What makes CRM 2011 such an alluring option? The list is long and pervasive but following are some key reasons:
Charts and Dashboards
Dynamics CRM 2011 provides a variety of charts - a sales funnel visualization or a pie chart of lead sources with drill down. Most importantly, end users of these types of charts can now add, replace, and adjust charts on their own with just some basic user training. No longer do you have to be a developer to create a chart.
Dashboards again allow users to take the reins in CRM 2011. Many dashboards can be created and configured to suit end users' needs - no developer needed. The key is the right user training. And because dashboards are such a powerful visual reminder of the data available in the system, training on the use of dashboards can be a key element of user adoption.
Outlook
And of course the lovely new charts and dashboard views created by CRM 2011 users need to be accessible in Outlook. While Outlook 2007 and 2003 may still work with CRM 2011, Outlook 2010 is the preferred email client for accessing nearly total CRM functionality. Add in new features like conditional formatting of CRM entities, flagging of follow ups, and lots of drag and drop flexibility, and the latest Outlook client starts to look like the clear winner over its predecessors.
Mobile Devices
CRM 2011 took a measurable step forward in its management of mobile devices. With a newer version of Mobile Express built in, it can do nicer things like set up privileges on a per-device basis and auto-generate mobile-optimized forms. And with many additional forms available for mobile access, managers can apply fine-grained access control to forms, entities, and even fields that are exposed to mobile users. These added base features for mobile have freed up the leading ISVs for mobility solutions to provide more advanced features that build on top of this more solid base provided by Microsoft.
The introduction of basic auditing of create, update, and delete actions for records and fields is a welcome addition to CRM 4.0 and earlier customers who have relied on customizations or add-ons for even their most basic auditing needs. Auditing in CRM is system wide, and while it doesn't track "views" (who read what screen when) it does come with pre-configured audit rules that can be adjusted by an administrator. And as with charting and mobile support, basic auditing capabilities provided by Microsoft frees up ISVs to focus on more complex audit and compliance needs that bring a higher level of value.
Field Level Security
Field Level Security (FLS) is another welcome addition to those concerned with security and regulatory compliance. While standard fields are not controlled by FLS yet due to a lack of clarity on the correct behavior in the Outlook integrated display, a common workaround for controlling standard fields - replacing the standard fields with lookalike custom fields - can work well as long as field data is migrated to the custom field correctly.
Team-based Ownership
Given the turnover rates among sales reps, a team-based ownership feature may seem like an obvious need in CRM. While CRM 4.0 allowed per-user ownership with mass sharing, CRM 2011 solved the issues of its predecessor with true team ownership of records through security roles, roll-up reporting, and team-based workflows. In a service scenario, cases can be owned by a team but have one person who has "checked out" the case to work on it. While different individuals can work on a case, the ownership of that case dictates who needs to ultimately see it through to closure.
While many of the enhancements over CRM 4.0 come directly from the work of the Dynamics CRM R&D team, some of the benefits also reflect on the Dynamics team's utilizing of the so-called "technology stack". Fast, powerful, self-service charts and dashboards come directly from SQL Server's 2008 releases. The Outlook 2010 client adds features that CRM 2011 couldn't offer on its own.