August 28 Blog Review

It was very exciting this week that CRMUG announced the CRMUG All Star Nominations! I am so honored to be nominated. I can’t believe I am even in the same league as the rest of those awesome people. Make sure you check out the survey and vote!

Let’s jump right in to the blog review!

Ledgeview Partners talked about Hierarchical Security with Dynamics CRM. This describes the CRM 2015 feature that allows you to configure security to respect records owned by people you manage.

PowerObjects posted A Day in the Life of a CRM Admin. This talks about the general tasks, how to learn, and what to do to become a CRM Admin.

CRM Tip of the Day posted a Friday video – Tipster Guide to Immersive Excel. This shows you how to use Excel within CRM 2015.

McGladrey shared Four Top CRM End User Training Tips. This talks about the importance of power users, training materials and other things you need to keep in mind when you are training your user base.

The CRM Team also announced a new white paper: Dynamics CRM Synchronization: How it Works. This walks through the architecture of the Outlook Synchronization in CRM 2015.

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

May 8 Blog Review

The most important news this week is that you need to be coming to the CRMUG Washington, DC Chapter meeting next Wednesday May 13^th (Blog, Video, Register). You can also see other news and posts below.

This week the CRM Team announced the General Availability for Spring 2015 Release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing. Their post discusses the key improvements to be aware of (and excited for!).

If you need more information, Anne Stanton compiled a list of Great Resources for Dynamics CRM v7.x.x. This links to the Microsoft videos as well as the different announcements.

Related to this update, Sonoma Partners posted CRM Online Spring 2015 – Folder Level Tracking. This is a great new feature which allows users to set up specific Outlook folders which automatically track and even set the Regarding to a specific record.

Adam Vero continued his charting series with “Mind the gap” to make your CRM Charts look better. This describes how to use the PointWidth and MaxPixelPointWidth properties to ensure your chart looks good on all size monitors and devices. These properties set the amount of the screen filled with columns and (from the opposite perspective) the max size that your columns can be.

I also found these two blogs from a few weeks ago from Ms. Dynamics CRM – Import Case, Account and Contact at once in Single File in CRM Import Wizard and Tips & Tricks: How to solve the Common Bulk Import Problem: ‘The Lookup Reference Could Not Be Resolved’ in CRM Import Wizard. Both of these are things that I have never tried but sounds very interesting. I can’t wait to experiment with it!

Finally, from the CRM Tip of the Day – Training? On New Features? Free? Yes, Please! This directs you to some training for the 2015 Spring release that is available on YouTube.

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

May 1 Blog Review

Welcome to May everyone! Let’s hop right in to this week’s blog review.

As promised last week Adam Vero published a couple articles on charting within CRM. Check out Highlighting Contribution using conditional formatting in CRM Charts and Conditional Formatting in CRM Leaderboard Charts.

The CRM Team blog posted some great documentation on Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Update 1,  Microsoft Social Engagement 2015 Update 1 and Parature. They also posted on the New Form Rendering Engine with CRM Online 2015. This provides performance benefits to the users as well as some changes for developers working with the form.

Sonoma Partners blogged on CRM Online Spring 2015 Immersive Excel. This describes how you can use Excel Online directly through CRM. You can edit records using this method or just work with them and close out.

A common limitation with Advanced Find is that you cannot search for say Accounts without any Activities. CRM Tip of the Day solves this with NOT IN for the Rest of Us. This presents the option of using a Rollup Field to calculate the number of child records which you can use in Advanced Find.

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

April 17 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! It is a lovely spring day here and I hope all of you are enjoying the same luxury. Just take a few quick minutes to catch up on your CRM news and then you can go outside and frolic. That’s probably what I will be doing.

So we have 3 very important things to cover and then some other blogs and tips.

First of all, Microsoft has updated their naming policy see New Naming Conventions for CRM Updates on the CRM Team blog. The goal of this is to help the update numbers and the version numbers line up better and be easier to understand.

Second CRM 2015 Update 0.1 has been released see the Knowledgebase, Download Page and Blog. Note this is not the 2015 spring release, this is just the on-premise rollup. The spring online release is update 1. It looks like there are a lot of small fixes in here so make sure you review the list and determine if you want to look at doing the update.

Lastly, the 2013 CRM Field Guide is now available! This is a book written by a group of MVPs to provide you with everything you need to know to ensure your CRM system is set up in the best way possible.

The last few weeks we have been talking about the CRM Online Spring Release (CRM 2015 Update 1) and there were a few more blogs published about that this week.

PowerObjects discusses the CRM Spring Wave Update 1: Folder Level Tracking. This allows users to set up a new folder in their Outlook where the emails will always track to a specific Household. The user does not even need to have CRM for Outlook installed! It utilizes Server Side Sync and personal options within CRM.

Sonoma Partners talked about the CRM Online Spring 2015 – OneNote Integration. We have seen a few other blogs on this topic but this lists all the features as well as best practices to keep in mind.

A big topic of conversation in my CRMUG Chapter meetings is always certifications. This week Leon Tribe talked about Passing MB5-705: Managing Microsoft Dynamics Implementations. This goes over things to keep in mind for that exam but also some general tips for preparing for any of the Microsoft certifications.

Last but not least, CRM Tip of the Day posed Date Field Options in CRM Online 2015 Update 1. Now there will be new options for date and Time fields – User Local (takes into account time zone), Date Only (always the same), and Time-zone independent (includes time but always shows the same time).

That’s all I have to share today. Have a lovely weekend!

April 10 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! Let’s jump right in with the CRM News from this week.

There is still lots of news coming out about the CRM 2015 Spring Release.

Mitch Milam had an interesting tidbit in Delete Plug-in Trace Log Records. As we learned last week, you can now view plugin trace data from within CRM. Interestingly enough, there is an automatic delete job set up to remove these trace records. So make sure you review that and make sure it fits your needs.

PowerObjects talked about the Seamless OneNote Integration. This allows users to quickly record notes on the record through the use of OneNote. This provides additional features like pictures which may make this easier for some users as opposed to the traditional Notes area.

Sonoma Partners posted on the CRM Online Spring Release ’15 Theming. This talks about how easy it is to change the color and logo for your CRM system. These changes can be exported/imported but not through a solution. This is a great way to brand your system or distinguish between your different environments.

PowerObjects shared a good tip on How to Fix the Omnipresent “CRM Auto Reloading” Issue. I’m sure many of you have struggled with this issue as I have and you will be happy to know that it can be resolved by changing a registry setting.

PowerObjects also discussed how Hiding a Field Does not Hide the Data in CRM. This is talking about how hiding a field via JavaScript or Business Rules only hides it on the form and the data is still accessible. Instead consider using Field level security. I also have an older post on the subject of Field Level Security vs. Not Searchable which may help you out.

Finally, we will top it all off with the top tips from the CRM Tip of the Day:

• Use an Exchange Distribution List for CRM Email Notifications – avoid having workflows that send emails to defined individuals, use a distribution list when you can.
• Why don’t I see any records in CRM Online – If you have signed up for a CRM Online trial recently, you may log into CRM and only see Service and Settings. If this is the case, double check that your user has a CRM License assigned to it in Office 365.
• Workflows on Change of Process Flow Stage – Be careful when making workflows based on the process flow stage advancing as users tend to click multiple times and then may need to go back.

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

April 2 Blog Review

This week’s blog recap is a bit early with the long weekend. Still lots of news coming in from Convergence and the Spring 2015 release. Let’s take a quick look.

Most importantly (of course) it was April Fool’s this week. To celebrate, Leon Tribe created CRM: Corpse Relationship Management. If you ever need to customize CRM during the zombie apocalypse then this is the information you will need to know! (Or if your Pets use CRM there was Pet CRM last year.)

Ledgeview Partners gave a quick overview of future features in CRM 2015 Spring Release Details from Convergence. This lists the features we can expect to see soon.

For more information check out PowerObject’s Top 10 New Features in CRM 2015 – Update 1. This includes the ability to change the color and add a logo as well as the Export to Excel change to a flyout menu instead of a wizard.

One of the changes is improvements to the navigation you can get a taste of this in Sonoma Partner’s CRM Online Spring Release ’15 – Navigation Enhancements.

Another interesting enhancement is the ability to include plugin tracing information in a new entity in CRM so it can be easily reviewed. Read about this in:

• CRM in the Field – Monitoring and Statistics for Sandboxed Plugins
• PowerObjects – CRM 2015 Spring Update 1: Plug-In Trace Log
• Hitachi Solutions – Plug-in Tracing Enhancements in the Spring Release of CRM 2015

PowerObjects also posted about some existing CRM 2015 functionality. Check out: Branching and Programmatically Branching Process Flows as well as CRM 2015 Custom Hierarchies.

That’s all for today. Enjoy the long weekend! 

March 27 Blog Review

It has been another busy week in the CRM world. Everyone is catching up from Convergence last week and spreading all the information. So let’s take a look.

• If you missed Convergence in Atlanta, here is all the information you need:
• Video Library Now Available! Thanks for sharing Ledgeview Partners!
• PowerObject’s Convergence 2015 Takeaways
• Jukka Niiranen posted A Few Notes on Convergence 2015 Announcements
• Sonoma Partners’ Convergence 2015 Keynote Recap
• McGladrey shared Microsoft Convergence recap from a Dynamics CRM Perspective (lots of pictures!)

Lean Tribe posted A Codeless Alert System for Dynamics CRM. This walks through how to use Business Rules to set up an alert for users. This is a great way to get the user’s attention and force them to read a message before interacting with the record. The main benefit is that the business logic for this alert can be easily changed through the interface without needing to involve a developer to modify the code.

PowerObjects discussed Branching and Programmatically Branching Process Flows. This talks about how to deal with processes which change based on certain data and the multiple ways to achieve the desired result.

CRM Tip of the Day posted a great time about Avoiding Duplicate Contacts when Upgrading. This gives some things to keep in mind when you are upgrading your CRM system and the options you have for dealing with the Outlook client.

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

March 20 Blog Review

This has been a very exciting week because it was Microsoft Convergence! Lots of exciting things were discussed and announced so let’s cover that first.

The big announcement of course was the CRM 2015 Spring Release. The CRM Team blog posted the Official Pre-Release Content for you to check out.

Hitachi Solutions posted some great summaries of the announcements each day: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. The most exciting enhancement for me was themes which allows you to customize the colors of your CRM system and even add a logo! You can also see this feature on CRM Tip of the Day’s Turn CRM Green.

Microsoft’s Premier Field Engineers shared 3 posts on 15 tips in 15 minutes sessions that they had at Convergence – Upgrading, Optimization, and Customization.

Finally, McGladrey posted the Spring Release Highlights to recap what we have been looking at so far.

Non-Convergence related you should check out PowerObjects’ post on Definitions of ‘Append’ and ‘Append To’ in Dynamics CRM. This describes the difference, why it’s important and how to keep it straight in your mind.

That’s all I have. Have a great weekend everyone!

February 27 Blog Review

Let’s get right to the CRM news of the last week of February.

PowerObjects gave a quick tutorial on Creating Monthly Goals in Bulk via Importing. Goals can be a great feature but there is no way to copy a goal. So to overcome this you can import your goals to create a large number at one time.

PowerObjects also discussed Customizable Help Now Available in CRM 2015. This describes how to set up custom help for the system and entity specific within CRM 2015.

Hitachi Solutions posted Great FetchXML Tool for CRM. This talks about the “Download FetchXML” button in Advanced Find and how you can use the XRMToolbox to work with the results.

Hitachi Solutions has also been working on a series about the Social Pane in CRM. Check it out to learn what posts are and how to use workflows to create and intact with them. It consists of Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The Microsoft Dynamics Team announced this week that there is a new CRM for Outlook ebook. This talks about everything you need to get started with using CRM for Outlook.

Mitch Milam discussed System-Wide Alerts in CRM 2015. This is a new feature in CRM 2015 that allows the user to see new alerts that can be triggered from things such as an import finishing. Still not much is known about this feature but it could be very powerful because it is viewable in Advanced Find and accessible via code.

I think that is all I have for today. Have a great weekend!

February 13 Blog Review

I’m sure everyone has big romantic plans for the weekend so I will try to run through the news quickly.

At the end of last week, Rollup 2 for CRM 2013 SP 1 was released. So here is the KB Article and the Premier Field Engineers Overview.

PowerObjects posted Access Is Denied: How to Identify and Fix a Security Role Issue. This walks through some approaches for dealing with access issues and gives some helpful things to keep in mind.

Sonoma Partners talked about Custom Help Content in CRM 2015. This describes how to set up global and entity-specific help pages for your users.

Jukka Niiranen discusses CRM 2015 Rollup Fields: The Gotchas. This talks about the schedule on which rollup fields are calculated and the interesting fact that rollup field changes cannot trigger workflows.

CRM for Outlook is always an exciting adventure. CRM Tip of the Day discusses how to deal with duplicate contact issues in When Outlook Attacks.

CRM Tip of the Day also posted Qualify Lead – CRM 2011 vs CRM 2015. This walks you through what occurs when a lead is qualified in 2011 and 2015.

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

January 16 Blog Review

It has been a very busy week for me because I have been finalizing the CRMUG DC Chapter Meeting. This is going to be a great year for the DC Chapter so all of you should plan to attend!

Now let’s take a look at what was going on in the world of CRM this week.

PowerObjects posted a great tutorial for new users on Modifying a View in CRM 2013 to Create a Personal View. This shows you how to take existing Advanced Find views and create your own copy with columns and filters that are exactly what you need.

Hitachi Solutions blogged about Using Goals as Rollup Tables in CRM. This talks about how you can use the Goals functionality to replace custom reports you might have created long ago to track progress and distance from a target. Goals recalculate every 24 hours so your numbers will be fresh each morning and will not need to be calculated when you run a report.

Donna Edwards posted about CRM Online Licensing Highlights which goes over a few key takeaways from the CRM Online licensing and pricing guide. As CRM continues to have more attached products (Marketing, Social, etc.) licensing becomes more complex, so any extra help understanding is beneficial.

The CRM Team Blog shared a list of the new CRM 2015 videos. Check these out to learn more about the CRM 2015 offering and the benefits it can bring to your organization.

Finally from CRM Tip of the Day remember to Name your Relationships. If you just set up Relationships with default names the left hand navigation of the related entity could show the same name multiple times. So edit this name on the relationship properties or completely remove it.

That’s all for this week. Have a nice weekend!

January 9 Blog Review

It’s time for the first blog review for 2015!

PowerObjects gave us some insight into The Art of Campaign Design: Marketing Automation in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing. This shows a little bit about how to set up campaigns in MDM and how to set up some automation.

PowerObjects also talked about Key Considerations for Writing Scripts for CRM for Tablets Application. This discusses what to keep in mind when your JavaScript will be executed on a tablet and how to test.

Adam Vero pointed out that the CRM 2015 Exams have been posted along with some training. Use his blog as a reference for all the information you need.

Along with the 2015 exams being posted, all of the 2015 documentation is available. Use this CRM in the Field guide for all the links to CRM 2015 White Papers & Technical Documentation.

Sonoma Partners discusses the CRM 2015 Outlook and Sync Enhancements. Check out all the new features that will be available to ensure you can sync exactly what you want and how you want to.

Finally, let’s see what the CRM Tip of the day had for us over the last few weeks:

• Living in the Past – this talks about the upgrade path from CRM 4.0 to 2015 along with considerations and things to keep in mind.
• What to Consider before Changing your CRM partner – lots of good tips and thoughts in here including how to mitigate some of the risks.
• New Entities and Attributes in CRM 2015 – this is a list of all the new attributes in CRM 2015 so you know if you ever run across them.

That’s all for today. Happy 2015!

December 12 Blog

Keep warm by the fire tonight and read up on the CRM blogs of the week.

PowerObjects had a good tip in Setting Visibility of a Business Process Flow with JavaScript in CRM 2015. This allows you to show and hide the Business Process Flow ribbon by using a yes/no field.

PowerObejcts also gave on overview of the Enhanced Business Rules for CRM 2015. This includes the addition of branching and a change so the rules are executed server side so that workflows and plugins cannot get around your logic.

Hitachi Solutions has been working through the 12 days of CRMas to go through CRM 2015’s new features, I will just highlight a few here. On the 2^nd day they discussed Hierarchical Security which allows you to define your security based on position, moving a user to a new position can then impact their security. On the 3^rd day, we learned about CRM 2015 Custom Help. This talks about the new customization options to provide help and instruction for your users. On the 5^th day of CRMas my true love gave to me EASIER SEARCH OPTIONS. This is talking about the new Global search feature and how to configure it as well as how the Advanced Find button is now included in the top navigation ribbon.

Finally, we have a few quick tips from the CRM Tip of the Day. Check out Entities not available for CRM for Tablets to get a good list of what you can and cannot display and edit through the tablet interface. They also presented the idea of Creating a Limited Customizer Role. The example discusses creating a role to allow users to create system charts but not touch other customization but this same principle can be applied in other areas. You can create roles to allow certain users to view/manage processes and system jobs but not do any customization or you can allow users to view everything in “Customize the System” but not allow them to delete or modify anything. It’s great to limit these permissions especially in your production environment. You don’t need to worry about them messing something up if you don’t give them access to!

Have a great weekend folks!

December 5 Blog Review

Welcome back to the CRM Blog Review. Only a few more editions until the end of the year!

While all of us were away eating turkey CRM 2015 was released here are all the blogs to tell you what to do:

First, get all the links and information from either Hitachi Solutions (CRM Server 2015 Released and Available for Download) or Chris Cognetta (CRM 2015 has been released)

Then look at scheduling and your upgrade options with PowerObjects (Scheduling you Dynamics 2015 Online Update) and Hitachi Solutions (CRM 2015 Upgrade Options)

Next learn more about the new features with Chris Cognetta (Training & Adoption Kit for CRM), Microsoft (MDM 2015 Update Content is here!) and Sonoma Partners (CRM 2015 Sales Module Enhancements).

If you still want to learn more – PowerObject’s is offering a Webinar Series: Get Ready for Dynamics CRM 2015

Hitachi Solution also provided a great reference for people just setting up their CRM or those determining if they need to make a change in their post CRM – Online vs. On Premise Decision Matrix.

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

November 21 Blog Review

It was a fairly quiet week in the CRM world. Everyone is busy working to be done before the holidays. Let’s take a look at some of the top posts.

PowerObjects taught us about Calculated Fields in Dynamics CRM 2015. This walks through an example to show you how to set up Calculated Fields.

Adam Vero posted a blog about his experience as a CRMUG member. Take a look if you are interested in what it means to be involved with CRMUG, lead a chapter meeting, and be an MVP at Summit.

CRM Tip of the Day also posted several helpful tips:

• Beware of the implications of “non searchable” fields – this discusses the implications and considerations to keep in mind when setting a field to searchable = no (also check out my blog on the topic comparing non searchable to field level security)
• Server Side Sync and View in CRM – there is a known issue that the View in CRM button does not work when using Server Side Sync
• Close Appointments from Outlook – It is easy to use Outlook to close CRM tasks but the same thing does not exist for appointments. Check out this tip to learn a potential workaround.

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

November 14 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to the CRM news of the week!

PowerObjects posted Keeping Afloat with CRM System Requirements for Dynamics CRM. This goes through the dynamics related products and the support dates that you need to be aware of.

PowerObjects also blogged about Understanding Global Option Sets. This describes what Global Option Sets are and how to create them.

Several new videos were highlighted this week. Adam Vero takes a look at CRM 2015 videos from the MS Product Team. These are more technical videos focusing on new functionality available in CRM 2015. Hitachi Solutions also highlighted a video, CRM 2015: Every Interaction Matters. This is an ad from Microsoft showing the value of using the integrated Microsoft products and what we can expect in the future.

Adam Vero also blogged about Modifying Dashboard properties in CRM 2015. In CRM 2013 the properties button was removed when editing dashboards so you could not change the description once the dashboard was initially created. This is corrected in 2015 and you have the option to enable multiple dashboards for tablets.

Jukka Niiranen recapped his top 2013 blogs in CRM 2013 in Retrospect. This is a great way to remember the most-exciting features of 2013 before our focus shifts to 2015.

Let’s finish off with some CRM Tips of the day:

• How can Administrators update read-only fields?
• Google took me to the 2013 documentation when I want 2011, what do I do? (This is so helpful – it was part of my 6.92 Summit Takeaways)
• What happens when I delete tracked Outlook tasks?

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!

November 7 Blog Review

It was a busy week in the CRM world so let’s jump right in.

First of all, Microsoft published the CRM 2015 Prerelease content. This will give you all the information you need to start planning your 2015 update.

Hitatchi Solutions was also talking about CRM 2015. They blogged about the CRM for your Business ad which shows how you will be able to use CRM along with the social listening and marketing components in the future.

Hitachi Solutions also showed us how to create Duration Calculations in CRM with Little or No Customizations. This utilizes a new custom entity and a workflow to calculate the days or minutes between two dates.

PowerObjects highlighted Marketing features in What’s New for Marketing in CRM: Fall 2014 – Part 2. (We looked at Part 1 last week.) This looks at Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening.

McGladrey discussed CRM 2013 errors in Google Chrome. This is related to Google Chrome no longer supporting the JavaScript method showModalDialog(). Their recommendation – “when in doubt, user Internet Explorer.” I tend to agree.

Finally, CRM Tip of the Day posted a few great tips to keep in mind. Globally Manage User Setting in CRM discusses how to use the XRM Toolbox to easily manage user settings all in one place. Prevent Export to Excel By Entity talked about using the Ribbon Workbench to essentially prevent users from Exporting to Excel for specific entities.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Summit 2014: Day 3 Takeaways

Last day! So much information! There is no way to capture all the important information (especially since I can only be in one place at a time), so be sure to review the slides if you have access and watch the encore webinars when they occur.

Charting you Can’t do out of the Box – Adam Vero

Before you start working ask: Who? What? When? Where (Device, Resolution)?

Tools: Blank paper and pencil or white board and colored pens (get buy-in, determine how it will look); Notepad, Notepad++ or Visual Studio

Goal: “Use simple charts in clever ways”

Method: build what you can with out of the box tools, export, edit, reimport and repeat. Keep in mind if you “Keep Both” on your initial import you will need to export the newly created chart because it has a new GUID.

To save space, make the chart title descriptive so we can remove the axis labels.

You can easily change colors in the XML by listing the RGB values, if you give 4 numbers instead of 3 the first number will set the transparency.

Errors on chart import: Invalid XML means missing < > or similar issue, Specific error probably means a property name is incorrect (generally must be Camel Case).

Use ToolTips to display data on demand. Can be used for information or values. Keep in mind the values cannot be formatted.

“Palette Shift” – colors are assigned in order, not related to the data. You can fix this by using multiple series rather than 2^nd category. Filter each series by value.

Upgrading CRM Panel – Chris Cognetta, Bob Kanzler, David Goff

Scope

You can postpone updating your 2011 forms but it is recommended that you do this with the upgrade so you do not need to train twice. The forms must be updated before moving to SP1.

Form merge feature will include all default fields plus your form. Recommendation is to start with blank new form and add all your fields to it.

Do not add new functionality with the upgrade. Wait before deploying Business Process Flows. You can use new functionality to replace existing code (replace JS with Business Rules) but do not add new features.

When going live, go right to the latest!

Business Process rules will probably continue to be improved and eventually replace dialogs.

Test ISVs and Integrations in Dev/Test environments.

Outlook Add-in

CRM 2013 for Outlook does not support Citrx (may work but not supported, no longer part of documentation)

Resource Challenges

Need FULL TIME Project Manager

IT must be involved in day to day, do not just let partner do it. They must be able to provide support starting day 1.

Requirements

Try to freeze development during the upgrade. If fields are added in both places, those fields are NOT the same (different GUIDs). This can cause an error when importing solutions.

Testing and Training Plans

Use front-line users as testers.

Custom security roles will not be upgraded (they will not include new 2013 permissions). Recommendation to resolve is remove custom roles, go back to Out of the box roles and trim down permissions as necessary.

Tips from the CRM Tipsters – George Doubinski, Gus Gonzalez, Joel Lindstrom, Jerry Weinstock

Check out the daily tips at www.CRMTipOfTheDay.com and submit your tips at jar@CRMTipOfTheDay.com

Tip #92 – review cascading relationships to evaluate and understand behavior.

Tip #158 – review Security Roles when you upgrade. Do a full review. Start with Out of the Box roles and trim them down. There is a codeplex tool to determine what roles people have. May want to hire a developer to write a tool to replace old roles with the new roles. Do NOT ever modify built in roles, make a copy and edit there.

Tip #121-125 – Workflows and Wait conditions. Be careful using “waiting” workflows because these are always running. When using wait, separate into parent/child workflows where the Child is called after the wait condition. Also be careful with “Canceled” – only use when something must be done.

Tip #84 – To resolve date issues across multiple time zones set the time to 10:59 AM UTC. This will cover most of the world.

The Confidence Code – Kelly Rosvold

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Sit at the table – be a participant not a spectator

Don’t leave before you leave – commit until you can’t, don’t step back too soon

Making your partner a real partner – give up control and let your partner support and help you

Check out: Lean In Circles to find support in your community

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay, Claire Shipman

Learn to be confident by: Failing Fast (take risks, fail smaller), Acting instead of holding back, practice making decisions, self compassion for missteps, move on!, banish negative automatic thoughts, reframe

Summit 2014: Day 2 Takeaways

Sorry for the delay in Day 2 and 3 takeaways, I determined sleep was slightly more important. So let’s get caught back up.

BPM and Process Automation in CRM 2013 – Gus Gonzalez

Always keep in mind the following: (Admin rule #1) keep it simple and (Admin rule #2) check if something already exists before creating a new one.

Sales teams that adopt a sales process experience a 35% higher win rate than those with a random process.

Think about bottlenecks in your current process to find ways to automate.

Business Process Flows

Microsoft has provided Business Processes for download that you can use as a starting point (Settings -> Data Management -> Add Ready to Use Business Processes).

Required fields in the Business Process are only required to pass that stage. If they are passed that stage when the change is made, the field will not be required unless they go back.

2011 BPFs do not upgrade to 2013. In2013, you can only move to child records and then back to the parent as the last stage (closed loop).

There are many enhancements in 2015 including Conditional Branching.

Real-Time Workflows

You can leverage the “Run as” option to run as either the owner of the workflow or the user that caused the workflow to fire. Keep in mind that they will need to have access to do what the workflow is doing.

If the workflow is stopped as canceled you can return a message to the user.

Best Practice: always start workflows with a check condition.

Business Rules

Limited to one entity (cannot search parent records like in workflows).

Benefit over JavaScript is that the dependencies are automatically tracked.

If an error is returned it is displayed in a small bar, Real Time Workflows display a large pop-up error.

Actions

Actions are like workflows but called from code.

Easy to administer, allow changes without a developer.

Can be created to be used on multiple entities.

Bonus: for Duplicate Detection check out Jason Lattimer’s tool that will prevent duplicates from being created.

Partner Showcase: FastPath – Security, Audit and Compliance – Andy Snook, Nate Boettcher

FastPath provides a variety of tools to check who is editing or even just viewing data. They also have tools to help standardize and automatically assign security roles and teams.

They handle the auditing using SQL triggers on tables and add this to a custom table on the CRM server which is moved to their database overnight.

CRM 2013 Email Architecture – Gustaf Westerlund

If you have questions about your sync options check out this whole presentation for the pros and cons of each method.

Server Side Sync – [Incoming Email] cannot do “Set Regarding” so Outlook Client is still required; uses exchange web services; part of Async service; probably future investment. [Appointment/Contact/Task] filters are hard to set, some scenarios not supported, still a new technology and tracing could be better.

Custom/3^rd party program – keep in mind this will need to keep up with Microsoft Development

Note – beware of blacklisting. This can be a problem if you are sending large volumes of emails from your personal Outlook or the CRM server.

Outlook Client Troubleshooting – Derek Braun, Jon Bimbaum

When tracing the Outlook client the following types of traces can be generated: (1) OUTLOOK-CLIENT (Outlook Nav, Manual Tracking), (2) WebFormsHost-bin (web forms in Outlook), (3) crm-addin (Background synchronization), (4) ETL Tracking (event tracing) and (5) Configuration Wizard (more details than config log file).

If duplicate items are being created check the crmid (text) and crmlinkstate (number) in Outlook.

If an issue with Appointment/Contact/Task – check the SubscriptionSyncIssue table using the Outlook sync subscription ID.

If an email appears tracked but is not in CRM, use the “View in CRM” button to determine if it has been deleted.

Tools you will need: Fiddler, Debug Diagnostics (automated crash/hang analytics), Diagnostics Tracing, Notepadd++

Resources you can use for the Spring ’14 Release – Jackie Smith, Jim Daly

Review the blog: Looking for help in the CRM Product Family

All help for CRM 2013 and beyond can be found at www.CRMCustomerCenter.com

On Tech Net pages there is an “Other Versions” selector near the top of the page if you want to see the page for a different version.

Through the customer center you can download training and adoption kits. These are customizable presentations, quick videos, etc.

For developers, all resources are linked to the CRMDeveloperCenter.com

Summit 2014: Day 1 Takeaways

I am going to try my best to summarize what I learned on Day 1 of Summit. There was so much more information but I could not possibly process it let alone try to put it into coherent sentences. (But of course the most important piece to note is that Tony Stein called me out in the CRMUG General Session and told everyone to read my blog!!!)

Upgrading CRM – Chris Cognetta

 2015 is more like an R2 version of 2013. It is just additional features so more like an update than an upgrade.

Today 95% of CRM deployments are virtualized. This is great for Security, Disaster Recovery, etc.

Upgrade Checklist:

1.      Review upgrade path

2.      Review infrastructure set up, current users, DB Size, etc.

3.      Review User Access (web, Outlook Client, Mobile, IFD)

4.      Review usage of Jscript for security, sub grids, and web service calls

5.      Review SDK enhancements for plugins or workflow assemblies

6.      Review integrations with 3^rd party IVS

7.      Review data integrations with scribe, SSIS, etc.

8.      Review data for decision on upgrade or reload

Rollup Rules: Read (make sure there is something you want), Wait (stay 1 behind)

Opening General Session: CRM 2015 – Jujhar Singh

Product Growth – Customer Service, Social Listening, Marketing and acquisition of Capptain (mobile marketing)

Sales productivity solution from Microsoft: Zero In -> Win Faster -> Sell More

Check out these slides about the future enhancements:

Techie Talk: Upgrading Complex Systems –Alex Fagundes, Jerry Weinstock

Upgrading is not a strategy, it’s a tactical exercise

CRM 2013/2015 is about 40% more efficient than CRM 2011 because of the consolidated tables.

On Premise Upgrade Scenarios: (1) In Place, (2) Connect to existing, (3) [RECOMMENDED} Side by Side

Some codeplex tools to check out to enhance your 2013 experience: (1) One Click Navigation, (2) Quickview Menu, (3) Quick Navigation

Partner Showcase: Resco Glass, wearable CRM – Ivan Stano

They have a working version of a CRM App for Google Glass – so cool!

Security and Performance – Adam Vero

Try to use a layered security model – start with a base role for all users, add roles for specific functions that ONLY contain the additional privileges

Security Roles assigned to teams are giving access based on the team (BU access would be the BU of the team NOT the user)

Access Teams are still regular teams and sharing but they remove the admin overhead of team creation. They are easier for users because they do not need to use the Share dialog and choose permissions.

Owner teams have security roles. Access teams do not have security roles.

If the Access team template is modified, this will not change any existing shares. It will only affect shares from that point forward.

When creating new lookup fields remember you are creating the RELATIONSHIP. You must think about and configure the cascading behavior.

Cascading Options for Delete:

1.      Cascade All – Kill all the orphans

2.      Remove Link – create orphan records

3.      Restrict – prevent orphan records