TIDBITS on Microsoft Dynamics CRM

How to Use Microsoft Dynamics CRM for an ITC

ITC = Information Technology Consulting Firm

So you already own Microsoft Dynamics CRM (partners get it in their action pack) and you want to automate your business. Here is how you track time and service in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

1) As a service is needed  you go into MS Dynamics CRM, Choose the Account and Create a new CASE (you can rename CASE to TICKET easily with configuration if you prefer).

This case is the big picture bucket for all work that will be preformed to resolve a problem or complete a service.

2) Create open Activities that need to be done to complete the service/problem/case and assign these to the case. These can include an appointment to visit the client, a task to research the problem, an e-mail to request more details or a service activity to assign and schedule resources or a phone call.

3) Do the work. As you complete each activity, mark that activity completed, make notes and assign the duration.

4) Once the case is completed - RESOLVE the case  - This will role up total time from all closed associated activites.

5) Using the Dynamic Excel Spreadsheet feature of MS Dynamics CRM on completed activities you can actually have a report of total time by client/case/date/etc.

Why are Microsoft Partners not using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for their Professional Service Automation?

1) They are being reactive as opposed to pro-active. Tracking time in Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a reactive manner is painful. There are just too many steps. If partners can be pro-active then cases can be created, resources assigned and processes automated easily.

The Art of Multi-Tasking

Anyone who has worked in a micro or small business knows about the art of multi-tasking. Talk about wearing ten hats at once! What they might not realize is that Microsoft Dynamics CRM redefines the concept within an application.

You see each time you open a screen in Microsoft Dynamics CRM the screen you were previously viewing does not have to be closed. Consider Internet Explorer 7 with the multi-tab options. A dynamic which allows you to have almost unlimited web pages open on your desktop. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is similar.

You can actually have 5 different clients open and their axilliary information displayed or more for that matter. Each look into the CRM database is it's own window. If you are using multiple monitors or have tapped into the extra large desktop displays, you can literally see your entire world by just scanning your eye from window  to window or screen to screen.

Everyone wants the one window or portal of all things (sure this is nice), but for the younger generation and the up and coming, they understand windows. Consider that even the youngest high schoolers are talking with 10 friends at once, in 10 different windows, will they be any different when they manage their business relationships? Microsoft Dynamics CRM uniquely offers this.

Challenging Thoughts

Microsoft Dynamics CRM continues to sell more seats than many other CRM applications. I read 85,000 seats last quarter alone (which outpaces total sales for many of their competitors). The time is right for Relationship Management Software and yet sometimes I scratch my head and think ...

What is going to happen in the small business space? Will each and every partner dive in and build up a team of creative .NET developers or will Microsoft Dynamics CRM continue to mature where the partner world will be able roll out more standardization?  Will CRM Live v4.0 require the customer changes that truely make the application sing for each unique business model? It is not that the customer demands are unexpected or that the product is hard to mold (it is easy to mold), it is just that I am still getting my entire being around the concept of back to the days of coding..

I will continue to challenge my own thoughts on the concept.

Making it Easy

One of the stumbling blocks for the smaller businesses with any CRM application is a real need to have it be easy, while also meeting the incredible demands of the fast paced world of smaller companies. There is a reason that the canned package products are so widely used, and even more reason why "Excel" seems to be used for "contact" management when it seriously lacks support for historical notes and relationship documenting.

"The biggest competition to companies that are targeting small businesses [to sell CRM applications] are not other companies but homegrown solutions or no solution at all," Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone told CRM Buyer. "It's too expensive and too complex for them. That is why they are still using Excel spreadsheets.“

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 there are a number of "considerly easier than any other app in the space" features. The ability to change the look and feel of data entry screens/forms (without making a mess), the ability to create views with unlimited combination of columns (looking like Excel) and the ability to add or delete unlimited database fields. The sticking point is MS Dynamics CRM is still a very robust and sometimes very complicated system.

There are a few key areas where even the best and the brightest consutlants struggle. Not to mention the development team, testing team, partners in the field and overall gurus. These include the general complexity of the installation (although yes I have seen it installed in 30 minutes). You see it is not a human mind complexity, it is a development complexity. As mentioned in previous posts the product interacts and intermingles with a wide array of the application and operating system stack from Microsoft.

And yet for all of the above, the power that this complex interaction brings to the table can not be ignored. As MS Dynamics CRM continues to mature it leverages and will continue to leverage an incredible resource of application options from Business Intelligence to Accounting to Content Management to Collaboration to overall capturing of as much data that flows through a given business as possible..

The trick will be for Microsoft to continue to build, support and encourage their diverse teams to collaborate and communicate. A task easier pictured then created. 

MS CRM SBE Community Resources

I am working on a new nickname for HandyAndy simply because I can not keep up with him, and his lightening fast screen capture/document systems. You have to love efficient systems!

For those of you working with MS Dynamics CRM SBE you want to check out these great article resources.

Publishing CRM SBE via ISA 2004 (WIP) 

Disappearing Settings Menu

Enabling SSL on the CRM SBE Website (WIP)

Troubleshooting the Install of CRM SBE (wip)

Install CRM SBE on SBS 2003 Premium with ISA 2004 

AND Lately HandyAndy has been doing some very interesting things with Mobility. I anticipate more sharing in the near future.

Sharing Data

A few facts to consider

MS CRM data can be published to a SharePoint site as MS CRM Web Parts.

Small Business Server includes SharePoint.

You can make a SharePoint site accessible to external users.

Just think of the possibilities!!

More on "Settings"

A major thanks to Ben Vollmer for futher expanding on the "Settings" issue and what is going on. Ben Vollmer is Microsoft Corporation Mid Atlantic Solution Specialist for Microsoft CRM and by the way has a GREAT blog and if you are doing anything with MS CRM you should tap into his RSS feeds.

Ben indicates:

"Just to clarify – this [being the settings menu disappearing] is related to a caching issue with the sitemap.xml file, which controls the entire left-hand navigation and is generally common between the web client and the Outlook clients.  The one exception is Settings, which is only available in the web client.  If you start on the server with Outlook first and then open the web client, you may run in to this problem, but as pointed out, it will depend on how long it takes to close down the Outlook process (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer ;-)

In any case, customers should never really have this problem, and you can avoid it in single VPC-image demos by making sure to either a) stay in one client or the other or b) ensure that the Outlook process is truly closed before opening the web client.

Change the URL that the CRM Outlook Client computer is using (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient).  Change it to use the IP address of the CRM server instead of the name of the server.  Then add that IP address to the Local Intranet or Trusted Site zone in Internet Explorer. 

The issue is related to the Site Map customizations being cached on the computer.  If you export the Site Map customizations and look at the file you will see that the Settings area is set to Client = “Web”.  This means that the area will only appear in the CRM Web client.  This is what is getting cached.  When you open up the CRM Outlook Client the Sitemap settings say to not display the Settings button since it is only available in the CRM Web Client.      

If you open the CRM Web client and the Site Map is cached, it will not display the Settings button.  Changing the CRM Outlook Client to use a different URL will prevent the pages cached from the CRM Outlook Client (ex. http://<ipaddress>) from interfering with the pages being requested by the CRM Web client (ex. http://crmserver).  I think instead of using IP address you could probably also add a Host Header in IIS (ex. http://CRMClient) and have the CRM Outlook client computers point to that URL instead of the IP.  The URL for the CRM Outlook Client just needs to be different than what they are typing to access the CRM Web Client." Ben Vollmer

Is Settings Disappearing?

There are a couple of blog posts about this occurance and some great explanations of why the settings menu might "disappear on you". It ties into the concept that the settings menu is NOT available to you (by design) when running the MS CRM Outlook Client. Settings is an administrative feature and you really don't want people jumping in from Outlook and adding database fields.

Anyway. Handy Andy nixes the just delete all the cookies and temporary files concept (Good idea Andy!!) and offers screen shots and a description of which files are causing the trouble. He combined a few different blog posts and some good old Andy Elbow grease to create 

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http://www.sbs-rocks.com/CRM/DisappearingSettingsMenu.htm

by Andy Goodman [SBS-MVP]

There are a couple of resources that explain the problem.

Matt Whitteman wrote one and Prashanth Kaankadae wrote another.

I don't like the idea of just blowing away all the cookies. Everyone is always in a hurry to recommend this approach to fix any IE issue, there are many good cookies and blowing them all away causes a lot of inconvenience.

I prefer to dig in a little bit and just delete the ones causing the problems. In this case I believe I have it narrowed down the cookie you can delete and bring back your settings menu.

First close Outlook & any open IE windows.

Second open a Fresh IE Window.

Third click Tools, Internet options on the IE toolbar.

Now Click the Settings Menu

 

Now Click the View Files button.

Next locate the cookie it will be YourLogonName@YourServerName
(hint: click last modified column header to sort the list)

Just delete that cookie.

Hope that helps you out!

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Disappearing Settings Menu

Talking MS CRM or MS SBS Shop

Susan Bradley and I will be at TechEd in Boston this June! If you want to catch up on a little SBS! or perhaps want to mix and mingle and talk shop on MS CRM, we  are each hosting Birds of a Feather workshops.

I suspect you can guess at who is doing which one.

Want to know a little secret?  This is the first time in 10 years that I will be missing the AICPA Technology Conference, Choosing to attend Microsoft TechEd instead.

SBS, MS CRM SBE 3.0, ISA 2004 INSTALLING

I can't tell you how wonderful Andy Goodman is for doing this! Not only did he spend ALL day today compiling his notes and screen shots into an accessible online document, but he spent THREE days testing and installing MS CRM SBE 3.0 on various different SBS platforms. Andy Goodman is a Microsoft MVP for Small Business Server.

I wish I could give him an award for this work!

Check it out!! So if you are using SBS with ISA 2004 and MS CRM SBE .. and you either had problems, have problems or are thinking of installing check this FIRST!!

http://www.sbs-rocks.com/crm/crmsbeinstall.htm 

Quick Tip: Watch out for typos during any "fixes", Ouch!