January 2017 Blog Review

Welcome back to another exciting year with Microsoft Dynamics CRM!

I hope all of you are already involved in your local CRM User Group. For those in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area please check out the groups in Richmond, Reston and Chevy Chase (DC). At the DC Chapter, we have scheduled all of our 2017 meetings and these dates/links are below. Please come out and join us for our first meeting of the year on February 22. We will have a presentation on Power BI and a user upgrade success story.

CRMUGDC 2017 Meetings:

• February 22
• May 17
• August 2
• November 15

Let's jump into the CRM blogs and news from the last month.

Leon Tribe posted on Actions: The New Workflow Function. Actions are steps designed in a workflow but called from code. This allows business-side administrators to control some steps or logic in a larger coded effort. Now in Dynamics 365 these can be called from workflows with the added benefit of accepting and returning values.

Sonoma Partners shared Driving CRM Adoption through Effective Communication. This discusses the need to determine where the business is and where you want it to be and then building a strategy to bring you there.

The Dynamics 365 Team blog discusses how to Make Business Recommendations Based on Business Intelligence with Dynamics 365. This gives some examples of how you can guide users and help provide recommendations using Portable Business Logic.

Everyone has been super excited for Editable Grids in CRM. PowerObjects takes this opportunity to show you 2 Rockin' Ways to Enable Editable Grids with Dynamics 365.

Ledgeview Partners shared Dynamics CRM workflow: Mapping Data between Fields. This is a quick walk through of how to create your first workflow and set up dynamic field updates.

As always, be sure to review the CRM Tip of the Day to make sure you didn't miss anything. Have a great day!

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!

December 4 Blog Review

Welcome to the first blog review of December! 2015 is quickly slipping away from us but don’t get too melancholy – CRM 2016 has been released!

Here are all the blogs to check out about the CRM 2016 announcement:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Now Available: ushering in a New Era of Intelligent Customer engagement (Microsoft)
• First Glance at Dynamics CRM 2016 (Jukka Niiranen)
• CRM 2016 is available (CRM Tip of the Day)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is here! (Ledgeview Partners)
• CRM 2016 General Availability Announced at Convergence EMEA! (Chris Cognetta)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 (Carsten Groth)

Lots of new and enhanced features to look for. I’m sure there will be many more blogs about CRM 2016 in the coming weeks!

Let’s check out a couple other interesting blogs posted this week.

PowerObjects shared Take your Disk Space to the MAX: Automatically Delete Completed Workflow Jobs in CRM 2015. This walks you though how to set up your workflows to be removed when they complete. This is great to save space by removing the completed system jobs for workflows that have been fully tested and are running smoothly.

Leon Tribe posted an interesting article on Calculating the Day of the Week Without Code. This shows you how to use Business Rules to have a field show “Friday” when “12/4/2015” is entered in the trigger field.

That’s all for today folks. Enjoy your weekend!

November 20 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to the CRM news of the past few weeks!

Update 0.2 for CRM 2015 On-Premise has been released. For all the information review CRM in the Field’s Overview Blog.

PowerObjects shared Manipulating the Value of Days Remaining between Today and the Expiration Date in Calculated Fields. This shows you how to modify the Days Remaining field so that it will not show a “-ve” value when the expiration date is in the past.

Adam Vero the CRMGuru posted an interesting post on Figuring Out Shares in the PrincipalObjectAccess POA Table in CRM. This provides more information about how shares are saved behind the scenes and how to view/interpret that data.

Chris Cognetta shared the Great Microsoft Cloud InfoGraphic! This shows the number of users that are on the different Microsoft cloud offerings. It shows why this is such a large area of emphasis and why this continues to be important for future growth.

Leon Tribe blogged about the Post MVP Summit Roundup. Unfortunately not too much information can be released yet but at least we can see everyone’s smiling faces and get a little glimpse into what it is like to be a CRM MVP. Also mentioned was that the CRM 2016 features that have already been announced were presented and provided a much better understanding of the capabilities. So be excited for more information at the end of the year!

Finally, one quick tip from CRM tip of the day is what to do with Disabled User’s Personal Views. Everyone runs into a situation where a user leaves and their views remain assigned to that now disabled user. Check out this post to see 3 possible solutions.

That’s all for today folks. Have a great day and Happy almost Thanksgiving! (In America, or happy almost Christmas, Thanksgiving was forever ago why are you still talking about it in Canada :) )

October 30 Blog Review

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I do not have any spooky CRM Stories for you other than users saying they didn’t do something the system says they did. Instead I have a quick blog review touching on the highlights of the last few weeks while I was busy with Summit and such. Let’s jump right in.

PowerObjects is working on a series about CRM Upgrades. Check out this installment – Upgrading CRM: Reimplementation vs. Upgrade – Choosing What’s Right for you. This talks about what the options of reimplementation and upgrade mean along with the reasons you might select one or the other.

EMEA Dynamics Support posted a helpful troubleshooting article, Dynamics CRM Bulk Delete – General Support Questions. This works through the common questions and issues that they deal with and how to respond.

A little bit ago we talked about the CRM 2016 Release Preview Guide. This is a very long document, so if you don’t have time to read it you should check out Leon Tribe’s slightly shorter summary – Review of the Latest Dynamics CRM Release Preview Guide. There are lots of great new features centered around Microsoft’s themes for Productivity, Intelligence, Mobility and Unified Service.

Sonoma Partners shared the Negative Effects of a Disjointed CRM Environment. This touches on the importance of ensuring your CRM supports and aligns with your business as it grows and integrates with all the necessary systems. Some of the impacts of a disjointed CRM environment include customer satisfaction, employee productivity and retention and company performance.

Lastly, I will put all of you in charge of reviewing the recent posts of CRM Tip of the Day. What was your favorite tip? Anything that can help your business?

Have a great weekend and a happy Halloween!  

P.S. Make sure you come out to the Washington, DC Chapter Meeting on November 4^th get more details and register here. 

July 31 Blog Review

Let’s finish off July with a great blog review! Check out the CRM news from the last few weeks.

PowerObjects posted a how-to article about Changing the Color of Custom and Out-of-the-box Entities in CRM 2015. This explains how to change the background color of the tiles in CRM 2015 Update 1.

PowerObjects also posted Exporting Data to Re-import: The invalid Column Headings issue. This discusses how having fields with the same display name can cause an issue when trying to re-import.

If you are interested in Parature check out Leon Tribe’s post on The Current State of Parature – Dynamics CRM Integration. You should also register to attend the August 12 CRMUGDC Meeting which will be focused on Customer Service!

We also have a few quick tips from CRM Tip of the day.

First Prevent Duplicate Outlook Contacts by using Server Side Sync. This prevents issues from installing or re-configuring CRM for Outlook.

Also check out the Tipsters guide to Dynamics CRM for Phones. This is a video showing the updated CRM for Phones app that came with the CRM 2015 update 1.

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

July 1 Blog Review

This week’s blog review is a bit early due to the Holiday but the CRM news-machine is still running. Lots of great tips and tricks to share with you today.

PowerObjects posted two great how-to articles. How to Hide the Lead Qualify Button without Coding talks about how you can remove the Account and Contact create permissions to prevent some users from being able to qualify their leads.

Also see Aging using the ‘Older Than’ Clause with Advanced Find. This talks about the new “Older Than” option in Advanced Find with CRM 2015 Update 1. This will allow you to look at calls that are older than 24 hours or even Leads that were created 5 minutes ago. The possibilities are endless!

There are also a few CRM Tip of the Day posts that you should read. If your Child Workflow needs more than One Entity describes two options for getting the information to the child workflow. In CRM 2015 Update 1 you can create a process as global or you can use an intermediate entity to pass all the data (don’t forget to clean these records up!).

No email Without Activity reminds us that if you enable an entity for email you also need to enable it for Activities.

We have looked at Leon Tribe’s Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment over the last few weeks. This week he released Part Three – Technology. This includes embracing and using the new features CRM offers such as Hierarchical views, Business Process Rules and Business Process Flows. All of the improvements in CRM 2015 (especially update 1) make CRM a very appealing product which will help make your project a success.

As organizations are updating from older versions to CRM 2013/2015 many questions come up in regards to what should stay in code and what should take advantage of the new features. If you are in this situation, be sure to read C5Insight’s article – Business Rules or JavaScript in CRM…that is the Question. This talks about the benefits and limitations of Business Rules to keep in mind while you are making your decision.

Finally, the CRM Team is continually working on providing better training and documentation for CRM customers. This week they announced a CRM eBooks and Videos Page. This is a great tool for finding the resources you need.

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

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!

June 5 Blog Review

I cannot believe it is June already and summer is in full swing! Unfortunately I am not at the beach but we can make the most of it by looking at the CRM posts from this week.

CRM in the Field posted Improve CRM query performance using Compatibility version 120 with SQL 2014. This describes how some users saw performance issues in CRM for Outlook after upgrading from 2011 to 2015. To resolve check the Compatibility level of your SQL server to ensure it is set to SQL 2014.

Leon Tribe wrote Upgrade vs Rebuild, Interest vs Responsibility. This is a case study on the options available to upgrade from v3 to CRM 2015 and the implications of each method.

You should also check out Jukka Niiranen’s Tracking Pipeline Development Over Time in CRM 2015. This is the third article in his Smarter Sales Processes series.

A quick tip that is easily forgotten is that you can hold the Shift key to sort on multiple columns while in Advanced Find. Review Ledgeview Partner’s post on Sorting Multiple Columns in CRM for more details and screenshots.

The CRM Team announced this week the Dynamics CRM Dynamic Help Feature. This allows you to get help on an error within CRM for Outlook (CRM 2015) and be directed to an article for that specific issue. To get this all set up, they need assistance from users! So if you encounter an issue send them the error details and the redirect link so they can develop the necessary KB article.

Finally, here are a few quick tips from CRM Tip of the Day:

• My form Script Changes Aren’t Working – if your script changes did not take effect, try clearing your cache or using ctrl+F5
• Calculate the Difference Between Two Dates – With the CRM 2015 Update 1 you can now use the DiffinDays function to use a calculated field to show you how long an opportunity has been open

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

May 21 Blog Review

It seemed to be a quiet week in the CRM world. Let’s jump right in!

CRM in the Field posted Customers’ choices… The most popular “Dynamics CRM in the Field” technical blog posted from Premier Field Engineering! This reviews the top posts over the last few years. These are full of great information so make sure you check them out.

Leon Tribe discussed Tools for an Awesome CRM Demo. This gives tips to make sure that your demo wows! This includes setting up a portal demo and using a workflow to make emails appear to have been sent.

Jukka Niiranen has been working through a series on customizing 2015 sales processes. This week he talks about Using CRM 2015 Calculated Fields for Opportunity Estimated Revenue. This gives a basic overview and how-to for calculated fields and also talks about some limitations to be aware of.

CRM Tip of the Day posted an interesting tip on creating Mandatory Fields in Dialogs. Although this is not technically possible you can use conditions and logic to force the user to enter a value before proceeding.

CRM Tip of the Day was also busy instructing everyone on SLAs. Check out all 3 parts – Part 1: Fields, Part 2: SLA, and Part 3: FAQ.

That’s all I have for this week!

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 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!

February 20 Blog Review

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

Microsoft Convergence is coming up in less than a month! To get prepared check out Chris Cognetta’s Countdown to Convergence 2015 which covers everything you will need to know to attend.  You can also review Jamie Miley’s Convergence Party List so you can plan your free time.

PowerObjects demonstrated a new feature in CRM 2015 Introduces Nested Quick Create Forms. This shows how you can quickly create a linked record from another Quick Create Form.

CRM in the Field talked about CRM 2015 Upgrade: A few Things you can Prepare Ahead of Time. This discusses the steps you can be taking now to be ready for your next upgrade.

Leon Tribe discussed Setting up Handy Links in Dynamics CRM 2013/2015. This describes how to use test fields with a URL format to add quick clickable links to your CRM forms.

CRM Tip of the Day posted How Rollup Fields make Charts Better. This introduces the idea of using Rollup fields on parent records to get around the 50,000 record limit on charts.

CRM Tip of the Day also discussed How to Open a Record Using Just ID. This shows you the developer-approved way of opening a record using just the entity name and GUID.

That’s all I have for tonight. Stay warm this weekend!

December 19 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! This is the last Blog Review of 2015! Where did the year go??

To start off, everyone must be sure to check out the Q4 CRMUG Magazine (look at page 33 especially)! I was honored to have been chosen as the volunteer of the quarter because of this very blog!

This week Hitachi Solutions continued their 12 Days of CRMas discussing CRM 2015 features. Here are a few days to check out:

Stop Sync Grinch – In CRM 2015 you can configure the sync pipe so you can control which fields sync between CRM and exchange. This can prevent CRM data from being overwritten by incorrect phone data. Keep in mind that with Server Side Sync, changes to the appointment will automatically be sent out to the customer. That means your notes could be sent out, even those recorded after the meeting. This is also discussed in the CRM Tip of the Day (Prevent meeting notes from going to customers).

Business Process Flows: The Gift that keeps on Giving! – this talks about the enhancements to Business Process Flows including improved look and feel, branching, and being able to loop back to entities multiple times.

Rollups Help Santa with Naughty/Nice Conundrum – This works through an example of using Rollup fields to compare the number of good things you did this year to the number of bad things. You can continue to learn about Rollup Fields in Jukka Niiranen’s Analyzing Customer Behavior Data with CRM 2015 Rollup Fields.

Related to Rollup fields are Calculated Fields. To learn more check out Leon Tribe’s MVP Blog – CRM 2015 Calculated Fields.

PowerObjects released a good tip – Email Attachments Related to an Opportunity Record in Dynamics CRM. This walks through how to use the Sales Literature area to store documents at the Opportunity level.

CRM Tip of the Day posted a few good tips as well. Check out Security Needed to Pick and Route Queue items which discusses the change in 2015 from “Work On” to “Pick”. Pick does not just changed the Worked By field but also updates the Assignment of the item. Also take a look at Going Personal with Microsoft Dynamics Marketing which talks about the MDM product and data security.

The Microsoft CRM Team Blog released the CRM Basic Training ebook this week. This is a downloadable ebook that quickly teaches users what they need to know. You can download this and customize to fit your business needs.

For those upgrading to CRM 2015, be sure to read Sonoma Partners’ blog on Unsupported Customizations in CRM 2015. This gives you some things to check for in your system before you upgrade.

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

October 3 Blog Review

Somehow it has become fall. Even though it is getting colder, the CRM news keeps coming. Let’s take a look at the news and blogs from this past week.

PowerObjects discusses Importing and Updating Records in CRM 2013. This talks about how to update records if you cannot use the Export/re-import functionality.

Hitachi Solutions also talked about CRM 2013 in The Best Little CRM 2013 Feature you might not Know what to do with: Timers. This discusses the timer feature release with 2013 service pack 1 and how to use it.

The CRM in the Field Blog blogged about Table Bloat Due to Workflow Log Entries. This talks about issues related to workflow history retention and what you can do about it.

Leon Tribe discusses Bringing Graphs Down to the Record Level. If you have ever wanted a graph on a record form – now you can learn how to do it!

Finally, Jukka Niiranen talked about 10 tips for Designing a Great User Experience in Dynamics CRM. Use these tips to increase user adoption and help your users enjoy the system experience.

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

Originally posted here:

September 19 Blog Review

Welcome to another CRM Blog Review. Remember today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day so read up and then go get your Free Donuts!

The biggest news this week was the announcement that CRM 2015 will be available early next year! To get all the information you can read the Announcement, Blog and read the Release Preview Guide.

While the presses were still hot with the news, several blogs were published showing off the new features. Check Out:

• PowerObject’s Top 10 New Features of Dynamics CRM 2015
• PowerObject’s CRM 2015 to Feature Enriched Business Process Flows (Hint: it involved If/else statements!)
• Sonoma Partners blogged CRM 2015 First Look: Enhanced Business Rules
• Also from Sonoma Partners we have CRM 2015 First Look: Multi Entity Search
• CRM Team Blog Posted Get ready to catch the CRM 2015 wave! This goes over how the resources to help you get ready for the change.

Amid all of this excitement the Premier Field Engineers of the CRM in the Field blog still managed to post Administering Dynamics CRM. This goes through many resources to help you maintain your CRM system.

Leon Tribe talked about Seeing your CRM 2011 System in CRM 2013. This describes how to set up a CRM 2013 environment and get an idea for how your customizations will look there.

That’s all I want to highlight tonight. Have a great weekend!

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 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!