April 11 Blog Review

It was not too busy in the CRM world this week.

Biggest news was that Microsoft released the Spring 2014 Preview Guide. This highlights Marketing enhancements and the new Unified Service Desk. There are many great features on the horizon!

Sonoma Partners featured Clogged Sync? Call the Plummer. This describes the resolution to several issues with the Server Side Sync in CRM 2013. Some of the issues were resolved with Update Rollup 1 but if you are still having issues you should check out their other recommendations.

Mitch Miliam featured a blog on How to Find What Does Not Exist. This describes how to use a Marketing List to find a subset of records that does not possess a certain quality. The limitations of this method is that it can only be used to find Accounts, Contacts and Leads. Also keep in mind that you will need to rebuild the Marketing List each time you want to get this list. So if this is data you need to gather once a week, it is not the best long term solution.

CustomerEffective posted Security Role Specific Dashboards in CRM 2013. In CRM 2013, System Dashboards no longer need to be visible organization wide. Now you can grant different security roles access to specific dashboards similar to how it is done for forms. This blog goes through that process.

PowerObjects described Hiding a Tab using Portable Business Logic. CRM 2013’s Portable Business Logic is a powerful tool that allows end users to create rules on the form that used to require JavaScript. Unfortunately there isn’t a “Hide Tab” rule but if you hide all the fields within a tab then the tab will disappear. Keep in mind you will need an opposite rule to un-hide the fields.

Jukka Niiranen posted about Accessing Special ActivityTypes with the CRM Report Wizard. If you have ever tried to use Advanced Find to view the information from an Opportunity Close or Case Resolution record you probably found it very difficult. However, you can access this information through the Report Wizard. Jukka walks through how to set that up.

That’s all for tonight. 

April 4 Blog Review

It seems so quiet this week after last week’s review of all of March! Here is what has been going on in the CRM community this week.

Dynamics Café posted Connor Marsden’s recap of Convergence - New Solutions and Excited Fans Come together at Convergence 2014. This is a high level overview of the announcements in the areas of Social Listening, Parature, Marketing and Unified Service Desk.

PowerObjects presented some Tips for Using Mail Merge in CRM 2013. This includes when to use it and how to change fields to Date Only within the Microsoft Word Template. Mail Merge is a very powerful tool, just remember to always print a sample of your letters to verify before distributing it to users. Also remind them to always check the letters for issues in case one of the fields being pulled in is blank on the record or incorrect.

The big news from CustomerEffective is that they were Acquired by Hitachi Solutions. This gives Hitachi Solutions access to CustomerEffective’s custom work as well as all the employees which will now work for Hitachi.

Leon Tribe wrote a great blog, Case Study: Pet CRM – Valuable Community Service vs Big Brother. If you read this, make sure you read all the way to the end. Very interesting (bizarre?) concept but …

Jukka Niiranen discusses Configuring Outlook Contact Synchronization Settings on Behalf of Your Users. This discusses a bit about how the synchronization between Outlook and CRM works (including Server Side Sync in CRM 2013) and a tool available to help you manage the sync filters for your users.

That’s all the news for today. Have a nice weekend!

March 28 Blog Review

The past few weeks have been very busy it seems - work and vacations and family and all kinds of stuff. So this is not really a weekly review but basically the whole month of March review. It has been a busy month in the CRM world with Convergence and all of the news from there. Make sure you check out Virtual Convergence. There are many sessions you can watch online for free so you can learn some of what those that attended learned.

This month Microsoft released the Scalable Security Modeling with CRM 2013. This is an expansion on the 2011 document including the new information on Access teams.

Since we have so much to cover I will try to hit the highlights quickly:

Power Objects:

Lookup Types and Customizing Lookups in CRM – this describes how to resolve the issue where a lookup only looks at a team instead of user and team.

Preventing Users from Going Back with Child Dialogs – Neat trick on how to prevent duplicate actions from users using the previous button within a Dialog in CRM 2011

Unwanted Activity Types in CRM – Options on handling Activity types you do not want users to use

Adjusting CRM 2013 Field label sizes – tips on how to make your forms look the way you want them to in CRM 2013

Customer Effective: CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 – Recap on the changes with the CRM 2013 UR 2 release. Also check out the PFE CRM in the Field Overview

Donna Edwards: Update Rollups – Should I or Should I Not, that is the Question – a look at how to know if you should install Rollups and how to plan for that

CRM in the Field:

Useful Tools and Features – a list of tools that they are using from CRM 2011 and 2013 that you may find useful as well

CRM 2013 Form Upgrade Experience – this discusses what to keep in mind when upgrading your forms for CRM 2013

Dynamics CRM Team Blog: CRM Online Sandbox Instances – some changes for CRM Online customers for non-production instances

Mitch Milam: KnowledgeBits – Make sure you sign up for Mitch’s newest tips and tricks newsletter

Salentica: CRM 2013 Form for Every User Error – how to deal with the “There must be at least one form for every user” in CRM 2013

Sonoma Partners:

Convergence Recap – Part 1, Part 2: Unified Service Desk and Part 3: Sonoma Partners Booth – check out everything you may have missed at Convergence

CRM 2013 Upgrade Considerations – things to keep in mind as you plan and execute your upgrade to CRM 2013

Jukka Niiranen:

Spring Cleaning for your CRM System – how to find which fields are not on your forms or which fields do not have data and what to do

Synchronization vs. Tracking: Understanding Activity Management Options in CRM – Understanding the differences between syncing and tracking and determining how you should handle your activities

2014 CRM Roadmap – a look at the 2014 roadmap as presented at convergence

Power User Tips for CRM 2013 – learn how to use CRM like a power user and be productive

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

February 28 Blog Review

Most of the CRM news this week relates to Convergence next week. It should be a great event with lots of CRM MVPs and other superstars there to report back on the news. Let’s take a quick look at the other news this week.

CustomerEffective wrote about a solution to a customer’s CRM 2013 SubGrid to Associated View button. Basically the issue is that a sub grid on your form may not have the button to see the associated view for that record. The issue results from removing that related record from the main record type’s navigation.

CustomerEffective also wrote about Design and Scalability Considerations when using Access Teams in CRM 2013. This compares traditional owner access with sharing to Access Teams. Both access methods have their advantages but must be used in moderation. Using sharing as the primary method for access can result in slow performance especially in organizations with a large number of records.

McGladrey wrote an interesting blog on Export Limitations from CRM to Excel. As you probably know, there is a limit to the number of records you can export (for good reason because you don’t want people exporting all your data, perhaps accidentally, and causing performance to go down). However, you can get around this either by changing the export limit or through a changing the parameters of a dynamic Excel workbook.

The CRM Team posted the Integration Guide: CRM Online and Office 365 to help our CRM Online readers.

Sonoma Partners posted two blogs this week about dealing with vendors – Six Questions to Ask Before you Sign your CRM Contract and CRM Software RFPs – When Good Ideas go Wrong.

Sonoma Partners also posted about What’s New in CRM 2013 for End Users: Quick Create. Quick Create is a great new feature that allows users to create records without needing to leave what they are working on.

Scott Durow posted Real Time Workflow or Plugin? There are advantages to both options. Two principles discussed are that you should use plugins if there are already plugins on an entity, or if you know that it will need a very high throughput. However the advantage of Real-Time Workflows is that they can be created by end users.

“It is true that Plugins will out perform RTWs in terms of through-put but if the frequency of the transactions are going to be low then this usually will not be an issue. If you have logic that is going to be firing at a high frequency by many concurrent users then this is the time consider selecting a plugin over a RTWF.”

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

 

February 21 Blog Review

It’s time to start enjoying the weekend! So let’s cover this week quickly.

PowerObject’s Creating If Then Else Logic in CRM 2013 Business Rules – Tutorial on how to handle AND and OR conditions in your Business rules.

CustomerEffective’s A Better Way to Control User Synchronization Settings in CRM – this describes a new tool that allows you to set up the default sync filters and reset users to the default sync filters in Outlook.

CRM in the Field’s PFE CRM Trace Log File Reader – describes the CRM Tracing log reader and how to use it to gain more information about issues you are having.

Leon Tribe’s Developer Essentials for the Functional Consultant – this is an excellent post that describes things that non-coders should understand – JavaScript and Plugins. He gives details on each, their limitations and alternatives.

Jukka Niiranen’s Information Overload: Cleaning Up CRM 2013 Forms – some helpful tips on how to clean up your CRM 2013 forms and clean up titles.

Jukka Niiranen’s How Would You Change the CRM Navigation? – this post links to several suggested CRM improvements on Microsoft Connect. Login and vote for these items so that the product team will consider including then in a later release.

Mitch Miliam’s Searching for Emails to a Specific Person – This is a handy tip describing how to find all E-mails a contact was involved in using Activity Parties.

Also when working with E-mails, if you need to search for all E-mails To or from a specific e-mail address you can use the contains operator. Try searching for E-mail where the TO field contains test@emailaddress.com and you will see all the messages sent to that address.

 

Have a good night folks!

February 14 Blog Review

Here are the top stories from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM world this week.

Microsoft posted a few things we need to be aware of. Via the Microsoft Premier Field Engineers’ CRM in the field we have the links to the CRM 2013 Implementation Guide and SDK. From the CRM Team we have a new white paper on Process Enablement with CRM 2013. This describes how to create business processes in CRM 2013 and the best practices you should follow.

Security can be a very confusing concept in CRM especially in organizations that require stricter rules and more separation of Data. To help with this PowerObjects posted CRM 2013 Business Units and Data Silos. This describes what the different pieces of security are and how they work together.

CustomerEffective also talked about security this week when they compared CRM Owner Teams vs Access Teams. Access Teams are new in CRM 2013 and still somewhat mysterious to new users. This could be a good option for you if you have rapidly changing teams that can be changed by regular users. However, Owner teams will be necessary if you currently require the team to have a security role.

PowerObjects talked to us about Customizing Sales Process Flows in CRM 2013. They discuss best practices when modifying sales processes such as creating a copy to work from. Also when you are making changes to one process, think about the other processes that should have the same changes made.

So often we hear stories of failed implemtations. To try to prevent that, CustomerEffective wrote 5 Ways to Make Your CRM Implementation More Difficult. The list includes making your security more complicated than necessary, using supported customization and making processes that require a large amount of user interaction to function properly.

The interface has changed drastically in CRM 2013. This can make it difficult for users to find things they used to find easily. One of those features is Advanced Find. Jukka Niiranen wrote a great blog on Finding Advanced Find in CRM 2013.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

February 7 Blog Review

The big news this week is that Microsoft announced their new CEO, Satya Nadella. The Dynamics community was excited because he has experience with the Dynamics Product line. Now that could mean we can expect more focus on Dynamics or it could just mean he worked at Microsoft for a long time and is well-rounded. Either way, it is interesting news.

PowerObjects posted about how to Use Duplicate Detection Rules in CRM 2013 when Qualifying a Lead. Duplicate Detection is a feature that allows you to create rules to find duplicates. These rules can then be applied in different situations or in jobs that search the whole system for duplicates. The process changed in CRM 2013, removing the pop-up when creating a record. However, you can still use this functionality when qualifying a lead.

Also you can check out Jukka Niiranen’s blog on Making Better Use of Business Process Flow Data. This describes how to handle situations where you have multiple processes running on the same entity and want to be able to report and compare the records together and broken out by process.

Encore Business Solutions also posted this great blog comparing CRM Marketing Automation tools. There are many great tools available but the choice comes down to how much marketing functionality you need and want as well as how much you want to spend.

Also the CRMUG DC chapter meeting was this week. We had a very good turnout on a rather icy day. The first half of the meeting was a presentation from Monique Riviere from Independent Sector describing the work on their implementation of CRM. They are working on many interesting things and working with lots of different vendors. The main takeaways were to make sure you have a good partner that can be your first line of support and assist with the communication between vendors. Also we discussed the question of making CRM fit your process or making the process fit CRM. This is a pitfall that many implementations have fallen into. In the end there needs to be a balance. Streamline the process but make sure you are not making changes that will impair your system in the future.

The other half of the CRMUG meeting with a Social Integrations presentation from Robert Contreras of Microsoft. He demoed the Yammer integration as well as Netbreeze. Both of these are very powerful features and they seem to be continually improved. No licensing or price information has been released about the Netbreeze integration but he said to watch the Social section of the CRM page for details.

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