Summit 2015: Day 3 Takeaways

Let's quickly catch up on the last day of Summit! Of course the big announcement is that Summit 2016 will be in Tampa! Make sure you block your calendars and plan to be there for lots of great learning and networking. (But before that remember to come out to the Washington, DC Chapter Meeting on November 4th!)

Change Management Tips

Keep a backlog of all of the changes that need to be made - large issues and minor changes. Releases will need a balance of small and large items. Prioritize and review the backlog consistently.

Have "Story Jam" or Sizing sessions to fully flesh out requirements. These should involve the business team, development, QA, and anyone else who would need to be involve in the process. Make these fun, team-building days to improve relationships and ease future work.

Be sure to communicate changes to users. Make use of the custom help feature, consider linking to a SharePoint folder with short videos that help with that record type. Constantly remind users about this in training.

Always keep performance in mind. Scale and performance need to be key. Process should not be decided before the structure. Everything must be built to scale.

Standardize where you can. Users need to get what they need but may not always get what they want.

Customer Service

The 4 C's of customer service are Communication, Commitment, Consistency and Customer Connectedness.

Define your KPIs and remember they may not be traditional KPIs. Define your process and goals first and use this to build out metrics based on what matters to you.

The experience must be flexible. Engaged Employees create happy customers which are easier to deal with and make happier employees. Define the roles and responsibilities for each group and define the experience you want to provide. Then define the processes to support this experience. Next train and enable employees to apply these flexibly.

Ensure you are aligned with business and organizational goals. Know the long term plans or the organization and make sure technology is aligned to support this.

To manage knowledge, empower users to create and publish. Define what you are looking for and ask for the resources to assist. Only maintain articles that are in use, let the older unused articles fall away.

Advanced Workflows

Glen Wolinsky (@glenwol1) lead a great presentation on combining workflows with some custom workflow activities and form Java Script. Be on the lookout for a follow up webinar. This really shows the power of CRM when combined with creativity and a little bit of code.

It also demonstrated the value of fully mapping out your processes. Use Visio to show all the logic including IF conditions, Waits, Child Workflows, etc. This is a great way to understand what is happening and find any gaps in your process.

That's all for today. Have a good evening!

September 11 Blog Review

We have lots of CRM tips and news to catch up on from the last 2 weeks. First of all, the big news is the CRM 2016 was officially announced. Check out the press release, video and release preview guide for all the information. This is scheduled to be available at the end of the year as a new version for online and on-premise. It appears that Microsoft is working hard to improve the integrations with other Microsoft offerings like Outlook, Excel and Cortana. It will be exciting to see what is to come!

Ledgeview Partners posted about Using Calculated fields in CRM 2015. This walks through the different formulas available for different field types and how to set up the calculation.

In the last blog I shared the Outlook Synchronization in CRM 2015 white paper. If that was too long to read, check out the EMEA Support Blog’s Recap of Outlook Synchronization. This talks about what happens when you hit Track or Set Regarding, what happens if you delete an email or appointment, etc.

The CRM Team shared my favorite feature of TechNet – Finding you way around CRM topics on TechNet and MSDN or how to be a CRM Technical Documentation Zen Master in 5 minutes. This was one of my top takeaways from CRMUG Summit last year. When viewing an article there is a version drop down you can use to switch between versions. So if your search takes you to 2015 but you need the 2011 article you can find it in just a few clicks!

The CRM Lady tackled the Easy and Hard Questions to consider as we think about Managed and Unmanaged Solutions. Understanding how different solutions interact is one of the hardest parts of CRM. This blog is a great way to build the foundation for that understanding.

PowerObjects talked about Customizing Entity Icons in CRM 2013 and 2015. This goes through step-by-step how to update your icons and everything you need to know.

PowerObjects also walked through Expanding the Field Label Widths in CRM 2015. This is something to look into if your field labels are being cut off on the form.

Finally, there are always great tips on the CRM Tip of the Day. Check it out this week to learn more about Unified Service Desk and OneNote integration.

That’s all for today folks. 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!

July 31 Blog Review

Let’s finish off July with a great blog review! Check out the CRM news from the last few weeks.

PowerObjects posted a how-to article about Changing the Color of Custom and Out-of-the-box Entities in CRM 2015. This explains how to change the background color of the tiles in CRM 2015 Update 1.

PowerObjects also posted Exporting Data to Re-import: The invalid Column Headings issue. This discusses how having fields with the same display name can cause an issue when trying to re-import.

If you are interested in Parature check out Leon Tribe’s post on The Current State of Parature – Dynamics CRM Integration. You should also register to attend the August 12 CRMUGDC Meeting which will be focused on Customer Service!

We also have a few quick tips from CRM Tip of the day.

First Prevent Duplicate Outlook Contacts by using Server Side Sync. This prevents issues from installing or re-configuring CRM for Outlook.

Also check out the Tipsters guide to Dynamics CRM for Phones. This is a video showing the updated CRM for Phones app that came with the CRM 2015 update 1.

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

June 12 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! Let us quickly review the CRM news this week so you can get back to enjoying your summer!

The CRM Tip of the Day posted several great tips this week:

• Some things are Irreversible – Keep in mind anytime you create a currency function the system will create transactioncurrencyid and exchangerate fields. These will not be deleted even if you delete the currency field.
• The Mysteries of Sync – this discusses a few interesting behaviors of the CRM for Outlook sync
• Convert your SQL to FetchXML the Easy Way – this talks about using the SQL2Fetch Converter to change your CRM on-premise SQL to FetchXML statements for CRM Online

PowerObjects posted Product Bundles with Variable Product Quantities. This walks through how to create the Product Bundle and how to use this on an Opportunity.

The CRM Team announced this week that there is a new Web API for CRM Online 2015 Update 1. Make sure you check out the available documentation and samples.

The CRM Lady shared Time for Graphics, Easy Graphics from CRM with Excel PowerBI. This walks you through how to export data and plot it on a map using Excel PowerMap. This is a very cool feature to play with!

Finally who doesn’t love a good infographic? Check out, Somoma Partners INFOGRAPHIC: 2015 State of Knowledge for Customer Service. This reviews some stats about customer service about things that customers are expecting and employee challenges. This points out how important it is to have a robust, user-friendly CRM system to help your employees get the information they need quickly.

Don’t forget – the CRMUG Chapters for DC and Baltimore will be meeting up for a summer networking event at the July 18^th Nationals game. You can register here and buy tickets from the Nationals directly. Meet us at the Red Loft Bar anytime during the game!

That’s all for today folks!

May 21 Blog Review

It seemed to be a quiet week in the CRM world. Let’s jump right in!

CRM in the Field posted Customers’ choices… The most popular “Dynamics CRM in the Field” technical blog posted from Premier Field Engineering! This reviews the top posts over the last few years. These are full of great information so make sure you check them out.

Leon Tribe discussed Tools for an Awesome CRM Demo. This gives tips to make sure that your demo wows! This includes setting up a portal demo and using a workflow to make emails appear to have been sent.

Jukka Niiranen has been working through a series on customizing 2015 sales processes. This week he talks about Using CRM 2015 Calculated Fields for Opportunity Estimated Revenue. This gives a basic overview and how-to for calculated fields and also talks about some limitations to be aware of.

CRM Tip of the Day posted an interesting tip on creating Mandatory Fields in Dialogs. Although this is not technically possible you can use conditions and logic to force the user to enter a value before proceeding.

CRM Tip of the Day was also busy instructing everyone on SLAs. Check out all 3 parts – Part 1: Fields, Part 2: SLA, and Part 3: FAQ.

That’s all I have for this week!