Menno te Koppele - a CRM freak

Longer Support Timelines for Key Microsoft Dynamics Service Packs

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:02:24 -0700

Did you know that Microsoft, in response to customer feedback, has extended the support timelines for key Microsoft Dynamics Service Packs? The change in support policy on service packs is applicable for products such as Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Previously, when a new service pack was released...

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide now on TechNet

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:39:27 -0700

I have heard this request many times: “Why can’t you make the Implementation Guide available in an online format?”. So as of today, the entire Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide 4.4.0, all 477 topics, are now published on TechNet. This represents a huge step in IT Pro content discoverability and ease of use for our customers and partners. ...

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4 Ways of Connecting a VPC to the Internet

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:37:24 -0700

How do I connect a Microsoft Virtual PC 2007(SP1) image to the Internet? This is a question I hear very often from either partners or customers. I’ve been meaning to blog about some of the possibilities for quit some time now. After installing Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista or Windows 7 into Microsoft Virtual PC’s virtual machine (VM) as a guest operating system, there...

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Microsoft and Intel Demonstrate New Levels of Power, Price and Performance With CRM Scalability Benchmark

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:29:59 -0700

As you know Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is designed to help enterprise organizations attain a 360-degree or 3-D view of customers, achieve reliable user adoption, adapt quickly to business change, and accelerate project delivery and returns–all on a platform that provides enterprise levels of scalability and performance. In working with our partner, Intel, engineers from our two teams completed...

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How to configure an Internet-Facing Deployment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:03:00 -0700

With version 4.0 of Microsoft Dynamics CRM we introduced a new/additional deployment option called Internet Facing Deployment (IFD). In plain English this means that this is a way to make your on-premise Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 available from the Internet, with or without the need of a VPN connection. The CRM Product Team has released a document that covers how to set up Microsoft Dynamics...

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Ross Dembecki on XRM

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:18:00 -0700

Ross Dembecki is the Lead Product Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM in Australia. He recently got interviewed by Partner TV Australia. Video: Partner-TV: Ross Dembecki on XRM In this interview he talks about what XRM is and how it’s being used by many of our customers to rapidly develop relational line of business applications. In other words; a customer or partner, could leverage or...

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3 FREE Ways to Audit Data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:04:00 -0700

An often heard requirement is if Microsoft Dynamics CRM has built-in audit capabilities. There is some, but it is very minimal out-of-the-box. So now what? Well, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not just about sales, service and marketing. It’s a platform for developing line of business applications—applications that can manage and track information and processes far beyond accounts and...

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McAfee ScriptScan Solution for Dynamics CRM

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:03:19 -0700

It is possible to have performance issues when you’re using the combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and McAfee VirusScan 8.x in your organization. McAfee has a feature called ScriptScan that scans and analyzes each webpage opened on your computer via either Outlook or a web browser. Since we rely on JavaScript on some of our web forms; load time of the actual page might take some time because...

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Social (CRM) is Like Sex?

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:03:00 -0700

I must say that I love the title of the guest post on Destination CRM, but in my opinion it actually fails to talk about Social CRM. I guess understanding the concept of Social CRM still has a long way to go. I slightly modified the definition that George Colony uses in his article; “Social (CRM) is like sex. It’s fun to talk and read about, but you can’t truly...

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Update Rollup 4 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:15:09 -0700

Our customers have provided us with very positive feedback on our release predictability; every 8 weeks we ship a Rollup Update. Update Rollup 5 is targeted for the first week of July. Rollup 4 is a tested, cumulative set of updates for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. It includes performance enhancements that are packaged together for easy deployment. This article describes the hotfixes and the...

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How Transparent Are Your Customers?

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:17:00 -0700

What is transparency or transparent behavior? I probably can bore you with a definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary or Wikipedia here, but I’ll promise you I wont. I want to talk about some of the benefits of transparency and having an open culture in organizations specifically when deploying and using a (CRM) solution. I have implemented CRM solutions for numerous clients when...

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Business Ready Flexible Pay for Microsoft Dynamics

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:35:00 -0700

I daily talk with a lot of different customers but often it results in the same conversation; we have a strong need or desire for a CRM solution that can help us grow our business and solve some of our current pains but right now we just are not in the position to make an investment. As of today we have an answer for that! Get the Microsoft Dynamics solution you want, pay for it over three years,...

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Better together – CRM 4.0 and OCS 2007 R2

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:25:41 -0700

Interesting tidbit; in Gartner’s recent report, Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers, April 2009, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was elevated to “Leader” status due to our solution’s completeness of vision and ability to execute. Agent Communications Panel for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is an application add-in to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 server. It integrates Microsoft...

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VM Express - Microsoft Dynamics Virtual Machine Demonstration Toolkit

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:31:51 -0700

What is VM Express? I heard that question a lot after people read my blog post announcing the new VPC. I guess I was assuming that most our partners were either using or familiar with the Microsoft Dynamics Virtual Machine Demonstration Toolkit. The purpose of this toolkit is to enable Microsoft Dynamics partners to install and update virtual machine images in the most efficient manner...

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 VPC (2009 Edition)

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:50:38 -0700

Today we are releasing the 2009 edition of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 VPC. This VPC enables you to demonstrate the features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 using a single PC or laptop computer. This is just not simply a a VPC with only CRM installed, we’ve included all of the accelerators, dashboards, showing of document management capabilities, build out great demo scripts and much more! ...

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Scribe 6.5 Product Launch Announcement

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:24:37 -0700

Some of you still might think what is a Scribe Solution or why do I need it? Scribe Software provides the ability to easily integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM with any other front- or back office systems. Scribe Templates, that are built and run on Scribe Insight and Scribe Adapters, represent the core of Scribe's Solutions. These solutions can then be precisely configured to work within each...

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Bridge2CRM = (Microsoft Dynamics CRM + iPhone)

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:42:01 -0700

As you all might know is that I own an iPhoneand absolutely love it. For me it is the ultimate device of being able to combine business with my personal life. I can view my Exchange email or meetings and at the same time I can listen to my favorite music, update my Twitter or Facebook status all through an easy to use interface! Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to update or access...

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web Site Overhaul!

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:45:17 -0700

The Microsoft CRM web site http://crm.dynamics.com got a complete new look and feel! The new site runs on Windows Azure and relies on underlying Microsoft SQL Server, Silverlight, and ASP.Net services from Azure. The new Microsoft Dynamics CRM web experience touches upon traditional CRM sales, service, and marketing across verticals and our innovative xRM custom business applications—and...

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CRM Blog Search Connector for Windows 7

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:10:08 -0700

Windows 7 introduces support for search federation to remote data stores using OpenSearch technologies. This means that you, for example, can search in your internal SharePoint or external web sites from within Windows Search without having to use a browser. Most websites do not support OpenSearch, however, Microsoft’s Live Search actually does, and this allows you to create your own basic...

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Two very useful Microsoft Dynamics CRM tools!

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:56:04 -0700

Last week at TechReady, our internal training event, it was mentioned we would release a few new interesting tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Two of these just got released on MSDN; CRM Customization Comparison and the Configuration Data Utility. Rather than comparing XML files side-by-side, the Customization Comparison Utility lets you compare the customization files between two Microsoft...

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Your Ultimate Demo or Development Environment!

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:59:48 -0700

I recently made the plunge into Windows 7 wonderland and I am loving it. Windows 7is build on top of the Windows Vista foundation and adds a great deal of polish and enhancement to both the user interface and the underlying architecture, while at the same time introducing many new features, improvements and productivity-boosting toolssuch as a revamped taskbar with Jump Lists, Black Box Recorder...

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AVAILABLE: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Rollup 2

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:27:00 -0700

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 2is now available via the download center. Update Rollup 2 is a cumulative fix that includes all the fixes for the issues that are documented in Update Rollup 1. For more information about Update Rollup 1 and about the issues that it fixes, read this KB article KB952858 Download Center Link This update rollup is available for all languages that are...

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New Toy: Canon EOS 50D

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:44:00 -0700

Recently I made the plunge and bought my first Semi-Pro Digital Single-lens Reflex Camera as an early Christmas present. After doing a bunch of research both on- and offline, I decided on a Canon EOS D50 with the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens (A standard kit lens). For the insiders, the EOS 50D, is pretty much an upgraded version of EOS 40D. On the outside it looks almost identical to its...

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AVAILABLE: List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:33:00 -0700

Finally! The Microsoft Dynamics CRM team has released the List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. No more tweaking of the old v3.0 web part.. The List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides a way to view and update Microsoft Dynamics CRM records using a Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server web site. Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can create shared or...

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM Incubation Week

menno.nospam@nospam.tekoppele.com (menno) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:44:00 -0700

In my previous post I was talking about how much sense it still makes for organizations to invest in a CRM system, a solution that keeps you stay ahead and outperform competitors in a tough economic climate. Start-ups are also struggling and are looking for ways to reduce cost and time to market. Why not use Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a rapid application development platform? Microsoft...

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