The latest plans for Dynamics CRM in the just released Statement of Direction (April 2010)

Accelerators, CRM 4.0, CRM 5.0, Downloads, Microsoft Dynamics, Salespeople May 4th, 2010

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.

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Preview: Screenshots and What’s New in CRM 5.0

Administrator, Consulting, CRM 5.0, Developer, General Users, Microsoft Dynamics November 11th, 2008

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 Account record - Ribbon interface

CRM 5.0 Opportunity record - Inline charts

CRM 5.0 Opportunity record - Inline charts

CRM 5.0 Campaign - Event management

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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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