September 2016 Blog Review

One of the big events of September was Microsoft Ignite. There are lots of highlight blogs available for you to check out or you can even watch the recordings of the key sessions. I did not watch all the sessions but I particularly enjoyed this Demo of HoloLens with Lowes. So many amazing possibilities in the future!

Let's jump into other blog news with some articles shared by PowerObjects:

• How We Get Marketing and Sales to Play Nice - with CRM as the parent in Charge - this reviews the common arguments from both sides and how CRM can help by providing transparent data and ways to better define the transition between marketing and sales as well as identify issues.
• Make a Field Required in a CRM Dialog - Use check conditions and child dialogs to effectively make a field required in this examle
• Color me CRM: Matching Theme and Logo Colors in CRM - This shows you how to quickly determine the right color for your navigation bar

Server-Side Sync is still relatively new so Microsoft produced a white paper on how it works. Check this out to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of how your data is syncing.

If you are looking to migrate to CRM Online check out these Tips and Tricks from Dynamics CRM in the Field blog.

How to pick a partner is always a hot topic. There are so many factors to consider and things to keep in mind. Sonoma Partners offered some guidance in 5 questions to Ask When Evaluating CRM Consulting Firms.

Let's finish things off with a few notes from CRM Tip of the Day:

• Add Variables to you workflows - this is a great tip to remove explicit references from your workflows by using a custom action to set a variable
• You can now use timezone in your appointments - you can now build logic to mimic timezones in Outlook
• Add the number to your phone call records - great usability tip to display the phone number in your phone calls and then use a workflow to append this to the subject to make it even easier

That's all folks!

August 2016 Blog Review

Let's start the month of August off right with some CRM Tip of the Day:

• Tale of a Small Change - great example showing the work that goes into "small" changes
• Record Merge fails when assignee has insufficient privileges - merge issues when reparenting records owned by administrative access users
• Get your Tab order in order - a few quick tips to help users tab through fields and enter data in your system

Ledgeview Partners posted Setting Up a Sales Follow-up Workflow in Dynamics CRM. This walks through a workflow example showing the planning and final logic.

Ledgeview also shared Customize Color of Dynamics CRM Icon Backgrounds. Use these steps to theme your entity icons to match the rest of your system.

If you are interested in testing out a portal solution check out Donna Edward's CRM Online Portal Trial - Step by Step Installation.

Sonoma Partners was busy this month and shared:

• How to Use CRM Business Process Flows: The Checklist Strategy - Pros and Cons of using Business Process Flows and what it means for your system and users. Major takeaway: Have a clear, defined process and report on usage of it.
• Troubleshooting the Dynamics CRM Outlook Addin - everyone has issues with CRM for Outlook so Microsoft has provided some new diagnostic tools to assist. This article walks you through how to get started with this tool.
• What did Johnny Cash know about CRM? - this discusses the importance of planning your CRM implementation and working with a good team to make that a reality.

Hitachi Solutions posted How to Create a Voice of the Customer Survey in Dynamics CRM. Walk through these steps to create surveys that you can send to your customers directly from CRM.

Mitch Milam shared Dynamics CRM Security: Crossing Your I's and Dotting Your T's. This is a great example of the need to double check everything and never make assumptions in your system.

Speaking of security, you can also check out Leon Tribe's post on Securing Records by a Field Value in CRM. This gives an overview of how to handle a complex security situation.

PowerObjects also shared several posts this month for you to check out:

• Best Practices for Business Process Flows - this gives tips to keep in mind during the design and build phase for BPFs
• How to Disable Exporting or Printing Reports in CRM 2016 - you always want to be careful with dangerous permissions in your system. This post shows you how to turn off Export to Excel and Print access for a particular security role. Be sure to ensure that it is removed from all roles that the user has.
• Using Security Roles to Disable Custom and System Dashboards - you can now limit dashboards to only certain security roles. In this way, you can hide unnecessary dashboards from certain user groups.

That’s all for August!

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!