Dynamics CRM 4.0 Accelerators, coming at ya!

CRM Analytics Accelerator

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog has exciting previews on five (5!) CRM Accelerators coming your way this Q3.  Needless to say, I can’t wait to plug them in and start working on these new features.  This official Microsoft site has proven time and again to be a bookmark-worthy source of all things Dynamics CRM.

For screenshots and even more details, check out the links below that go directly to the source articles.

• Analytics Accelerator
  • Sales, service and operations dashboards delivered with Microsoft SQL Server® Reporting Services (SSRS).
  • Sales, service and operations dashboards and scorecards delivered with Microsoft PerformancePoint Server.
  • Additional reports delivered with SSRS.
  • Two Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) cubes which are designed to allow customers to conduct in-depth analysis and key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 data.
  • Predictive analytics to provide statistical guidance in areas such as lead and sales opportunity management.
  • The analytics accelerator will work with SQL Server 2005 with some components enhanced to take advantage of SQL Server 2008.

• eService Accelerator
  • Customer authentication into the portal and workflows to manage the setup of a contact as a web self-service customer.
  • Customer profile updates to contact details; this capability is configurable allowing organizations to choose which attributes of the profile they want to expose to the customer portal such as name, contact details and communications preferences.
  • The ability to view, create, edit and close service cases. There are two permission levels available to web portal customers:
    • Account-Level: these customers can view and modify all cases raised against the account they are associated with.
    • Contact-Level: these customers can only view and modify service cases that they themselves have raised.
  • Online service scheduling allowing customers to search for convenient times and then book service appointments with the organization.
  • Search against the Microsoft Dynamics CRM knowledge base (KB) using keywords. Once the appropriate KB article has been located the customer can then email that article to themselves or others.

• Event Management Accelerator
  • Event Planning – logistics around an event such as:
    • Booking the venue
    • Presenters
    • Catering
    • Presentation content preparation
  • Event Attendance – all aspects around managing the attendees such as:
    • Inviting the target audience via phone, fax, letter and email
    • Managing registrations via phone, letter, fax, email and web
    • Tracking all people who actually attended the event
  • Event Review – Microsoft Dynamics CRM reports that measure the effectiveness of the event:
    • How many people attended the event?
    • What was the revenue impact of the event?

• Enterprise Search Accelerator
  • View and edit any Microsoft Dynamics CRM data such as accounts, contacts, opportunities, sales orders, invoices, service cases and any custom entity data through SharePoint. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM security model is preserved and enforced so that users can only view or edit CRM information that their security role allows.
  • Launch a SharePoint search which can return documents, emails, web content and Microsoft Dynamics CRM data.

• Sales Methodologies Accelerator
  • The sales methodologies accelerator is for customers who work with or want to work with one of the leading sales methodology vendors, including: Target Account Selling (TAS), SPI Solution Selling and Miller Heiman. Each of these vendors has their own distinct software products which need to be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to provide a holistic approach to sales management.
  • The sales methodologies accelerator will provide customizations, advice and guidance for customers on how these sales methodologies can be configured, managed and integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

Lately the big news in the browser world is that Microsoft recently released beta version 2 of Internet Explorer.  Since it’s still in its beta version, there’s bound to be some applications and websites that it does not yet support. Unfortunately, that includes Microsoft Dynamics CRM (for now).

Martin Jenson of the Dynamics CRM Team recommends that CRM users “do not install Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 on any machine used to access any version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.”

In conclusion, the better scenario right now is to wait until Internet Explorer 8 goes RTM (Release To Market), after Microsoft has ironed out the compatibility issues.

UPDATE:  My installed version of IE8 Beta 2 renders CRM 4.0 just fine on my workstation.  See below for a screenshot of the Settings page.

IE8 Beta 2 works with CRM 4.0, but is likely not supported until the RTM version.

If you’re looking to test out IE8 Beta 2 yourself, you can download the installer at this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/worldwide-sites.aspx

Be back soon!

Must... resist... urge... to check... emails!

Fellow CRM enthusiasts,

I’m finally taking a well deserved vacation, but I promise to have more CRM Accelerator info for you when I get back.

Stay in touch!

-Christian

The Second Shot promotion is back! Register now for a free second try on a MS certification exam

Some mornings you probably will need that Second Shot.

Good news for those who missed out last time: the Second Shot promotion is back!  This means you have no excuses delaying on that next Microsoft Certification.  Register at the link below, because it’s always good to keep that voucher number handy.

Second Shot landing page
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/offers/secondshot/default.mspx

Full message from Microsoft:

Our Second Shot offer, which gives you a free second chance to pass your IT professional, developer, or Microsoft Dynamics exam, is available again to help you show off your industry-leading IT skills with less stress. Second Shot helps you get certified. We are pleased to make it available to you once again with the help of our worldwide test delivery partner, Prometric. Follow these steps to certify your skills on Microsoft’s latest technologies–the Visual Studio 2008 development system, the Windows Server 2008 operating system, or the Windows Vista operating system, for example–with a free second chance to pass your exam if you need it.

Dynamics CRM JavaScript Export Tool available for download

Quickly backup your CRM JavaScript code with the Export Tool.

Let’s say you need to back up all customizations to your CRM 4.0 environment and document the changes.  Downloading the full XML customization file is an easy solution, but it doesn’t allow you to examine the custom JavaScript code that was applied all over the CRM entity forms. Is there another option besides diving into CRM and manually opening each entity customization form, one-by-one?

Enter Joris Kalz’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM Jscript Export Tool.  He provides the Visual Studio 2008 project, free to download.  It requires no interaction with your CRM.  To configure, simply edit the app.config file for your CRM environment.  To download the file and view configuration details, see the links below.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Jscript Export Tool

• Direct download link at Joris Kalz Blog [200 KB]
• Full description and configuration details at Joris Kalz Blog

For you CRM 3.0 veterans, Joris is the creator of the nifty Caching Tool back in 2006 that cranked up the speed of your VPC demo environments.  Thanks Joris, it saved a sales demo more than once!

Microsoft’s latest statement outlines big plans for the future of Dynamics CRM [PDF download]

Sales. Service. Marketing. Dynamics CRM's got you covered.

If your business or career involves Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this is probably the announcement you’ve been waiting for.  Microsoft released a statement today addressing several important topics on the future of Dynamics CRM.  You can really tell they believe in the software and has big plans for it in the future.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog released a document titled “Statement of Direction”, which is available for download at these links:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Statement of Direction [PDF, 487KB]
• CustomerSource [link]
• PartnerSource [link]

Some of the topics covered in this statement include:

• Roadmap
• CRM Mobility
• Solution Accelerators
• SharePoint Web Parts
• BizTalk integration
• New features in CRM Online
• CRM “V-Next” (aka, Dynamics CRM 5.0!)

Some major announcements I’ve collected from reading this statement:

• Microsoft will release “CRM Mobile Express” in Q3 of 2008.  This fully-supported software will allow CRM to run on any HTML 4.0 capable phone.  To support Blackberry customers, Microsoft partnered with TenDigits to provide their MobileAccess 4.0 software at a cost-effective price.
• The list of confirmed CRM Accelerators are as follows:
  • Analytics
  • eService
  • Event Management
  • Enterprise Search
  • Sales Methodologies
  • Extended Sales Forecasting
  • CRM Notifications
  • Business Productivity
• An updated SharePoint web part for CRM 4.0 will be released in the second half of 2008.  It will support multi-tenancy, IFD deployments and 64-bit environments.
• New tools and features will be phased into CRM Online between now and CRM “V.Next”.  This will include advertising management, search engine, new analytics elements and dashboards.

CRM “V.Next”, or perhaps more known as CRM 5.0, deserves it’s own special section.  It’s slated to be released late 2009 to early 2010.  I’ve summarized some of the goals for this next version below.

• Deliver a “rich and satisfying user experience, leveraging new usability advances in the next releases of Microsoft Office and Windows.”
• Enhance the Outlook and Office “ribbon” experience.
• Streamlined user interface.
• More user personalization options.
• Closer integration with SharePoint, especially around document management.
• Improved Business Intelligence tools.
• Balanced workload management for more efficient use of resources.
• Overall improvements to:
  • Contact and Account Management
  • Team-Based Collaboration
  • Call Center and Unified Communications Support

For the full Table of Contents, click on the link below.

Must-read article regarding Microsoft and CRM, plus interview with Steve Ballmer [PDF]

Wow, lots of CRM news to catch up on this week!  Destination CRM Magazine has an excellent piece regarding the history, competition and future of Microsoft CRM.  There’s a Steve Ballmer interview discussing the concept of “xRM”, an interview with Microsoft CRM General Manager Brad Wilson, and more.

Download a PDF copy, or visit the online magazine at the second link.

• Destination CRM Magazine, July 2008, “Is Microsoft Winning the CRM Race?” [PDF] 4.8MB
  
• View the magazine in your browser:
  • http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/crmmedia/crm0708/#/22

New solution accelerators announced for Dynamics CRM 4.0

As our new CRM Consultant, Speed finds that he gets more thrills out of solution accelerators.

I couldn’t attend the Microsoft Partner Conference in Houston, so I missed what looks to be a very cool announcement.  Microsoft announced that it will soon release some freely-available solution accelerators for Dynamics CRM 4.0!

Solution accelerators are tools designed to save time, increase your productivity, and enhance CRM 4.0 functionality.  I’m looking forward to toying with them soon, as they will be released over the next few months.

The IncreaseCRM blog neatly outlines these accelerators below.

Analytics Foundation: includes marketing, sales and service dashboards, user adoption dashboard and a range of scorecards from Microsoft PerformancePoint

Business Productivity: a range of configuration options commonly requested by customers such as auditing, sales processes and common workflow patterns such as incident management

Enterprise Search: integration with SharePoint business data catalog to make it easier to search for customer data stored in a CRM database from within your SharePoint portal.

Notifications: a range of options for sending notifications and alerts to users via email, Vista gadgets and unified communications

Sales Methodologies: built-in support for popular sales methodologies from the TAS Group (Target Account Selling), Sales Performance International (Solution Selling) and Miller Heiman (Strategic Selling)

Sales Forecasting: improved features for sales professionals to be able to provide forecasts and for sales managers to get insight into forecast trends and patterns

Event Management: extension of campaign management functionality to your website to allow marketing professionals to publish an events calendar online and manage online registrations

eService: a customer support portal to allow customers to submit and review cases, search the knowledgebase and more

Emerging Solutions is named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club

www.emergenow.com

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, Emerging Solutions was recently named to Microsoft’s crème de la crème group of partners… the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club!   My best congratulations to all of my fellow colleagues in the Microsoft Consulting Group.

If you’re looking for a reliable partner to help you with your business and technology needs, please visit the Emerging Solutions Contact Us page.

For more details about this prestigious status, see the press release below.

Microsoft Honors Emerging Solutions for Outstanding Customer Commitment and Sales Achievement

Chicago, IL – July 10, 2008 – Emerging Solutions has been named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club receiving recognition from Microsoft Corp. for its dedicated commitment to customers. This honor reflects the company’s success in extending the Microsoft Dynamics platform to drive business advantages in companies worldwide.

This recognition came during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Houston. The elite club recognizes the top 5 percent of Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide and their constant dedication to delivering solutions that meet their customers’ unique needs, active pursuit of product and technological advancement, and impressive sales performance.

“Microsoft is proud to congratulate Emerging Solutions on being named to this year’s Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club,” said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. “Emerging Solutions not only has demonstrated a high level of product expertise, but also has provided a superior level of service and commitment to our Microsoft Dynamics customers, ultimately contributing to the overall success of Microsoft Dynamics and companies worldwide.”

“We draw on a unique combination of competencies in Microsoft Dynamics.  Our comprehensive coverage of these solutions and unique processes allow our consultants to better understand customer business needs and how technologies fit into the big picture of an organization.  We will continue to work closely with Microsoft and the Dynamics suite of products to provide leading-edge solutions for our customers,” said Don Sweeney, Emerging Solutions Co-Founder and Microsoft Practice Lead.

With applications experts focused in Microsoft Dynamics GP, AX, CRM and SL, Emerging Solutions’ consultants provide the necessary guidance not only in individual application strategy and deployment, but also in complete rollout and integration of these diverse solutions.

About Emerging Solutions
Emerging Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is an established professional services firm that helps global and mid-market firms maximize the benefits of business applications through leading technology. We provide strategic guidance, implementation and innovative integration solutions for business and technology applications from leading software vendors. For more information visit Emerging Solutions at www.emergenow.com.

For CRM 4.0 developer newbies: the Developer Ramp-up Kit [link]

If the software development experience with Dynamics CRM 4.0 had to be summarized with one word, it would have to be flexibility.  Let’s say there’s some type of functionality that Dynamics CRM can’t immediately address from within the application; there’s a good chance that there are development tools ready to make CRM work for your business, not the other way around.

Enter the Developer Ramp-up Kit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.  It’s a nice collection of videos, labs and other resources to get you up and running with the various tools available in CRM 4.0.  To get the most out of the kit you’ll need some familiarity with the following:

• .NET Framework
• Microsoft Visual C#
• Javascript
• Microsoft SQL Server
• General Web development

For those looking to get familiar with Dynamics CRM’s extensibility, this is a one-stop shop for all the tools you need to get started.

MSDN direct link

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720132.aspx

To see the full list of contents in this kit, click on the below link.