Magnetism Blog

On Thursday, after many hours of study and revision, I sat the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Applications exam. Initially I was a little frightened of sitting the exam, but I’d booked it in and there was no backing out. For the 4 days prior to my exam my evenings were filled with revision of CRM concepts, sales, marketing, service management and service scheduling. All these thoughts in my head must have paid off however as achieved a rather respectable pass grade in the exam. Now confident that my revision is working I will shortly be moving on to complete the Customization exam, the Installation exam, and finally, the Extending CRM exam. Looks like my next few weeks will be filled with forms and views, SQL servers and active directories, and all the wonders Extending CRM has in store for me! In summation I would conclude that although the Applications exam may seem daunting, if you get stuck into your study, and think through exam questions logically, the 70% required to pass is a reasonably attainable goal.

We have been working over the past few months with Microsoft and other Microsoft Partners to setup a User Group in Auckland for users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

It has been a pleasure getting to know the representatives from the other partners here in Auckland.  In so doing we have created a collective pool of experience that we wish to share with the wider Microsoft Dynamics CRM community.

To date we have setup a User Group website that lists the oversight committee and details of upcoming events

The website has been built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and hosted on a Partner Hosted Solution provided by MHA.

We have built into the website the following functionally running entirely on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

• Event Management and Bookings
• Membership Management
• Forms allowing for posts and comments

The following elements are currently in developement but will be available soon:

• Job Posting for those that work within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM industry in New Zealand.
• News section for New Zealand
• Training resources

We decided to build the website on Microsoft Dynamics CRM to demonstrate the versatility of the product.

Microsoft has recently updated its messaging on the use of CRM and xRM as follows:

“Instead of referring to an xRM platform we now reference CRM as: One Framework, Many Applications.  xRM is a business application framework that surfaces the Microsoft Application Platform to accelerate the Development of enterprise-class relational business applications.”  

We have found that when it comes to rapid secure deployment of business applications Dynamics CRM does allow you to build many applications on the Framework.  Allowing many applications to be built on this single framework naturally drives down the total cost of ownership (TCO).

So what does a website running on Microsoft Dynamics CRM look like?  Take a look here http://www.xrm.org.nz

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been designed to capture all business data relevant to your business and customers; however sometimes it can be a challenge to find the data you are looking for once it is in the system if you aren’t familiar with using the Advanced Find feature.

As a relatively new user of CRM I’d like to share with you what I’ve recently learned about the power of Advanced Find.

I had a client call me this week wanting to know how to export a list of a Marketing List Members (with phone numbers and email addresses) to a static Excel worksheet. From the Manage Members tab in the Marketing List entity you can export a static worksheet but you are not able to specify the columns displayed. The export to dynamic worksheet option allows you to select the columns to display, however the results will only display in Excel when the user has access to your CRM server (not helpful in this situation). We came up with a very easy work around that my client will be able to recreate any time she needs to repeat this process. The answer? Advanced Find.

Advanced Find allows you to ‘Look For’ any entity in CRM, add search criteria and choose the information you want to find by using the Edit Columns button. In the scenario above we:

1.       ‘Looked For’ Contacts

2.       Selected Marketing Lists as the regarding entity

3.       Added a Name Equals Marketing List Name search criteria

4.       Used Edit Columns to specify the columns to display.

From the Advanced Find results page you have several options including Mail Merge, Create Quick Campaign, Run Workflow and of course, export to Excel.

This kind of Advanced Find query could be run on any CRM record type with a multitude of search criteria specified, providing you with a very concise list of information based on your specific need at the time.

This is just one example of how you can use Advanced Find to find data in CRM. In my blog next week I will step you through how to create and save custom Views in CRM using Advance Find.

Are you making a decision that maximizes the return for your company?

A New Technology Yes or No?

To help customers make the right decision when considering a Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation, besides presenting a statement of work and budgetary estimates, one of the key areas of concern for any company considering a new technology, would be their calculation for Return on Investment. 

Magnetism use specialised tools and resources through Microsoft and Nucleus Research to help customers determine the real business value, real savings and costs associated with their decisions to implement a CRM solution. I’ve attached a table below that outlines 2 simple rules that you may find useful.

Maximizing return on Investment 

BREADTH

Rule1: The more people affected by the application, the higher the potential ROI. This sounds simple enough: touch a lot of people and you increase the impact of the application. Using this rule, even a simple application can offer great returns.

REPEATABILITY

Rule 2: The more often you help the employee, the greater the ROI. Are you deploying an application that will help the employee in their daily activities, or once every three years?

Reference: Nucleus Research Maximizing return on Investment Breadth and Repeatability, http://nucleusresearch.com/research/notes-and-reports/maximizing-potential-return-on-investment

I have recently completed the Applications course for Microsoft Dynamics CRM exam (and passed).

My next project was to create profiles for each committee member on the xRM User Group website, to do this I created a table using html for each profile in CRM.

Each profile included, the committee member image, their name, their company, and a bio along with any other information they wanted in their profile.

I also uploaded content into the Events page of the website, so that anyone that wants to attend the xRM and CRM User Group will know when it is on and what the agenda will be for that night.

This also included a link to Bing maps which shows exactly how to get to the event.

I think the best way to increase your knowledge on CRM after you have completed the theory is to start on real life projects using CRM as soon as possible.

The starting point for implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM projects in Sure Step 2010 Agile

Once the sales team has summarise the scope, skills requirements, dependencies, activities, timelines, and budget restrictions; the statement of Work is set to go…………..

I have found this document a powerful tool that sets the scope and boundaries of a project and establishes an agreement between the Customer and Magnetism, defining

What work will be done?

When it will be performed, and

Who will do it?

The Statement of Work identifies the activities required to initiate and effectively plan the entire project at a high level including the goals, objectives, dependencies, and constraints

If your business is in the process of looking at Dynamics CRM implementation I would highly recommend the Agile Statement of Work to cover and form a foundation for the project going forward.

How many of you just wish you could change that one thing in CRM that is bugging you without annoying or bugging the admin or have to get an expert in to do an easy fix job? Well this course is the one for you it teaches you all you need to know about customizing your CRM from editing or creating an entity right down to how the form looks and works, you can also configure how each field in one entity links to another field in another entity.

I recommend this course for the system administrator of the business running Dynamics CRM and also anyone interested in the back end running’s of Dynamics CRM, I started this course with only the knowledge that I learned in both the applications and workflow course.

You can make customizations to just about anything in Dynamics CRM, some with ease and some with more thought required!

For more information on CRM Customization visit here

“First off, I’d like to thank the Academy...”

Only a handful of people get to start their sentences like that, usually while clutching a little golden statue. I haven’t won an Oscar (yet), however, I do have reason to thank the Academy – the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Academy that is.

The Partner Academy resource is part of the evolution of the Microsoft Partner Network and provides a role by role breakdown of the new training requirements for Dynamics Partners. I have found their break down of the Project Manager role extremely helpful in defining my role within the Dynamics CRM component of our business. A Learning Plan is provided for each of the 7 key roles in a partner organisation that maps out the relevant instructor-led and on-demand training specific to each role. Certification and skills assessments are also included in the plan.

The key components covered in the Project Manager curriculum are:

Project Management –courses start with the fundamentals of Project Management and continue through to teach Project Management at an advanced level

Solution Design – focus is on technical knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics Solutions

Implementation Methodology – covers the introduction and application of the Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step implementation methodology

Change Management – training focuses on Organisational and Action-based change management

Certification – the three key Project Manager related certifications are

• Certified Associate in Project Management Credential
• Implementation Methodology Certification
• Project Management Professional Credential

I am confident that the Partner Academy will prove to be a great, practical resource both for Magnetism and Microsoft Dynamics Partners worldwide.

Hi my name is Simon I recently left school and started an internship specialising in Dynamics CRM, keen to build my knowledge after completing the applications course of CRM i decided to take the workflow course which is a more in depth course that shows you how to create complex workflows. They can make very simple jobs more effective and less time consuming. They turn everyday mundane tasks into an auto-mated processes it makes the job of a sales person easier, you can automate every step that needs to be under taken and make it possible to be more productive and in a sense worth more to the company, EG. Sally works for a motor company where the customer logs that their car is due for a service so Sally rings the customer to get some details and confirm the time of the service, she then creates the service activity, two days later she rings the customer again to remind them of the service and then the goes on to the accounting and fulfillment process.

Below you will see that process as a workflow:

-          Create a phone call activity.

-          Wait until phone call is complete before going to next step.

-          Create a service activity.

-          Wait two days after the service activity is created.

-          Create a phone call activity

-          It then starts another workflow that takes care of the accounting stage of the workflow.

-          It then starts another workflow that takes care of the fulfilment stage of the workflow.

Confidence, Control and Visibility between you and your Customer

If you’ve been in Software development or on the receiving end of it you may have experienced that there are often common drawbacks that sidetrack a CRM or Software implementation.

Magnetism adopted the Sure Step Methodology for CRM implementations sometime ago, that provides us with a structured approach for delivering projects to Customers expectations on Time and on Budget.

The new release of Microsoft Sure Step 2010 has many enhanced features and with the collaboration between Agile Project and SharePoint we now have a complete Methodology process which is fantastic!

Related to my role in pre sales I find the enhancements to the Diagnostic Phase (focused on industry vertical selling) very exciting, as well as the decision accelerators and improvements to the ROI calculator. These are great tools to guide you through the sales and proposal phases.

Over the coming weeks I plan to work through the online modules available on the Microsoft partner portal. I’ve completed the Introduction and the Implementation modules and learnt a great deal of time saving features; one in particular is fast lookup options for a specific or related documents.