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Adventures with the new CRM customer portal accelerator

July 12, 2010

I have spent some time in the last 2 weeks evaluating the customer portal accelerator that was announced at Convergence 2010. In short - It rocks!

 

A portal allows us to selectively publish access to specific parts of our CRM database for access by customers & partners. The latest

Customer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

provides out-of-the-box support for customer case access, knowledgebase access, and an event calendar.

An arrangement between Adxstudio and Microsoft has moved Dynamics CRM portal technology to a new level. A portal allows us to selectively publish access to specific parts of our CRM database for access by customers & partners. While the original release of the portal accelerators left something to be desired, this new implementation opens the door for a whole next level of functionality, not the least of which is website content management hosted within your CRM.

The accelerator can be implemented in connection with on-premise, partner hosted,and CRM Online. This is a major step forward in allowing developers the flexibility in supporting any environment.

The Dynamics CRM side of customer eService & event portions of the accelerator have the same functionality as they did in the initial release, no real enhancements have been added there. They are a great place to start, but will require enhancement to the basic functions included.

The good news is that that enhancement is much easier in the new structure supported by the new SDK enhancements announced about the same time as the portal releases.

Web site content management (CMS) was the unexpected bonus. We moved our web site to a CMS based system several years ago, but have been dealing with the issues of keeping the web site in sync with our CRM implementation. Since the website is one of our major marketing investments, we need to measure the success, capture information from web forms and provide access to this information within CRM.

For the first time, we can now integrate our CRM and web content and manage it using the same platform. My next blog will discuss the initial installation of the Customer Portal accelerator.

Here is a quick screen shot of a test implementation of the portal following the installation instructions and doing a little styling work on the CSS. 

Looks a lot like our website, doesn’t it? We are pretty excited about the possibilities for our training session calendar. More on that later.

 

Stephen V. Noe, MCITP-CRMx2, MCT

Summer Dynamics CRM Boot camp is now guaranteed to run

July 01, 2010

Our summer CRM 4.0 Boot camp even is now in 'guaranteed to run' status.

It will be held in Raleigh, NC from Aug 2-12.  I will be instructing the first week, and Mitch will be teaching the second week.

 

Track 1 – Certification/Competency   Mon Aug 2nd – Sat Aug 7

 
• 8913 CRM 4.0 Applications
 
• 8911 CRM 4.0 Install / Deploy
 
• 8912 CRM 4.0 Configure/Customize

Track 2 – Developer                       Fri Aug 6 – Thursday Aug 12

 
• 8912 CRM 4.0 Configure/Customize
   
 
• 80003 CRM 4.0 Workflow (hard to find!)
   
 
• 8969 CRM 4.0 Extending (.net developer class)
   

For more information,

 
• CRM Class information 
 
• Register or request a quote
 
• call 919-459-5801    
  

Remember, CRM consulting & training is all we do. Drop us a line, we would love to hear from you.

Steve Noe CRM MCT  

CRM 4.0 Rollup 11 has corrupt download- fixed as of 6/28/2010

June 24, 2010

It appears that the rollup 11 download for the CRM client is a corrupted archive.

Just a heads up, I’ve been trying to download rollup 11 for CRM 4.0 in order to update my Outlook client to rollup 11 and support office 2010. Repeated attempts to download and extract the file have resulted in a file is corrupt message on the archive. It appears that directory webconfigmanagertool files have been corrupted and will not extract.

I’ve encountered this problem using Windows 7 enterprise 64-bit and Windows 7 enterprise 32 bit PCs.

I have posted a question on the support groups and waiting on an answer to this issue. I’ll post more when I have it.

Stephen V Noe, CRM-MCT

NOTE: As of 6-28-2010, I was finally able to download the file and install it successfully. Let me know if you have any issues.

Summer CRM training camp in Raleigh

June 16, 2010

We will hold a summer CRM bootcamp in Raleigh from August 2-12, offering all of the standard CRM classes plus developer level classes and the workflow class in the second week. For more information, Syllabus and overview of classes or registration information.

Hope you can join us.

Here are some pictures from the last event in May. This event was taught using three different instructors. Everyone had a blast!

 

Steve Noe, CRM MCT

Updated SDK for CRM 4.0 is now available for download

May 10, 2010

Microsoft has just released the latest SDK for CRM 4.0 with lots of productivity enhancements.

This is one of the announcements made at Convergence 2010

that will help energize some of the new CRM accelerators that are also coming out over the next week or two. Here’s the link to the new SDK:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82e632a7-faf9-41e0-8ec1-a2662aae9dfb&displaylang=en

This release includes the new Advanced Developer Extensions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, also referred to as Microsoft xRM. This is a new set of tools included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK that simplifies the development of Internet-enabled applications that interact with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Stephen V. Noe, MCT

CRM 4.0 May 17-27 Boot Camp now in “Guaranteed to run” status

April 16, 2010

It was a tough call to move the boot camp which we had planned to run in Denver, back to Raleigh, but it turned out to be the right decision. As of today all five classes are in guaranteed to run status.

East Coast enrollments have been gratifying and we’re looking forward to a great event.  We have a new classroom center five minutes from Raleigh-Durham international Airport near hotels and shopping. It’s shaping up to be a fun event, with three different instructors providing different perspectives and real-life examples. We’re also including our exam preparation guides for three of the courses.

We will be teaching the full range of classes including 8913: applications, 8911: Install / Deploy, 8913: Configure and Customize, 80003: workflows, and our CRM MVP Mitch Milam will be teaching the 8969 extending class for developers.

We still have some seats open, so if you’re interested please give us a call.

Stephen Noe, CRM MCT

CRM 4.0 Rollup 10 available for download

April 14, 2010

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 10 is now available for download.

Download it here Read about it here

May 2010 CRM 4.0 Boot camp moving to Raleigh

April 07, 2010

Since the majority of interest in our upcoming May 17-27 CRM boot camp has been from the East Coast, we are relocating to the camp to our training locations in Raleigh North Carolina.

 

If you’re looking for CRM training, we’re now booking seats now for the East Coast venue. This boot camp is taught live and will include the difficult to find 80003 CRM 4.0 workflow class and the 8969 CRM 4.0 extending class in addition to the standard 8911, 8912, 8913 CRM 4.0 classes.

For more information, click here.

CRM 4.0 Outlook Client Mail Merge (mis)behaves like Web Client merge

April 06, 2010

I use the Outlook client in the mail merge function to generate quotes as you may have noticed in earlier blog posts. Every now and again, I run into a problem where the mail merge acts as if it was not invoked from within Outlook but acts more like you had invoked the mail merge from the Web client.

 

This requires that you go click the macro add-in button for CRM before it will process the mail merge and more importantly, it does not give you the options to reload it back into CRM.

Since I had to generate a number of quotes today, this was a bit more annoying than usual. I spent a while searching today for blog article on this and found nothing. After digging for a while I decided to use the diagnostics tool, which showed errors that said add-ins had been disabled for use in Outlook and Excel. Repairing the errors solved the problem. So if your Outlook mail merges start misbehaving, and give you a screen that looks like this:

followed by this:

just run the CRM diagnostics and tell it to fix all errors. By the way, this is exactly how mail merges look if you invoke them strictly from the Web client.

I hope this saves you a few moments.

 

Steve Noe, CRM-MCT

Using workflow to automatically set complex default values in Dynamics CRM 4.0

March 29, 2010

We also have customers who need to have complex default values set for attributes (data fields) that are based upon complex relationships with other attributes in the same or other entities related to the entity at hand. While it's possible to handle this with scripts in the form and through.net callouts,

I thought I’d present a simple way that is easy for nonprogrammers to maintain. We also use this as a precursor to writing a plug-in if it evolves into something that would work better as a plug.

The basic concept is to create a workflow which is triggered automatically on the creation of a record in a particular entity. This workflow can have a number of steps that are designed to review the values of the new record, and to update any missing values automatically before ending or calling another workflow.

I like to use a naming convention that identifies the entity followed by a triple zero such as the example workflow for this article: TS:000: Data defaults & Init. This workflow is currently part of our Advanced Training Operations Management (ATOM) XRM product and will later be placed in the plug-in once all the specs are finalized.

To create a workflow and publish it, you take advantage of the "Options for Automatic Workflow" in the workflow properties. This solution assumes that the publisher of the workflow has the appropriate rights to the entity that needs to be updated.

as you can see on the form, we have set the scope to “Organization”, and checked the "Record Is Created" box on the form. This causes the workflow to be automatically started for each new record is created on the system. You can also kick off similar workflows when a record changes as the automatic options are very powerful in CRM 4.0.

Next, you build up a workflow statements to do the appropriate tests and update the entity record as required. While it’s not the most efficient thing in the world, it gets the job done either for prototyping or live systems.  The main advantage is that it does not require any .net or Jscript programming and is easy for customers to modify. Here’s an example of a logic we use for the workflow displayed earlier in this article.

I hope this gives you some ideas of things you can do with these workflows.

Have a great week!

Stephen V. Noe, CRM MCT

CRM 4.0 Workflow tip

March 24, 2010

I read this content from Mitch Milam's blog today and thought I would share it with you! Mitch is a master at workflows and was even one of the SMEs for the 80003 Workflows in Dynamics CRM 4.0 courseware.

 

I see a lot of problems related to data issues in workflows because the authors of the workflows forget to do data validation checks and prevent things from happening when there’s not data to support it.

http://blogs.infinite-x.net/2010/03/24/more-processing-activities-using-workflow-and-queues/

Thanks Mitch!

CRM 4.0 Data Import Error prevents submitting import job

March 09, 2010

I ran into an interesting error this morning that I thought I would share. I was attempting to import a CSV file called “Area code to Time zone & State List.csv” into a custom entity in CRM 4.0 when I got the following message: “An error has occurred”.

I ran into an interesting error this morning that I thought I would share. I was attempting to import a CSV file called “Area code to Time zone & State List.csv” into a custom entity in CRM 4.0 when I got the following message: “An error has occurred”. As usual, one of those very ‘helpful’ messages from Microsoft that makes it impossible to figure out what the problem really is.

It turns out that the real problem was that the import file had an ‘&’ as part of the filename. Once I change the file name to eliminate the ‘&’, the import ran fine.

Stephen V. Noe, CRM MCT

Join us for a CRM Bootcamp in Denver, CO – May 17 to 27, 2010

February 13, 2010

Our first spring CRM boot camp in Denver Colorado is offered in conjunction with Sunset Learning Institute. Come join in the fun...

I just got a commitment from Sunset Learning Institute in Denver Colorado to host our May 2010 CRM boot camp. The event will run May 17, 2010 through May 27, 2010. As usual, we will be offering the full spread of Microsoft Dynamics CRM courseware. This will be the first time that we have an event in the Denver area, but we look forward to working with sunset learning to make this another great event. To register or get more information, click here.

Our February CRM boot camp starts on Monday in Tampa FL at the Tampa Bay New Horizons Learning Center. One of our guys, Chris Ellis, has been working hard to create exam preparation guides for the three most popular exams: MB2-631, MB2-632, and MB2-633. These new guides should streamline the exam preparation process for all of our students in the boot camp.

We still have some seats open in the 80003 Workflow class and the 8969 Extending CRM 4.0 class if you’re interested, but move quickly. For more information on that, click here. This is that our second annual Tampa Winter Boot Camp, and is nearly full to capacity. We are really excited about the success for our second year. I’ll be sure to have pictures and comments from the students in a future blog. Tim, Mitch, and I are very excited and looking forward to the next two weeks.

Have a great week!

Stephen V. Noe, CRM MCT

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 9 is available for download

February 12, 2010

The latest rollup from Microsoft is now available for download

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5869f2b3-d1a0-4f71-8be3-fde6e8053a2e&displayLang=en

I will be applying it over the weekend and will post if we see any issues.

 

Stephen V Noe, CRM MCT

Improve CRM 4.0 user productivity with Outlook favorites

February 11, 2010

One of my favorite productivity tips is to use Microsoft Outlook favorites folders in the mail panel to make it easier to access all the different functions you use in Dynamics CRM.

When Dynamics CRM 4.0 was released, Microsoft had changed the way that the Outlook add-in worked which caused problems with this technique.

As of Dynamics CRM 4.0 rollup 7, this has been repaired. So be sure to install the most current rollup of CRM before you do this.

Here’s an example of my Outlook mail folder. Notice the number of lines that end with "in Dynamics CRM". These are favorites, or shortcuts to the folders that you’re used to seeing lower in your mail folders as part of the "Microsoft Dynamics CRM" folder.

By creating a set of shortcuts for all of the folders that you use frequently in CRM and strategically placing them in the mail favorites folder you can make it very easy to find everything that you use everyday as well as to remind new users to check these CRM folders regularly.

I wear a lot of hats at Business IT Professionals, Inc., so I have to use a lot of different CRM folders. Notice that I have CRM queues above my inbox while activities and opportunities, etc. are immediately below. This is because the queues contain the new stuff that is not in my inbox yet and I want to remind myself to check the queues more often.

At the bottom of the favorites you’ll notice I’ve set up companies (which are actually CRM accounts), contacts and leads. That’s because I need to look up records in these folders quite frequently.

The shortcuts make my life a lot easier and help with my productivity. I am so glad they are back in CRM 4.0!!

To add a favorite, navigate to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM folder in your mail folders:

 

right-click the CRM folder you want to create a favorite for,

then select the "Add to Favorites Folder" from the pop-up menu or just press the letter "T". This will cause the shortcut to be added to the bottom of the favorites folder,

 

so you can then drag and drop it in the exact position you want.

Simple. Elegant. Very productive! now you can work all day in CRM and never have to go looking for the folders you need in CRM.

I hope that helps your productivity like it does mine. Have a great day!

Stephen V. Noe, CRM MCT

Configuring CRM 4.0 R8 On-Premise E-Mail Router with Exchange Online / BPOS

January 27, 2010

If you need to configure the CRM 4.0 on-premise e-mail router at rollup 8 to work with Exchange Online or BPOS, you will need to use a pop3 and SMTP configuration for your CRM e-mail router until Microsoft releases an update that supports BPOS from directly within the router. Here’s how…

Over the last week I’ve discovered that you can configure the router  different ways to work with BPOS. Of course you don’t have to use the router at all, if you configure all your users to use Outlook for sending and receiving all CRM Mail. But if you want the automated capabilities of the router can provide, here’s the choices today:

 
• Configure 2 E-Mail router configuration profiles for each user to directly connect to their BPOS mailbox using POP3 & SMTP. This approach is the simplest but will require more maintenance each time you add or remove users.
   
 
• Use a CRM forwarding mailbox on BPOS to minimize the number of POP3 accounts. This configuration requires a single BPOS POP3 connection for the CRM mailbox and manual forwarding rules in each user’s BPOS mailbox. You use mailbox forwarding rules like you would on in-house exchange server to forward all user e-mails to the CRM mailbox for processing. The mailbox rules have to be set up manually, but you don’t need to ask BPOS support for help on it.
   
 
• To reduce the number of outbound SMTP connections, you can set up a configuration for an administrative email account which has the permissions to “send as" any user in Outlook.
   

BPOS does not configure a POP3 mailbox automatically, you must file a support request with a list of the accounts you need POP3 access to. Be aware that the request for POP3 support can take several days to a week for the Microsoft exchange online team to execute. Plan accordingly.

Once our POP3 access was enabled, we decided to use a single CRM mailbox account with POP3 support and to grant complete "send as" authority to an administrator for processing all outbound e-mail not handled via Outlook.

POP3 configuration

the incoming E-Mail Router Configuration Profile for the CRM mailbox. Notice that for access credentials we have chosen "other specified" and put in the password for the CRM mailbox BPOS account.

Next,the Microsoft CRM Dynamics deployment contains the default inbound and outbounde-mail router configuration profiles for the deployment.

Under “Users, Queues, and Forward Mailboxes ", on the forward mailboxes tab,

we can update the information about the forwarding mailbox with the incoming configuration profile that we set up earlier. Note that the e-mail address of the because accountis entered here and must match with the password of the incoming configuration profile.

SMTP Configuration

Next we create the outbound SMTP e-mail router configuration profile for the administrative account. This can be set up for just a single administrative account with "send as" rights in BPOS or you can create one for each user that needs the ability of the router sending e-mail for them.

Now that you created the SMTP router configuration profile, you can associate it with any outgoing configuration profile for user or queue provided that it has "send as" rights. In this example, we use a single administrative account for the outgoing profile for all users. The same example is using the forwarding mailbox for all incoming profile configurations.

Remember, if you use the forwarding mailbox you will need to create manual mailbox rules that will forward to the CRM mailbox.  I show you how to do that here.

The other trick is to grant "send as" permissions to the CRM administrative mailbox .  You accomplish that by downloading the BPOS migration toolkit and running the Migration Command Shell from the kit.

To authorize admin to send mail for steve, use the following syntax:

Add-MSOnlineMailPermission -Identity .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) -TrustedUser .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) -GrantSendAs $True -Credential (Get-Credential) –Verbose

To revoke permission, use this syntax:

Remove-MSOnlineMailPermission -Identity .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) -TrustedUser .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) -RemoveSendAs $True -Credential (Get-Credential) -Verbose

That’s how I did it, I hope it gives you some good ideas. Have a great day!

Stephen Noe, MCT

CRM 4.0 E-Mail Router manual forwarding Rule Setup in Outlook.

January 27, 2010

If you use the CRM 4.0 e-mail router with the forwarding mailbox, you have to deploy forwarding rules to the mailbox of every CRM user. While the rule deployment wizard that comes with the e-mail router is great for on premise exchange environments, sometimes you have to set up a manual forwarding rule. Specifically, you need to create a mailbox rule that will forward all of the e-mail that you want processed by CRM as an attachment to the CRM mailbox. Here's how a user can do this from within Outlook.

To set up a manual forwarding rule in Outlook, first click on "tools", then "rules and alerts"

on the rules and alerts form, click on "New Rule"

in the "start from a blank rule" section, choose "check messages when they arrive"

under step one conditions you can either leave all boxes blank or select "where my name is in the To or CC box" to reduce forwarded traffic. Click "next".

On the “actions” form, click "forward it to people or distribution list as an attachment" and in the step two box click on "people or distribution list".

Choose the CRM forwarding mailbox from the list on the rule address form, and click OK to select the proper account. When you return to the rules Wizard form, you should see the e-mail account for the forwarding mailbox in the step two box. If this is correct, click finish.

Your rule has now been created.

Hope this helps!

Stephen Noe, MCT

1 to 1 Relationships in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

December 19, 2009

In this blog I create an example of the 1 to 1 relationship between the Facilities and Equipment system entity and the Contact system entity.

One thing I’ve always wanted in Microsoft Dynamics CRM was the ability to create a one-to-one relationship between entities. According to the 8912 Customization in CRM 4.0 courseware, this is not supported. Keep in mind however, that many to many relationships were not supported in CRM 3.0, but we created them back then using a custom intersect entity and two or more 1 to M relationships.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and it seems to me that you can create a one-to-one relationship using an interlocking pair of one to many relationships and two workflows to automate the link maintenance.

In this example, I wanted the ability to display outside contractors in the CRM service calendar while allowing CRM supported e-mail capabilities to communicate their task assignments. While CRM entities can support additional e-mail fields, I haven’t found an easy way to send e-mail to any e-mail attribute in CRM other than to  Users, Leads, Contacts, and Accounts (or UCLA coined by Janice Hunt, one of the participants in the December CRM bootcamp in Cary, NC).

We start off by creating a one to many relationship with Contact as the primary entity and Facility / Equipment as the related entity. Note that we do not display the unused ‘many’ side of the relationship by selecting “Do not display” for the Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity section of the General Tab on BOTH relationships. I did this to hide both ‘Many’ sides of the new relationships (the Associated Records list) from the user to avoid confusion.

Figure 1

Next,we create the reverse relationship with facility/equipment as the primary entity and contact as a related entity. Again, we do not display the unused ‘many’ side of the relationship by selecting “Do not display” for the Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity section of the General Tab on BOTH relationships to hide the associated records list from confusing the user.

Figure 2

This creates the relationship structure, but we need to tie up some loose ends with two workflows. To make the example work, each entity must point to the other as the primary entity.

So we create a workflow associated with the equipment entity with automatic options: scope—business unit, start when record is created and when record attributes change.

Figure 3

We select contractor as the only attribute that the workflow will monitor for changes, then click OK.

Figure 4

the first line of code is a check condition to see if there is a Contractor link to be maintained,

Figure 5

then to verify if it needs to be updated.

Figure 5B

If so, we need to update the contractor attribute of the contact entity to point back to this record, completing our one-to-one linkage.

Figure 6

When we publish this workflow, every time a new equipment record is created or the contractor attribute is changed, the resulting contact will also have its contractor attribute updated to point at the current equipment record.

To finish everything off and make the contractor relationship bi-directional, we need to create a second workflow associated with the Contact entity to  maintain the contractor relationship whenever it’s changed. Unfortunately however, when I went to do that I found that the equipment entity does not appear in the list of related entities. I republish both entities, only to find that the problem persists. When I tested this with a custom test entity and the contact entity, I found that the updates were possible on both sides which confirms that this may be a CRM imposed limitation related to the Equipment entity.

Figure 7

In this particular case, this leaves us with a semi-functional one-to-one relationship that only works properly when you maintain the link from the equipment form.  We will not expose the contractor relationship on the contact form, forcing all relationship changes to happen from the equipment record. Custom entities will not have this problem.

Now, workflow associated with either entity will support dynamic value access to to the opposing 1 to 1 entity attributes.

Figure 8

You also be able to access the opposing 1 to 1 entity attributes using advanced finds and system views.

The functional benefit of a one-to-one relationship is that you have more control which fields you can update and utilize from workflow processes, advanced find, and public views in Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Feel free to make any comments, suggestions or otherwise. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all!!

Steve Noe, MCT

Dynamics CRM February Bootcamp in Sunny Tampa Bay

December 18, 2009

Once again, it's time for our winter CRM boot camp in beautiful Tampa Bay Florida.

Once again, it’s time for our winter CRM boot camp in beautiful Tampa Bay Florida. We will be offering all of the CRM classes that you’re looking for in a great setting for more information, check it out here.

Our December CRM training camp in Cary North Carolina was a success. I am already hearing reports that they are passing certification exams even though training just ended on Monday.

While the boot camp format can be grueling for instructor and student alike, it’s the fastest way to get "fire-hosed" with all the information you need to certify or to just build skills for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Come and stay for a week to learn the CRM applications, installation, and customization; then stay over till Monday for the workflow class. You get Sunday off to enjoy the beautiful Tampa - St. Petersburg area, before starting the workflow class on Monday.

I hope we see you there!

Steve Noe, MCT

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 8 Available for download

December 18, 2009

Microsoft has released update rollup eight for CRM 4.0. According to Matt Wittemann in his blog, R7 provides support for 2010 and according to the CRM Lady additional support for Office 2010. Download it here. More info is available here.

 

 

Reading the support article ID 975995 and the CRM team blog announcement, I noted the following:

 
• CRM 4.0 rollup 7 is a prerequisite for Client 7and data migration packages
 
• 7 named fixes included
 
• Affects cascading rules, read more here
 
• Provides support for Exchange 2010, but not for the Rule Deployment Wizard yet

 

After reading the included documentation, it appears that this rollup builds on rollup 7 which we have been running since it was announced. Rollup seven was a major update of the CRM client for Outlook, and repaired issues such as connectivity and the loss of Outlook favorites pointing to CRM folders. If you’re not running rollup 7, I  recommend that you go ahead and install it.

The CRM team continues to build rollups on an aggressive schedule. Good good job guys, keep up the good work! 

CRM 4.0 Training in December

October 31, 2009

We have just announced the dates for our December boot camp in Raleigh. There’s also a price reduction on most of the classes to make it easier for you to afford. The camp will be taught live from December 7 through December 17, carefully situated between Thanksgiving and Christmas in beautiful Cary North Carolina. The local airport is Raleigh-Durham International (RDU)

The Dynamics CRM competency and certification boot camp is December 7 - 12, 2009 and includes all three classes needed for partner certification for the CRM competency. 8913: Applications in Dynamics CRM 4.0, 8911: Installation and Deployment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, and 8912: Customization and Configuration in CRM 4.0

The Dynamics CRM developers boot camp is December 11 - 17, 2009 and includes 8912: customization and configuration, 80003: workflows, and 8969: extending CRM 4.0 with Jscript and .Net.

For more information, check out our training page.

Remember, our training is presented by certified CRM MCT’s who work  as CRM consultants implementing real life business CRM an XRM deployments everyday. This will be a high energy event!

I hope you can join us.

Steve Noe, CRM MCT

Handling ‘leads’ from your web site in Dynamics CRM

October 31, 2009

A different approach to processing responses from your website with Microsoft dynamics CRM.

Over the years in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0, I’ve seen a number of ways that people handle the processing of leads. Typically, website inquiries are imported into the leads entity of CRM. This can cause a number of problems. First of all, if this is an existing customer or someone we know which is registering for one of our free website offers, we created a duplicate lead which we must now deal with to prevent duplicate data in our leads entity. This also can confuse reporting and skew our numbers.

When I started working with the Dynamics CRM event accelerator, I noticed the use of the campaign response activity to collect information about registrants for the event. In the accelerator, the campaign response activity has been modified to include additional information such as address which would typically have been populated into a lead. This got me to thinking. Would it make more sense to use a campaign response to collect information from the website before processing it in the appropriate places in CRM?

One of the unique characteristics of the campaign response entity is that it can be linked to a lead, a contact, or an entity, tied to a campaign or quick campaign and be linked to an activity. This is the only entity in CRM that can do that.

If you add address and any other information that you request on your website form to the campaign response entity and form, you have an ideal entity for processing responses from your website, which is actually a CRM campaign or campaigns.

 

Consider the following scenario:

 
• Either your website or each offer on your website is defined as a campaign in Microsoft CRM.
 
• All the information on your website request form is transmitted or imported to CRM as a campaign response linked to the appropriate campaign.
 
• An automated workflow is executed as each new campaign response is created. The workflow performs the following steps:
   
• check using the e-mail address from the form to see if this e-mail address is in account, contact or lead. Note: this step will require a.net plug-in.
   
• If the e-mail address exists, set the campaign response customer field equal to the appropriate existing record.
     
• Otherwise, create a new lead from the information the campaign response and set a customer field equal to the newly created record.
   
   
• Send an e-mail acknowledgment to the requester to let them know that you are processing the request. (Instant gratification is important!)
   
• If the request can be handled by an automated e-mail or process, take care of it. Otherwise create task for the appropriate person.
   
• Close the campaign response.
 

This is a  simplified overview, but I think it’s really important to recognize that at this point you can begin a nurture marketing process which can apply equally to a lead, a contact or account by triggering the workflows off of the campaign response. Since nurture marketing processes can take an awful lot of work to do without programming in CRM, being able to use the same nurture process for any type of entity can make your life easier.

Customized Campaign Response from Event Accelerator

Have a great weekend! 
Steve Noe

CRM 4.0 Rollup 7 has major fixes for the Outlook Client!

October 22, 2009

CRM 4.0 rollup 7 is available now & appears to have major fixes for the Outlook Client.

I have just installed it and will add more later, but initial results seem promising for some of the issues facing laptop users like suspend and sleep, entering and leaving the network, etc.! The updated client automatically goes offline when you leave the network and goes back online when it can find the server.

I am praying it will also solve my pet peeve of loosing the CRM Outlook favorites every time you disconnected unexpectedly.

Download it here.

 

Steve Noe

Cool Video we should all keep in mind

September 29, 2009

The Sony Corporation played this mind-boggling video at their executive Conference this year.

Check this out. It gave me a lot to think about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Steve

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 6 now available for download

August 31, 2009

Find it here: Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Dynamics CRM Customization and Workflow class week of Sept 1

August 18, 2009

Dynamics CRM 4.0 classes 8912 and 80003 in Raleigh the first week of September...

 

Due to local demand, will be offering the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Configuration and Customization class (8912) and the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Workflow class (80003) the week of September 1-4, 2009.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Configuration and Customization 8913 will be offered September 1, Tuesday through September 3, Wednesday. Class hours will be from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Workflow class 80003, will be offered on September 4 from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Contact us for more information and prices or you can enroll here.

We still have seats open if you can make it.

Steve Noe

Windows 7 Enterprise RTM Activation Fails

August 17, 2009

How to activate Windows 7 Enterprise RTM when you get the error "DNS does not exist" message during activation.

Last week I upgraded from Vista 64 Windows 7 enterprise 64-bit. While I had a few problems with drivers from HP, it was a pretty painless upgrade. This morning I noticed that activation was failing.

I went out on the web and found a very simple solution to the problem posted by Clayton Cobb.

Basically, all you have to do is to reenter your product key after clicking the link at the bottom of the system page: Control PanelSystem and SecuritySystem.  Windows 7 has a link at the bottom of the page to change the product key.

 

I have been running Windows 7 enterprise 64 for several days now. I like the interface a lot.  As a matter of fact, I liked it so much I was willing to do a fresh install of Windows 7 enterprise on my ThinkPad T60 which was running XP SP 3.  This meant I had top do a fresh Windows 7 install on it.   I’ve also been running Microsoft dynamics CRM 4.0 demo VPC’s using the new virtual PC Beta release.  So far so good.

I have not run into any problems related to CRM 4.0 so far. 
 
Hope this helps

Steve Noe

Processing new "leads" in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

August 03, 2009

Preserve the chain that points to your marketing and sales results....

One of the benefits of evaluating the CRM accelerators from Microsoft is that you to see different points of view on how to use CRM to best effect. I was working with the events accelerator and noticed the way that the Accelerator processes enrollment requests using the campaign response.

We have previously used the lead entity for processing responses from our website. This caused problems when we got requests on our website from someone who was already in the database. Furthermore, if you don’t create campaign response or have a workflow that will automatically create one for each new lead, you won’t get valid reports out of the marketing module in CRM.  While not immediately obvious, the campaign response is the first link in the sales and marketing chain in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

When looking at the event accelerator, it became very clear that website requests could be imported as a campaign response rather than a lead from a Microsoft Dynamics CRM perspective. A campaign response is a CRM activity and can be imported, created manually or created using workflows.

A campaign response can be converted into a lead, can cause a leak to be converted to a customer, or can be used to create an opportunity, quote, or order. With a few customizations, the campaign response can be customized to include any data that you might need such as address information (see the event accelerator for more ideas).

Benefits

Fewer false leads Creating campaign responses instead of leads will minimize the number of duplicate leads in your CRM database. This will reduce costs for marketing to and maintaining your database. Better reporting Campaign responses are key to marketing campaign reporting because the queries use Campaign Responses to build links. Resulting lead, opportunity, quote, and orders that you convert campaign response to, will include the parent campaign from the campaign response.  This helps to protect the links in the chain needed to analyze results. Since the money we spend on marketing is not insignificant, it’s pretty important that we be able to analyze marketing & sales results.   

(Campaign Response –> Lead –> Customer –> Opportunity, Quote –> Order) 
(Campaign Response –> Opportunity, Quote –> Order)   
(Campaign Response –> Quote –> Order)  
(Campaign Response  –> Order)

Campaign Response Processing Flow

 
1. Inquiries from your website and other sources should be entered into CRM as campaign responses (CRs). Campaign responses are created several ways.
      
   • CRs are automatically created in response to e-mails which are replies to any campaign activities distributed as e-mails.
        
        
   • CRs can be imported
        
        
   • CRs can be manually created  from your activity list or from within any activity enabled entity in CRM such as a lead,  account, or contact.
        
        
   • CR workflows and callouts can  be used to automate much of the process
        
      
    
 
2. Check your CRM database to see if this campaign response is from an existing entry in your database. This step is critical, because CRM workflows will not be able to send an e-mail to a campaign response, but can send an e-mail to the lead or customer associated with the campaign response.
      
   • If the campaign response is from a lead for customer already in your CRM database, that leader customer should be updated in the "customer" Lookup field in the campaign response.
        
        
   • If not, a new lead should be created from the information in the campaign response and linked to the campaign response.
        
      
    
 
3. The response can now be processed using automated workflows which can be flexible enough to handle leads, accounts, and contacts. At this point, you can continue processing with the campaign response and or kick off processing for the resulting / related lead, contact or company.
    

Please let me know how you are using campaign responses in your CRM environment.

 

Steve Noe, CRM Consultant & MCT

MS Dynamics CRM 4.0 Mobile Express – First Look

July 14, 2009

FIrst look at Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile Express

We took a look at Microsoft dynamics CRM 4.0 Mobile Express today. If you haven’t heard, CRM 4.0 mobile express is a free download that became available on July 8, 2009. (Get it here). I was on vacation at the time, but my Twitter and blog feeds alerted me that I needed to check this out as soon as I got back. I’ve been waiting for this release with bated breath, hoping it might provide access to more CRM information on my Samsung Omnia Windows Mobile device.

It was a fairly straightforward process, we first installed rollup 5 for CRM, and then installed Mobile Express. Our test environment was already set up for Internet facing deployment (IFD), so we didn’t have to worry about that. The installation documentation had only one typo and is a very short read so it’s worth the time to read it.  I also suggest you take a look at the readme document, as it documents a couple of gotchas that will affect some sites.

After a server reboot, we were ready to start customizing by choosing the customized mobile express option on the customization section of the settings area in CRM.

 

Out-of-the-box, no entities are selected for display in mobile express, so you need to choose which entities will be displayed on the screen. From the documentation, it’s hard to tell if you will be allowed to expose custom entities, but you are provided a list of all entities (custom and system) and select which entities are enabled for display. The entities you select (and published) will be sequenced alphabetically by name. We recommend that you don’t exposed to many entities because it becomes confusing mobile device and there is currently no provision for selecting the order in which the entities are displayed. Hopefully this is something that Microsoft will address quickly. We would also like to see the ability to expose entity to mobile express but to choose whether or not it is displayed on the mobile express home page or only as a related entity. This would help to organize the information in a more usable form.

 

When you select any entity from the list on the mobile express home page, the default view of the entity is displayed. You may have to take a look at your views for each exposed entity because mobile express displays only the first two fields of each view.

Once you’ve selected all the entities you want to expose with the mobile express interface,  you need to choose which fields you want to expose as well. All mandatory fields are already exposed and cannot be removed.  You can add additional fields as well as select the order in which they will be displayed. Selected entities are also displayed alphabetically in the "related entities" section of any exposed entity.  You are not able to re-sequence related entities either, BTW.

Summary

I’m glad that Microsoft has finally published Mobile express for CRM 4.0.  I hope that Microsoft follows up quickly with usability enhancements.  If you only want to expose a few entities such as the leads or other custom entities, this is a quick and dirty way to get that data available to your remote users with handheld devices. If you’re looking for full mobile CRM functionality, this just won’t do it… yet.

Wish list

 
• Choose the order and appearance of entities on mobile home page
 
• Choose order and appearance of related entities
 
• Control which Attributes are displayed on the Views
 
• Support the activities entity

 

Please feel free to comment and add to the wish list.

Have a great day!

 

 

 

Stephen Noe, CRM MCT

Dynamics CRM rollup 5 available for download

July 02, 2009

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 5 was published for download today.

 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 5 was published for download today. Here is the link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=970141. It includes previous rollups, plus more.

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Download the 970141 package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=5101d801-976b-4c11-bdfc-000b970ef4a3)

I haven’t heard any feedback as it is brand new, nor have I installed it. Standard disclaimers apply for a brand new rollup. Please feel free to comment on your experiences with this rollup.

Off to the beach! See you in a week.

Steve Noe, CRM Consultant & MCT

Training Session Management- a Dynamics CRM - xRM example

June 27, 2009

An example of using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to develop an XRM application to manage the details of putting on training sessions

Over the last year, we have been an developing internal application to manage all the details related to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM training sessions we deliver.  There’s lots of details to keep up with, resource assignments, things to order, and calendars to manage. We realized that we could not afford to be in the training business, especially in the current economic environment, unless we automate as much as possible and make sure we never make any mistakes.

We quickly figured out that a training session with 10 students could involve 60 or more tasks and e-mails to manage. When we looked at the administrative overhead and the requirement that everything happen on time with no exceptions, we realized that we didn’t have the staff to handle this manually.

We decided to use CRM to solve the problem and automate a series of processes that would allow us to manage the training in the most efficient way.

We started by creating a couple of custom entities: a training session entity and an enrollments entity. These two entities are the core of the Training Session Management System (TSMS) and are links to the Account entity, the Contacts entity, the CRM Users entity, and the Product Catalog.

We’ve also written 20 or so nested workflows that manage the processes involved and make sure all the information is in the right place by the right time.

The current version of the system allows us to create and manage both private and open enrollment training sessions. It validates the details, manages the tasks required to administer the classes, provides notifications to all involved, and generally makes our life considerably easier.

TSMS revolves around the Training Session entity, pictured here:

The general tab is used to set up a preliminary information. Other tabs allow us to put information about the resources we need to assign to accomplish the tasks and deliver the courseware, Etc..

We’ve made some minor modifications to the product catalog, which allow us to support individual courses as products.This also allows us to create quotes orders and invoices to sell product classes in individual enrollments, like the other products we sell.

While the TSMS XRM application has saved us considerable time, the real benefit is that it has automated our business processes and allows us to deliver consistently every time. Given our busy schedule and my forgetful nature,that’s the real benefit.  The system is smart enough to yell for missing information when it needs it , manages the details and keeps us organized.

I spent the last couple of day productizing and documenting the entire system in preparation for delivering it to a training partner to help them manage their training practice. I’m looking forward to their input to see where it drives the system next.

We would also like to talk to other training organizations who are looking for similar systems, especially those already running Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Have a great weekend!

 
Steve Noe, CRM consultant and MCT

 

 

 

 

CRM 4.0 Rollup 3 AsyncRemoveCompletedWorkflows side effect caution

June 26, 2009

Microsoft's fix to control the sizes of async operation base and workflow log base tables can have unexpected results...

As part of implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 roll up 3, there are several patches which can only be implemented manually using regedit. When Microsoft implements a hot fix this way, it means they have concerns about possible effects upon your implementation. 

We have literally hundreds of workflows designed to streamline our operations, so the files to store the history of this were getting out of control. Yesterday, I implemented the manual regedit edit configuration as specified by article 968755 which relates to how to keep your async operation base and workflow log base tables from getting too large.

Be aware, the downside of this hot fix is that after each workflow completes, you will no longer have any history of executed workflows either in the system jobs folder and settings or in individual entity navigation pane workflows folders. This will make it very difficult to diagnose workflows. Since I use this history rather extensively to track our complex workflows, the solution turned out not to work very well for us.

I ended up having to turn it back off again. I guess it’s worth it to me to keep the history of the workflows

See the update rollup 3 knowledge base article 961768 and Microsoft knowledge base article ID 968755 for more information about this.

Steve Noe, MCT

 

Analytics R2 Accelerator for CRM 4.0 Available

June 24, 2009

The latest update (R2) to Analytics Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is available for download on codeplex.

It includes updates to the SQL 2005 version and the long awaited dashboards for SQL 2008. There is also a new SQL 2008 cube function reported to be in it.

 

Check it out here.

 

Steve Noe

CRM 4.0 Training available in Raleigh, NC in August

June 11, 2009

We will host a 2 week blitz of CRM training in Raleigh, NC (fly in to RDU airport) starting August 10, 2009.

Check it out here: August CRM 4.0 training info & Registration

We will offer 2 tracks:

 
• CRM 4.0 competency and certification track with the 3 core courses: 8913: Applications, 8911: Installation & Deployment & 8912: Customization will run from Aug 10 though August 15 (Mon-Sat from 8 to 6)
 
• CRM 4.0 Developer track with 8912: Customization, 80003: Workflows, and 8969: Extending with jscript & .Net content. This will run from Aug 14 through Aug 20 (Fri – Thursday with Sunday off)

Classes will also be available individually and we are working on a distance learning option (call me about that one), too. If you are interested, give us a call and press 1 for sales.

Hope you can make it!

Steve Noe

 

With our new Learning Solutions competency, we are now able to host our own open enrollment training sessions!

CRM User Notification Emails for new & infrequent users of Dynamics CRM

May 31, 2009

An issue we commonly run into, especially with new CRM users is the problem of getting them to check for newly assigned activities, cases, or other CRM "assignments".  Many users can be remote or don't normally log into CRM because they're not in the habit yet.

To get around this problem, we created some workflows and a couple of simple modifications designed to support e-mail notifications to users about new CRM assignments that they need to look at. We also made it possible for the users to adjust what kind of notifications they were getting so that users who are in CRM everyday don’t get overwhelmed with e-mail notifications.

The first change that we made was to add a notification pick list attribute to the CRM user entity, shown here: 
 

 

Next,we created some workflows that would send e-mails to users who are configured to have e-mail notification. To reduce the number of unnecessary notifications, the first step of the workflow to see if the owner of the task is supposed to get notifications and that the owner of the task is different from the creator so that you don’t get an e-mail to tell you that you created a task for yourself.

We create similar workflows for cases & opportunities etc.  We also used the new business productivity acceleratorto generate a link back to the actual entity to make it easy for the end users to get to their new task.In situations where you might have an Internet facing deployment and are not sure whether users will be accessing from inside or outside the network,you build two links:one for internal access and one for extra access, as demonstrated in this e-mail:

I hope this gives you some ideas of things you can do with CRM & workflows.

Steve Noe

First Florida CRM Training Camp is a success!

May 22, 2009

Our first belated 'winter' Dynamics CRM training camp in Tampa was held in May, 2009 at New Horizons of Tampa. We delivered all of the Dynamics CRM 4.0 training curriculum over a 2 week period using three CRM instructors. It seem the students enjoyed it too, as we got all 9's on the evaluation from all attendees.Fortunately, even during a down year for training, companies still had budget to participate.

Fortunately, even during a down year for training, companies still had budget to participate.

New Horizons outdid themselves and gave us superb training facilities and helped arrange accommodations. All three instructors were ON and in rare form for the event, but no one actually got on top of a table during this round of classes. Nobody is talking about anything that happened after class, but what happens in Tampa stays in Tampa….all in all, everybody had fun and agreed it was a fantastic way to learn a lot in a short period of time.

Thanks to everyone who worked to make the event a hit, especially: Tim Becker, Mitch Milam, Diann Fresa, everybody at New Horizons of Tampa including Bobby Ceklic, Bob Handy, David Schuman; and most importantly - our customers who sent the students to participate in Sunny Tampa Bay! What a great learning process it was for students & organizers alike. I never knew how much work it was to plan an event like this, but I have to say it makes me respect event planners even more than before.

 

Day 2: Tim keeps on teaching even during the break!

After class ‘working session’ at Lee Roy Selmon’s, week 2: Clockwise: Steve, Mike, Chris & Mitch.

Next year’s winter CRM boot camp is planned for February 15-25, 2010. Week one will be the standard CRM Bootcamp with 9813: Apps, 8911: Install Config, and 8912: Customize Config, with week two including 80003: Workflow & 8969: Extending, unless the CRM 5.0 courses are available by then.  Hope we see you there!

Steve

Using the Business Productivity Accelerator to generate links to CRM records

May 15, 2009

Microsoft has recently released the business productivity workflow tools accelerator (download here) which allows us to generate hyperlinks in e-mails created from within workflows. We use this to create links that will allow end-users to go straight into CRM record by clicking on a link in the e-mail.

Microsoft has recently released the business productivity workflow tools accelerator (download here) which allows us to generate hyperlinks in e-mails created from within workflows. We use this to create links that will allow end-users to go straight into CRM record by clicking on a link in the e-mail. Here’s some examples of how it’s used.

We wanted to be able to generate a link to a specific task that we could e-mail to the user that has been assigned the task. Prior to the publication of this accelerator, we would’ve had to written workflow plug-in. Microsoft did that for us and saved us the trouble.

First we downloaded and installed the business productivity workflow tools accelerator per the instructions included in the download.

Next we created our workflow for the new task entity notification for more on this, see the upcoming blog article on notifying users:

The details for generating a link to a task in CRM using the “generate CRM hyperlink" function of the accelerator are shown here:

The easiest way to build the link, is to open any entity that you wish to generate a link for and click send shortcut option of the Actions menu:

You can now cut the link generated from the resulting e-mail, paste it into the URL line of the custom step input above.  The last step is to replace the GUID that was generated with a 0 (id={0} )  which causes the GUID of the current entity associated with the workflow to be inserted into the link when it is created .

You can use this method to generate a link to any entity in CRM, custom or otherwise.

Hope this helps!

Steve Noe

Nurture Marketing with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

April 15, 2009

The idea, is to deliver regular content that addresses the interests of a prospect or customer and to time it to arrive where they might be interested in reading something about that.

Nurture marketing is about delivering a predefined series of ‘touches’ or messages designed to keep your name and products in front of a customer over a period of time. Since it’s generally agreed that it takes seven or more "touches" to get your message across, this can be an effective way of building name recognition and familiarity with prospects and customers. You also want to deliver value in your content so that you create a favorable impression and don’t get the dreaded ‘unsubscribe’.

Nurture marketing chains can be used very effectively for educating your prospects about some of the questions they need to know to correctly evaluate your product. You can use this to pre-qualify prospects and to ensure they ask the right questions when talking to your competitors.

The amount of content you need will be directly related to the average length of the sales cycle divided by the average time between touches. Some content will be directed towards prospects, while other content is designed for the decision-maker in opportunities with a long sales cycle.

Here’s an example of a simple nurture marketing chain for new prospects.

   
1. A new lead is entered into the system, and a workflow is used to determine how to process it. If it meets certain criteria, begin a nurture marketing chain. This could also be started manually.
        
   • the creation of a new lead kicks off a workflow that determines who to assign it to,
                 
        
   • which processes may be needed based upon the interest of the prospect,
                 
        
   • sends an introductory e-mail to the prospect with the contact information of the lead owner and
                 
        
   • creates an open phone call from the owner to the prospect.
               
      
           
   
2. Nurture marketing Workflow LS01 is called by previous workflow or started manually.
        
   • The desired content is now sent or created. This can be e-mail, phone call, other activity or any process that you may wish to execute within CRM.
                 
        
   • The workflow waits for 2 to 3 weeks
                 
        
   • If the recipient has not unsubscribed, and the lead is still active, child workflow nurture marketing 02 is submitted
               
      
           
   
3. Nurture marketing Workflow 02 is called by previous workflow or started manually.
        
   • The next content is now sent or created.
                 
        
   • The workflow waits for 2 to 3 weeks
                 
        
   • If the recipient has not unsubscribed, and the lead is still active, the next child nurture marketing workflow is submitted
               
      
           
   
4. and so on for as many links in the chain you need.
         
 

The approach that I used was to create a single workflow for each link in the chain. I began by creating a template that calls the last link in the chain (see below), which doesn’t exist yet so you have to do a couple of changes to the template to get started. See the downloaded examples for how the last workflow in the chain differs from all the others.

Next, I build the list of content and create appropriate e-mail or other templates prior to building out my workflow chain.

Now create one workflow for each piece of content you want to send, starting with the last one first.  You need to do this because workflow you want to call at the end of this workflow must already exist. Remember, you can’t call workflow that doesn’t exist yet. use a standard naming and numbering system to identify all the links of your chain. ie: Product xxy LS-00 - Product xxy 99.

I use the modular workflow approach for a couple of reasons.  Long workflows have a number of fundamental problems, which make them difficult to program and maintain. With my approach, I am able to insert an additional link in the chain anywhere I like, even for Nurtures already in progress. I’m also careful to name my content to match the workflow names to make it easy to maintain.

We have implemented this approach for both opportunities and leads to great success.  For opportunities, our nurture marketing chain works better when we added the primary decision-maker relationship to a contact for the opportunity itself.

Here is where you can get the examples if you are willing to register with us: Download

Hope this gives you some ideas!

Stephen V Noe, MCT, MCBMSP

An evolutionary approach to CRM implementation

April 04, 2009

The evolutionary approach to CRM projects helps to reduce risk while delivering faster ROI.

I have to apologize, this blog has been on my to-do list since last year and I have had writers block or procrastination in the way of getting it out there. Hopefully, you will see more content from me soon. SVN

 

The goal

 

Customer relationship management solutions have the potential to give your company a competitive edge in your market. CRM systems give you the ability to store and retrieve all information about your customers and prospects in a central repository (database) that is easily accessible to all appropriate staff from any location while being secure to protect this valuable asset. The benefits from this are potentially huge, as this gives any employee the intelligence they need to properly service any customer and talk to any prospect without having to call back, chase down someone who’s not the office, etc. To your customers and prospects, this makes it clear that your company has a together and is focused on their needs. Salespeople can know about problems and address them before meeting with clients. Customer service can now be aware of major pending deals and the details. All communications (including e-mail) with the customer are documented in a central location so that it’s clear who said what to whom and when. The side benefit is improved productivity for your staff because all the information is right there in one place. Happier customers and prospects, less time on the phone, less time tracking down information and solving problems. There are quite a few other benefits, but this is usually the starting point.

 

The problem with the traditional approach

 

It’s a known fact that CRM projects can be a risky business investment. The landscape is littered with huge monolithic CRM project failures. Since CRM solutions are not inexpensive, there is a tendency to create larger projects to try and maximize the return on the investment immediately. Unfortunately, larger projects increase risk (and cost) exponentially. Massive changes at one time also make it harder on your end users to adopt the system. Larger projects tend to get bogged down in ‘analysis paralysis’ and political issues.

 

The larger the project, the more resources required to manage, communicate status, and control scope creep. By the way, the longer a project takes, the more likely to the business processes it addresses changed in the meantime and that the results will no longer be relevant to what the business needs.

 

The Evolutionary Approach

 

Current generation CRM systems can be implemented in small, "bite sized" projects or phases. This phased process allows you to approach the problem using rapid application development (RAD) techniques such as Agile Software Development which deliver new functionality in shorter time frames and more cost effective while reducing risk at the same time.

While it’s critical to document and prioritize all of the major goals of a CRM solution for your company before you begin, these goals and priorities will evolve over time. Business conditions change and CRM functionality affects your business processes with each individual phase. This will cause an evolution in the way you think about your processes and how you do business with each phase.

The benefits

As you bring each new phase of a project of your CRM implementation online, you get immediate benefits and feedback. User adoption rates will be better because you’re making less changes at once and dealing with the highest priorities first. Poor user adoption is one of the highest risk factors in any software implementation. Maximizing adoption rates is key to realizing the benefits. Since the project occurs over a short time frame, it’s easier for everyone to remember what they asked for in the first place. This will also help to minimize learning curves.

 

A short list of benefits includes:

· faster realization of the new system functions

· faster and easier user adoption

· more user feedback for productivity optimization

· smaller project teams and lower project overhead

· reduced cost

Summary

 

While evolutionary CRM methodology can deliver substantial benefits, it is important to go into a CRM initiative with realistic expectations about the investment of your time and resources in addition to the costs of software, training and services. There is also a learning curve to the concept of CRM and how it can transform your business processes.

 

For your next CRM solution, consider breaking the project into smaller phases and evolving in a phased approach, rather than trying to do it all at once. The CRM 4.0 paradigm shift makes it much easier to evolve your CRM than traditional software. This approach can have many benefits including: reduced up-front management time requirements, less risk, faster/easier adoption of the new system, reduced training costs and more.

 

Steve Noe

Links to CRM 4.0 Training & Certification Exam Resources

April 01, 2009

I got a request today for further information on resources to prepare for CRM 4.0 certification. I spent a little time putting together a summary page that should help.

Here are some links to the Learning plans for the four certification exams. The first three are the requirements for Microsoft partner organization to obtain a CRM competency. These are also required by June 30 first 2009 for existing CRM partners to update their certifications to CRM 4.0. The last exam, 30-634, is required to obtain an individual’s CRM developer credentials.

30-631:  Customization and Configuration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Learning Plan

30-632: Applications for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Learning Plan

30-633: Installation and Deployment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Learning Plan

30-634: Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Learning Plan

Also check out our CRM competency & developer boot camp in Tampa Fl on May 11, 2009

Syllabus Links for all CRM 4.0 Courseware: 8911, 8912, 8913, 8969, 80002 and 80003

For reviews and more information on the exams and courses:

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Certification Crazy - 5 CRM exam appointments in 1 week.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Applications Course 8913 review

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Customization & Configuration Course 8912 review

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Installation and Deployment #8911

CRM 4.0 Extending (8969) Course is now available!

 

Have a great day!

Stephen Noe, CRM MCT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 2 is now available

January 27, 2009

Find it here.

Understanding the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 paradigm shift

January 11, 2009

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (CRM) is, without question, one of the most efficient development environments I have worked with in 30 years of providing business solutions. It's sort of like combining contact management software with the ability to store any additional information you need and customize forms (screens or reports)using a relational database server (Microsoft SQL Server).

It includes integrated security that will allow you to determine who can or can’t see, update and/or delete specific records by job role, the ability to automatically distribute the customizations (changes) to all users and a workflow or process automation engine that can automate manual tasks based on any change in your data.

There’s more, but basically this is a development platform built on a Customer Relationship Management database. BTW, customizations can be done without having to do any programming.  In effect, you can design custom entities (tables or files) to store data and associate it with your customers, prospects and vendors while tracking communications with them as well. Most importantly, you can do it quickly and publish changes to all users immediately upon request without having to manually update the end user PCs. If you can’t find all the function you need in the base customization set, you can also extend CRM functionality with .Net and jscript extensions as well as integrate it with other applications both internal and on the web.

We find that there are usually multiple applications used in an organization to augment the existing operational systems. We see them implemented in Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, Word templates, or even on paper. In many cases, this data is generally related to customers, vendors or other information stored in the main applications, but orphaned due to the lack of flexibility in the legacy software in place. It is easy to replicate and evolve the designs of these one-off applications into CRM, thus eliminating duplicate entry, allowing secure multi-user access, and even remote access if needed.

There are many manual tasks that tie up staff time and create potential for error in the average organization. The workflow engine can automate these manual processes and allow staff to focus other tasks. Workflows can be triggered to run automatically based upon an event or be run manually. Either way, a Workflow can standardize a simple or complex manual process and react more quickly than your staff can. Time savings, process standardization and increased productivity are the direct benefit here. 

We are also seeing many new applications developed in Dynamics CRM that have nothing to do with traditional CRM applications. Church membership management, Highway Toll Collections, Education Enrollment, Business Brokerage Management and more are all applications that have been implemented using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We call this xRM, a term you will see more and more related to Microsoft CRM.

Make no mistake, this is a strategic platform that with a productive user interface that can help consolidate multiple applications, fix manual or broken processes, allow extensive customization and generally improve overall productivity substantially at a lower cost than traditional development environments.

Stephen Noe, CRM Consultant & MCT

What you need to know before buying CRM

November 30, 2008

In talking with our prospects and customers, we find there are many misconceptions about CRM software. Many don’t understand what it really is, some are concerned about its less than stellar history, and others are just looking for a quick fix. Here’s a quick primer.

In talking with our prospects and customers, we find there are many misconceptions about CRM software. Many don’t understand what it really is, some are concerned about its less than stellar history, and others are just looking for a quick fix. Here’s a quick primer.

First, the scary part. Customer relationship management software has a history of failed projects since the early days of huge monolithic CRM systems. As a result, many feel that CRM projects are too risky to undertake. Quite frankly, if your intent is to implement CRM “on the cheap” without considering the impact on your organization and your staff, stop now! That’s the best way to waste your money.

CRM is about company philosophy, not just software. There’s a number of reasons that CRM projects fail, and all of these issues can be dealt with as part of a comprehensive customer relationship management initiative in your organization.

Don’t try to accomplish too much in the first phase. Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be implemented in a very evolutionary way. Oftentimes it’s a good idea to replace existing systems and train users in the first phase before taking on more aggressive goals. One method is to replicate the existing database of sales and marketing information within CRM, customize the screens to match the best of the old system, import all the data, training users and go live. Once everyone gets new used to the new system, you have a much better frame of reference of knowing how to prioritize the next round of evolution. We found our customers get a better return on their investment this way, than trying to do everything at once. One reason for this is that there is a paradigm shift that occurs once you start using the system, so that things that seem important before the system goes in may not be so important later.

User acceptance and usability. The biggest problem we experienced in all the CRM implementations that we do revolves around user acceptance. Basically, if CRM software does not make it easier for the end user to do their job, they resent it and never fully accept the product. We seen this happen number of times due to the fact that management decides that they want additional information more than they want to streamline process. In many cases the additional information proved to have little value to the organization. CRM software implementations should be centered around the processes and the people that perform them. The goal is to streamline the process and make people’s jobs easier, which makes them want to use the software. Many CRM implementations completely forget usability, which is key to the project success. Our recommendation approach focuses on usability first to drive user acceptance, then evolving the system to capture additional data after the initial learning curve.

Train your users. The second-largest issue we encounter is that companies don’t include user training in the budget for the new system. We focus heavily on the importance of training, and believe it to be key to CRM success. Your employees time is too valuable to waste trying to figure out how to use the new system. This is also related to usability, because we usually find during training that certain issues may have been overlooked. In our training scenarios, we take note of anything that the end users point out doesn’t work for their job and create a hit list of items that can be straightened out prior to go live. This actually accomplishes two things: first the easy issues are resolved immediately and the more difficult items are referred management for scheduling, but most importantly the end-users can see a direct result of their comments and feel better about the system even if the initial implementation doesn’t match their expectations. Obviously, heavier user involvement at the beginning of the project will prevent much of this. The good news about this is it Microsoft dynamics CRM is very easy to tweak at this point of implementation because of its evolutionary versus revolutionary ability to be tailored and customized.

Demonstrate true management commitment. Another major issue to consider is management commitment. Many busy executives are interested in purchasing a solution. Unfortunately, CRM is not just something you can buy. It requires a commitment to defining key processes, which is no easy task if they’re not documented well. You should recognize that there will be extra work required for everyone during the transition to the new system before the productivity benefits can be realized. Executive management must recognize the total impact on the organization and appropriately allocate resources to ensure success. Finally, managers and executives must walk the walk not just talk the talk. Employees are very savvy to internal politics, and can sense when a manager is not truly committed to the project. Well-meaning executives can completely submarine their own project by not enlisting commitment from the sales manager, for example.

Define your goals and plan. CRM software is significantly more complex than ACT! or Microsoft Office. That means you plan if you want to get benefit from it. You must define specific goals that you want to accomplish with the implementation of the software. Vague generalities like make my salespeople more efficient will not get concrete solutions. On the other hand, “reduce the time it takes to get a lead in the sales person’s hands” is more specific and now can be addressed with a defined process. If you know what you want, it’s very easy to implement it in CRM. If you don’t, plan on setting aside some hours with your CRM expert to come up with a specific list. This will make it easier on you and your CRM team. By the way, it also means you have something to have them accountable for.

Stable IT infrastructure. Microsoft Dynamics CRM requires a stable IT infrastructure to run upon. If you intend to run it on your own servers, you need to involve your IT group as well, whether internal or outside consultants. You will need support for SQL server 2005, IIS (part of Windows server), and we recommend exchange server, but the latter is not a requirement. If you already have problems in your network, you probably want to get them straightened out before you go live with CRM. On the other hand, Microsoft Dynamics CRM can also be run in hosted environments either on Microsoft servers, your dedicated servers in a hosted environment, or in a partner hosted model. Depending on your situation, there is a solution that’s right for you.

Don’t try and figure it out on your own. Make sure you use experienced staff or consultants to help you plan, install and customize your CRM solution. Once it’s in place, it’ll be much easier to take it over and continue reaping benefits if that’s what you choose to do. If you haven’t done a CRM implementation before, be aware that it’s very different from other types of software implementations because of all the customization and process analysis. Microsoft Dynamics CRM software may be easy to install, but it takes much more to reap the benefits. Forms should be customized, workflows written, data security configured, and more. Microsoft requires certification in three different areas for a partner to receive the CRM competency or specialization. That’s just the beginning of understanding the complexities of the product. If you’re using a consulting firm, be sure they truly do specialize in CRM and don’t just offer it as another ‘me too’ service along with everything else they do.

Estimating costs. A good rule of thumb to use in estimating CRM projects is that you’ll spend about one dollar of services for every dollar licensing. The more users you have, the more processes you’re likely to automate and the more benefits you get from detailed customizations. If you want to integrate CRM to your ERP system, there are additional costs and software required. If you have an extensive customized database that needs to be replicated or integrated into CRM that can also bring the cost up. Typically, all of your costs for software licensing, services and additional hardware can be rolled into a single monthly payment so that you reap the benefits what you pay for the system.

Successful CRM initiatives are not rocket science. The same principles are used to implement any serious business project. Take the time to understand exactly what you want out of the system, define all your processes, include your users from the beginning, and allocate appropriate resources. The evolution of CRM systems creates a much less expensive entry-level for small to medium-size business to reap the rewards of CRM automation. Current systems can be up and running in days and weeks and then evolve with additional formal processes reducing the initial impact on your productivity. The benefits are great with proper planning.

Steve Noe, CRM MCT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 1 is now available

November 26, 2008

You can find it here!

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Internet Facing Deployment

September 27, 2008

This morning I got the pleasure of using the Microsoft IFD tool to create an Internet facing deployment for one of our clients with a pre-existing CRM 4.0 deployment. After all the hype when CRM 4.0 first came out, I was expecting more trouble than it really took. The IFD tool made it simple.

The IFD tool allows you to set your Microsoft CRM 4.0 site up for access on the Internet.  This will allow you to remotely access CRM without using VPN, making it easier for you and your staff to work remotely. One hassle we commonly run into is that our VPN client doesn’t always function properly from all the sites we work from. The instructions for the tool are pretty straightforward, other than giving your specific directions of how to handle problems such as creating a self signed certificate for using with your site and installing it into IIS.

The first thing you need to understand is that the IFD tool wants you to create an external name based upon the deployment name.  This means that if your deployment has a friendly name of "My Business", then the organization name will be "mybusiness". Which means that the external deployment name will be something like myBusiness.mybiz.com assuming that your domain name on the web is "mybiz.com".  This information is key to the following steps.

 
1. Download the IFD tool here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948779
    
 
2. Create an alias or hostname record in your external DNS for the deployment.  In our example that would be "myBusiness.mybiz.com".
    
 
3. Create a self signed certificate or buy a certificate  Matching the external name. In our example that would be "myBusiness.mybiz.com". If you create a self signed certificate don’t forget to reset the time to make sure that it doesn’t expire in the default of seven days.
    
 
4. Enable SSL on your CRM website, using port 443.
    
 
5. Follow the IFD tool setup scenarios document instructions for scenario one. Be sure to substitute your unique organization name in the instructions.  If you have already completed step one above, you have already created your host or alias record.
    

 

The only problem we ran into was that the CRM asynchronous service was not running for some reason, and we got errors when we attempted to log on remotely. Fortunately the troubleshooting section at the end of the setup scenarios document covered that.

Enjoy!

Stephen Noe, MCT

CRM 4.0 Cumulative Hot fix for Outlook Available

September 26, 2008

 

The CRM Team blog recently posted this blog article about available hotfixes that might address issues you might be having with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Add-in for Outlook. The hotfix has actually been available since July 2008.

This does not address the tendency to loose CRM folders added to the Favorites folders, but does provide a comprehensive set of patches for the CRM 4.0 Outlook Add in.

See the blog here

Get the comprehensive hotfix KB950088 here. While it doesn’t look like it is comprehensive, it really is….really! If you don’t believe me, read the comments on the blog article.

 

HTH

Steve

Exam MB2-634 CRM 4.0 Extending Microsoft Dynamics released

September 24, 2008

Finally! The last of the major Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 exams is available. I found this today:

Exam MB2-634: CRM 4.0 Extending Microsoft Dynamics

About this Exam

This certification exam measures your understanding of important skills and areas of knowledge used in the development of extensions for Microsoft CRM 4.0.

Audience Profile

Individuals wishing to obtain a certification on CRM 4.0 Extending Microsoft Dynamics  should take this exam.

Credit Toward Certification

When you pass Exam MB2-634: CRM 4.0 Extending Microsoft Dynamics, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s):

Microsoft Certified Business Management Solutions Specialist

Exam MB2-634: CRM 4.0 Extending Microsoft Dynamics: counts as credit toward the following certification(s):

Microsoft Certified Business Management Solutions Professional - Developer for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Preparation Tools and Resources

To help you prepare for this exam, Microsoft recommends that you have hands-on experience with the product and that you use the following training resources.

Classroom Training

 
• Course 8969: Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (3 Days)
 
• Course 8912: Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (3 Days)

Skills Being Measured

This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam.

Extension Approach – 24%

 

• Choosing Extension Technology

   
 

• Licensing Requirements

   
 

• Extending the Outlook Client

   
 

• Security Considerations

   
 

• Deployment Considerations

   

Web Service Programming – 24%

 

• Connecting to CRM Web Services

   
 

• Using CRM Data Types

   
 

• Modifying Data

   
 

• Querying Data

   
 

• Using Requests and Response

   
 

• Using Metadata

   
 

• Exception Handling

   

Custom Workflow Activities – 10%

 

• Creating Custom Workflow Activities

   
 

• Deploying Custom Workflow Activities

   
 

• Troubleshooting Custom Workflow Activities

   

Developing Plug-ins – 16%

 

• Creating Plug-ins

   
 

• Deploying Plug-ins

   
 

• Troubleshooting Plug-ins

   

Application Programming – 26%

 

• Customizing Navigation

   
 

• Adding Menus and Buttons

   
 

• Using IFrames

   
 

• Using the Form Object Model

   
 

• Deploying ASP .Extensions

   

CRM Implementation Success Psychology

September 11, 2008

Customer management relationship (CRM) software implementations are an inherently complex process involving multiple stakeholders with different goals.  There are a number of factors that have an impact on the success of a CRM implementation.  These factors include:

• Customer Relationship Management is a process not software
• Management commitment
• Project goal setting & scope
• Balance between usability and data collection
• Stakeholder motivation
• End-user training

CRM is a process not software.

Many organizations believe that if you buy CRM software then you will have better customer relations.  The truth is far from it.  While CRM systems are designed to facilitate better communications, automated follow-ups, and the like, successful CRM implementations require  defining a formal process. If you want to transform your customer relationships, you may need to transform the processes.  CRM software can be help you automate, measure and refine these processes.

Management commitment

Management needs to demonstrate commitment to the success of the project before, during, and after the software is installed and tailored to your formal processes. You need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.  This means that management needs to use the system and be unified in presenting the benefits and commitment to the entire organization. This is definitely a situation where one bad apple can spoil the entire barrel.  Top and middle management must set example and demonstrate a consistent supportive attitude throughout.

Goal setting and limits

We favor the David Letterman approach, "the top 10" goals for each CRM initiative rather than trying to do too much at one time.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be implemented using an evolutionary process using smaller initiatives to get to the end goal rather than doing it all in one project.  It’s best to limit the scope of each new CRM initiative to minimize impact on the users.  Since CRM implementations are an investment in your company’s future, you should consider goals with a measurable ROI and prioritize appropriately.

The delicate balance between usability and data collection

Since CRM is designed to store lots of information, management wants more information collected and stored while users may not have the time to collect it.  If you attempt to require too much information, the system may become unusable and you end up getting no information at all. Make sure that the information you are collecting has real value. Since it’s very easy to add additional data elements to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM database and forms in later project phases, capture only the data you need and avoid the "capture everything we can think of" at the early stages of the project.

Stakeholder motivation

User acceptance is key to CRM return on investment and it’s best to use the carrot versus the stick.  It’s critical that you design forms and other components of CRM with an eye towards providing strong benefit to each end-user.  Presenting the new system with a strong focus on end-user WIIFM (what’s in it for me) will result in faster user adoption rates. It’s important to understand the end user’s needs during the design phase, to help build ownership and excitement. Getting end-user buy-in from the very start will pay dividends when it’s time to go live. This approach will generally succeed much better than a "use it or else" style.

User Training investment

Converting a to new CRM software can be traumatic for users. Your staff deserves the training they need to start using the new system right away. CRM training for user can be accomplished in two sessions of about four hours.  Trained users are better motivated, more productive and more likely to look favorably upon the new system.  This almost invariably leads to faster user adoption, dramatically affecting the ROI curve in a positive way.

The psychology of a successful customer relationship management software implementation is based upon a clear understanding of the above points.  Keeping them in mind will maximize the ROI of your customer relationship management initiative. Set the proper example, define your processes, involve the stakeholders early in the process, provide the tools to succeed and you will reap the rewards of your CRM investment sooner.

Steve Noe

CRM 4.0 Exams MB2-632 & MB2-633 revised

September 09, 2008

If any of you need to retake a CRM 4.0 exam, I found out today that Microsoft has revised and re-released the CRM 4.0 applications exam MB2-632 and the CRM 4.0 install / deploy exam MB2-633.

The publication date of these exams was August 21, 2008 so the revised exam should be available now. Hopefully this will address the issues that we’ve been seeing and hearing about.

 

Good luck with your exams!

 

Steve Noe

New CRM 4.0 Workflow Courseware now available!

September 09, 2008

The long-awaited CRM 4.0 workflow course is now available!  80003A:  Workflow in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is designed to give a non-technical one-day introduction to using the new CRM 4.0 workflow engine.  We've been waiting for this course with anticipation since both Mitch Milam and I had the privilege of contributing to the courseware as subject matter experts. This one-day course is the perfect way to jumpstart using CRM 4.0 workflow to automate manual processes within your organization.

Overview: 80003A describes how to create, run, and monitor workflows to automate business processes. The course emphasizes out-of-box workflow functionality. This course covers basic concepts, creating a basic workflow, the design process, updating triggers, conditional branching advanced and multi-stage workflows, monitoring workflows and workflow security implications.

The course also focuses on using workflows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to automate the sales process, lead promotion and probable revenue. Extending and upgrading workflows and data migration workflows are not covered in detail in this course, but are introduced to provide students with insight into potential advanced workflow topics.

Audience: this course is for non-technical users and technical users alike. Managers, system customizers and end users can benefit from this class.  Developers can also benefit from this class, since it helps to know what you can do without extending CRM workflows before you start writing workflow plug-ins.

Prerequisites: experience using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 or 4.0.  The syllabus also suggests the applications course 8913 as an optional prerequisite for this class, but if you have strong applications knowledge you probably can get by without it.

Availability: immediately! Contact us today to schedule.

 

Steve Noe

Managing Leads, Lists, and Marketing in Microsoft CRM

August 25, 2008

Managing leads, lists and doing marketing activities in Microsoft CRM can sometimes be a challenge.  New users of CRM have a hard time with the concept of the lead entity when it comes to keeping up with leads, importing rented mailing lists, and the like.  The following is one method of handling leads:

First we make the following assumptions on how Leads are Qualified / Disqualified:

 
• we keep leads and mailing lists stored in the lead entity until qualified via some form of interactive communication, ie: Phone call or email from the lead.
 
• anyone we have contacted and verified the information of is considered ‘Qualified’ and promoted to a customer (account/contact). This is to put all of the companies & contacts we know in a single database separate from our purchased mailing lists and incoming leads.
 
• Opportunities may be created as part of the qualifying process but are not the only reason for qualifying a lead into the account / contact database. 
 
• We disqualify any lead that is not contactable (bad email address or phone) or we do not wish to market to (outside our interest).

 

 

The net result of the above steps is that we end up with all of our "qualified" organizations and contacts in the account/contact database and we can now add these potential customers to marketing lists and perform ongoing marketing operations.  This would include prospects with open or previous opportunities, leads that we received for specific products which did not close for one reason or another as well as potential customers that we got in contact originally through a purchased or rented mailing list.  Once we have contacted someone on a rented mailing list multiple times, we can generally assume it is safe to continue marketing to them because we have established a relationship.  That’s one of the reasons it’s important to get these mailing list records for which we have established a relationship qualified up into the main database of accounts and contacts.

The next step in your process should be to have special interests marketing lists which can be evaluated using criteria from information stored in the account or contact record or to have a workflow process automatically add newly added accounts and/or contacts to marketing lists as part of your built-in processes.  Note that you would need a workflow add-in to attach an account or contact to marketing list but this could also be accomplished through a manual process.

CRM 4.0 Outlook Client & Quickbooks Time Tracker for Outlook Conflict

August 14, 2008

If you have been having problems with CRM 4.0 Mail merge giving you the following error and you are using Quickbooks Time Tracker, try disabling the Time Tracker add in for Outlook and see if it solves your problem. To test if this is the issue, disable the Time Tracker add in and retest the mail merge. I have installed the latest patch to no avail. Disabling the Time Tracker add-in seems to be the only fix I can find.

If anyone knows how to make them play well together, please drop me a note.

Steve

CRM 4.0 Extending (8969) Course is now available!

August 04, 2008

For all you developers out there, the new CRM extending course is finally available.  Teaching this course requires a CRM developer credential as well as some serious experience extending Microsoft CRM.  We will teach it starting in September. A number of our customers have been waiting for this course with baited breath, so we were really happy to see it available from Microsoft on the MCT site on Sunday. Here’s some brief facts about the course or see the Syllabus here:

Course 8969: Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM   
This three-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to develop extensions for Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. The course focuses on extension methods documented in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK. It also includes content on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Service programming, creating and configuring Custom Workflow Activities and Plug-ins, advanced client-side scripting, application integration capabilities and how to create a customer portal solution that connects Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the Internet.

 
Audience   
This course is intended for .NET developers who work with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and understand the built-in customization capabilities of the application. Developers attending this course should also understand Web development technologies including a client-side programming using DHTML. This course is intended for developers creating a extensions for a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation − it does not contain guidance for ISVs creating packaged Microsoft Dynamic CRM add-on products for resale.

 
At Course Completion   
After completing this course, students will be able to:

 
• Create applications that use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Services to perform at a actions on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.
 
• Create, configure and debug Custom Workflow Activities.
 
• Create, configure and debug .NET assemblies to use in Plug-ins.
 
• Create and debug client-side code for Microsoft Dynamic CRM form events.
 
• Integrate other applications with Microsoft Dynamics CRM through the use of URL addressable forms, IFrames, and custom buttons, menus, and navigation areas added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
 
• Recognize licensing and security issues related to building extensions to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that connect to the Internet.

 
Prerequisites   
Before attending this course, students must have:   

 
• Completed Course 8912A Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or have equivalent knowledge of the customization capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
 
• At least three months experience creating .NET applications using Microsoft® Visual Studio®.
 
• A good understanding of Web development technologies including programming with DHTML.

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Certification Crazy - 5 CRM exam appointments in 1 week.

July 25, 2008

As a CRM trainer, I have to stay on top of all the courses & exams that have come out last 90 days for CRM 4.0. MCTs must keep all the certifications up to date, too. Once I finished the reviews of all of the new CRM 4.0 courses: 8911, 8912, 8913, it was time for me to check out all the new exams for the courseware so I can focus for my students planning certification. The 3 new exams are the trifecta for certifying your company as a CRM partner with Microsoft.

This week I spent the time to take them all myself and refresh my CRM certifications. The three exams for Microsoft CRM 4.0 that are currently available are: MB2-631 Customization and Configuration for CRM 4.0, MB2-632 Applications for CRM 4.0, and MB2-633 Installation and Deployment for CRM 4.0.

I figured I knew quite a bit about CRM 4.0 since I teach the CRM Microsoft 4.0 classes, am certified for the CRM 3.0 exams, and have written CRM 4.0 user training courses.  So without thinking too much about it, I scheduled all three exams this past Tuesday.  (Can you see that my ego might be ripe for a fall here?)

Great Morning: I had just taught the Microsoft official curriculum 8912 course: Customization and Configuration for CRM 4.0 in the last few weeks and do a lot of customizing.  I took the MB2-631 exam, and passed it with an 88%.  Lots of focus on new stuff like multi-currency, multi-deployment, and multi-language, but it’s all covered in the courseware. A reasonable test if you know your stuff.

Bad afternoon: Then I took MB2-632 CRM 4.0 applications exam. I was confident at the beginning: I teach end users CRM every week. As I worked my way through the exam, I realized that there was a lot of questions on this exam that required a lot of in-depth knowledge, not the kind of stuff you get by just reading the book quickly. I flunked that one with a 64%, missing a passing score by three questions. The third exam that day, MB2-633 I flunked with score of 66. The bottom line was that I wasn’t prepared. I went home that night frustrated with the fact that I hadn’t passed all three exams in one day, rather than being happy that I passed one of the three certifications for CRM 4.0.

Getting serious: Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m stubborn.  I got the Trainer Packs out for the two exams that I hadn’t passed, rescheduled the MB2-632 apps exam for Thursday, and buckled down.  I used the test results to focus on the areas where I had problems.  I reread every courseware chapter related to the sections that I did poorly in. I did all the labs and went through the test your knowledge questions again.  Things I didn’t understand, I tried out in our CRM system. 

Second try: On Thursday afternoon, I passed MB2-632 with a 76% on my second try. I am not happy with that exam, but I passed.  The bottom line here, is it the MB2-632  CRM 4.0 Applications exam is really tough.  There are a number of questions that really test if you understand how CRM works, not just whether or not you understand the material.  There’s a focus on this exam (and all the new CRM courseware and exams) about the new functions of CRM 4.0 which is entirely different from the 3.0 exam. I read a lot of negative remarks on the web about this exam and I will agree that this exam is probably tougher than any other exam that I taken for CRM, SQL, or Windows server. There are some questions that are subjective, so you must really focus on the Courseware and work with CRM to truly understand the concepts. This test is passable in its current form, but it’s not easy. Given the number of comments I’ve read about this test, perhaps there will be an update for the Courseware and the exam coming up from Microsoft sometime soon.

Finish it off: Today, I sat the second time for MB2-633 (install and deploy) and passed it with 90%.  All in all, if you’re current on the material and know how to handle the trickier stuff beyond just a simple single server implementation, you can do well on this exam. Again, be sure to focus on what is new or different in CRM 4.0.

I’m certain that anyone who takes 8911 and 8912 Courseware should be able to sit for and pass the MB2-631 and MB2-633 exams. I think the sequence of exams should be: MB2-633, MB2-631, and finally MB2-632 (especially if there is a refresh coming).  Passing the MB2-632 CRM 4.0 Application exam will take some serious focus on understanding how CRM really works from a user perspective.

Have a great weekend and good luck on your exams!

Steve Noe, MCT, MCBMSP-CRMx2

 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Installation and Deployment #8911

July 07, 2008

Since I have already reviewed both 8912 & 8913, I thought I had better review  8911: Installation and Deployment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 just to be thorough. 

This two day course replaces the CRM 3.0 8526 Installation & Configuration 3 day course and drops the topics in 8526 that dealt with configuration. These topics are now included in the 8912: Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and 80002A:  Administration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 courses.The new focus is designed to give CRM 4.0 installers everything they need to deploy CRM 4.0 but avoids getting into and configuration of the application itself. The new focus will make it quicker for IT staff & Microsoft partners to get the applications installation training they need to deploy CRM 4.0.  If you need to configure or perform any customization in CRM 4.0, take a look at the  8912: Customization and configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

This course is not appropriate for the average CRM end-user.  The course is intended for system administrators, implementation consultants, system integrators, technical staff, or support professionals who plan to install and deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and understand the technical aspects and administrative functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Prerequisites include  working knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics Windows Server 2003, Active Directory, Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft ® Exchange, Microsoft SQL ® Server 2005, and Microsoft ® Outlook.

Like the other Microsoft CRM courseware, this class is taught using a virtual PC image which provides the perfect ‘sandbox’ to get hands on with the labs without affecting a live environment. This concept takes a lot of stress out of some of the topics in the courseware.

Day one kicks off with an overview and discussion of the components of CRM and the infrastructure required to support the deployment; planning tasks including identifying hardware & software requirements for the install; detailed requirements, architecture. and installation of CRM server components; and E-Mail router components. Day two continues with detailed examination of the Outlook Client installation; redeployment tasks; upgrades and finally, installation & repair.

After taking the course, students will have the requisite knowledge to install, maintain, move and repair CRM 4.0 deployments. All in all, it is worth the two days to jumpstart your CRM deployment skill set.

See our web site for more information about CRM training.

Steve Noe, MCT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Customization & Configuration Course 8912 review

July 01, 2008

We have been delivering the CRM 4.0 8912 Customization & Configuration course for a while now so I thought it’s time for our review of the course. The new course is less technical than the 8525 CRM 3.0 version of the course, so it is definitely appropriate for  non-developers as well a prerequisite for developers planning to take the new 8969 CRM 4.0 extending course that replaces 8531: Extending CRM 3.0.

The 3 day course spends Day 1 covering the configuration of your organizational structure, users, teams and security, wraps up the first day with an overview of organizational settings. Day 2 begins with an overview of customization, then dives into customizing forms & views, entities & attributes (Tables and rows), and ends up with (entity) relationships and data mapping. Day 3 continues with data mapping, then moves on entity renaming, translation of entities for multiple language support, and covers the deployment manager. The second part of day 3 is a 4 hour introduction/demonstration of the advanced customizations that are covered in the upcoming CRM 4.0 Workflow and Extending CRM 4.0 courses such as: Workflow, Application event Programming with jscript, IFrames, etc.

This course does NOT require a .net background and does not cover SDK topics in any detail, so you don’t need to be a programmer to take this class. This is also not the course to teach you how to install CRM 4.0. For that you need to take the 2 day 8911: Installation & Deployment in CRM 4.0 course.

This course gives IT staff & Microsoft partners the training they need to properly implement CRM using the extensive customization features and get an understanding of how easy customizing CRM 4.0 really is. Consider taking 8913, CRM 4.0 Applications as a prerequisite to 8912 so that you clearly understand the base CRM product before you start customizing. This course (8912) will should be considered a prerequisite to the 8969: CRM 4.0 Extending course for any developer planning on developing Microsoft CRM 4.0 extensions. I have seen too many CRM implementations where it was obvious that a number of extensions were made without a clear understanding of how CRM could be customized before any code needed to be written.  Understand the power of customization before you start writing .net code.

Analysts, Designers, and Project Managers responsible for implementing CRM would also be well advised to take this course. It will help you understand the how Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 can be implemented with a minimum of coding. This understanding is critical to ensure the best returns on a CRM investment. This course is not appropriate for the average CRM end-user. 

See our web site for more information about CRM training.

MS CRM 4.0 Workflow won’t publish after deleting an attribute.

May 27, 2008

Mitch Milam and I were working on this problem together. I had removed a series of custom attributes from the Opportunity entity and we could no longer publish some of the workflows associated with the entity.We got the following message: An Error has occurred. (Very helpful message)

After lots of #$%^& words, we finally found that all of the workflows with the problem were updating the Opportunity entity.

Once we clicked the ‘Set Properties’ of the Update and then clicked on Save & Close of Update Opportunity Web Page Dialog, the problem went away.

We think that it may be a bug in CRM 4.0, but that is the workaround! It looks like the attribute is referenced in the workflow code, even if you don’t make any changes to the deleted attribute. Opening and re-saving the Update web dialog seems to clear out the reference to the newly missing attribute.

HTH!

Steve (& Mitch)

CRM 4.0 Sales Process workflow observations and best practices.

May 04, 2008

There are several attributes in the opportunity entity which are used to relate the sales process stages, the opportunity form, and the sales pipeline report. 

The Pipeline Phase “stepname” attribute is used to communicate the stage in the sales process in the bottom right-hand corner of the opportunity form. This is not used in the Sales Pipeline report but should be modified at each step in the sales process to match the step name of the sales process and thus communicate the sales process stage of to the person viewing the opportunity.

The Probability "closeprobabilitity" attribute is used to provide a weighted revenue forecast and can be updated in the opportunity form (unless you manually disable it) or can be updated by the sales process.

· The Process Code “salestagecode” attribute is a user customizable code that represents the current stage of an opportunity in a manual sales process. Designed to support manual sales processes upgraded from earlier versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This attribute is not used in the sales process or the sales pipeline report

Here are some sales process workflow best practices:

1 Always include stages in the sales process workflow with names such as “Stage 1: Initiate"

2 He Ffirst step in each stage should be an "Update Record" of the opportunity to change Pipeline Phase to match the sales process stage name.

3 If you are automatically updating the Probability in your sales process, that should be included in the previous "Update Record".

4 If you use multiple sales processes with a master process to determine which one to use based on a set of criteria , the master process should not have stages as it will confuse the issue for reporting.

Sales Pipeline Report

The sales pipeline report can show a graphical representation of all the opportunities of a particular sales process workflow by stage.  This is accomplished by the following:

1 Open the reports folder and select the Sales Pipeline Report.

2 Enter the appropriate criteria on the filter when it appears.

3 Choose a sales process from the list in the "Group by Sales Process” box.

4 In the "group by" box, choose sales stage.

5 The report will contain one vertical bar for each stage in the selected sales process.  The titles for these bars the bottom of the report are from the opportunity workflow stage description.

 

HTH,

 

Steve Noe

Using a recursive CRM 4.0 child workflow to simulate a ‘DO Loop’

May 01, 2008

One problem I’ve run across is that Microsoft CRM 4.0 workflows do not allow you to loop. So if you have any kind of recurring process, you have to be creative to make it work. A common issue that I have to deal with in sales processes, is the situation where a workflow is designed to validate the data in an entity repeatedly until the user gets it right.  In this particular example, we want to make sure that an opportunity cannot graduate to the next step in the sales process until all the required data has been entered and assigned tasks completed.

The first step of this child workflow is a complicated test to verify that all the data has been properly filled in and that several tasks have been completed. If the test is true, workflow then:

 

* updates a status flag in the opportunity to tell a parent workflow it can continue,

* sends a congratulatory e-mail to the sales rep and his manager for moving another opportunity to the next phase,

* then the child workflow ends.

If the test fails,the otherwise branch performs the following:

 

* create a new task telling the sales rep about the missing or invalid information,   
* wait for completion of that task,   
* check a couple of other things,   
* and ultimately the workflow calls itself to start the process all over again.

In the meantime, the parent (calling) workflow is waiting for the status flag mentioned above to be set to Yes, before it will continue.

HTH

 

Steve Noe

Microsoft CRM 4.0 workflow stage example (upgraded from CRM 3.0)

May 01, 2008

Upgrading workflows can only happen as part of upgrading an entire CRM deployment. So if you have a lot of workflows you need to make sure they’re all in the deployment before you perform the 3.0 to 4.0 upgrade. (To my knowledge) it is not possible to import a 3.0 workflow into 4.0.

The upgrade process from CRM 3.0 to CRM 4.0 performs a good job of upgrading workflows and sales processes to 4.0. Here’s a great example of a staged sales process that has been through the upgrade process:

Notice the first step in the stage is to update the opportunity. This is a conversion of the CRM 3.0 sales process function that updated the Pipeline Phase of the opportunity and the Probability of close at the beginning of each step. CRM 4.0 workflows give us the ability to apply staged workflows to any entity. This new functionality lets us accomplish a lot more with workflows.

Another interesting detail of this code is the "Wait Until" step. Each task that is in the wait step is checked for both completed or canceled. This is important because a user could cancel a task rather than completing it and if you are only looking for completion your workflow will hang forever. A wait should take this into account and can be coupled with a conditional branch to handle the cancellation of the workflow if the task is canceled.

The last step in each stage is important as well. The conditional branch tests to see if the opportunity has been won or lost at the end of the stage.  It will terminate the workflow based upon any change of status rather than going to the next stage in the workflow process.

You should also know that the name of the stage ("Qualify Stage") is the value that drives multiple columns when you run the sales pipeline report -not the value in the Pipeline Phase attribute of the opportunity. See my blog for an article about the specifics of that.

Have a great night!

Steve Noe

CRM 4.0 Child Workflow to Send Complex E-mail

April 30, 2008

CRM 4.0 workflows can be used for a number of different things. One great example is a workflow to generate a complex e-mail.  CRM e-mail  templates only allow you to access data stored in a single entity.  However you can build custom e-mail from all related entity data sources in a simple workflow in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Consider the following Scenario:

A custom training session entity and enrollments entity has been created that link enrollees (contacts) to a training session which is being provided by a trainer (CRM user).  If you want to send an e-mail that includes information about the training session, the product that it represents, the contacts who are enrolled, and include contact information about the person who set up the enrollment (owner) you will need to do this by generating a custom workflow e-mail rather than using a CRM e-mail template.

This example shows a simple workflow which checks to see if the training session e-mail actually needs to be sent, then builds a workflow-based e-mail with all of the details.

This email includes data pulled from four separate entities. By the way, the other cool thing you can do is to attach a document to the e-mail.  You definitely can’t do that in the CRM e-mail template!

 

Enjoy!

CRM 4.0 Pipeline Report and the Sales Process

April 29, 2008

I was working on the pipeline report today and trying to figure out how it's affected by the sales process.  What wasn't clear which how sales stages show up on the pipeline report.  To identify exactly how it works, I created a test sales process with two stages and then created several opportunities and walked them through the stages.

What I found out is that the Sales Stages that show up on the pipeline report are the description from each stage in a multistage opportunity workflow (sales process) and are only created from the sales process.  If your opportunity has not been driven by a multistage workflow, the sale stage will always be unspecified in the pipeline report.  It doesn’t matter what you put into the Pipeline Phase field of the opportunity because that has nothing to do with the Sales Pipeline report, and it just used to display in the bottom right-hand of the opportunity form.

Here’s an example of my test sales process (note the names used to describe stage one and stage two in the sales process):

Here is the corresponding Pipeline report. Notice the "Test Sales Process" at the top & stage names at the bottom.

 

There are several attributes in the Opportunity entity  that appear to be related to this:

 
• stepname (Pipeline phase): Displayed in bottom right corner of opportunity Form
 
• salesstagecode (Process code):Picklist out-of-the-box with only one value - "Default value" I’m not sure where this is actually used.
 
• stepid (Step): This attribute of type uniqueidentifier is entitled "unique identifier of the step in the sales process". You can’t access it in a view, nor can you add it to the form, but I believe that this is the data attribute used by the sales pipeline form. I haven’t had a chance to look into the pipeline report to see if this is actually what it does but if somebody wants to let me know about that I would certainly be grateful.

I hope that clarifies things for you.

Have a great day,

Stephen Noe

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Certification Exams Available!

April 25, 2008

The core exams required for certification in Microsoft dynamic CRM 4.0 are now available for those of you who are interested! 

The following three exams are fundamental for individual or Microsoft partner certification for the CRM competency:

 

 
• 30-631: Customization and Configuration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Microsoft official curriculum 8912
 
• 30-632: Applications for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Microsoft official curriculum 8913
 
• 30-633: Installation and Deployment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Microsoft official curriculum 8911

The exams were available effective April 25 2008.

For more information, check out:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/training/

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/training/learningplans/crmprus.htm

 

Good luck (and let us know if we can help you with any of your training needs)

Stephen Noe

Items not being deleted from CRM 4.0 Queues

April 09, 2008

I was getting the following error message when I attempted to delete e-mails from some of the queues in our deployment of CRM 4.0. Even worse, the records weren’t getting deleted so queues were getting kind of gunked up

Actually, the records have been deleted but the queue entries were still there. Whenever you try to open one of these record I got the following error message: 

Fortunately my friend Mitch Milam, found the fix.  It’s technical, so I’ll just refer you to his blog since I promised not to get too technical here.

http://blogs.infinite-x.net/2008/04/09/items-not-being-deleted-from-crm-40-queues/

Thanks for your help Mitch, as always it’s appreciated

Steve

Free Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 End User Training Webinar!

April 09, 2008

We are offering our CRM 101 training seminar on Friday, April 18 at no charge for a limited time.

This is a four hour webinar that normally costs $125 per enrollee, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern daylight Time.

 

Restrictions apply. Limited enrollment.

Check it out here:

http://www.bizitpro.com/biz_it/announce

Steve

MS CRM 4.0 Track email fails with ‘Text entered exceeds the maximum length’

April 07, 2008

One of the annoyances that we run into after installing Microsoft Dyanamics CRM 4.0 was receiving the following dialog box when trying to track an e-mail.  I’ve done searches for the past that hadn’t run across anything until today.

It turns out, that the length of the ‘messageid’ attribute in the e-mail entity is set to 100 and occasionally the message ID of the message can be longer, which causes this message. If you change the maximum length of the messageID attribute in the e-mail entity to 200, this should solve the problem

Find the detailed solution here: http://www.sadev.co.za/node/160.

Thanks to rmaclean’s blog for the answer

 

Steve Noe

Cardscan beta is out for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

April 07, 2008

If you have been waiting for the Cardscan fix to work with Dynamics CRM 4.0, a beta fix that works with CRM 4.0 is available from: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

I installed it last week and it is working well.

 

Steve

MS CRM 4.0 Sample Quote Template

April 03, 2008

Here are two updated CRM 4.0 Quote templates for Word mailmerge

I have been playing with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 quote template for word mailmerge.  There were some documented issues, and so I fixed them and also took care some realignment so that would make it easier to customize and use. I also had some help from David Fronk with a couple of posts about the Quote templates.

Here are two samples, one using tables which was the very devil to get the alignment right and one using two lines per item and tabs to handle the alignment:

Turns out the alignment trick for the table one is going to take a movie to demonstrate. More on that when I have a space moment. Hint: Look at the paragraph options for before and after spacing of the line immediately above the quote line item table!

Enjoy!

Steve

Changing the account entity name to company in Microsoft CRM (Video demo)

March 26, 2008

One of the recommendations we make for CRM users is to change the name of the account entity to company. This makes it clearer to end users that this entity stores information about all the companies that we know, not just our accounts. This was previously published in my top 10 recommendations blog, but I got an e-mail yesterday from someone asking me how to do it. 

Here you go:

  MSCRM-Acct2CompCustomizeDemo/MSCRM-Acct2CompCustomizeDemo.html

thanks for your feedback, as always your comments are encouraged and appreciated.

Steve Noe

Using Outlook Favorites for fast access to CRM (video demo)

March 26, 2008

In my top 10 blog for CRM improvements, one of the tips is to use the Outlook shortcuts to get to all of your CRM folders quickly.  Here's a quick video demo that shows you how to do it.

Have a great day  

Steve

MSCRM-Outlook-Shortcuts/MSCRM-Outlook-Shortcuts.html

CRM 4.0 Outlook Client crashes during sync with Outlook

March 08, 2008

As a part of our conversion to CRM 4.0 over the last few days, we had a problem with the Outlook client for CRM crashing every 10-15 minutes. Turns out the problem involves the birthday field: reportedly if the birthdate field in CRM is before 1970, it causes a crash. The workaround is to not sync any contact records with birthday data until you install the hotfix.

Update on 3/9/08: It’s available now via Dynamics support, reference KB Article Number(s): 948045.

Here is the workaround: Go to the CRM menu in outlook and select modify local data groups.

Double click the My Active Contacts group to open it:

In the Contact data group add a new selection criteria to the bottom of the list to only sync records with no data in the Birthday field.

Save and close. Once you get the Hotfix for this, remember to take it out again.

The Forgetful Road Warrior and CRM 4.0 off-line client for Outlook.

February 26, 2008

The CRM 4.0 off-line client for Outlook has a some new options that make it even better for the business traveler. CRM 4.0 now allows you to automatically keep your off-line database in sync so you don’t have to remember to do it yourself.

When I was traveling I would always forget to take the CRM client off-line before I left the office.  Granted it was poor planning on my part, but it seemed I was always in a rush when it was time to travel and I would forget. If I needed to work on CRM in that long wait at the airport or on the plane, I have to sync up as much as a weeks worth of work which took along time when doing it over my Motorola Q data link. Not so much fun.

Well, with CRM 4.0 I don’t have that problem anymore. The CRM options form has a new "local data" tab. This is where are you tell CRM to keep your local database to sync every 15 minutes or so automatically. Once this is turned on, your off-line database is always ready to go!

Assuming you’re running the CRM 4.0 off-line client for Outlook, here’s how you set up your laptop to automatically sync the off-line database. 

 

In Outlook, click the CRM option in the menu bar and select options.

 

Once the personal options form is displayed,click the "Local Data" tab,

Now all you need to do Is click the checkbox next to "Update local data every" And select the time interval.

Hope you enjoy that one, it sure has made my life easier.

 

Steve Noe

CRM 4.0 Mail merge templates much more usable!

February 26, 2008

One of the items I tried last weekend was upgrading some of the many Word templates we used in CRM 3.0.  One of the problems that we had in using templates in CRM 3.0, was that it was difficult for users to find them and especially difficult to use when you were on the road. Well, CRM 4.0 has fixed all of that!

It is a little tricky to get your old templates into CRM until you figure it out. Fortunately for all of us there is a really good blog article that shows how.

Arne Marquez is a software development engineer in test, working on CRM’s diagnostics and mail merge features for the Titan release.  His first blog post on the CRM team blog is a real winner:  MSCRM 4.0 Mail Merge Basics.

His article will give you all the basics you need to get started loading your Word templates in to CRM 4.0. Once they’re loaded, all of your users will be able to find the templates with ease, both in the office and while traveling with the CRM offline client for Outlook.

Nice job Arne! It was exactly what I needed when I was in a crunch to get those templates from 3.0 working in CRM 4.0. Thanks!

Steve Noe

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Applications Course 8913 review

February 09, 2008

As an MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer), I specialize in Microsoft CRM training, so when the new curriculum arrives for CRM 4.0 I have to take these courses right away. The new 8913: Applications in Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 has some significant changes over the CRM 3.0 application courses and I am impressed. 

First of all, all four CRM 3.0 application courses (8521, 8522, 8523, and 8524) have been combined into a single three-day course. The course content also is more substantive and goes deeper than the earlier CRM 3.0 applications courses and seems more in touch with real world situations.

The new combined format will make it much easier for IT staff & Microsoft partners to get the applications training they need to properly support their customers and get an overall understanding of how the application works. This course will should be considered a prerequisite to the 8912:Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 course (read review) for any techie planning on customizing Microsoft CRM 4.0. I have seen too many CRM implementations where it was obvious that a number of customizations and extensions were made without a clear understanding of how CRM works out of the box from a user perspective. 

Management teams implementing CRM would also be well advised to take this course. It will help management understand the entire Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 product. This understanding is critical to support the appropriate planning needed to ensure the best returns on a CRM investment.

This course is not appropriate for the average CRM end-user.  It doesn’t make sense to invest in three days of training for a user when their focus will be on less than one third of the course content. The best approach for the average end user is to provide 2 four-hour sessions of training.  The first session should introduce CRM concepts & entities; teach the user how to navigate through CRM; and use the different CRM clients.  After the user has had an opportunity to practice the skills and get used to the system, they should take second training session designed to focus on their job requirements.

See our web site for more information about CRM training.

Steve Noe, MCT

CRM 4.0 Outlook Client Observations after Two Weeks of Operation

February 09, 2008

Overall our CRM 4.0 implementation process has been relatively painless.  The upgrade went well, less stressful because of thorough backups. The two bumps that we had initially were easy enough to resolve with workarounds.  (See previous blogs).

 

After two weeks I have been extremely pleased.  Our deployment includes both desktop and laptop Outlook clients. While there have been occasional crashes of Outlook, the benefits far outweigh the problems at this point in time and the CRM community is doing a great job of publishing solutions in a timely manner. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to get hot-fixes out quickly so that we can have a more stable environment.  The enhanced functionality of the Outlook client is where I have been focusing my time, as I use it the most.  Workflows are next.

 

New features that we like: 
* Outlook feature to automatically track e-mails for all CRM leads, contacts and companies.  This feature is cool!  I wish it did the same thing for outbound e-mails.   
* Outlook feature to track multiple e-mails and set regarding with one click of the track/set regarding buttons.

* the ability to type into a lookup field is way cool! This is a big productivity improvement.

* The forms assistant has been improved to the point of usability! Nice to be able to more easily create follow up activities.

*the ability to convert a CRM e-mail to an opportunity or case. This is a good start.

* the new diagnostic tool in separate Outlook configuration make rolling out the clients easier.

Lessons Learned on SBS2003 MS CRM 3.0 upgrade to MS CRM 4.0

January 31, 2008

We have finally upgraded to CRM 4.0! We started on Wednesday morning and by Thursday afternoon had most of the problems either resolved or worked around.  We had two major issues: one involved the CRM e-mail router and the other involved contact synchronization with the CRM client. While we had a couple of other minor issues, the upgrade went surprisingly well.

Our infrastructure runs on the Small Business Server 2003 and we were running CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition on SBS prior to conversion.  We figured that the best approach would be one that would allow us to roll back if there was a problem, so we decided to redeploy our CRM implementation to another server and upgrade that deployment. While this took an extra 4 hours, it made sure we were covered before we started the actual upgrade.

First we built a W2K3 Enterprise server with SQL 2005 Std SP2 installed, (the install guide points out that SQL 2005 Workgroup Edition doesn’t work for CRM 4.0), then moved our database and other modifications to the new server and tested it. After the test, we declared the environment ready to upgrade.

Following the Microsoft dynamics CRM 4.0 installing guide, we went through the process "Upgrade the database from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 server". Quite frankly, the process was painless with no hick ups or problems. Next, we installed the e-mail router on the same server.  Note: our exchange server is on the SBS box, so this means we were attempting to install the e-mail router on a different box then exchange.  The install of the CRM e-mail router went fine, but we were unable to make it connect for inbound e-mail after configuring it. After working on it for several hours, we called Microsoft support, but nothing we tried got it to work. Discussions with Microsoft support suggest that when the e-mail router is installed on a box other than the exchange server you cannot use a local account.  Unfortunately, any account we tried to use did not work. BTW, that includes domain administrator accounts.

To make it work, we disabled the e-mail router on the CRM server, then reinstalled the CRM 4.0 e-mail router on the SBS box so that it would be on the same server as exchange.  It came right up and started working flawlessly. 

While we were waiting on the callback for Microsoft, we started the installation of the CRM 4.0 client for Outlook.  Instead of trying to upgrade, we uninstalled CRM 3.0 and installed CRM 4.0 client for Outlook.  The install went well, but when we started Outlook 2007, it began to crash every 10 to 15 minutes.  Once we identified that the problem was caused by synchronizing contacts with birthdays earlier than 1970, we created a workaround.

Next, we installed the CRM 4.0 Outlook client with off-line access on a laptop to see how that went.  The installation went off without a hitch. We had to install one more CRM 4.0 client for Outlook. We tried this one is an upgrade and it gave us a lot of problems.  I finally uninstalled CRM 3.0 and reinstalled from scratch.

At this point, we are live on CRM 4.0.  Many of the tools that we used in CRM 3.0 such as CardScan and eConvert aren’t working at this time, but the benefits so far have made it worth it. Now I can get to work on prepping all of our CRM 4.0 training products.

Have a great day!

Steve Noe, MCT

MS CRM 4.0 now available as MSDN downloads

January 20, 2008

I was working on our test conversion from CRM 3.0 SBE to CRM 4.0 Professional yesterday and found that the DVD and keys for all three editions are available on the MSDN download site. The DVD is about 820MB, btw.

Using the SQL & W2K3R2 Enterprise trial virtual disk, I was able to successfully update our highly customized CRM 3.0 SBE to CRM 4.0 Professional. The only issue was that the license key from the SBE had to be deleted before the conversion process will work.

Initial testing looks good, but lots more to do.

 

Steve

CRM 4.0 features we have been waiting for

January 09, 2008

CRM 4.0 has a bunch of new features we are looking forward to. Here are some features that solve some of our problems:

 
• Duplicate checking rules that will make sure that we don’t have problems with duplicate e-mail addresses anymore.
 
• Automated rules for promoting e-mails into CRM with out using the CRM token!
 
• Faster Outlook startup, performance and diagnostics.
 
• The ability to select multiple e-mails at one time when promoting to CRM

 
More later—have a great day

Steve Noe MCT

Moving to Microsoft CRM 4.0

January 09, 2008

Last year I went to one of the partner presentations for Microsoft CRM 4.0, code-named Titan at that time. I learned a lot and was impressed.  My normal approach to new releases of software are to wait at least three months after the release before recommending that any of my clients move unless there are compelling reasons such as new features driving them to move sooner.

Based upon all the new features and the fact that we need to be a guinea pig for our clients, we here at bizITpro have decided to go ahead and make the move as soon as possible.

This will be a relatively complicated move as we have twin production deployments of CRM 3.0 on our network, use a terminal server, and use add-on software that all must be right for our system to continue working.

We have two clients that will probably implement CRM 4.0 as soon as possible based upon new feature needs satisfied by CRM 4.0.

I will write more as we go along.

Steve Noe

CRM Sales Training Relevance makes a difference!

December 07, 2007

I delivered CRM sales training to a large group of sales people for a client recently. My classes were not the first attempt to get the sales group trained in CRM. I found that the biggest issue they had was the frustration that the training did not relate to their day to day activities.

They got great exposure to features and functions in the previous training, but it did not take because it didn’t help them see the benefit to them to use it.

In the classes, I focused first on what problems they were seeing and sales person WIIFM (what’s in it for me) .  The other thing I did was to implement my top 10 tweaks for CRM productivity on the CRM system to solve some basic productivity issues. The reviews from the sales staff and their managers told us that the delivery was right on track. Things are moving forward and CRM acceptance has improved significantly.

The moral of the story is, if you want to train salespeople, you had better understand their problems and delivery a training solution that hits them where they live. Funny, that might be true about all training!

Steve

Customer Retention Strategies - Plugging the Leaky Bucket

November 28, 2007

Customer Relationship Management is a process not a program. And, customer retention is only part of the process known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

A two percent increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10 percent, says Emmett Murphy and Mark Murphy’s Leading on the Edge of Chaos. If that statement doesn’t catch your interest, then read no further.  It’s a lot harder to fill a (revenue) bucket if it’s leaking as you fill it.  Focus on reducing the leakage to make sure more of what you sell makes it to your bottom line.

Keeping your customers is harder than ever in today’s competitive business world. There is a competitor behind every tree that will take your customers if they can. Given the cost of getting new customers, it is critical to your bottom line to keep as many of them as you possibly can. Sales costs to get new customers can cost 30% and more, so its common sense to up-sell and resell existing customers. You already know who they are and what they buy. You have a relationship and you are a known quantity.

Every business is different, but you already know what works and what doesn’t to keep your customers.  It’s about knowing what they want, delivering what you committed, making it right every time, and making sure that they know their business is appreciated.  It’s about providing value and making sure that YOU understand what is valuable to them. Finally, it’s about making sure they know about your other products and remember the value you provided when they are ready to buy again.

Make it a process, not an afterthought.

The real challenge is how you turn that special treatment into a process that gets executed for every customer. It begins with the sale and continues past fulfillment to ensure that the experience is exactly what they expected with no surprises. It helps to give that little extra to show they are appreciated. Finally, you need to ‘touch’ them on a regular basis after the sale to make sure they remember you when it’s time to buy again.

You may do it, but how do you make sure that everybody does it, every time? Once you have the process in place, it is important to review it and refine it based upon your results over time.

The best way to make this happen is to document your winning processes, examine and refine them. Next, provide a toolset that can help your staff to follow the process and remind them when to do it. The key is to make it easy to do and to increase productivity so that everybody buys in on it.  You must measure the performance and results of the process so that management can stay on top of what is working, what’s not, and why.

One of the biggest causes of lost customers is employee turnover. If the relationship is between the customer and salesperson, you can’t afford to loose all of the information about your customer when the sales representative moves to a competitor. It’s important to make sure that information about your customers is available to the appropriate employees and not kept in someone’s head. This suggests that you need to have a secure database of customer information that will allow access to the right personnel while protecting it from unauthorized eyes.

Customer Relationship Management is a process not a program.

Customer retention is only part of the process known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM). One popular misconception is that CRM is software, but CRM is actually a series of customized processes that have to be implemented throughout the organization. The software is only a tool to support the processes. The software must be flexible enough to support your business processes, store your customer information in a secure database and helps to automate your sales, marketing and service processes. Once you have documented your processes and implemented them in ‘workflows’, CRM software will then guide your staff through the process every time, for every customer or just the ones you have selected for extra special treatment.

Formal Customer Relationship Management processes are a great way to keep your customers. You already have a process, but if it’s not documented and monitored, you’ll probably find that it’s not consistently applied. Industry studies have shown that a CRM strategy can improve sales from your existing customers by 20% or more at less cost that it takes to generate the sales from new customers. What are you waiting for, start plugging that bucket. They are YOUR customers, hang on to them!

Top 10 CRM Tweaks for New User Productivity

October 31, 2007

So, now that you've got your CRM system in place, how do you make it work for you? Here are some simple solutions to increase your user productivity and make your implementation a success!

1. Add highly used folders from Microsoft CRM to Outlook Favorites.
The fastest way to improve your CRM productivity is simply to add folders that you use in CRM all the time to the favorites folders in the Outlook mail folder.

2. Add a “Phone call” button and Task button to the account and contact forms.
Since the most common activities usually entered by CRM users are phone calls it just makes sense to add a phone call button to match the e-mail button that you can click from the toolbar in the contacts and accounts. This simple fix takes only a few moments and improves productivity for the sales reps and people and your call center.

3. Update the Contacts ‘associated view’ to include e-mail & job title.
The contacts associated view is the view that is used to show the contacts associated with an account by simply adding a contact e-mail address in title to this view. Adjusting the widths of the columns to make sure it displays properly, you can make it much easier for everyone to use.

4. Create a standard signature template for CRM e-mail.
Out-of-the-box, Microsoft CRM does not support a standard default signature with CRM-based e-mails.  The most helpful fix, is to create a special universal e-mail template, that retrieves all the user information and generates a generic signature template. Another tip: use the underscore character as the first letter in the template name which will cause your default signature template to rise to the very top of the list were will be easy for all your users to select.

5. Stop the E-Mail address from Leads getting transferred to the Account Record when promoting a Lead.
Out-of-the-box, Microsoft CRM automatically maps fields from the lead entity into both the account entity and a contact entity as part of the promote lead process.  The problem is that the e-mail address from the lead is copied into both entities, which will cause problems whenever Microsoft CRM attempts to promote an e-mail. To fix this problem the easiest thing to do is to delete the mapping of lead e-mail address into the account e-mail address, thus guaranteeing that the e-mail address is only promoted into the contact where it actually belongs.

6. Add one or both additional e-mail address(es) to contact form.
There will be many occasions where CRM user receives e-mails from contacts who have more than one e-mail address.  Microsoft CRM supports up to three e-mail addresses for a contact and uses all three addresses when attempting to determine where to promote an e-mail using the address.  By simply exposing the second and third e-mail address user will be able to store more than one e-mail address for a contact and any e-mails received from any of the contact e-mail addresses will be associated properly.

7. Rename the ‘account’ entity to ‘company’.
Rename Accounts to Companies and use it for all the companies you do business with whether they be vendors, customers, or otherwise. A common problem I run into with new users is that they’re confused by the term accounts as the entity name for company information.  In most CRM implementations, the account entity actually stores company information about every single company that the user needs to store information about.  Make it easier for users to adapt to the new system and recognize that all companies are stored in the CRM database and not just those that are customers. Don’t forget to also change all the messages that refer to accounts or it will still be very confusing.

8. Start to use the Opportunities entity and formalize your sales process.
In many implementations, people are intimidated by the opportunities entity and don’t start using it.  To start reaping the benefits of the opportunities entity, you only need to enter a few basic pieces of information for each opportunity: who, what, how much, how likely, and when. It will only take a few minutes to enter all your opportunities. Once they’re in, you get the benefit of an easy to maintain list along with the pipeline report. Start building your sales process over time.

9. Create a sample MS Word template database.
CRM mailmerge functions are relatively easy to use, but most users don’t know how to set up the initial template.  Consider setting up a couple of sample templates and store them in a public folder for all to use.  Don’t forget to tell users they are there.

10. CardScan for MS CRM for each department.
CardScan is one of the fastest ways to add new prospects and contacts into the CRM system. We recommend this product to every one of our clients. Click here for more information & ordering instructions

And, if you really want your users to succeed,

Provide two half day training sessions for each end user. The productivity gains will return much more than the cost and time spent in the first three months!

Have a great day!
Steve Noe

Customizing Your Outlook Desktop for CRM

October 01, 2007

One of the most important things you can do to improve your Microsoft CRM productivity is to customize your Outlook desktop. It takes only a minute to do and will tubocharge your CRM productivity.

In your mail folder in Outlook you have the ability to set up favorites folders.  Outlook out-of-the-box already includes several folders in the favorites as an example. This example below shows an already customized favorites folder that includes both the standard defaults as well as including some Microsoft CRM folders as well.

In addition to the default folders of: 

 
• inbox,
 
• for follow-up,
 
• unread mail, and
 
• sent items;

Several CRM folders should been added as well.  Most users should consider adding the following CRM to the favorite folders list to make them easily accessible: 

 
• contacts,
 
• accounts, and
 
• activities
 
• leads (optional)
 
• opportunities (optional)

How to add folders to the” favorites folders list”   
1. First open Outlook and go to the Mail view of Outlook by clicking on the Mail Icon or Mail bar in the navigation pane on the left side of the Outlook window.

2. You may add any folder to the favorite folders list by right clicking it and selecting “add to favorite folders list” or by dragging and dropping the folder you want to add in the position you would like it to be in the favorite folders list. 
 
3. Open the CRM folder, go to each CRM folder you want to add to favorites, and repeat step 2 for each folder you want to add.

4. To remove a folder from the favorite folders list, right-click the folder that you wish to remove and click on “remove from favorite folders list”.

You will end up with an Outlook favorites folder that looks like the screenshot below. This’ll make it easy for you to access any CRM folder that you use regularly.

 

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