April 2017 Blog Review

Let's run through some interesting CRM blogs posted over the last month.

Ledgeview Partners posted a quick tip on Custom Coloring Dynamics 365/CRM Dashboards which shows how to set colors for different options in an option set.

Hitachi Solutions teaches the basics of entity creation through an example in Dynamics 365 Roadmap: A complete guide to Dynamics 365 Fields and Entities.

Hosk discusses How Machine Learning will Change Dynamics 365. This explains the basics of what machine learning is and where to look for more information.

Sonoma Partners shared CRM: When Homemade Doesn't Cut it. The article explains the benefits of going with a market-leading CRM system instead of building in house. I would add to this that these benefits also apply to utilizing market-leading CRM systems in the way they were designed (i.e. evaluating how your business should change to fit standard processes, avoiding unsupported changes, not over-customizing, etc.).

ReadyXRM posted on how to Stop Deactivation of Records in Dynamics 365. This utilizes a workflow to solution to inform users they should not deactivate.

Jumping ahead to May for a minute I need to share ReadyXRM's Dynamics CRM Business Rules Not Working Issue. This is an issue that my organization was battling for months and Nick Doelman was battling even longer. Spoiler Alert: even though the issue occurred even for Administrators the issue was caused by security. Microsoft is working on a fix as it involves corrupted security on the form using the Business Rule.

As always, keep an eye on the CRM Tip of the Day for news and help. This month I particularly liked When Export to Excel Fails for No Reason. This explains how having columns of the same name will cause the export to fail.

That's all for today folks! Have a great day!

March 2017 Blog Review

Let's jump right in and catch up on all the CRM News and Training that has been floating around this month!

PowerObjects shared several great how to articles:

• Creating a Bookmark that Shows the Schema Name for a CRM Field - this allows you to quickly click a favorite and change all the display names on a form to show the schema names. This can also be done using Sonoma's CRM Dev Tools which is a great chrome extension!
• A Study in Editable Grids in Three Parts - Walks through setting up Editable grids in your environment
• A Must Know Shortcut: Adding Hyperlinks to an Email Template in Dynamics 365 - this is for anyone who has created an email template in an HTML editor, opened it in IE, copied and pasted into a CRM Template just to get a link to show up correctly.

Ledgeview Partners shared how to Turn your Report into a Dashboard in Dynamics 365/CRM. Take all your beautiful reports and make them easily visible within the dashboards your team is accessing.

For those interested in getting certifications, be sure to check out Hosk's post containing Dynamics 365 Certification Study links.

Sonoma Partners posted Bulkify Bulk Edit which walks through several ways to improve the out of the box Bulk Edit functionality with the help of workflows and plugins. In addition it gives some great background information on Bulk Edit.

Sonoma also shared Dynamics 365: Miscellaneous Security Permissions. This explains what those extra permissions actually control in your system.

And of course you should check out the CRM Tip of the Day!

December 2016 Blog Review

I hope all of you have been warm and enjoyed this holiday season! Let's catch up on all the CRM news from the past few weeks so we are ready to start the New Year off right!

Ledgeview Partners shared a list of their Top 10 Tips of 2016. These are some great tips to be an effective CRM user.

PowerObjects posted Make Your Own Custom Shortcuts on a CRM Dashboard in Microsoft Dynamcis 365. This is a step-by-step guide showing you how to add a list of shortcuts to a section of a dashboard.

PowerObjects also walked us through how to Change Business Process Flows Using a Workflow. This will allow administrators to automatically switch processes based on certain conditions so that users do not need to click Switch Process.

Hitachi Solutions had some holiday fun while helping us learn more about Dynamics 365:

• Santa Trains the Reindeer with Dynamics 365 Learning Paths
• The Eighth Day of Christmas: Yes Virginia there is a Common Data Model
• The Grinch's Heart Grows with a Little Help from the Dynamics 365 Relationship Assistant

Hosk shared Dynamics 365 - What does Include entity Metadata do. For those building solutions and curious about this little checkbox this should give you the information you need.

Sonoma Partners also talked about Dynamics 365 and posted Updates to Business Rules and Actions. This discusses changes and new features you can start using.

Mitch Milam shared a great article on Always Maintaining control of your Dynamics CRM/365 Assets. This discusses the need to have control of your system and awareness of what is going on in which environments. Also be sure to keep backups of all solutions and use Source Control for any code.

As always, make sure you look at the recent posts from CRM Tip of the Day to see if this can help with any questions or issues you are having now.

That's all for this December day. Have a Happy New Year and a CRM-filled 2017!

September 25 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to this week’s blog review.

First of all, it’s always good to see what is going on at the CRM Tip of the Day. This week they talked about troubleshooting the mobile client (part 1 and part 2) as well as had a video, Tipster Guide to CRM Themes.

Ben Hosk talked about What’s New in CRM 2016 and Why you should read the Preview Guide. This discusses what to expect from the preview guide, the importance of being aware of the upcoming changes and gives you an overview of the announcements.

PowerObjects also talked about CRM 2016 in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is coming – Get a first look at What’s New! This gives some quick information about the top feature changes/updates.

In addition, PowerObjects shared a quick tutorial on Dynamic CRM Alert and Notification JavaScript Methods. This walks you through the JavaScript for different types of alerts.

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

June 26 Blog Review

Apparently everyone is off on vacation except for me. I just have a few quick posts to highlight for you this week.

First of all, several weeks ago we talked about the importance of people in your CRM deployment. This week Leon Tribe talked about the Top Ten Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment: Part two – Process. This stresses the importance of planning the system with the future in mind and fixing data quality issues early before they get too out of hand.

Next I love Hosk’s blog on CRM 2013 – How to stop these Annoying Things in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This talks about fixes for annoying things such as the Outlook download reminder, pending emails notification and send error report question.

Finally, PowerObjects provided a step-by-step walk-through of Collapsing Business Process Flows in CRM 2013/2015. This shows you how to create a web resource that will hide all the Process Flow details until the user needs them.

That’s all I have. Have a great day!

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!