CRMUG Summit is Almost Here!

Just over a week until CRMUG Summit! Of course I am super excited and hope to see all of you there!

To get prepared, make sure you check out Julie Yack's blog, Are you Ready for #CRMUGSummit? I completely agree with all her points. Be ready to take notes and learn more than you ever thought your brain could absorb. So be prepared to focus on learning! Also wear comfortable shoes, heels are not worth it.

I will be involved in 3 Sessions at Summit:

• Basics of Becoming your Organization's CRM Guru - Wednesday October 12, 1:45-2:45 PM - Tips for navigating CRM, intro to customizations and Advanced Find. Primary Speaker: Patrick Wright
• Advanced Techniques to be your Organization's CRM Guru - Thursday October 13, 8-9 AM - Next steps from the earlier basics session. More on Advanced Finds and Charts. Plus an intro to workflows and security.
• CRMUG Hands On Learning: Processes - Wednesday October 12, 3-4 PM - Walk through step by step guides on building workflows to learn more about them. I will be there with several other experts to assist if there are questions.

Plus many other great sessions from lots of great speakers. Make sure you review the full schedule and be on the lookout for encore sessions offered virtually if you can't attend in person.

There are also lots of after-hours events and vendor parties. So lots of fun to be had just be responsible so you can still make it to my 8 AM session :)

Here's a few on my radar:

• Vendor Party Tuesday
• Buccaneer Bash Wednesday
• FastPath Salsa Party Thursday

Plus I will be on the lookout for current and prospective CRMUGDC Members especially at the networking lunches.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

#CRMUGSummit #CountOnSummit

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!

July 2016 Blog Review

Let's catch up on the CRM blogs of the lovely month of July.

For those who love to pursue certifications - check out Hosk's overview of Tips on Passing the MB2-712 Customizations and Config exam.

Ledgeview Partners shared a quick tip on Removing an Entity from Quick Create in Dynamics CRM. Remember that Activity types cannot be removed from Quick Create.

Ledgeview Partners also shared: On-Demand Workflows for Closed Opportunities in Dynamics CRM. Closed Opportunities can still be edited via workflow so this can be a good way to populate the necessary data points.

PowerObjects shared some great content this month:

• Don't Delete Your Configuration Data! Use Real-Time workflows Instead - Walks you through using synchronous workflows to prevent the deletion of key data
• Setting Up Recurring Workflows in Dynamics CRM 2016 - Use child workflows and waits to create a recurring workflow system
• Boolean Blitz: When Two Options Are Actually Three - Don't forget about that pesky NULL value

Finally, Sonoma Partners shared Microsoft Announces Dynamics 365 Integrated Cloud Platform. This gives a quick overview of the announcement. There is still lots of information to come.

Thanks for tuning in!

June 2016 Blog Review

Clearly summer schedules got the best of me this year. So let's quickly get caught up on all the CRM news.

I always recommend you stay up to date with CRM Tip of the Day, here are a few to start with:

•  Don't give users and teams the same role - spoiler alert: this can cause unexpected consequences
• You may be an Enterprise - understand the nuances of licensing and changes
• If Activities disappear, take the pill - some solutions to odd Outlook issues

Sonoma Partners shared Get ready, Dynamics is about to get "Linked" in. This talks about the Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn and what it could mean for the future.

PowerObjects shared tips for dealing with workflow email errors in Workflow Generated Email stuck in "Pending Send" - Get it sent!

EMEA Dynamics CRM Support posted a great overview of Workflows in Dynamics CRM. This talks about the different kinds of processes and what you need to get started.

Workflows were very popular this month and Ledgeview Partners also shared Using Dynamics CRM Workflows to Create Tasks Automatically. Follow along in their example to better understand automating activities via CRM.

One of the cool new features in CRM 2016 is Excel Templates! To learn more reach Hitachi Solutions' 5 Tips for using Excel Templates in Dynamics CRM.

That's all for June!