Microsoft’s latest statement outlines big plans for the future of Dynamics CRM [PDF download]

Administrator, Consulting, CRM 4.0, Customizations, Developer, Downloads, General Users, Microsoft Dynamics, Salespeople July 28th, 2008

Sales. Service. Marketing. CRM's got you covered.

Sales. Service. Marketing. Dynamics CRM's got you covered.

If your business or career involves Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this is probably the announcement you’ve been waiting for.  Microsoft released a statement today addressing several important topics on the future of Dynamics CRM.  You can really tell they believe in the software and has big plans for it in the future.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog released a document titled “Statement of Direction”, which is available for download at these links:

Some of the topics covered in this statement include:

  • Roadmap
  • CRM Mobility
  • Solution Accelerators
  • SharePoint Web Parts
  • BizTalk integration
  • New features in CRM Online
  • CRM “V-Next” (aka, Dynamics CRM 5.0!)

Some major announcements I’ve collected from reading this statement:

  • Microsoft will release “CRM Mobile Express” in Q3 of 2008.  This fully-supported software will allow CRM to run on any HTML 4.0 capable phone.  To support Blackberry customers, Microsoft partnered with TenDigits to provide their MobileAccess 4.0 software at a cost-effective price.
  • The list of confirmed CRM Accelerators are as follows:
    • Analytics
    • eService
    • Event Management
    • Enterprise Search
    • Sales Methodologies
    • Extended Sales Forecasting
    • CRM Notifications
    • Business Productivity
  • An updated SharePoint web part for CRM 4.0 will be released in the second half of 2008.  It will support multi-tenancy, IFD deployments and 64-bit environments.
  • New tools and features will be phased into CRM Online between now and CRM “V.Next”.  This will include advertising management, search engine, new analytics elements and dashboards.

CRM “V.Next”, or perhaps more known as CRM 5.0, deserves it’s own special section.  It’s slated to be released late 2009 to early 2010.  I’ve summarized some of the goals for this next version below.

  • Deliver a “rich and satisfying user experience, leveraging new usability advances in the next releases of Microsoft Office and Windows.”
  • Enhance the Outlook and Office “ribbon” experience.
  • Streamlined user interface.
  • More user personalization options.
  • Closer integration with SharePoint, especially around document management.
  • Improved Business Intelligence tools.
  • Balanced workload management for more efficient use of resources.
  • Overall improvements to:
    • Contact and Account Management
    • Team-Based Collaboration
    • Call Center and Unified Communications Support

For the full Table of Contents, click on the link below.

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Must-read article regarding Microsoft and CRM, plus interview with Steve Ballmer [PDF]

CRM 3.0, CRM 4.0, Downloads, General Users, Interesting Links, Microsoft Dynamics, Salespeople July 15th, 2008

Wow, lots of CRM news to catch up on this week!  Destination CRM Magazine has an excellent piece regarding the history, competition and future of Microsoft CRM.  There’s a Steve Ballmer interview discussing the concept of “xRM”, an interview with Microsoft CRM General Manager Brad Wilson, and more.

Download a PDF copy, or visit the online magazine at the second link.

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New solution accelerators announced for Dynamics CRM 4.0

Consulting, CRM 4.0, Microsoft Dynamics July 15th, 2008

Turns out Speed is a part-time CRM Consultant.

As our new CRM Consultant, Speed finds that he gets more thrills out of solution accelerators.

I couldn’t attend the Microsoft Partner Conference in Houston, so I missed what looks to be a very cool announcement.  Microsoft announced that it will soon release some freely-available solution accelerators for Dynamics CRM 4.0!

Solution accelerators are tools designed to save time, increase your productivity, and enhance CRM 4.0 functionality.  I’m looking forward to toying with them soon, as they will be released over the next few months.

The IncreaseCRM blog neatly outlines these accelerators below.

  1. Analytics Foundation: includes marketing, sales and service dashboards, user adoption dashboard and a range of scorecards from Microsoft PerformancePoint
  2. Business Productivity: a range of configuration options commonly requested by customers such as auditing, sales processes and common workflow patterns such as incident management
  3. Enterprise Search: integration with SharePoint business data catalog to make it easier to search for customer data stored in a CRM database from within your SharePoint portal.
  4. Notifications: a range of options for sending notifications and alerts to users via email, Vista gadgets and unified communications
  5. Sales Methodologies: built-in support for popular sales methodologies from the TAS Group (Target Account Selling), Sales Performance International (Solution Selling) and Miller Heiman (Strategic Selling)
  6. Sales Forecasting: improved features for sales professionals to be able to provide forecasts and for sales managers to get insight into forecast trends and patterns
  7. Event Management: extension of campaign management functionality to your website to allow marketing professionals to publish an events calendar online and manage online registrations
  8. eService: a customer support portal to allow customers to submit and review cases, search the knowledgebase and more

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Emerging Solutions is named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club

Consulting, Links, Microsoft Dynamics July 14th, 2008

www.emergenow.com

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, Emerging Solutions was recently named to Microsoft’s crème de la crème group of partners… the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club!   My best congratulations to all of my fellow colleagues in the Microsoft Consulting Group.

If you’re looking for a reliable partner to help you with your business and technology needs, please visit the Emerging Solutions Contact Us page.

For more details about this prestigious status, see the press release below.

Microsoft Honors Emerging Solutions for Outstanding Customer Commitment and Sales Achievement

Chicago, IL – July 10, 2008 – Emerging Solutions has been named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club receiving recognition from Microsoft Corp. for its dedicated commitment to customers. This honor reflects the company’s success in extending the Microsoft Dynamics platform to drive business advantages in companies worldwide.

This recognition came during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Houston. The elite club recognizes the top 5 percent of Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide and their constant dedication to delivering solutions that meet their customers’ unique needs, active pursuit of product and technological advancement, and impressive sales performance.

“Microsoft is proud to congratulate Emerging Solutions on being named to this year’s Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club,” said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. “Emerging Solutions not only has demonstrated a high level of product expertise, but also has provided a superior level of service and commitment to our Microsoft Dynamics customers, ultimately contributing to the overall success of Microsoft Dynamics and companies worldwide.”

“We draw on a unique combination of competencies in Microsoft Dynamics.  Our comprehensive coverage of these solutions and unique processes allow our consultants to better understand customer business needs and how technologies fit into the big picture of an organization.  We will continue to work closely with Microsoft and the Dynamics suite of products to provide leading-edge solutions for our customers,” said Don Sweeney, Emerging Solutions Co-Founder and Microsoft Practice Lead.

With applications experts focused in Microsoft Dynamics GP, AX, CRM and SL, Emerging Solutions’ consultants provide the necessary guidance not only in individual application strategy and deployment, but also in complete rollout and integration of these diverse solutions.

About Emerging Solutions
Emerging Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is an established professional services firm that helps global and mid-market firms maximize the benefits of business applications through leading technology. We provide strategic guidance, implementation and innovative integration solutions for business and technology applications from leading software vendors. For more information visit Emerging Solutions at www.emergenow.com.

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For CRM 4.0 developer newbies: the Developer Ramp-up Kit [link]

CRM 4.0, Customizations, Developer, Links July 10th, 2008

If the software development experience with Dynamics CRM 4.0 had to be summarized with one word, it would have to be flexibility.  Let’s say there’s some type of functionality that Dynamics CRM can’t immediately address from within the application; there’s a good chance that there are development tools ready to make CRM work for your business, not the other way around.

Enter the Developer Ramp-up Kit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.  It’s a nice collection of videos, labs and other resources to get you up and running with the various tools available in CRM 4.0.  To get the most out of the kit you’ll need some familiarity with the following:

  • .NET Framework
  • Microsoft Visual C#
  • Javascript
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • General Web development

For those looking to get familiar with Dynamics CRM’s extensibility, this is a one-stop shop for all the tools you need to get started.

MSDN direct link

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720132.aspx

To see the full list of contents in this kit, click on the below link.

Read the rest of this entry »

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