User Group Focus 2019 Recap

A few weeks ago I was at the User Group Focus event in Houston, TX. I attended Monday and Tuesday for the D365/CRM portion of the event. I presented several sessions, attended others and also went to the Rodeo! It was a great trip!

I participated in three sessions. Michael Ochs, Phyllis Eriksen and I presented an introduction to XrmToolBox which taught participants how to use it and we shared our favorite tools (be on the lookout for an encore webinar coming in June). I also presented on "Wrangling your Processes" (an introduction to Workflows in D365) and you can catch the encore webinar on May 22. Finally I participated in a panel about Upgrades. This was a good discussion on many tips for planning, upgrade methods, and preparing your users.

I also got to attend a few sessions and wanted to share some takeaways from those as well. For attendees, you can download all session materials from the User Group Focus Community.

Planning, Developing, and Surfacing Metrics for Sales and Service

Tad Thompson

The goal of this session was to discuss ways to maximize time for sales people by reducing clicks and effectively using screen real estate. Lots of great recommendations were discussed:

• Don't forget about Goals
• Utilize the Apps feature to minimize the number of unnecessary items users see
• Remove unused fields
• Use customization to drive user adoption by providing more information
• Calculated fields to give important stats, ex. time to qualification
• SLAs, shorten the SLA based on the customer's interest
• Business Process Flows to drive behavior (be careful not to overwhelm). Now you can have multiple BPFs per record so multiple users can be following separate flows at the same time.
• Editable grids can be helpful but ensure these are not used for continuous, mass data clean up (fix the actual problem!)
• Check out email feature to follow email and get insights and reminders related to it
• Reporting can be used to drive excitement and show the users what their data is powering.
• OOB charts still have value. These are real-time when PowerBI is not.
• Start with the PowerBI Templates and see what you can get value from quickly
• Embed your PowerBI dashboards in Dynamics
• For service, Flow allows you to listen to Twitter and create cases as needed

The Power Platform in 90 Mins

Michael Ochs

This session walked through an example of building a vacation request/approval tool using CDS, Flow, PowerApps, and PowerBI. D365 is an application that is only part of the Power Platform so we have so many other tools to explore! CDS (Common Data Service) was formerly thought of as the XRM Platform. Now everything is stripped away into apps and core entities such as Contacts, Accounts, Activities, etc. form the backbone of CDS.

PowerApps are broken down into Canvas and Model Driven. Canvas Apps are the type of app we are used to using on mobile devices. Model Driven Apps are part of Dynamics to only show what users need.

The objection of this session was to use all of these components to build line of business applications. This was a shortened version of the App in a Day session.

Better Activity Management
Geoff Ables

One of the most important features of a CRM system is activity tracking but you need to get the users to actually follow through. Start by working with the business to determine why they even want to track activities. We need to find the end motivation and then find ways to make it easy, fast and fun. The goal is to find ways to move from just reactive work to proactive work. This may also include watching users work through the current process to look for where efficiencies can be gained.

All of this boils down to the LUCK Principle. Listen Understand Connect Know. 

So, what are some practical ideas to explore?

• Compare the Outlook App with the Legacy Outlook Client to determine what is best. The app is recommended if there is nothing in the client that is needed. App is being recommended for new users. The App allows you to view dynamics data in Outlook without tracking the message.
• Relationship assistant provides reminders on the home screen to direct users. Activities are not automatically created but users are encouraged to take specific follow up actions. There are settings to control these reminders that are set by administrators. These are configured for the full organization.
• Neglected records monitoring. OOB neglected records reports may be beneficial. Additionally, calculated fields can be used to build fields to track Date of Last Contact so custom neglected rules can be developed.
• Workflows can also be used to automatically create follow up tasks. Create fields on Activities to indicate if a follow up is needed. Then automatically create when that activity is closed.

CRMUG Summit 2017 Recap

It’s hard to believe that CRMUG Summit Nashville was already a month ago! The 2017 event was amazing! Full of live music, great content, and lots of networking! Of course, the #CRMUGDC Monkey was hanging around and we even had a party for all the DC, Virginia, and Maryland Attendees. If you didn’t make it out to this party, be sure to check out the Photo Gallery.

Better late than never, check out the top takeaways from the sessions I attended at #CRMUGSummit2017 (I also linked to the materials for those who attended Summit to download).

Alert! Data Breach: Securing Your CRM

Alex Fagundes

Data breaches are very common and very expensive plus on average the breach isn’t detected until after over 6 months. We discussed statistics, ways to prevent and detection techniques. In addition several tools were discussed for different security functions.

Top ways to prevent:

·       Move to CRM Online – 99.9% more secure

·       If On Premise: Set up external and internal scans weekly to check for issues and follow best practices (network and windows server hardening best practices)

·       Have a security awareness program to train your users – they are the weakest point! Plus minimize their security to eliminate risky access they don’t need (Export to excel, SDK access, etc.)

·       Follow Service Account best practices – one server account per integration, do not grant admin rights, set as a non-interactive user (cannot login via the web)

·       Turn on Two Factor authentication

User Adoption Success Panel

Rick McCutcheon leading a panel featuring: Peter Vieira, Anne Stanton, Beth Burrell, Jennifer Codding, and Neven Bradasevic and Melita Bouchet.

The panel broke the discussion into the different phases of the project and discussed their tips and tricks for user adoption including:

·       Set expectations for the initial release

·       Gather information from your users and identify your key stakeholders and champions

·       Involve end users in the building process

·       Discuss end results with stakeholders especially reporting needs – Remember that data has value and explain this to users

·       Don’t forget about less frequent tasks users need to perform (What tasks do you perform weekly? Monthly?)

·       Find the low effort, high reward items to resolve pain points (the gold nugget)

·       Involve department influencers in testing

·       Plan trainings carefully

o   Set up groups based on level of skill with the system, knowledge of past systems, keep departments together

o   Find Training Champions to become subject matter experts and help other users

o   Consider pairing stronger and weaker users together to assist each other

o   Keep training materials specific and provide in multiple formats (manual, video, email, etc.)

o   Use real data to keep training relevant

Enterprise Reliability: Performance Tuning and Optimization

Alex Fagundes

So many tips on performance and many beyond my level of expertise. Here are just my top takeaways that I can put into practice:

·       Use a modern browser with temporary files (cache) set to >=250 MB

·       Views – sort by only one column, minimize or eliminate columns from related entities

·       Remove “All Accounts” Default views on large entities, no reason to display everything

·       Forms – Collapse unnecessary sections, avoid using too much JavaScript and instead use multiple forms

·       Workflows – keep Asynchronous, auto delete when complete and only have ONE running per entity (then use child workflows for different actions)

·       Follow SQL Best practices and use tools to review your indexes

·       Avoid Plugin chains – one plugin triggering two more

·       Run enterprise reporting against a read only replica of your system

·       Set up automated monitoring that can notify you if there is an issue

Panel: Marrying MarTec and IT

Panel featured Jennifer Johnson, Trisha Tunilla, Rob Harrison and Victor Guven

This is a topic that I especially needed assistance on – how to help Marketing and IT get along and get the results both sides want. The major take away from this session was just to get shared understanding on both sides. Have IT spend time with marketing to understand how they manage their business. Have Marketing learn more about the systems so they can better understand the framework. Build relationships on both sides to ease the process of working together.

This understanding and personal connection will build the trust necessary to get work done. When work comes from the other side, the team knows it is necessary. Most of the problems between marketing and IT can come down to poor communication. Take the time to build that understanding.

We also spent some time discussing the value of data and what to do with “dirty” data. These discussions can be hard when IT may not want “bad” marketing data in the CRM system. This comes down to determining a data governance plan at the beginning. This allows us to choose what data is the master and what data can go where. Remember that marketing sees all data as an opportunity!

Key Differences between the D365 Outlook App vs. Outlook Client

Ryan Talsma

This was an excellent session that helped to clear up the confusion between the Outlook App and the soon to be deprecated Outlook client (expected to be gone by the 10.0 major release, end of 2018?).

Most importantly – the App is available for On-Premise. The main difference is that the Client must be installed on all workstations where as the App is a light-weight add-in pushed via Office 365. The App does require Office 365 and Server Side Sync. Server Side Sync means that the user does not need to be logged in for a workflow to send email and appointments can sync when out of the office as well. The App is also much more stable than the client so fewer (if any) issues with disconnecting, re-enabling, etc.

Last important note – the App can be pushed out to users if webmail (OWA) while they still use the full Outlook client on their office machines.

Ask the Experts: Navigating the Admin Seas of Common Errors and Issues

Panel discussion featuring Nhung Le, Bill Meadors, Beth Burell, and Phyllis Eriksen.

In this session, common issues were broken down into a few categories and then tips were discussed for how to handle each type.

·       Permission Problems

o   Do not edit the Out of the Box Roles – then you can review these if issues arise

o   XRMToolbox: Access Checker – select the user and entity to see the final permissions they have with all roles combind

o   If intermittent – try clearing the cache and restarting

o   Remember with Field Level Security – no access is granted by default

o   If it could be a permissions issue, assign Admin role temporarily to see if it resolves the issue. If it does, then the issue is permission related.

·       Data Import/Export Errors

o   Review the data mapping

o   If error on export, verify there are no duplicate field names as this will cause an error

o   To update data, an export must be done (must export for re-import, you cannot import and match)

·       Error Messages with no Information

o   Check Application log for details

o   Use Auditing to isolate issue (do not turn on for everything)

o   F12 for client-side troubleshooting

o   On-Premise: monitor event log for errors. These could be a sign of something bigger.

·       Testing tips

o   Clear cache and try to reproduce

o   Turn on F12 then try to reproduce

o   Test on a different browser, different computer, etc.

o   Check browser plugins

10 Unbreakable Rules of the CRM Administrator

Gus Gonzalez

This session covered some great tips to keep in mind for all changes being made in your system. The goal of many of these is to change our thinking to implement with a business mindset as we want to enhance business outcomes not just think about the technology. These rules exist to help us avoid potential problems.

1.       Keep it simple – always look for the simplest, easiest, least work solution.

2.       Check before Create – if you can use something that already exists, use it. Avoid adding additional entities, fields, views, etc.

3.       Allow users to deactivate – remove delete permissions. Tell them “Deactivate” is the CRM word for delete, same behavior from a user perspective.

4.       Don’t customize production – plan then deploy to development, move to test and test, then deploy to production. Use unmanaged solutions.

5.       Use Tools – When getting a requirement, see if there is a tool you can use before building yourself.

6.       Change management systems – follow a change management system to help you implement successful change

7.       Field best practices

a.       Never use “Whole Number” because they may want more precision later

b.       Stay away from “Two Options”, use Option Set instead (no default, allows for change)

c.       Always use Global Option Sets

d.       Turn off “Searchable” for unused fields

e.       Use “Field Security” only if really needed

f.        Deactivate “Auditing” if info is not important

g.       Create “Mappings” if added to multiple related records

8.       Decentralized Command – get help and share administration tasks with others

9.       Be Proactive – stay up to date with Microsoft releases and new features, get involved in the preview program to test things before they are released

10.   Reach out! – Reach out to the experts for help! Don’t try to do everything on your own.

February 2017 Blog Review

Let's quickly catch up on the CRM news floating around this past month.

First of all, the December 2016 update for Dynamics 365 is available so you should check out the release notes and podcast. Keep in mind this is just version 8.2 so more like a 2016 update then any kind of upgrade.

PowerObjects posted a great resource on Troubleshooting Solution Import Failures. This walks through common error scenarios as well as gives some general customization tips to avoid these issues.

Ledgeview partners shared 10 tips to Improve User Adoption. This has some great tips for your training and keeping your team informed. Also remember to have strong executive buy in and ensure managers are involved so they can keep their people accountable.

Hitachi Solutions shared What is the Dynamics 365 Common Data Model? The article explains what the Common Data Model is and how you can use it as an Admin or Developer.

As always, you should keep an eye on the CRM Tip of the Day for help with all kinds of issues and questions.

Any articles I missed? What topics are you interested in about CRM right now?

January 2017 Blog Review

Welcome back to another exciting year with Microsoft Dynamics CRM!

I hope all of you are already involved in your local CRM User Group. For those in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area please check out the groups in Richmond, Reston and Chevy Chase (DC). At the DC Chapter, we have scheduled all of our 2017 meetings and these dates/links are below. Please come out and join us for our first meeting of the year on February 22. We will have a presentation on Power BI and a user upgrade success story.

CRMUGDC 2017 Meetings:

• February 22
• May 17
• August 2
• November 15

Let's jump into the CRM blogs and news from the last month.

Leon Tribe posted on Actions: The New Workflow Function. Actions are steps designed in a workflow but called from code. This allows business-side administrators to control some steps or logic in a larger coded effort. Now in Dynamics 365 these can be called from workflows with the added benefit of accepting and returning values.

Sonoma Partners shared Driving CRM Adoption through Effective Communication. This discusses the need to determine where the business is and where you want it to be and then building a strategy to bring you there.

The Dynamics 365 Team blog discusses how to Make Business Recommendations Based on Business Intelligence with Dynamics 365. This gives some examples of how you can guide users and help provide recommendations using Portable Business Logic.

Everyone has been super excited for Editable Grids in CRM. PowerObjects takes this opportunity to show you 2 Rockin' Ways to Enable Editable Grids with Dynamics 365.

Ledgeview Partners shared Dynamics CRM workflow: Mapping Data between Fields. This is a quick walk through of how to create your first workflow and set up dynamic field updates.

As always, be sure to review the CRM Tip of the Day to make sure you didn't miss anything. Have a great day!

CRMUG Summit 2016 Recap

CRM MVPs at the Medic booth just hanging out with CRMUGDC

Another awesome year of CRMUG Summit has come and gone. It was a great event!

If you attended, be sure to download the slides from the Summit Community. If you did not attend, be on the lookout for the "Best of Summit" Webinar series open to CRMUG members. I would recommend Basics of Becoming your Organizations CRM Guru (recording) and Advanced Techniques for Becoming your Organizations CRM guru (coming up on 11/17).

There was lots of discussion about the new Dynamics 365 release at the main keynote with Scott Guthrie and the CRMUG General Microsoft Keynote with Jujar Singh. There are so many great plans on the horizon like Cortana integrated intelligence, editable excel grids in CRM, and visual process flow designer. Keep your eyes open and looking for the exciting things to come.

Another highlight of the week was being selected as Chapter Leader of the Year for my work with the Washington, DC chapter. It is such a great honor and I am so thankful to be a part of a great chapter! I hope we can continue to grow and provide great content in 2017. (You can read the press release here)

So excited to be Chapter Leader of the Year!

Check out below to see my takeaways from some of the sessions I attended.

Post Launch: What Happens Now

Dan Madden, SEI Investments

This session was a great discussion of the user adoption story at his organization. They took some risks and drastic steps to ensure the CRM project was a success including purging old/bad data and short forms.

Here are my top takeaways:

• The problem with hands on training is that people start Outlook and stop paying attention, minimize distractions
• Focus on high-level features then provide support and deeper training post-launch
• Record training sessions so these can be sent to users, takes away scheduling issues with training
• Marketing adoption is very important! If marketing doesn't have adoption they will be pulling users out of CRM and into Spreadsheets. If users need to update data twice (CRM and spreadsheet) they will stop using CRM
• Make use of dashboards! Do not release these on Day 1, wait until the data is there to support it. Incorporate the high level financial goals of the organization and present this data so users can see how they are achieving in these areas. Show users what their data is doing and powering - real time and transparent reporting
• Keep forms small and expose necessary fields as others are filled in.
• Look for meaningful wins but be careful which projects you take over (can be sunsetting other people's projects)
• Look to solve the business and data needs, you do not need to take advantage of all new features

Keys to Marketing Automation in CRM

Dean Jones, PowerObjects

This partner showcase for PowerObjects' PowerNurture discussed what marketing is and the goal of marketing. He discussed that it is very difficult to quantify ROI for marketing because you do not know what it means. We cannot actually tell what can be attributed to the marketing. Plus everyone has a different definition of marketing.

The suggestion was to start simple and then continue to add to your marketing solution. Keep in mind you don't just market to leads, you market to customers too!

Tactical tools can help you to execute your marketing message but you need to define your marketing plan and message before this. Marketing must take ownership of this plan. Market to leads and customers in your CRM, the focus must be on both. Also the recommendation given was that all of your marketing data should be kept in CRM so you have a full picture of the person.

You want to send the right message to the right person at the right time. The shot gun approach to marketing is less effective than a targeted message.

ABC's of CRM Training

Malin Dell'Amico, Wells Fargo

Kristi Cohen , Wells Fargo

This was a great session about things to keep in mind with CRM Training but most can apply to any training you are involved in.

During training: Start off by telling users how CRM will benefit them. Show them how it will make them more efficient. Also communicate the expectations after training - what is the timeframe for using this knowledge, what are they expected to know, etc. Keep a positive attitude in training so your enthusiasm will spread to them. Also acknowledge issues and teach them how to handle them (for example, if there is duplicate data teach them how to merge. Also try to organize your training for it follow their processes and flows together.

After training: Provide something for them to use as a recap when they get back to the office. Embed videos inside CRM and links to training materials. Make sure to mark these as new when they are updated. Ensure there are power users to help with questions and additional training.

Potential Pitfalls: Check you have the right level of management buy in (not just the very top). Users should know that the training is critical, ensure that it is their top priority and limit the distractions while in class. Ensure users understand that other people are using the same system and how processes affect their data.

Different Strokes: Business Rules vs JavaScript

Donna Edwards, Tribridge

Many people are using Business Rules to replace Java Script on their CRM forms or for new form enhancements. Donna recommended to use Business Rules when you can. These should run faster because Microsoft is controlling the code, JavaScript is controlled by whoever wrote it. Keep in mind that there can be odd interactions between Business Rules and Java Script so test extensively.

Business Rules can run on the client or the server. Client (form level) will require a user to interact with the form. Server level does not require a user interaction and it will trigger even when records are integrated.

The run order is as follows: system JavaScript, custom JavaScript, then Business Rules in the order they were activated.

Reminders:

• Business Rules can be included in a solution when moving between environments
• Always set the counter action (else if)
• Do not have JavaScript and Business Rules taking action on the same field

Getting Started with Excel Templates

Adam Vero, CRM MVP

Please download the slides for this session! So many great tips for getting started with Excel Templates along with general advice for better Excel reporting. Here were my top takeaways:

• Dynamic Export vs Excel Templates
• In Dynamic Export you must maintain one approved version, this is difficult to control as people may edit their personal versions
• Dynamic Exports can include data from other versions, CRM query is built in
• Excel Templates stores the columns but not the filters, you can choose which view you want to uses each time you run it
• Excel Templates are managed in CRM, so users will always get the most recent version
• Keep raw data on one tab. Make a new tab for calculations and one for the final report. Work and data tabs can be hidden.
• If you change the template, you need to deactivate and create a new template with the same name. If done mid-day, users will need to refresh.
• When using PivotTables, use the GetPivot data formulas to extract data from the Pivot
• Keep your colors consistent for related dimensions for consistency within and between reports

Tools for CRM

Two more great sessions I attended were XRM Factor (6 tools, 2 minutes each, live voting, non-stop excitement!) and 8 Tools for Developers and Admins. Both provided some great tools you should check out to see if they could work in your organization.

1. Fiddler - web debugging proxy
2. Task Workflow Tools - custom workflow steps to extend your workflows
3. Mobile Task Flows - walk users through tasks in the mobile or phone app
4. Ribbon Workbench - visually edit the ribbon
5. CRM Bookmarklets - JavaScript saved as bookmarks to "hack" your CRM (edit read only fields, show hidden fields, etc.)
6. XRM Toolbox - pretty much anything else not on this list (and some on this list) that you might want to do with CRM. I recommend the metadada document generator to look like you did a lot of work!
7. Metablast - visual utility for exporting metadata
8. CRM Snoop - Plugin Troubleshooting tool
9. LinqPad - Easily run .NET code
10. CRM DevTools - Chrome extension visible in the F12 developer area with lots of helpful functions for admins. Downloaded as soon as I got back to the office. It is worth it just to remember the debug and diagnostic links
11. KingswaySoft - SSIS Integration toolkit

4x4 Series: Training Your Users

I was asked to participate in the CRMUG 4x4 webinar series. These are quick webinars with multiple speakers sharing tips and answering questions. I also wanted to document my tips here for future reference.

Training is an integral part to any implementation because you cannot have user adoption if they do not know what to do! Here are some of my tips. What other tips do you have?

Quick Reference Guides

Create quick reference guides for each user group or functional role. If possible, this should be kept to one page with all the steps they need for their primary job functions. This will give them something to keep handy and look at for their primary tasks.

You can build a repository of key functions with their step by step directions. These can be items such as searching for a record, scheduling an appointment, adding an address, etc. Then for each group you can just grab out the pieces that are relevant for them to build your document quickly.

Make Training Accessible

You also want to make sure you training materials are accessible for everyone. Part of each training should be showing the users how to get more training. This needs to be easy to get to and have details about the commonly used features but also the items they only need every once and a while. Make sure there are pictures and procedures incorporated where necessary.

There are many exciting ways to use the CRM 2016 Custom Help features to assist with keeping your training relevant and accessible.

Frequent Reminders and Tips

My last tip would be to keep the tips coming. Give user frequent tips to remind them of functionality and guide in the correct procedures. Make sure you find the balance here so your tips do not become too frequent (and therefore ignored) but stay relevant and helpful.

Other Tips

Here are some of the other tips discussed in the webinar:

• When using a Train the Trainer approach make sure your trainers are accountable to their teams and available to for doing training and helping others
• Keep training fun
• Try optional lunch and learns - people will come out for food!
• Tailor your training for specific groups and roles. Also make sure your training style matches up with company culture
• Very related to User Adoption! Make sure you have executive support to encourage other users to learn the system and use it well

CRMUG Members can access the Recording here: 4x4 Training your CRM Users (Panel 2)

Please post your training tips in the comments! How do you help your users?

November 6 Blog Review

This was a lovely week for CRM because it was the Washington, DC Chapter meeting! We had a full house to talk about Marketing. See all of the notes on DC Chapter Community Blog.

If those notes don’t give you enough information about the topic, also check out Sonoma Partner’s Microsoft Dynamics Marketing: A Few Tips and Tricks.

For general tips, look at PowerObjects post on Copying a Workflow. We have used this fairly often in my environment to start a similar workflow by making the original a template temporarily.

User Adoption seems to be the ever present problem. Ledgeview Partners presents some ways to help in 8 ways to Increase CRM User Adoption on Rollout Day. There are some great tips in here including storing videos in CRM. (I loved the tip of linking to a SharePoint folder of videos with the custom help from Summit Day 3.)

Finally, for a taste of the season check out CRM Tip of the Day’s Pumpkin-Spiced CRM. No description required but let’s just say it makes me want to go get another red cup.

That’s all folks. Have a great weekend!

July 19 Blog Review

Let’s jump right into our CRM news of the week!

This is a bit more technical than I usually include but you should check out Hosk’s Don’t let bugs get into Production Environments. This stresses the importance of making sure you look for issues throughout the whole design and release process. It will be harder to fix the longer you let it grow!

Hitachi Solutions posted about 10 ways CRM Benefits the Individual. There are many benefits to using CRM. You users need to understand the ways it benefits them so that they will use the system and take advantages of what it provides.

C5Insight shared CRM Deployment Options … How to Decide? This walks through your deployment choices and the factors that will need to go into your decision.

Leon Tribe blogged about the Top Ten Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment: Part One – People. This walks through ten reasons why people are essential to your CRM success including executive buy-in and training.

Finally there were two great tips posted by PowerObjects that are worth checking out:

• Clearing a Field Value Using Business Rules – This walks you through writing a business rule that will remove the value from a field on your form
• How to Make Unused OOB Fields Unsearchable in Dynamics CRM – Advanced Find is a great tool to empower your users but it can be very overwhelming when users see a long list of fields. To make it easier, set your unused fields as unsearchable so they will no longer appear there. Just keep in mind the limitations of unsearchable fields.

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