August 28 Blog Review

It was very exciting this week that CRMUG announced the CRMUG All Star Nominations! I am so honored to be nominated. I can’t believe I am even in the same league as the rest of those awesome people. Make sure you check out the survey and vote!

Let’s jump right in to the blog review!

Ledgeview Partners talked about Hierarchical Security with Dynamics CRM. This describes the CRM 2015 feature that allows you to configure security to respect records owned by people you manage.

PowerObjects posted A Day in the Life of a CRM Admin. This talks about the general tasks, how to learn, and what to do to become a CRM Admin.

CRM Tip of the Day posted a Friday video – Tipster Guide to Immersive Excel. This shows you how to use Excel within CRM 2015.

McGladrey shared Four Top CRM End User Training Tips. This talks about the importance of power users, training materials and other things you need to keep in mind when you are training your user base.

The CRM Team also announced a new white paper: Dynamics CRM Synchronization: How it Works. This walks through the architecture of the Outlook Synchronization in CRM 2015.

That’s all I have for today. Have a great weekend!

August 21 Blog Review

Lots of tips, tricks and news to share with you this week!

First check out the DynamicsCafe post – Start-up Trupanion and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help Ease the Minds and Hearts of Pet-Owners. I clicked on this mainly because of the picture of the puppy but I was pleasantly surprised. The video describes how this pet insurance company uses CRM to better serve their customers. They use CRM to route the call to the most appropriate agent based on if they own the same kind of dog or live in the same city. They also use Unified Service Desk to make sure everything they need is right at their fingertips.

PowerObjects did not post and puppy pictures but did share Utilizing Alternate Keys in Dynamics CRM Integrations. Creating an Alternate Key can allow you to interact with records through the API without having the GUID of the record. Keep in mind that adding an Alternate Key will create a new database index on that field.

Be sure to check out How to Ensure a Successful CRM Implementation and Adoption also from PowerObjects. This goes over the important things you need for your CRM rollout to go well including formalizing your business processes before setting up CRM and getting management support and buy-in.

Ms. Dynamics CRM shared Social Engagement (formerly known as Social Listening) Trial. This shows screenshots from the Social Engagement tool and gives instructions on how to try it out yourself!

Finally, let’s check out the tips shared on CRM Tip of the Day:

• Windows 10 Support for CRM – CRM 2015 will be supported on the Edge browser with the upcoming release in September
• Smart Contact Filtering – Filter synced Outlook contacts using a Last Contact Date so that you only see contacts you are currently working with
• Get your Icons here – Check out these free sites to download icons for your CRM system
• Tipsters guide to Dynamics CRM App for Outlook – Video walkthrough of the CRM App for Outlook

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend everyone!

August 14 Blog Review

It seems like a quiet week in the CRM world but we did have the CRMUG Washington, DC chapter meeting! If you are a CRMUG member, make sure you check out the Blog Recap from our presentations on Customer Service.

PowerObjects posted about Adding JavaScript to Quick Create forms in CRM 2015. This talks about how to access the Quick Create form and what you need to know to add JavaScript to it.

The Dynamics EMEA CRM Support blog shared CRM Online Themes won’t work if Enahable High Contrast Option is Checked. This is a quick tip if you are having trouble using the Themes feature available in CRM 2015.

Let’s also take a quick look at some posts from CRM Tip of the Day:

• Tipsters Guide to Calculated Fields – Video about how to set up and use calculated fields as well as limitations to be aware of.
• Locking Field in Business Rule Can Be Tricky – keep in mind if a business rule changes a field to read-only, any data that was entered in that field before the change occurred will not be saved.
• Tipsters Guide to CRM for Phones: Customizer View – Video walk-through of the CRM for Phones app

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend!

August 5 Blog Review

Due to busy summer schedules we have a quick, early blog review this week.

Most importantly, make sure you register for next week’s Washington, DC CRMUG Chapter meeting. We will be discussing Customer Service with presentations from a customer using Parature and AdxStudio.

Microsoft made an interesting announcement this week – Microsoft Acquired FantasySalesTeam, an innovative sales gamification platform, to help Organizations increase productivity. This shows that Microsoft is embracing the gamification aspect of corporate work. It will be interesting to see how this will be integrated or involved with CRM.

PowerObjects posted the New Navigation Guide for CRM 2015. This compares the old and new interfaces and highlights some great improvements.

That’s all for today. Have a great day!