TIDBITS on the Microsoft Power Platform

ExactTarget offers some great insight about HTML e-mails and the challenges they can cause! Variables such as which e-mail client, which browser and which software your clients are using can have an impact.

As such this area of technology gets to be a lot thicker and more complicated than one would first suspect.

If you then mix that with all the cool new tricks for tracking opens, subscribes, unsubscribes and marketing statistics as well as the international and national SPAM laws you are stepping into an area that requires its own experts.  The experts exist and they are working with Microsoft! Companies like CoreMotives and ExactTarget for instance.

So if advanced marketing is a focus of yours then start at the top of the trees, in the right forest, with the right tools and the right partners and then get into the nitty gritty.

You wouldn't add nitro to just any car without a good bit of knowledge and the same holds true with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators. They are powerful! Just put them in the right hands, with the right knowledge and a little bit of tender loving polish and look out.

My hope is that Microsoft will continue to increase the amount of polish, but for now know what you are dealing with and don't expect to just drop in the fuel without understanding.

Release 2 of The Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator has now been posted. The PRM Accelerator allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners.

More Information

Ross Dembecki's Blog Post on This Accelerator

There is a lot to learn about Microsoft Dynamics CRM; although many have been tripped up by the ease in which you can configure and customize the system and the general marketing buzz. Don't let this fool you into thinking you are not still working with a powerful machine!

Dan Blake offers a primer on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Infrastructure multi-tenancy options. His post on this is now a year and a half old, but it still packs a mean punch with some great tidbits so if Multi-Tenancy is within your radar take a look.

In his continued awesome way, Richard Knudson writes up and shares a nice post on Form-Scripting in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. What is he referring to with regards to Form Scripting?

"placing JavaScript code behind the onLoad and onSave form events, and behind the onChange event of any field on a form"

but he also takes it one step further and describes alternatives to this little technique and yes, there are many times when the alternatives are the better choice.

Read the Full Post

Join the XRM Virtual User Group today for a Crash Course in Intellectual Property with Jonathon Zuck from the Association for Competitive Technology.

When: Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:00 AM (PDT)

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=9TT4PK&role=attend&pw=rf6r%3DX4%26c

Meeting time: May 27, 2010 9:00 AM (PDT) 

AUDIO INFORMATION

-Computer Audio(Recommended)

To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a headset.

A question was raised about converting SIC Codes to NAICS codes. Seems to me that other businesses might have tackled this AND other businesses using Microsoft Dynamics CRM might even have the "bundled code" or match table in their back pocket.

Feedback?

From Microsoft Downloads

List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

- I just fixed the link  if you tried to download and received a 404 try again

Dynamics CRM doesn't have an HTML Editor BUT that does not mean you can't do HTML e-mails.

Customer Effective has posted a nice little link on some of the steps they have used to make both HTML an dpictures display correct. Here is the beginning of their post with a link to read more.

"May 12, 2010

The following is such a great thought, concept and quote that I had to share it! So many people think adoption is all about usability, but there are so many other factors that come into play and often take a much higher priority in the grand scheme of things!!

Richard Boardman, a guru CRM expert and consultant out of the UK sums it up beautifully

"Putting aside my belief that actually there has been very little change in the usability of CRM software in the last 10 years, ease of use is only one piece in the user adoption puzzle, and it doesn’t matter how easy to use you make software, it doesn’t mean it will be used. The following are the bits that I believe make up the bigger picture" Read More

"Data is the fuel of [the] reporting engine" -Amit 

A new series has been started with two of the famous and favorite members of the CRM Developer group, Girish Raja's and Reuben Krippner

Now the first video is a bit "just announcement" but it is a great first start. Hopefully in the next set of videos they will add some of the programmers much loved gory details. 

Such as

1. What is new in .NET v(??) that Dynamics CRM v4 R10 is leveraging.
2. Why Microsoft Dynamics xRM is now working closely with ADX Studios (lovin it features)
3. SQL 2008 BI tricks and tips that get us all warm inside because the users love graphics ...
4. etc.

Can you add more questions to the list?

Have you checked out the Dynamics CRM news today? Have you noticed that a new Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK has been released?

Well there is more behind that than meets the eye. A big kudos to ADX Studio and their development tools.

Microsoft Integrates Adxstudio xRM Technologies

The cool team over at Power Objects has a nice little post that my library and I wanted to go ahead and share it.

Have you ever had a need to send a generated report in PDF format to someone? The PowerObjects team has developed a workflow extension that allows any user to schedule a SQL Server report to be sent via email.

Here is their post on the Subject

If you are looking at importing a large amount of data into Microsoft Dynamics CRM then you might want to get caught up with this post Speed up your CRM SDK imports and updates

If you are a Microsoft PARTNER then you will definitely want to check out the current version of the SureStep Project Methodology for Microsoft Dynamic CRM (I think they finally got it) AND have a few of the consultants take the exam

Christian Espinoza wrote such a great summary on the release of the Statement of Direction that I thought I would skip reinventing the wheel and just share his post.

http://crmdynamo.com/2010/05/the-latest-plans-for-dynamics-crm-in-the-just-released-statement-of-direction-april-2010/ 

And to add to this Mike Synder has also written up further details including some historical perspectives on CRM's Directions.

http://blog.sonomapartners.com/2010/05/updated-microsoft-dynamics-crm-statement-of-direction-april-2010.html 

"Simple is Elegant, and that is what user's want" - Amit Shinde (paraphrased by the head of development)