August 21 Blog Review

Lots of tips, tricks and news to share with you this week!

First check out the DynamicsCafe post – Start-up Trupanion and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Help Ease the Minds and Hearts of Pet-Owners. I clicked on this mainly because of the picture of the puppy but I was pleasantly surprised. The video describes how this pet insurance company uses CRM to better serve their customers. They use CRM to route the call to the most appropriate agent based on if they own the same kind of dog or live in the same city. They also use Unified Service Desk to make sure everything they need is right at their fingertips.

PowerObjects did not post and puppy pictures but did share Utilizing Alternate Keys in Dynamics CRM Integrations. Creating an Alternate Key can allow you to interact with records through the API without having the GUID of the record. Keep in mind that adding an Alternate Key will create a new database index on that field.

Be sure to check out How to Ensure a Successful CRM Implementation and Adoption also from PowerObjects. This goes over the important things you need for your CRM rollout to go well including formalizing your business processes before setting up CRM and getting management support and buy-in.

Ms. Dynamics CRM shared Social Engagement (formerly known as Social Listening) Trial. This shows screenshots from the Social Engagement tool and gives instructions on how to try it out yourself!

Finally, let’s check out the tips shared on CRM Tip of the Day:

• Windows 10 Support for CRM – CRM 2015 will be supported on the Edge browser with the upcoming release in September
• Smart Contact Filtering – Filter synced Outlook contacts using a Last Contact Date so that you only see contacts you are currently working with
• Get your Icons here – Check out these free sites to download icons for your CRM system
• Tipsters guide to Dynamics CRM App for Outlook – Video walkthrough of the CRM App for Outlook

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

August 15 Blog Review

Let’s take a quick look at the CRM news and blogs that came out this week.

Dynamics Café posted 7 Social Listening Tips for Customer Service. Fred Studer talks through tips on how to keep your organization’s social strategy on track including empowering employees and creating a social media policy.

A common trouble administrators have is ensuring their Development environment matches production. PowerObjects talks through How to Create a Copy of a Poduction Instance in Dynamics CRM Online. This describes the process of replicating production in a development environment for CRM 2013 online, through Office 365.

If you need to do more intense analytics than available with the built in options of Charts, Advanced Find, and Reports you can try Exporting Dynamic Pivot Tables out of Dynamics CRM (Thanks again PowerObjects). This walks through how to create a PivotTable from your CRM data and how this can be dynamically updated from CRM.

One of the exciting features of CRM 2013 is the Business Process Flows that can move between entities. Hitachi Solutions discusses Dynamics CRM Cross-Entity Business Process Flow. This discusses a Lead to Opportunity sales process, some items to keep in mind and notes on what the process is actually doing. An important consideration that is highlighted is how this affects your existing records – what will happen for records that are already mid-way through the sales process but at the beginning of the process flow?

Joel Lindstrom of Hitachi Solutions was involved in the CRM 2013 Quick Start book. He posted an excerpt from the book on Quick View Forms on the Hitachi Solutions blog. This discusses the benefit of using Quick View forms and some important information to remember.

All of the new developments in social and marketing are very exciting but it can be difficult to find the information that you need. Leon Tribe compiled all this information into Getting Demos for Social Listening and Dynamics Marketing.

Let’s finish up by looking at a couple CRM Tips of the Day from this week:

• Don’t forget the Cascading – security is more than the Security Role. Also check the relationship properties on the entity to see what kinds of permissions are cascading.
• Understanding Upgrade Options – another excerpt from Joel Lindstrom and the CRM 2013 Quick Start Guide. This walks through the CRM 2011 to CRM 2013 upgrade options and the benefits and risks of each.

That’s all for today.

April 18 Blog Review

In Smart Ways to Use CRM Technology Tools Across the Company, DynamicsCafe discusses how technology has evolved over time and how everything is becoming more digital. Examples are given of how to fit CRM into all areas of your business.

PowerObjects posted, How to Expand the Email Description field in CRM this describes how to expand the description area on an E-mail Activity form. If you use the traditional form editing techniques the description box will not change size. You can follow these directions to edit the XML to actually change the appearance of the form.

If you are receiving an error when Activating/Deactivating records check out this post from PowerObejcts -Error when Activating/Deactivating Accounts or Contacts in CRM 2013.

CustomerEffective posted Dynamics CRM 2013 on Tablets: App or Browser. When looking at mobile options users want to know how they will access CRM – will it be from within the tablet browser or from a special app? This post discusses the differences and how the App can be used in conjunction with the browser to make everyone happy.

Parature: What is it and How Can it Help Boost Customer Satisfaction? This post from the CRM Software Blog discusses the Parature Acquisition and the main takeaways from the Convergence presentation. Parature is a customer service offering that allows you to have a single portal to communicate with customers. This gives a place for customers to look for their own answers or to submit support tickets. It also gives user the analytics they need to see what is helping their customers the most.

The CRM Software Blog also shared - How to Manage Cross-Entity Business Process Flows in CRM 2013. This works through how to begin using Business Process Flows from the Analyze/Design phase through to full use. Remember to fully document the process you want first to prevent unnecessary changes later in the build process.

Sonoma Partners discusses Microsoft’s social offerings in Microsoft Gets Social. This describes your many different listening options, tips for your set up and what the future holds.

You might need a CRM system re-launch if...(or how to avoid Zombie CRM) was also posted by Sonoma Partners. The reasons they mention to re-launch your CRM are: Consolidating CRM Deployments (many tools/systems across different departments), CRM system is stagnant (Zombie CRM – bad data quality, low user adoption, behind on updates), or you are outgrowing your CRM implementation partner (need higher quality, desire long-term vision, systems are too complex).

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!