $50-$125 from what I have heard.
5. CRM LIVE (March 08) - Pay monthly - About $40 - $65/user/month depending on version. Very competitive! - Deploy in minutes too. Pay on a Credit Card.
Either way you slice it or pay for it MS CRM is a great value.
For an exercise you can run the costs in a spreadsheet to amortize them accross three years. Take all the costs for the Software (users, server, maintenance) and spread it across 36 payments/3 years it comes to an average of $35/user/month! Wow that is cheap especially for all the value you get. Some say Dynamics CRM is now the fastest growing business application ever. 475,000 Users across 11,0000 companies. Almost all in 2-3 years. 100%+ growth a year!
Microsoft is all about giving you choice!
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
CRM for Dummies Book
Some people get offended when we recommend them reading a dummies book to learn more about CRM. To a new user MS CRM is a very big and complex application with lots of wrinkles and nuances. It takes time. The dummies book and the series in general is very good for communicating basic info and baseline training on complex topics. That is why it is a institution in book stores.
I would recommend that new users start with the MS CRM for Dummies book that is readily avail at Barnes and Nobles or Amazon. I would point them towards this and have a few copies in the offices avail for people. There is a great amount of info in this book that is all applicable to your needs. Here is a link to order:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-CRM-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/0471799459/ref=sr_1_1/105-8927735-8858004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193157344&sr=8-1
The used ones are in good shape and going for $10.00 apiece.
Most of the basic questions that come up would be answered in this book.. Also with some background already on the application you will be able to read this in 3-4 hours. It is pretty fast and loaded with info.
I know this sounds stupid to read a dummies book but it is very good for a new user to get up to speed and answer the basic questions in all new users minds: "what does CRM stand for".
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.produtivegap.com/
I would recommend that new users start with the MS CRM for Dummies book that is readily avail at Barnes and Nobles or Amazon. I would point them towards this and have a few copies in the offices avail for people. There is a great amount of info in this book that is all applicable to your needs. Here is a link to order:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-CRM-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/0471799459/ref=sr_1_1/105-8927735-8858004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193157344&sr=8-1
The used ones are in good shape and going for $10.00 apiece.
Most of the basic questions that come up would be answered in this book.. Also with some background already on the application you will be able to read this in 3-4 hours. It is pretty fast and loaded with info.
I know this sounds stupid to read a dummies book but it is very good for a new user to get up to speed and answer the basic questions in all new users minds: "what does CRM stand for".
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.produtivegap.com/
Monday, October 15, 2007
We are Hiring and Growing
Check out our openings for detailed job descriptions - http://www.productivegap.com/careers/default.aspx
Current openings we have:
- Junior/Entry Level Consultant position open right now!
- CRM Consultants level I and II
- Microsoft ASP.NET Developer and Consultant
- Project Manager **NEW** - Job will be on the website soon.
No direct CRM Experience necessary. We will train. We have a boot camp starting in mid Nov for new hires.
Feel free to forward this to anyone interested.
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - www.productivegap.com
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Key to CRM Implementation Success - Internal CRM SME
One of the first CRM 3.0 Implementations we did years ago for a large Bank here in Texas, the CIO was very adamant that we would not do all the work. He wanted me to understand that they had very strong IT staff and could do much of the work. He came right out and said "if you say you will do it all then we will find someone else."
He was correct also, their IT team and PM team were tops and smootly handled much of the implementation with some higher level help, advice and guidance from us.
This comes up time to time. Many larger orgs do have very strong and capable IT so we have learned and embraced this.
One of the key items we have seen that insures the success of a large scale, upper mid market or enterprise implementation is the appointment and investment if an internal subject-matter-expert (SME).
All implementations need to have this SME on the client side but we have found it integral to the success of larger (100+ user) deals. Smaller orgs and implementations usually do not have the budget for one dedicated CRM person SME on their team. So they work with us and we usually get a savvy manager to pick up some work.
We have done a number of implementations for larger $1Billion+ or Multi Billion dollar annual revenue clients and we have definitely found this factor very important.
We actually encourage and ask the client to appoint or hire a dedicated person for the implementation project and also for the follow up. The client will be very unhappy calling us to add fields or build a simple advanced find view. So we include this person on our implementation team and they work with us as a partner through the implementation.
There are a lot of reasons why this is important to us and also we feel it is the right thing to do for a larger deal.
First and Foremost the long term client satisfaction and sustainability and enhancement of the CRM system. With the internal SME constantly leveraging the system the business owner will feel they are getting value out of it. For some reason they feel better about hiring a person in house and managing them then paying consultants. That seems to be a norm.
Second, We have a knowledgeable buffer between our team and the end users and management. The SME serves as a liaison and internal champion. helping us to navigate the complex waters inherent to larger implementations. They can help clarify requirements and scope and get greater details etc.
Third, We like to and are designed to do Implementations and complex integrations and advanced customizations. Everyone on our team can do the basic application level customizations like adding fields and entities and relationships. Our team is not extremely excited about the basic customisations work. We really get excited and passionate about integrating 7 different systems into CRM so the client and end users have one interface to see everything [Not and exaggeration - We did this at a Fortune 100 client]. We really get pumped up to do the high level work and push the boundaries and show the client what can be done. So this SME takes a lot of the load off of our team for the small and normal application level customizations and configurations.
There are many more reasons that this is a valuable strategy and component but that should get you started thinking about it.
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.produtivegap.com/
Were Hiring for CRM 4.0 consultants. Please check out our careers page!
He was correct also, their IT team and PM team were tops and smootly handled much of the implementation with some higher level help, advice and guidance from us.
This comes up time to time. Many larger orgs do have very strong and capable IT so we have learned and embraced this.
One of the key items we have seen that insures the success of a large scale, upper mid market or enterprise implementation is the appointment and investment if an internal subject-matter-expert (SME).
All implementations need to have this SME on the client side but we have found it integral to the success of larger (100+ user) deals. Smaller orgs and implementations usually do not have the budget for one dedicated CRM person SME on their team. So they work with us and we usually get a savvy manager to pick up some work.
We have done a number of implementations for larger $1Billion+ or Multi Billion dollar annual revenue clients and we have definitely found this factor very important.
We actually encourage and ask the client to appoint or hire a dedicated person for the implementation project and also for the follow up. The client will be very unhappy calling us to add fields or build a simple advanced find view. So we include this person on our implementation team and they work with us as a partner through the implementation.
There are a lot of reasons why this is important to us and also we feel it is the right thing to do for a larger deal.
First and Foremost the long term client satisfaction and sustainability and enhancement of the CRM system. With the internal SME constantly leveraging the system the business owner will feel they are getting value out of it. For some reason they feel better about hiring a person in house and managing them then paying consultants. That seems to be a norm.
Second, We have a knowledgeable buffer between our team and the end users and management. The SME serves as a liaison and internal champion. helping us to navigate the complex waters inherent to larger implementations. They can help clarify requirements and scope and get greater details etc.
Third, We like to and are designed to do Implementations and complex integrations and advanced customizations. Everyone on our team can do the basic application level customizations like adding fields and entities and relationships. Our team is not extremely excited about the basic customisations work. We really get excited and passionate about integrating 7 different systems into CRM so the client and end users have one interface to see everything [Not and exaggeration - We did this at a Fortune 100 client]. We really get pumped up to do the high level work and push the boundaries and show the client what can be done. So this SME takes a lot of the load off of our team for the small and normal application level customizations and configurations.
There are many more reasons that this is a valuable strategy and component but that should get you started thinking about it.
Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.produtivegap.com/
Were Hiring for CRM 4.0 consultants. Please check out our careers page!
CRM and VoIP: A Perfect Fit - Jim Berkowitz Blog
Here are several excerpts from an article by Cindy Waxer, CRM and VoIP: A Perfect Fit:
Reducing operating costs and boosting customer service are activities that top the to-do lists of today’s best-known businesses. Fortunately, these twin goals can be achieved by pairing VoIP with CRM. In fact, with its promises of slashed costs, increased productivity and enhanced efficiency, VoIP is proving to be a perfect fit for CRM systems.
(more…)
View article...
Reducing operating costs and boosting customer service are activities that top the to-do lists of today’s best-known businesses. Fortunately, these twin goals can be achieved by pairing VoIP with CRM. In fact, with its promises of slashed costs, increased productivity and enhanced efficiency, VoIP is proving to be a perfect fit for CRM systems.
(more…)
View article...
Monday, October 8, 2007
Philip Richardson - Titan: Import/Export Customizations
CRM 3.0 had the ability to move customizations between different systems. Titan has some nice enhancements to this feature. You can now import/export much more stuff (eg. configuration settings, security roles, workflows etc) and we have used zip compression to make the files smaller. In addition - we did some work to make the import more reliable and we now offer 'less cryptic' error messages.
Import/Export customizations also underwent some major work behind the scenes to cater for lots of complex multi-lingual scenarios (eg. import customizations which were done in different languages).
Screencast: Export Customizations
View article...
Import/Export customizations also underwent some major work behind the scenes to cater for lots of complex multi-lingual scenarios (eg. import customizations which were done in different languages).
Screencast: Export Customizations
View article...
CRM Report Levels in CRM 3.0 and 4.0 (Comparison)
Dynamics CRM Reporting levels overview in 3.0 and 4.0
We see 3 core levels of reporting in MS CRM as we explain it to clients and prospects. It mostly revolves around need and data model and also complexity.
1. The Grid views are your first level of reporting out of CRM. In version 3.0 these were primarily for single entity reporting but you can also create a relationship to another entity and draw that primary attribute into the grid view. So it will allow you limited cross-entity reporting in 3.0. Grid Views do not give you a lot of flexibility to run calculations etc. They do display a lot of great info and give a ton of ability to filter and query entity info in CRM. You can also query and filter based on cross entity attributes BUT in Version 3.0 you cannot Display a lot of other entity attributes in CRM like many clients want to. In version 4.0 you can query on many entities and attributes and also pull in many entities and attributes into one grid view. This is a huge improvement from 3.0.
2. Exporting to Excel using Dynamic Pivot tables and queries allows you an amazing, almost SRS like capability. You can then save these XLS files and load them into the Report Manager like an SRS report. You can even manually edit the queries in Excel to bring in CROSS Entity reporting like in SRS. This Dynamic Excel connection and the ability to load it into CRM Report manager and maintain security roles etc is amazing. It puts powerful db querying into the realm of familiar office products. Great stuff.
3. SRS - SQL Reporting Services - Over the last 10 years MS SQL Server has become the premier DB Server for the rest of us. SRS layers sophisticated Reporting and BI on top of this db and enables the connection to virtually any other db or flat file you might ever want to connect to! SRS and Visual Studio combined together provide rich and powerful reporting features that can be loaded into CRM in the report manager to provide easy 'pre-filtering' and maintain roles based security. Once again, GREAT STUFF! Problem here is that you have to learn and master VS application methodologies which can be daunting. MSFT CRM will have to come up with an easy to use reporting tool in the future that allows the same easy to admin controls that CRM does. Once they have this it will be easier for clients to embrace reporting. CRM has such great admin features it is sad that they stop at the SRS reports and VS etc. In CRM LIVE you will not be able to load custom RDL files (SRS reports) into it. You will be limited to the reports that come native. RDLs could hold nefarious (Bad) code and virus that would potentially damage the server. Not good. They may enhance this in the future. This is a major limitation to CRM LIVE. Many clients really leverage this powerful reporting suite for cross system and entity reports and or quotes etc.
Hope that helps explain the levels of reporting in CRM based on need and complexity.
Microsoft just sent out a link to a nice area that covers some powerful explanations of CRM reporting.
Check it out:
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/reporting/default.mspx
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
We see 3 core levels of reporting in MS CRM as we explain it to clients and prospects. It mostly revolves around need and data model and also complexity.
1. The Grid views are your first level of reporting out of CRM. In version 3.0 these were primarily for single entity reporting but you can also create a relationship to another entity and draw that primary attribute into the grid view. So it will allow you limited cross-entity reporting in 3.0. Grid Views do not give you a lot of flexibility to run calculations etc. They do display a lot of great info and give a ton of ability to filter and query entity info in CRM. You can also query and filter based on cross entity attributes BUT in Version 3.0 you cannot Display a lot of other entity attributes in CRM like many clients want to. In version 4.0 you can query on many entities and attributes and also pull in many entities and attributes into one grid view. This is a huge improvement from 3.0.
2. Exporting to Excel using Dynamic Pivot tables and queries allows you an amazing, almost SRS like capability. You can then save these XLS files and load them into the Report Manager like an SRS report. You can even manually edit the queries in Excel to bring in CROSS Entity reporting like in SRS. This Dynamic Excel connection and the ability to load it into CRM Report manager and maintain security roles etc is amazing. It puts powerful db querying into the realm of familiar office products. Great stuff.
3. SRS - SQL Reporting Services - Over the last 10 years MS SQL Server has become the premier DB Server for the rest of us. SRS layers sophisticated Reporting and BI on top of this db and enables the connection to virtually any other db or flat file you might ever want to connect to! SRS and Visual Studio combined together provide rich and powerful reporting features that can be loaded into CRM in the report manager to provide easy 'pre-filtering' and maintain roles based security. Once again, GREAT STUFF! Problem here is that you have to learn and master VS application methodologies which can be daunting. MSFT CRM will have to come up with an easy to use reporting tool in the future that allows the same easy to admin controls that CRM does. Once they have this it will be easier for clients to embrace reporting. CRM has such great admin features it is sad that they stop at the SRS reports and VS etc. In CRM LIVE you will not be able to load custom RDL files (SRS reports) into it. You will be limited to the reports that come native. RDLs could hold nefarious (Bad) code and virus that would potentially damage the server. Not good. They may enhance this in the future. This is a major limitation to CRM LIVE. Many clients really leverage this powerful reporting suite for cross system and entity reports and or quotes etc.
Hope that helps explain the levels of reporting in CRM based on need and complexity.
Microsoft just sent out a link to a nice area that covers some powerful explanations of CRM reporting.
Check it out:
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/reporting/default.mspx
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
Multi Language - Easy and Flexible and Valuable to the client.
Quick info on Multi Language:
MUI = Multi-Language User Interface. this is the language interface packs. MS calls them localization. Something like that.
I used this a bunch in Redomnd last month and it is VERY cool. Basically, you load a MUI language pack into the system from an admin interface. Then this language becomes avail for a User to PICK at will from their user settings. If they want to see the UI in Spanish then they can do it by going to the User management and then just changing their language. Way Cool.
Also you can have two laptops sitting next to each other logged into the same CRM instance and system. One user can be viewing the same data in Spanish and another user can see it is English.
Down here in Texas that makes things Muy Bueno. We have some clients that will really use this.
We also have just completed a 17 country roll out on two continents. The UK and Europe system will really leverage this as in an area the size of Texas they might have 10 different languages spoken. That is valuable to the cleint!\
Regards,
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
MUI = Multi-Language User Interface. this is the language interface packs. MS calls them localization. Something like that.
I used this a bunch in Redomnd last month and it is VERY cool. Basically, you load a MUI language pack into the system from an admin interface. Then this language becomes avail for a User to PICK at will from their user settings. If they want to see the UI in Spanish then they can do it by going to the User management and then just changing their language. Way Cool.
Also you can have two laptops sitting next to each other logged into the same CRM instance and system. One user can be viewing the same data in Spanish and another user can see it is English.
Down here in Texas that makes things Muy Bueno. We have some clients that will really use this.
We also have just completed a 17 country roll out on two continents. The UK and Europe system will really leverage this as in an area the size of Texas they might have 10 different languages spoken. That is valuable to the cleint!\
Regards,
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
Simon Hutson - Post on Multi Language
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Tidbits - Multi-Lingual UI
Forsaken...
It is widely known that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 supports MUI (Multi-Lingual User Interface), but what does this mean in practice? Well for starters each CRM deployment will have a base language, which means if you are upgrading from the Spanish language version of CRM 3.0 then you will need to install the Spanish language version of CRM 4.0.
However, now you can add additional language packs to your deployment such as English, French etc. The following language will be available for CRM 4.0 and similar to CRM 3.0, we will be releasing them in multiple waves, with wave 1 available at RTM and subsequent waves every few weeks thereafter:
Wave 1 - English, German, Spanish, Dutch, French
Wave 2 - Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Italian, Finnish
Wave 3 - Japanese, Hebrew, Swedish, Nowegian
Wave 4 - Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Portuguese (Brazil)
Wave 5 - Czech, Polish, Hugarian, Chinese (Traditional)
Wave 6 - Greek, Korean, Chinese (Pan)
Wave 7 - Arabic
Once the langauge packs are installed, they need to be enabled by the CRM administrator. Remember that CRM 4.0 is also multi-tennant aware which means a single deployment can support one or more instances of CRM, and each instance has its own administrator. It is quite possible to have two instances of CRM on the same deployment, each with different languages enabled.
Finally, once the CRM administrator has enabled the appropriate language packs, each user chooses their prefered language.
So what excatly get's the MUI treatment? As you would expect menus, navigation labels, form lables and picklists are fully translated. But what about reports, e-mail templates, KB articles etc as these are language-spcific. Well, with all the out-of--box reports & templates, we ship the appropriate language version of these with each language pack. If you have created your own then you have a couple of choices once you have upgraded to CRM 4.0:
Leave these alone and just use a single base language
Copy your orignals and create language-specific reports & templates
CRM is intelligent enough to know that if a version of a report is available in the user-selected language then it will chose this, otherwise it will chose the version of the report in the base language. The same thing happens when you create custom attributes and form labels. If no translation is available, then CRM will default to the base language.
Oh, just in case you were wondering, no user data is translated at any time - that would be just plain silly.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Laughing Boy
Posted: Monday, October 01, 2007 4:44 PM by simonhu
Filed under: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Forsaken...
It is widely known that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 supports MUI (Multi-Lingual User Interface), but what does this mean in practice? Well for starters each CRM deployment will have a base language, which means if you are upgrading from the Spanish language version of CRM 3.0 then you will need to install the Spanish language version of CRM 4.0.
However, now you can add additional language packs to your deployment such as English, French etc. The following language will be available for CRM 4.0 and similar to CRM 3.0, we will be releasing them in multiple waves, with wave 1 available at RTM and subsequent waves every few weeks thereafter:
Wave 1 - English, German, Spanish, Dutch, French
Wave 2 - Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Italian, Finnish
Wave 3 - Japanese, Hebrew, Swedish, Nowegian
Wave 4 - Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Portuguese (Brazil)
Wave 5 - Czech, Polish, Hugarian, Chinese (Traditional)
Wave 6 - Greek, Korean, Chinese (Pan)
Wave 7 - Arabic
Once the langauge packs are installed, they need to be enabled by the CRM administrator. Remember that CRM 4.0 is also multi-tennant aware which means a single deployment can support one or more instances of CRM, and each instance has its own administrator. It is quite possible to have two instances of CRM on the same deployment, each with different languages enabled.
Finally, once the CRM administrator has enabled the appropriate language packs, each user chooses their prefered language.
So what excatly get's the MUI treatment? As you would expect menus, navigation labels, form lables and picklists are fully translated. But what about reports, e-mail templates, KB articles etc as these are language-spcific. Well, with all the out-of--box reports & templates, we ship the appropriate language version of these with each language pack. If you have created your own then you have a couple of choices once you have upgraded to CRM 4.0:
Leave these alone and just use a single base language
Copy your orignals and create language-specific reports & templates
CRM is intelligent enough to know that if a version of a report is available in the user-selected language then it will chose this, otherwise it will chose the version of the report in the base language. The same thing happens when you create custom attributes and form labels. If no translation is available, then CRM will default to the base language.
Oh, just in case you were wondering, no user data is translated at any time - that would be just plain silly.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Laughing Boy
Posted: Monday, October 01, 2007 4:44 PM by simonhu
Filed under: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Simon Hutson - Posts on the improved CRM 4.0 Event Framework
One of the biggest area of investments in CRM 4.0 is the complete re-design of the of event framework in order to improve the consistency and reliability of handling events through custom code. As part of this re-design, we have changed the CRM 3.0 name of business logic extensions from "Callouts" to the far more groovy name "Plug-ins". The high-level changes are as follows:
Unified Event Model - The same event framework is used by both plug-ins and workflow.
Multi-Tennant Aware - Plug-ins are registered per tennant and not deployment-wide.
Improved Deployment - Plug-ins are registered using the SDK and the assemblies are stored in the database.
Offline Pluggin Support - The ability to run plug-ins whilst working offline in the Outlook Laptop Client.
Improved Performance - Support for both synchronous and asynchronous plug-ins.
Richer User Experience - Form data recovery on plug-in errors.
Better Developer Experience - Full execution context passed to the plug-in assembly
CRM 3.0 Callout Architecture
The callout model in CRM 3.0 was built on the .NET Framework v1.1 runtime and provided a fairly robust mechanism for running synchronous business logic written in C# or VB.NET. If you called the simple entity Create, Update or Delete methods then everything would work as expected (most of the time) and your callouts would be executed. However, if you called an entity-specific method then you might experienced some inconsistent behaviour.
For example, the "ConvertQuoteToSalesOrder" method causes the platform to execute a number of sub-steps including "CreateSalesOrder". However, because the platform performs these steps using an internal call (for performance reasons) rather than going via the Web Service, any callout handling the "CreateSalesOrder" pre-stage or post-stage events would never be executed. This is shown below.
CRM 4.0 Synchronous Plug-in Architecture
In CRM 4.0 we have implemented an execution pipeline model based on the .NET Framework v2.0 runtime. Pre-stage and post-stage plug-in events are now called as part of the execution pipeline and not within the Web Service process. So now when you call the "ConvertQuoteToSalesOrder" method a new execution pipeling is created within the platform. Each time additional steps such as "CreateSalesOrder" are called, another execution pipeline is created. This causes the pre-stage and post-stage events to for this step to execute correctly regardless of origin (UI, Web Service, Platform, Workflow etc) . This is shown below:
My thanks go to Vlatko Mrsic and Akezyt Janedittakarn from the CRM product team for the use of their architecture diagrams.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Laughing Boy
Posted: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:49 AM by simonhu
Filed under: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Unified Event Model - The same event framework is used by both plug-ins and workflow.
Multi-Tennant Aware - Plug-ins are registered per tennant and not deployment-wide.
Improved Deployment - Plug-ins are registered using the SDK and the assemblies are stored in the database.
Offline Pluggin Support - The ability to run plug-ins whilst working offline in the Outlook Laptop Client.
Improved Performance - Support for both synchronous and asynchronous plug-ins.
Richer User Experience - Form data recovery on plug-in errors.
Better Developer Experience - Full execution context passed to the plug-in assembly
CRM 3.0 Callout Architecture
The callout model in CRM 3.0 was built on the .NET Framework v1.1 runtime and provided a fairly robust mechanism for running synchronous business logic written in C# or VB.NET. If you called the simple entity Create, Update or Delete methods then everything would work as expected (most of the time) and your callouts would be executed. However, if you called an entity-specific method then you might experienced some inconsistent behaviour.
For example, the "ConvertQuoteToSalesOrder" method causes the platform to execute a number of sub-steps including "CreateSalesOrder". However, because the platform performs these steps using an internal call (for performance reasons) rather than going via the Web Service, any callout handling the "CreateSalesOrder" pre-stage or post-stage events would never be executed. This is shown below.
CRM 4.0 Synchronous Plug-in Architecture
In CRM 4.0 we have implemented an execution pipeline model based on the .NET Framework v2.0 runtime. Pre-stage and post-stage plug-in events are now called as part of the execution pipeline and not within the Web Service process. So now when you call the "ConvertQuoteToSalesOrder" method a new execution pipeling is created within the platform. Each time additional steps such as "CreateSalesOrder" are called, another execution pipeline is created. This causes the pre-stage and post-stage events to for this step to execute correctly regardless of origin (UI, Web Service, Platform, Workflow etc) . This is shown below:
My thanks go to Vlatko Mrsic and Akezyt Janedittakarn from the CRM product team for the use of their architecture diagrams.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Laughing Boy
Posted: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:49 AM by simonhu
Filed under: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Philip Richardson - CRM LIVE API Post
Way back in July my friend and former Microsoft employee Alex Barnett posted a question on his widely read blog about the support for our APIs in Live. Since we were under NDA then I wasn't able to comment. I'm unsure of it's omission from the marketing messaging - that one is something for our marketing folks to comment on.
From Alex's Blog:
It's one thing to have on-premises software that can be extended and integrated with other software and services through SOAP APIs behind your firewall (Dynamics has a healthy story in this department today), but it is quite another (increasingly necessary) thing to provide APIs as part of a hosted SaaS service. I would have thought the provisioning of SaaS APIs would have been a central component of Microsoft's messaging today so am a little surprised by its omission.
Good News Alex! Live does have the full SOAP API found in the On-Premise product. We've done a lot of innovative work to have our SOAP web service API use Windows Live ID authentication. This isn't some dodgy 'admin token' service which some other services provide: it's the real deal - with authentication on a unique per user basis. We'll be talking more about the Live programming model over the next few months as we tell the Titan story in more detail.
From Alex's Blog:
It's one thing to have on-premises software that can be extended and integrated with other software and services through SOAP APIs behind your firewall (Dynamics has a healthy story in this department today), but it is quite another (increasingly necessary) thing to provide APIs as part of a hosted SaaS service. I would have thought the provisioning of SaaS APIs would have been a central component of Microsoft's messaging today so am a little surprised by its omission.
Good News Alex! Live does have the full SOAP API found in the On-Premise product. We've done a lot of innovative work to have our SOAP web service API use Windows Live ID authentication. This isn't some dodgy 'admin token' service which some other services provide: it's the real deal - with authentication on a unique per user basis. We'll be talking more about the Live programming model over the next few months as we tell the Titan story in more detail.
Philip Richardson - TITAN Web Import
Today's screencast is Web Import in Titan. In this example we see the 'happy path' where Titan is able automatically map the columns from the CSV. If it's unable to perform this map we have a cool little UI which maps the file and saves/shares the map for later use.
The Import is handled asynchronously - which is why I'm hitting refresh a lot near the end of the screencast. We place the data in a queue and then parse, transform and load it.
Link: Web Import Screencast
The feature is available On-Premise, Partner Hosted and in CRM Live. In fact it is safe to assume that most features are available in all three manifestations of the product. I say 'manifestations' as it is the same product: just three different ways to 'get' it.(I'm working on a bunch of screencasts to help our Global Readiness Tour (GRT) presenters. Since I'm not a marketing guy I just through this stuff together and see what sticks. That's why some of these will appear in a 'random' order. There is no plan here - just a stream of cool features).
The Import is handled asynchronously - which is why I'm hitting refresh a lot near the end of the screencast. We place the data in a queue and then parse, transform and load it.
Link: Web Import Screencast
The feature is available On-Premise, Partner Hosted and in CRM Live. In fact it is safe to assume that most features are available in all three manifestations of the product. I say 'manifestations' as it is the same product: just three different ways to 'get' it.(I'm working on a bunch of screencasts to help our Global Readiness Tour (GRT) presenters. Since I'm not a marketing guy I just through this stuff together and see what sticks. That's why some of these will appear in a 'random' order. There is no plan here - just a stream of cool features).
Philip Richardson - Titan: Duplicate Detection
Today's Titan feature is Duplicate Detection. In Titan we have the ability to alert a user of a possible duplicate on a form (which you will see in this screencast). You can also interact with Duplicate Detection when conducting bulk import, data migration and when programming with the SDK. Duplicates can be 'detected' across different entities. In this example I have duplicate detection rules set up across the Lead and Contact entities. You can also schedule Duplicate Detection to run over a set of entities (an Advanced Find Query or a View) on scheduled basis.
Screencast: Duplicate DetectionOverall a very cool feature - which will be a power addition to your data hygiene arsenal.
Screencast: Duplicate DetectionOverall a very cool feature - which will be a power addition to your data hygiene arsenal.
Philip Richardson - CRM TITAN Import/Export Customizations Post
CRM 3.0 had the ability to move customizations between different systems. Titan has some nice enhancements to this feature. You can now import/export much more stuff (eg. configuration settings, security roles, workflows etc) and we have used zip compression to make the files smaller. In addition - we did some work to make the import more reliable and we now offer 'less cryptic' error messages.
Import/Export customizations also underwent some major work behind the scenes to cater for lots of complex multi-lingual scenarios (eg. import customizations which were done in different languages).Screencast: Export Customizations
Import/Export customizations also underwent some major work behind the scenes to cater for lots of complex multi-lingual scenarios (eg. import customizations which were done in different languages).Screencast: Export Customizations
Philip Richardson - Preview and features of CRM 4.0
This guy is in the know so here is his post:
The time has finally come in the Titan project where we can talk more openly about the project. I joined the team shortly after the RTM of CRM 3.0 and I've incredibly proud of the work I've been privileged to participate in.
Titan is not just a solid CRM package it is also an extensible platform for customers and partners to build their own customer centric business systems.
Over the next few weeks I'll be publishing some screencasts of the cool new Titan features. Possible topics (in no particular order) might include:
Multi-tenant web services
Duplicate Detection
Windows Live ID Authentication with a SOAP web service
New relationship features
Workflow
Multi-Lingual User Interface (MUI)
Plugins/Assemblies in CRM 4.0
Windows Workflow Foundation Activities
The CRM Live 'experience'
The Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) 'experience'
Outlook Client enhancements
Task Management
Web Import
User Management
Multi-Currency
Metadata API
Lookup Auto Resolve
Translating the User Interface
The Resource Center
Mail Merge
Offline SDK
There are dozens more new features which also deserve consideration. Many older features are also worth re-examining as there are some interesting synergies with some of the new features (eg. Tasks + Workflow + Relationships all together make for some very cool process management).
The time has finally come in the Titan project where we can talk more openly about the project. I joined the team shortly after the RTM of CRM 3.0 and I've incredibly proud of the work I've been privileged to participate in.
Titan is not just a solid CRM package it is also an extensible platform for customers and partners to build their own customer centric business systems.
Over the next few weeks I'll be publishing some screencasts of the cool new Titan features. Possible topics (in no particular order) might include:
Multi-tenant web services
Duplicate Detection
Windows Live ID Authentication with a SOAP web service
New relationship features
Workflow
Multi-Lingual User Interface (MUI)
Plugins/Assemblies in CRM 4.0
Windows Workflow Foundation Activities
The CRM Live 'experience'
The Internet Facing Deployment (IFD) 'experience'
Outlook Client enhancements
Task Management
Web Import
User Management
Multi-Currency
Metadata API
Lookup Auto Resolve
Translating the User Interface
The Resource Center
Mail Merge
Offline SDK
There are dozens more new features which also deserve consideration. Many older features are also worth re-examining as there are some interesting synergies with some of the new features (eg. Tasks + Workflow + Relationships all together make for some very cool process management).
Menno - TITAN Workflows - "Freaky Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blog"
More CRM 4 news by A Freaky Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blog: Workflows are now available to end users, who no longer need access to the server in order to create, modify, and monitor them. Child workflows and workflow templates provide two ways for users to build upon existing workflow logic while they are creating new workflows.
Workflows now support many more record types. Also, they can now be triggered by the update and delete events, and a workflow can be triggered by more than one event. Dynamic values and conditionals are more useful. The new user interface for workflows includes the Form Assistant, a tool for specifying dynamic values. Dynamic values are also improved by the increased number of record relationships. So, there are more records and attributes available for inclusion in dynamic values. One of the other things that has changed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is that we now can apply and use stages on all workflow logic which makes it possible to define and monitor parts of a complex workflow. In CRM 3 we only could use staging on the opportunity level.
Philip Richardson - TITAN v4.0 Videos posted
These are awesome videos that you can easily view online and get a good feel for what the applicaiton looks like and feels like. Also you get to see some of the new features etc.
Philip Richardson has posted some nice Titan videos:
- Web Import in Titan
- Duplicate Detection
- Duplicate Detection
- Add Multiple Users
Philip Richardson has posted some nice Titan videos:
- Web Import in Titan
- Duplicate Detection
- Duplicate Detection
- Add Multiple Users
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Companies See Increased Productivity Through the Convergence of Enterprise Applications and Desktop Tools
MS CRM brings all the power of your server side business application, analytics, reporting and workflow right into the friendly, familiar user interface of Office and Outlook! I like to say that CRM is EMBEDDED in Outlook. Better than integrated.
Check out this validation on that strategy.
October 04, 2007: 01:24 PM EST
The integration of desktop tools with enterprise applications is a two-way street that brings personal productivity, which in turn translates to improved corporate productivity. Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company (NYSE: HHS), recently conducted a benchmark report titled "Two Worlds Converge: Enterprise Applications Meet the Desktop" and discovered that Best-in-Class (BIC) companies see a 20% increase in gross margin and 21.3% increase in revenue year-over-year, with a ratio of revenue growth to staff growth of 2.2. This compares with less than 1% increase in gross margin, 1.6% increase in revenue and a ratio of revenue to staff growth of .7 for Laggard organizations.
Driven by pressure to grow profitably with minimal investment in staff growth, Best-in-Class companies distinguish themselves as follows:
-- 100% of executives (C-Level and VPs) in Best-in-Class companies have direct access to data in enterprise applications
-- Best-in-Class companies are 3.6-times more likely than Laggards to be able to complete process flows without switching between applications (both desktop and enterprise)
-- Best-in-Class are 3-times more likely to coordinate business processes between departments with fully automated workflows
Converging enterprise applications -- like ERP -- and desktop tools such as those found in Microsoft's Office Suite make data needed for decision-making more easily accessible. This is most effective when enterprise applications become a natural extension of the desktop tool. Ultimately, from the end user's perspective, the goal is to improve personal productivity, in the hope that this will translate to corporate productivity. From the enterprise application vendor's point of view, it's about getting more workers in a company as ERP users. The convergence of these goals is synergistic.
"The key to wider adoption of enterprise applications throughout the enterprise is to make them easily accessible, intuitive to navigate and perhaps even transparent to the users that they are using applications such as ERP," says Cindy Jutras, Vice President and Group Director, Aberdeen Group. Jutras adds, "By providing easy access, easy analysis in a familiar setting, while keeping users captive within the secure ERP environment, we get the best of both worlds."
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Exact Software, Microsoft, and Tectura. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4316.
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company - Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market.
For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com/ or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com/.
© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Check out this validation on that strategy.
October 04, 2007: 01:24 PM EST
The integration of desktop tools with enterprise applications is a two-way street that brings personal productivity, which in turn translates to improved corporate productivity. Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company (NYSE: HHS), recently conducted a benchmark report titled "Two Worlds Converge: Enterprise Applications Meet the Desktop" and discovered that Best-in-Class (BIC) companies see a 20% increase in gross margin and 21.3% increase in revenue year-over-year, with a ratio of revenue growth to staff growth of 2.2. This compares with less than 1% increase in gross margin, 1.6% increase in revenue and a ratio of revenue to staff growth of .7 for Laggard organizations.
Driven by pressure to grow profitably with minimal investment in staff growth, Best-in-Class companies distinguish themselves as follows:
-- 100% of executives (C-Level and VPs) in Best-in-Class companies have direct access to data in enterprise applications
-- Best-in-Class companies are 3.6-times more likely than Laggards to be able to complete process flows without switching between applications (both desktop and enterprise)
-- Best-in-Class are 3-times more likely to coordinate business processes between departments with fully automated workflows
Converging enterprise applications -- like ERP -- and desktop tools such as those found in Microsoft's Office Suite make data needed for decision-making more easily accessible. This is most effective when enterprise applications become a natural extension of the desktop tool. Ultimately, from the end user's perspective, the goal is to improve personal productivity, in the hope that this will translate to corporate productivity. From the enterprise application vendor's point of view, it's about getting more workers in a company as ERP users. The convergence of these goals is synergistic.
"The key to wider adoption of enterprise applications throughout the enterprise is to make them easily accessible, intuitive to navigate and perhaps even transparent to the users that they are using applications such as ERP," says Cindy Jutras, Vice President and Group Director, Aberdeen Group. Jutras adds, "By providing easy access, easy analysis in a familiar setting, while keeping users captive within the secure ERP environment, we get the best of both worlds."
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Exact Software, Microsoft, and Tectura. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4316.
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company - Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market.
For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com/ or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com/.
© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Monday, October 1, 2007
The CRM 4.0 NDA has expired
We have been in the Early preview and beta test group for MS CRM 4.0/TITAN for quite some time now. Since about February or March. We were also in the Beta test partner group for 3.0. It provides a wealth of information and advanced planning.
It helps us to architect our client systems to not waste time and money on features they might already have in the next version.
We are not allowed to release too much info while under the NDA. Now that is passed and we are going to compile all the great info out there and try to provide as much as possible for our readers. We are also actively using the CRM 4.0 beta code and now the CRM LIVE Beta testing sites. CRM LIVE is really cool.
We will be passing on our findings and thoughts and pinings to this blog too. You will see a lot of info in the coming weeks and months.
Regards,
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
It helps us to architect our client systems to not waste time and money on features they might already have in the next version.
We are not allowed to release too much info while under the NDA. Now that is passed and we are going to compile all the great info out there and try to provide as much as possible for our readers. We are also actively using the CRM 4.0 beta code and now the CRM LIVE Beta testing sites. CRM LIVE is really cool.
We will be passing on our findings and thoughts and pinings to this blog too. You will see a lot of info in the coming weeks and months.
Regards,
Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/
Guy Riddle - TITAN NDA lifted
THis guy knows a ton about CRM and posts very frequently. Great info. Here is a good feature overview of some of the functional and feature enhancements to MS CRM v4.0 vs CRM 3.0.
For those of us who have been lucky enough to be working with TITAN for some time now we can finally share some of the great features now that the NDA has been lifted.
Core features include:
Multi-Tenancy
Muli-Lingual User Interface (MUI packs will be available to download and install)
Multi-Currency
Workflow now integrated into the browser utilising Windows Workflow Foundation Activities
Duplicate Record Detection
Report Wizard
New 'Relationship' capabilities for Entities
Web Import (including custom entities) - including the ability to import data that 'updates' existing records
Improved Mail Merge including merge to Word from the browser
Ability to display attributes from a related entity in a view
Offline SDK for the Outlook Client
A Resource Center
and lots of performance improvements........
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)