Download here! Dynamics CRM Statement Of Direction – April 2010 (link to Ross’ CRM website with the PDF)

There [...]]]> Microsoft just released their latest Statement of Direction for Dynamics CRM. It’s typically a must-read for any CRM aficionado if you want to learn what Microsoft has up its sleeve in the upcoming short and long term timeframe.

Download here!
Dynamics CRM Statement Of Direction – April 2010
(link to Ross’ CRM website with the PDF)

There is some exciting information on unifying the Dynamics technologies that will help bring together any challenging business solution, as well as welcome additions to the SDK. Some details regarding CRM 5.0 are starting to be teased out, but in reality most of the information here has been public for some time.

So what did we learn? There are new Accelerators in the pipline:

• Non-Profit Solution for Dynamics CRM Online – now available!
• Portal Accelerators – Q2 2010
  • This release provides new versions of eService, Event Management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) accelerators that can connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online as well as on-premises and partner-hosted deployments.
• Customer Care Accelerator (CCA) – Q2 2010
  • This solution can be used to help customer care and contact center organizations provide consistent customer service experiences by combining data elements from disparate applications such as mainframes, databases or Web sites for display in a single user interface.
  • Some features: Integrated agent desktop, Desktop automation, Computer telephony integration (CTI), and Activity reporting.

New integration tools with other Dynamics software! All the Dynamics technologies are starting to come together very nicely.

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP – May 2010
  • A highly reliable, bi-directional and fault tolerant business document integration between Dynamics CRM 4.0 (Update Rollup 5 and above) and Dynamics GP 10 (Service Pack 4 and above) and the new GP 2010.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics AX6 – 2011
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics NAV2009 – 2011

And for you developers out there, a big fat update is coming to the SDK in May 2010 making it easier to build agile and integrated CRM Web solutions.

• SDK (May 2010) – Advanced Developer Extensions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a set of new tools included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK that simplifies and accelerates the development of internet-enabled applications that interact with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
• A full list of key features is outlined in the Statement of Direction document.

Regarding CRM 5.0, it is of course scheduled to release “the second half of 2010″, most likely near the end of the year. The outline is below, and as I expected it doesn’t really reveal more than what has already been disseminated. Regardless, it’s still nice to see what we have to look forward to.

• User Productivity and Collaboration
  • Increase accessibility through the Microsoft Office “ribbon” interface
  • Drive user adoption through personalization
  • Enrich business insight through improved business intelligence
  • Balanced workload management for more efficient use of resources
• CRM Capabilities: core CRM investments
  • Contact and Account Management
  • Team-Based Collaboration
  • Call Center and Unified Communications Support
  • Territory Management
  • Performance Management
  • Other areas:
    • Further improving the flexibility of sales opportunity management to incorporate team selling models.
    • Extending the outbound marketing capabilities to allow richer communications via email, including document attachments.
    • Further simplifying and extending marketing list management capabilities.
    • Providing users the ability to schedule future recurring activities.

The document can be downloaded from [...]]]> The latest statement of direction was recently released by Microsoft, and it outlines the roadmap and future plans regarding Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Check it out! It includes mention of future Accelerators and details on the next major release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM “V.Next” (aka 5.0), scheduled for release in 2010.

The document can be downloaded from the following locations:
PartnerSource: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/marketing/statementofdirection/MD_CRM_SOD.htm

CustomerSource: https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/documentation/whitepapers/MSD_CRM4StatementOfDirection.htm

According to this Gartner press release, the worldwide market for CRM solutions has grown 12.5% since last year in 2007.  Looks like there’s now solid evidence businesses are catching on to the benefits of a CRM solution… or even better, xRM.

But one of the highlights of this story [...]]]>

The Wayans bros. were the first CRM Consultants

According to this Gartner press release, the worldwide market for CRM solutions has grown 12.5% since last year in 2007.  Looks like there’s now solid evidence businesses are catching on to the benefits of a CRM solution… or even better, xRM.

But one of the highlights of this story is that Microsoft Dynamics CRM revenue grew 75% last year.  Much of the success was attributed to the trend in SaaS, with the likes of Microsoft CRM Online and Salesforce.com.

Software as a Service (SaaS) continued to drive the market forward, representing nearly 20 percent of total CRM software market revenue in 2008, up from just over 15 percent in 2007. Interest in social networking and social software also escalated in 2008 as businesses were confronted with the sales, marketing, and serviceability impact of increasing consumer participation in online forums.

SAP continued to be the market leader accounting for 22.5 percent of worldwide CRM software revenue in 2008 (see Table 1), but this is down from a 25.5 percent share in 2007. Microsoft experienced the strongest growth rate among the top 5 vendors, as its revenue increased 75 percent in 2008.

I’ve been busy on a couple projects lately, so I’m predicting there will only be more in the near future!  Let me know if you’ve personally seen more CRM business too.

¡Socorro!

The other new international discussion groups will be excellent support resources for [...]]]> There are new discussion group resources available in your quest for answers regarding Microsoft Dynamics CRM, most notably a CRM Online forum.  Engage with the MVP Experts and discover a solution to that one support or development issue that’s been gnawing at your patience all week.

¡Socorro!

The other new international discussion groups will be excellent support resources for our Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Chinese brethren.

See all Dynamics CRM discussion group links below, and be sure to bookmark the ones you’ll need!

Link to all Dynamics discussion groups, including Dynamics GP:
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/dynamics/

CRM
Forum for discussions with Microsoft CRM experts, MVPs, and Partners.

CRM Deployment
Forum for discussing Microsoft CRM deployment questions.

CRM Development
Forum for discussing customization, add-ins, and integration with Microsoft CRM.
 
CRM Online
Forum for discussing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online specific questions.

CRM Chinese
CRM community space for an international audience, these new forums will be monitored by the CRM MVP team.

CRM Italian
CRM community space for an international audience, these new forums will be monitored by the CRM MVP team.

CRM Spanish
CRM community space for an international audience, these new forums will be monitored by the CRM MVP team.

Microsoft Dynamics AX/NAV/CRM
Microsoft Dynamics AX, NAV and CRM Russian Discussion Group.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM (German)
Mit Microsoft Dynamics CRM optimieren Sie all Ihre kundenorientierten Geschäftsprozesse. Diskutieren Sie mit anderen Anwendern oder stellen Sie ihre Frage rund um die Installation, Anpassung und Entwicklung von Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Dynamics CRM 5.0's gonna purrrrr...

Microsoft CRM 5.0 screenshots look modern and Office 2007-ish, with the Ribbon interface.  I’ve posted some [...]]]> I’m willing to bet that Simon Hutson wins the most popular Microsoft CRM blogger contest today.  He posted a summary of the latest and greatest regarding the next installment of Microsoft CRM, and it looks pretty!

Dynamics CRM 5.0's gonna purrrrr...

Microsoft CRM 5.0 screenshots look modern and Office 2007-ish, with the Ribbon interface.  I’ve posted some of Simon’s screenshots (below), but be sure to check out his article here for the full scoop.

Highlights of what’s new in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 5.0 (due sometime in 2010):

• Presentation
  • Enhanced user experience with the Ribbon interface.
  • Single page forms – no more tabs!  Pages are links on the left nav bar.
  • In-line Reports – allows charts to be embedded where the Form Assistant in v4 typically pops out.
• Functionality
  • Data Filtering available on the List View of records.
  • Team Ownership security model.
  • Native SharePoint integration.
  • Unstructured Relationships – allows definition of ad-hoc relationships.
• Administration
  • More customizable form layout options.
  • More options with filtered lookups in form customization.
  • Customize Headers and Footers to display record information.
  • Solution Management – enhanced ability to manage customizations to your CRM build.
  • Multiple Option Sets, also known as global picklists across multiple entities.
  • Drag-and-Drop Form Editor
  • Data Audit capability
• Developers
  • Custom Code Sandbox
  • Plug-in Transaction Support
  • Automatic Plug-in Profiling

CRM 5.0 Account record - Ribbon interface

CRM 5.0 Opportunity record - Inline charts

CRM 5.0 Campaign - Event management

I’m sure the actual Live-Meeting presentation didn’t go as smoothly as the presenters would have hoped… the sound abruptly cut off several minutes in, and some mischievous audience members kept drawing suggestive highlights [...]]]> Microsoft announced today more details to Partners regarding the highly anticipated CRM Accelerators.  All eight new Accelerators were profiled in this previous post.

I’m sure the actual Live-Meeting presentation didn’t go as smoothly as the presenters would have hoped… the sound abruptly cut off several minutes in, and some mischievous audience members kept drawing suggestive highlights on the slides.  Despite these distractions, the presenters decided to push on through and show as much of the new features as possible. It was all quite amusing, but I wish I could have heard all the content they had for us.

Some highlights from the CRM Accelerator Partner Meeting:

• Five Accelerators will be released on the MSDN Dev Center website sometime this week!
  • Analytics
  • Extended Sales Forecasting
  • eService
  • Event Management
  • CRM Notifications
• Remaining Accelerators will be released before the end of November 2008.
  • Sales Methodologies
  • Enterprise Search
  • Business Productivity
• CRM Accelerators will be released at no cost!  However, the Portals Accelerator will require an external connector license.
• The Accelerators will be localized to at least these 5 languages:
  • German
  • Dutch
  • French
  • Italian
  • Danish

For screenshots I captured during the presentation (minus the lewd audience input, sorry), download the below Word Document.

• CRM-Accelerators-Partner-Demo-screenshots.doc [6 MB]

Some choice screenshots below…!

Analytics - Sales Funnel

eService

Event Manager

Portal Accelerator

Sales Forecast

There’s a unique wallpaper for both Standard and Widescreen resolutions.  These are of course free to download for your desktops and future demos.  I hope you enjoy them!

Standard Format - 1024x768

Widescreen format - [...]]]> Due to the popularity of the previous CRM VPC wallpaper post, I decided a sequel was due and added my own creations.

There’s a unique wallpaper for both Standard and Widescreen resolutions.  These are of course free to download for your desktops and future demos.  I hope you enjoy them!

Standard Format - 1024x768

Widescreen format - 2560x1600

Tools and website sources used:

• Paint .NET, a free software alternative to PhotoShop [new window]
• Social Wallpapering [new window]

Good news for those who missed out last time: the Second Shot promotion is back!  This means you have no excuses delaying on that next Microsoft Certification.  Register at the link below, because it’s always good to keep that voucher number handy.

Second Shot landing page http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/offers/secondshot/default.mspx

Full [...]]]>

Some mornings you probably will need that Second Shot.

Good news for those who missed out last time: the Second Shot promotion is back!  This means you have no excuses delaying on that next Microsoft Certification.  Register at the link below, because it’s always good to keep that voucher number handy.

Second Shot landing page
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/offers/secondshot/default.mspx

Full message from Microsoft:

Our Second Shot offer, which gives you a free second chance to pass your IT professional, developer, or Microsoft Dynamics exam, is available again to help you show off your industry-leading IT skills with less stress. Second Shot helps you get certified. We are pleased to make it available to you once again with the help of our worldwide test delivery partner, Prometric. Follow these steps to certify your skills on Microsoft’s latest technologies–the Visual Studio 2008 development system, the Windows Server 2008 operating system, or the Windows Vista operating system, for example–with a free second chance to pass your exam if you need it.

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 [...]]]>

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:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Statement of Direction [PDF, 487KB]
• CustomerSource [link]
• PartnerSource [link]

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.

Microsoft “Statement of Direction” for Dynamics CRM
Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 40 Roadmap
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobility
    • CRM Mobile Express
    • Ten Digits Alliance
    • Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008
  • CRM Accelerators
    • Analytics Accelerator
    • eService Accelerator
    • Event Management Accelerator
    • Enterprise Search Accelerator
    • Sales Methodologies Accelerator
    • Extended Sales Forecasting Accelerator
    • CRM Notifications Accelerator
    • Business Productivity Accelerator
  • BizTalk Server Integration
  • SharePoint List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
• On-Demand Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Release 2
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Release 3
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Release 4
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM “VNext”
  • “VNext” to deliver a new level of user productivity and collaboration capabilities
  • “VNext” to deliver continued enrichment of the core CRM Capabilities
  • “VNext” to provide a Best-of-Breed Business Solution Platform
• Conclusion