TIDBITS on Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Developers and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Anne Stanton — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:55:30 PDT

Developers diving into the world of Microsoft Dynamics CRM have a number of areas of expertise to master. Here are just a few of the many: Extending the Core Microsoft Dynamics CRM code Windows Workflow Foundation Scriptlets The Icing on...

Working on Certification?

Anne Stanton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:19:50 PDT

Are you working on getting certified in Microsoft Dynamics CRM? Richard Knudson has a great blog packed with resources in this area. Check out today's post on the reviewed and updated certification questions.

The new Mobile Express

Anne Stanton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:17:35 PDT

The team at PowerObjects as just posted a great post on the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile Express software. Check it out here

WWPC 2009

Anne Stanton — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:51:06 PDT

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference kicks off this week in New Orleans. In years past Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been part of the conference, but not as big a part as you would expect given that the product really can...

Differences: Dynamics CRM Online vs. Dynamics CRM On-premise

Anne Stanton — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:11:16 PDT

There are some very minor differences between CRM Online and CRM On-Premise that are worth mentioning. The one that tripped me up yesterday was my inability to import a new report extracted from one of the new accelerators. I was...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Rollup 5 Released

Anne Stanton — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:09:24 PDT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Rollup 5 (v4.0 R5) has been released can be downloaded here. "The build number of the update rollup packages for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 server, for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Microsoft Office Outlook,...

Dynamics CRM Adoption

Anne Stanton — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:27:32 PDT

It lasts about a day for most (when looking at Vanilla Dynamics CRM), but other people get tripped up on it and their impressions linger. This is the first impression of the ease of use of the complexity and depth...

The World of Dynamics CRM Help

Anne Stanton — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:07:56 PDT

Microsoft has a world of "XRM" within Dynamics CRM and as more and more of the framework matures we will see growth. On my latest deep dive I have been looking at modifying Dynamics CRM Help and the general structure...

XRM makes the big time

Anne Stanton — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:23:34 PDT

Microsoft takes off its xRM platform-as-a-service gloves Microsoft has been buzzing about Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform for development and it is a natural fit for the application - Twist on your Dynamics CRM hat and power users can...

It is not always about numbers

Anne Stanton — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:11:48 PDT

Crazy times often increase anxiety and anxiety in the sales management world has often been reduced by more numbers (more leads in the pipeline for instance) and yet this article makes some great points on taking the numeric approach to...

Maintenance

Anne Stanton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:01:31 PDT

Part of me thinks it is wonderful that I am being alerted that my CRM Online database is going to have maintenance, but after seeing the below message every time I logged in for the last few weeks and then...

Accounts in the Top 10, 100, 500, 1000 lists

Anne Stanton — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:45:50 PDT

There are some key things in the world that are occassionally interesting to users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. One of those things is which of the current accounts within a CRM database are in the US Fortune 1000 list and...

Comparing CRM Systems

Anne Stanton — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:38:34 PDT

This is an interesting compilation of comparisons between CRM systems. http://www.180systems.com/CRM-Comparison2008.xls

A Fun v4.0 VPC Month - but

Anne Stanton — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:36:55 PDT

Note that the CRM VPC on MS downloads will expire tomorrow (June 11th 2009). More Details on Girish Raja's Blog

Free Training

Anne Stanton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:22:05 PDT

Just ran across a great post about some excellent available online training and best of all it is free! This made me realize that I needed to blog not only about this, but also about all the incredible resources from...

Give yourself the Advantage

Anne Stanton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:39:51 PDT

It is hard enough to have success with any CRM application (tons of interesting case studies and white papers on this one), BUT without training and input from experience you are pushing the envelope hard. Make time to attend a...

The Future of LOB

Anne Stanton — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:17:00 PDT

Does the future of line of business applications require that you have or have access to developer skills? I would lean towards hoping that this is a temporary phase when it comes to LOB. As developer languages have matured they...

Time for a Shift in Team Structure

Anne Stanton — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:21:37 PDT

The combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SharePoint is powerful - Mix in Silverlight, scriptlets, good CRM, web and workflow design techniques and a dash of JAVA and pow and yet I have yet to totally see adoption and...

The To-Do

Anne Stanton — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:07:37 PDT

Jim Glass posted his to-do list today with a question regarding what some of his friends were focusing on. I managed to get so much insight into his world that I thought it was only fair to return the favor....

Bing on the Microsoft Downloads Center

Anne Stanton — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:45:05 PDT

The Microsoft Download's center now has a BING search box at the top of the screen making it easier to find exactly what you are looking for. If you are not sure if you have all the tools you need...

Quotes of the Day

Anne Stanton — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:15:42 PDT

"Understanding is increased when you wear the same brand of shoes and you use the same tools to get your job done" - Anne "It is one thing to eat your own dog food and quite another when your life...

Windows Server 2008 Changes

Anne Stanton — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:45:58 PDT

In follow-up to my post yesterday, the key change I was hinting at was the removal of POP3 "POP3 has been depreciated and will no longer be supplied as part of the Windows OS. Although POP3 was introduced with Windows...

The World of Development - XRM Dilemnas

Anne Stanton — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:47:59 PDT

Windows 2008 changes the world of the bundled VPC when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. If you consider that the current Microsoft offered CRM VPC contains: Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4 and SQL 2008, SharePoint, Performance Point,...

Yes, But - Quote of the Day

Anne Stanton — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:53:46 PDT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be customized, extended, changed and developed on top of, but "as much as Dynamics CRM can be customized and changed it is still a packaged solution with a well thought out and vetted design." - Anne

Sample Reports Book

Anne Stanton — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:53:09 PDT

I had in the back of my mind that somewhere there was a sample reports book available for Dynamics CRM, but despite my efforts today I could not find one. One of the best ways to really understand what your...

New Book from Richard Knudson

Anne Stanton — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:22:34 PDT

Building Workflows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a subject that is not often covered and yet it is one of the keystones of power behind the software. One of my favorite bloggers, Richard Knudson, president of IMG, has recently released...

Twitter on CRM article on Destination CRM

Anne Stanton — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:28:17 PDT

With so much understandable buzz around Twitter and Twitter's impact within the world of relationships and relationship management I was pleased to see this article about how the various CRM vendors are considering tying to the tool. What is particularly...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs SugarCRM

Anne Stanton — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:32:00 PDT

Although I read a number of blogs I have to admit that I can't keep up with all of them and as such I have been leaning on Twitter (in the CRM world) so that I catch items that my...

Third Parties

Anne Stanton — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:00:02 PDT

I have been keeping an eye on what some of the third party vendors have been doing that run parallel or within the world of customer relationship management software. Take for instance HOOVERS - For anyone in sales, Hoovers is...

Data Migration

Anne Stanton — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:57:02 PDT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the builtin tool to import data; however this is not always the right choice when consider your first initial data migration. Data Migration is packed with risk, unknowns, data cleansing opportunities, layers and eye opening potential....

Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4.0 Rollup 4

Anne Stanton — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:17:45 PDT

Microsoft has released the latest update to Dynamics CRM and is proving their promise to stick to a regular schedule of updates as well as a regular schedule for major upgrades. Congratulations Dynamics CRM Dev Team! Given that each update...

Active Directory Groups

Anne Stanton — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:20:53 PDT

Tying Active Directory Groups to Microsoft Dynamics CRM security roles - Now there is a thought.

Capturing Culture

Anne Stanton — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:07:57 PDT

Two things on my mind tonight. 1) Twitter is proving it's value in a key area. Immediate alerts to information long before I pick it up on the blogs. For instance the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4.0 2009 VPC has...

Are you a Service Provider considering hosting Dynamics CRM?

Anne Stanton — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:40:55 PDT

Download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: Planning and Deployment Guidance for Service Providers "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: Planning and Deployment Guidance for Service Providers contains the following documentations and tool: 1. Deployment Walkthrough Guide for Service Providers 2. Planning Guide...

The Agent Communications Panel for Dynamics CRM

Anne Stanton — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:37:46 PDT

Are you ready to dive into something new with Dynamics CRM? "The Agent Communications Panel for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is an application add-in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. It works with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office Communications Server...

Statistics

Anne Stanton — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:10:35 PDT

Lifetime page views: 120643 How many times has the CRMLADY blog been viewed?

What is CRM?

Anne Stanton — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:17:48 PDT

Wikipedia has a very interesting article that starts like this "Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these...

A Bit of News that came out of Convergence

Anne Stanton — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:03:58 PDT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Latest numbers: 18,000+ customers, and 900,000+ users

Quote of the Week

Anne Stanton — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:28:25 PDT

"For your next CRM Solution, consider breaking the project into [much] smaller phases and evolving in a phased approach, rather than doing it all at once." Steve Noe, Biz IT Pro in his article An Evolutionary Approach to CRM Implementations

Considering the CFO's focus

Anne Stanton — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:23:44 PDT

I read the below article, provided by Craig Bailey of Customer Centricity, Inc. in his eNewsletter, and I had a major aH Ha moument. The material just rang true with some of my experiences over the years. I realized that...

Why?

Anne Stanton — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:27:53 PDT

The battle continues as Microsoft dives into branding what they have had for a number of years. xRM, both a development platform and a CRM Application. Can you using Microsoft Dynamics CRM without writing one line of code? Oh definitely!...

Walk a Day

Anne Stanton — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:02:29 PDT

In these tight economic times many a business is looking to improve efficiencies using a variety of techniques. One of the key terms that I learned and adopted from Convergence 2009 is "the Anthropologist." This isn't necessarily new to me,...

The concept of an Opportunity

Anne Stanton — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:30:00 PDT

It seems that the concept of an "Opportunity" is one that trips a number of people up and as such I wanted to post some thoughts on this. The core concept of an opportunity is that it is the "thing"...

Convergence 2009

Anne Stanton — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:21:39 PDT

SQL Server data mining toolkit for Excel might be an interesting tool to add to the CRM Toolkit. The CRM SDK has some new hidden gems to explore such as a new dynamic picklist creator The CRM Demonstration toolkit has...

Microsoft Business Solutions is in Fargo, ND

Anne Stanton — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:13:00 PDT

Mother Nature is showing her fury in Fargo, ND and causing many of the CRM community located at the Microsoft Business Systems campus much pain, headache and heart ache. My thoughts go out to all of those in both the...

Custom Entities

Anne Stanton — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:05:00 PDT

Microsoft creates over 150 entities when the Microsoft Dynamics CRM software is installed; however that does not mean you can not add more without donating an arm and leg to a team of developers. In fact you can add an...

The Asynchronous Service

Anne Stanton — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:45:15 PDT

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Asynchronous processing service runs constantly behind the scenes. This services is very tied to workflow and when workflow is not happy you will find that the Asynchronous service can turn itself off. You will notice this...

New SDK - Have you really thought about this xRM concept?

Anne Stanton — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:53:10 PDT

There is an update to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM software developer kit (SDK) which can be downloaded. One of the key things to keep in mind is that Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed to be extended, changed, updated, and worked...

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Development Center

Anne Stanton — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:48:45 PDT

Are you thinking about using Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a development platform? Have you checked out the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Development Center on MSDN?

Getting the Most out of User Groups

Anne Stanton — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:36:01 PST

I am a firm believer in information shared, information gained and as such over the years I have participated in, created, moderated and invented many a user group. I have also seen both success and failure when it comes to...