TIDBITS on the Microsoft Power Platform

NH/VT Upper Valley CRMUG Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement User Group

It is time to register for the NH/VT Upper Valley CRMUG Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement User Group Meeting! 

https://www.crmug.com/crmug/events/calendar?CommunityKey=6178ebc2-51fb-4a17-ab26-5b68420fd48c 

If you are familiar with www.crmug.com you can register using the above link OR send me an e-mail.

For my Albany, Boston and Montreal friends - You are also welcome to attend and are within a 2 to 3 hour driving window so perhaps an excuse to get out of the office and to do a little touring. 

 

Microsoft bringing the stack together

This week I presented Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure for the XRMVirtual User Group. (www.xrmvirtual.com) I found this experience very uplifting for I was able to emphasize all of the great work that two very different Microsoft development teams working together have achieved. The ability to offer the right technology for the right need is so powerful and is a game changer for the line of business applications in so many different ways!! hashtag#fun hashtag#microsoftazure hashtag#presenter hashtag#microsoftdynamics

New marketing options in Dynamics 365 for CE

Oh Microsoft...

Marketing and the new licensing. Micro businesses, small businesses and medium businesses matter and often these tiny businesses have thousands of contacts. Tens of thousands even ....

 

 

 

Successful Delivery

In the world of soccer you will find that although everyone on the team has scored goals over the course of their career, there are very few who are consistent finishers. A finisher has a special talent for always being able to move the soccer ball over the goal line. They have a skill for being in the right place at the right time. They have the mindset and the art form. In high school, my step daughter, Janna, was an incredible finisher. 

She was always in the right place, at the right time and when the time came she put the ball over the goal line. Unfortunately,  we don't often recognize the diversity and strengths in our teams. Janna for instance was constantly judged for not being a gazelle and because of this her interest and her motivation shifted from soccer to hockey. I always considered this a great loss for the school and for her long term ability to feel good about her gift. 

The same concept applies to CRM/AnyRM projects. It is actually very hard to successfully deliver across the goal line. As projects move to Agile Scrum methodology there is a delicate balance between moving as fast as the team needs to move, while also capturing all that was built (so future teams can understand the critical details) and delivering to production successfully every 2 to 4 weeks.

The business SME's need to be engaged and trained on process while the overall user audience needs to be well positioned for what's coming. They also need have proper expectations when it comes to what level of maturity and when their requests for changes are going to be incorporated. There are also very small balls that are juggled within the immediate project team. These include dealing with unforeseen problems, refactoring needs and managing expectations and there is a very real need to understand the time that something might take. On a Dynamics 365 for CE engagement the skills needed to successfully deliver are more than being able to write code or configure the system. 

An Agile project shifts responsibility to each developer to be more rounded. If this is not possible, then perhaps a different methodology is needed, but the team needs to understand what is being asked, they need to know what approach will be used and they need to be able to present what was built in a user friendly and articulate manner. They also must be honest, transparent and not distracted by the shear nature of human against human. 

I have been on many project teams and the ones where all of the above came together is a gift! 

 

Calling all St. Louis Dynamics 365 Peeps! Oct 4th - CRMUG Chapter Meeting

I am in  St. Louis this week and I will be heading over to the CRMUG Chapter meeting on the morning of Oct 4th.

Come on over and knowledge share on the greatest platform on earth! Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement.

CRMUG Missouri (St. Louis) Chapter Meeting - October 4

Oct 4, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM (CT)

Agenda:

• Welcome & Introductions Marketing Tools
• Fall Release – New Features
• Summit Tips for new attendees
• Round Table

Location

UniGroup One Premier Drive Suite 203 Fenton, MO 63026

 

 

 

Understanding the Maturity of a Feature

As Microsoft releases more and more features, modules and wonderful goodness into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform it is good to build out your understanding of the maturity of each feature. The maturity defines the number of layers of updates or changes that any given feature might have experienced as well as it's depth of functionality. You can also relate this to the version of a feature; although, the version is not always the deciding factor. It is possible to have a very mature version 1.0 feature. 

Why is this important? It helps to set the expectations of where the strengths and weaknesses are as you adopt the platform and extend the features. It also helps you understand and manage your expectations around what the speed of change will be with regards to a specific set of features. 

Extract from the people on your team who have worked with the platform for many, many years - You need to knowledge share around the age and growth of key features. It is also important to have these conversations so you can stretch all resources into considering alternative approaches including the experienced team members. Change is not only constant in this wild world of the Microsoft Stack, but it is also speeding up.

So how do we go about understanding maturity? 

As much as I would like to list every known feature in the system (I might save that for a future blog post), I think the key area to start with on each project is with a list of the features that are relevant. When working on a custom service/call center project you might not care as much about the sales automation processes or when working with an xRM or AnyRM project you might not need to be as concerned with cases and knowledge management.

So once you have a high level understanding of the areas of the platform that you want to leverage, make a quick chart of maturity.  There are a few items that you want to capture as follows:

1) When was the feature released? What version (your choices include version 1.2  all the way up to version 9.1.x.xxxx)

2) Understand how the feature or area of the platform fits within the Microsoft Roadmap. Is this a feature that is waning into deprecation or is it positioned for rapid growth? 

3) Acknowledge what the team knows about the strengths and weaknesses of the feature. A good brain sharing exercise. 

4) Understand the feature dependencies. Take for instance, Cases - Cases have a wide set of dependent entities and functionality that goes fairly deep from SLAs to Contracts to Knowledge Base(s) and Closures. 

5) Acknowledge what can and can't be configured. 

6) Understand which ISVs (third party vendors) have bundled offerings that extend the features so you know your choices. Take for instance Accounts - There are numerous offerings that validate addresses and that help with extracting data on accounts from the internet. There are also numerous social engagement offerings including Microsoft's own Microsoft Social Engagement (MSE) Offering.

7) Always keep an open mind for the way that you would solve a problem on your last project is not always the same way to solve the exact same problem on your current project. 

and lastly do a little deep diving into who on the product team or what group among the product team owns the feature set. This research is a key exercise for anyone attending one of the many conferences. Understanding or even meeting the product team who updates and extends features can help you better understand the vision and growth.