Ben Riga's Deep Shift

Dynamics CRM at SDForum Windows SIG

benriga — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:21:23 GMT

I had some fun and met some interesting folks last night at the SDForum Windows SIG meeting. I presented a trimmed down version of the Business Action World Tour content but still had to cut myself off at 9:00pm. Nobody seemed to mind though and I got some great feedback.

I also got a few requests for the slides so I’ve posted them (in various formats) up on my SkyDrive:

I had a blast as folks seemed engaged throughout the event. There were lots of great questions. Thanks to William Leong and David Korn for inviting me to speak.

If you have additional questions from the event please post them below or use the contact form to email me directly.

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,XRM,SDForum,Windows SIG,Silicon Valley,Mountain View

Dynamics Duo: Silverlight and Jazz Hands

benriga — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:12:11 GMT

Ok; so maybe I got a little overexcited in the final installment to this 5-part series. <Jazz Hands!> This time around we spend time talking about how to use Silverlight to build experiences that will compel users to want to come back again and again while differentiating your application from those of your competitors.

In this episode we spend most of our time in the part of the demo related to the conference attendee portal. The portal is meant to be the place where returning attendees go to review information about the conference (maps, weather, schedule, travel ,etc). This would be similar to a SharePoint page but built with a consumer in mind so including animations, drag and drop and generally having more sizzle. <Jazz Hands!>

Channel 9: Dynamics Duo: Silverlight and Jazz Hands

The information in the modules is coming directly from Dynamics CRM Online via web service calls. That information is data-bound to the Silverlight controls we used to allow users to display and manipulate that information. The ecosystem around Silverlight is exploding and as result there is a wide variety of controls that can be used to accelerate the design and development of solutions. In our case, much of the UI work on the attendee portal is based on a control built by a team led by Martin Grayson. Have a look at the various other controls available in the suite on the Blacklight showcase site. The full source code is available on CodePlex. Nice work on these, Martin! <Jazz Hands!> As we discussed in the last episode the separation of code and UI makes is easy for developers and designers to work together to build something cool really fast.

Girish promised to share the code for this on his blog here.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Silverlight-and-Jazz-Hands/

This episode is part of a 5-part series. In this series we’ve tried to explain how you can combine the Microsoft Web Platform with Dynamics CRM to quickly build and deploy self-service solutions. The full set of videos include:

Both Girish and I enjoyed recording this series. We hope you enjoyed them as well. If you have comments or suggestions for other topics, feel free to add comments below or email Girish or me (Ben) directly.

Sorry if I went a little over the top with all that Jazz Hands thing. <Jazz Hands!> :)

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight

Dynamics Duo: Composition with Third-Party Web Services

benriga — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:46:34 GMT

In this episode we talk about a variety of topics including using Silverlight for UI, composing using 3rd party web services and storing complex information in Dynamics CRM.

We spend most of our time on the flight booking page. This page was built using Silverlight to demonstrate some of the simple experiences that can be designed. In this case the UI was built in Expression Blend. Designers and developers work together closely on projects. In fact, developers and designers work on the exact same project files but stay in their own environments; Developers stay in Visual Studio, Designers stay in Expression. We’ll talk a lot more time about Silverlight in the final episode of this series tomorrow.

Dynamics Duo: Composition with Third-Party Web Services

In our example we use a third party web service run by ezGDS to present the conference attendee with a list of flight options. ezGDS takes care behind the scenes to retrieve that flight fare information from various global distribution systems including Amadeus, Worldspan, Sabre and others. The attendee sees none of that complexity since we’ve built all of that directly into our system. Even though the information coming back can be very complex, including ticket information and various inbound and outbound flight segments, Dynamics CRM easily handles storing this information in a custom entity.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Composition-with-Third-Party-Web-Services/

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight,Visual Studio,Microsoft Expression,Web Services

Dynamics Duo: Wide World Importers Code

benriga — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:03:15 GMT

In this episode we dive into some of the real code behind Wide World Importers Conference site. Girish walks us through the code-behind for the contact/profile and conference registration options pages.

There’s not really a lot of magic here. In fact, I would say it’s quite simple to understand. If you’ve used ASP.NET before it’s not much different when you’re writing for Windows Azure as we are here.

Dynamics Duo: Wide World Importers Code

The only difference is that here we’re sending the data to Dynamics CRM using the SDK. That’s infinitely more useful for your customers as the information becomes actionable immediately. We should mention that, in this case, we’re using a 3rd party toolkit by Microsoft Gold Partner, ADXSTUDIO. Shan McArthur and his team at ADXSTUDIO helped us to put this site together and their toolkit naturally uses the CRM SDK. It abstracts the SDK it out a little more to make writing and reading the code even simpler.

We use the Live ID token that we’re getting from the Live ID service, as we discussed in the previous episode, to allow the user to retrieve and update their profile information. It’s the unique key, of sorts, to their record in the CRM data store.

Girish promised in this episode to publish the code so expect to see that soon on his blog. We’ll have to hold him to that. :)

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://blogs.msdn.com/benriga/archive/2009/06/16/dynamics-duo-wide-world-importers-code.aspx

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,ASP.net,Web Services,Windows Live Id,ADXSTUDIO

CRM Event in Silicon Valley next week

benriga — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:24:03 GMT

The good folks from the SDForum Windows SIG asked me to present at their meeting next week in Mountain View. If you’re in the area drop by:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 - 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Microsoft Silicon Valley
1065 La Avenida Street
Building 1 (SVC-1)
Mountain View, CA 94043

Join us at the Windows SIG meeting on Wednesday, June 24, at the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View. Please note the date. This is a one-time change to accommodate a SDForum event on Thursday.

Food and drinks will be served starting at 6:30 PM. The meeting will begin at 7:00 PM. Please RSVP to WindowsSIG@SDForum.org so we can order the appropriate amount.

Dynamics CRM provides the platform for getting your line-of-business applications to market fast. In this session, we'll discuss how the Dynamics CRM platform (XRM) supports a wide range of business applications with the essentials required for building, delivering and maintaining them in multi-tenant Software+Services environments. We will also cover how solutions built on the XRM platform benefit from other Microsoft technologies to provide compelling experiences (using WPF or Silverlight), build on familiar skills (using Office or SharePoint) and give your customers the power of choice.

http://sdforum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=654&parentID=483

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,XRM,SDForum,Windows SIG,Silicon Valley,Mountain View

Dynamics Duo: Everybody needs an Identity

benriga — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:12:28 GMT

In yesterday’s episode we very briefly touched the identity and authentication part of the demo where, on the self-service site, the attendee registers using Windows Live ID. In this episode we go a lot deeper.

Identity and authentication is hard. Simple, scalable and secure login capabilities require a great deal of experience to build and a great deal of effort to maintain and keep running. Windows Live ID provides you a proven solution for building identity-aware applications and is used today by over 460 million users.

In our case, since we’ve integrated Live ID into the system, we let Microsoft manage all the details related to identity and authentication. Live ID assigns each of our users a token that is specific to our site. That means Microsoft lets us know that the person coming to the site is the same person that registered. That token is unique to our site so that from the perspective of the user their privacy is protected (e.g. they cannot be tracked across multiple web sites). In fact, the token is the only thing the site will see. So even though the user may use an email address and password to login to Live ID the site never sees that unless the user explicitly provides that information (as in our example by typing it into a profile page).

Dynamics Duo: Everybody needs an Identity

The simplicity of this is just amazing. As a developer I just have to register my site with Windows Live ID and then redirect my users to the Live ID login page whenever I need them to be authenticated. Live ID handles the authentication and then redirects back to a page that I’ve registered. You can even brand the Windows Live ID login page that your users will see so that it will appear as if it is your own login page. Nice!

While Windows Live ID does a great job of helping me as a conference organizer to identify and authenticate my conference attendees, we also need to authenticate the Windows Azure site to the Dynamics CRM site so that they can exchange information. We’re obviously not going to have CRM licenses for all our self-service users (the thousands of conference attendees in this case) so we use a certificate on the Windows Azure site to ensure that only that site has access to the CRM data. Once the certificate is on my Azure site, we use a Live ID service account to handle the authentication between the two servers.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Everybody-needs-an-Identity/

Technorati Tags: Authentication,Azure Services,Dynamics CRM,Identity Access,Windows Azure,Windows Live ID

Dynamics Duo Rides again

benriga — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:16:38 GMT

Girish and I dropped in to the new Channel 9 Studio (formerly Monaco) to record a few Channel 9 episodes around some demo code we’ve been working on for a few months.

In this series we’ll focus on self-service and specifically on building self-service sites that use Dynamics CRM on the back-end to enable customers, employees, citizens, etc. to get the information or perform the tasks they want without having to interact with a representative.

We’ve talked previously about using Dynamics CRM as a platform to build general purpose line-of-business applications. Typically these are for users that are behind the firewall. When we’re talking about self-service we mean the wide range of users that are out on the internet that need access to that same information in the CRM data store.

Channel 9: Dynamics Duo Rides Again

In this episode we walk through the demo in some detail. The Wide World Importers Conference site we use here is the main site for a fictitious conference. The self-service part of this is entirely hosted on Windows Azure. As we walk through the registration process the information is retrieved and stored directly in Dynamics CRM Online. Naturally, as we’ve said in the past, Dynamics CRM is great at managing both contact and transactional information. We also look at how, by using 3rd party web services, we can compose new capabilities into our system. In this case we show how to integrate an internet flight booking service into the attendee registration process and then store that complex flight booking information in the Dynamics CRM data store. Finally we show how to use Silverlight to build a compelling user experience for a self-service portal. This one is pretty slick.

Dynamics CRM was customized here for the requirements of a conference organizer. In our case we used Dynamics CRM Online but it could easily have been CRM in an on-premises deployment (or hosted by any of the hundreds of Microsoft hosting partners) as long as CRM is set up in an internet facing deployment mode (IFD).

The self-service site is running on Windows Azure so we walked through the Windows Azure Portal for the site to show how Azure helps us to deploy, configure and manage the site. The interesting part comes when we talk about how to scale up or down a site to handle large or small numbers of end-users (depending on the need of the application). Here Girish and I got into a discussion of running a site like this from the perspective of capital expenditures (capex) versus operating expenditures (opex). There are many scenarios like the conference one where the site will go through peak periods of high demand but then drop back down to very low demand. In those cases buying the equipment to handle the peaks means you have a lot of expensive equipment running idle during the low periods. Azure solves that problem by giving the power you need when you need it for as long as you need it. Unlimited scale for rent, I guess you could say.

We’ll dive into each of the various pieces of the demo over the next few days so come back and have a look. Be sure to leave us your feedback below.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Rides-again/

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight,Dynamics Duo

CRM Online Custom Dashboards

benriga — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:07:01 GMT

Jon White, a Technology Specialist over on the CRM Online team, has been playing with custom dashboards and recently posted his work to the CRM Online blog. He walks through how he pulls the data using CRM SDK web services and uses LINQ to manipulate the data. Finally he uses the free Microsoft Chart Controls to paint some pretty pictures. Nice post, Jon.

Have a look at the blog post here:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Team Blog : CRM Online Custom Built Dashboards

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Dynamics CRM Online,Dashboards,Analytics,Scorecards

PowerPoint Decks for Business Action World Tour

benriga — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:09:16 GMT

A few readers asked about getting access to the slides from the Business Action World and Virtual Tour events. I’ve also updated the individual blog posts but thought those that have already had a look at the recordings might miss the updates.

I published the PowerPoint decks for all 4 sessions publicly to a SkyDrive folder here. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Business Action World Tour,Business Action Virtual Tour,Dynamics CRM,XRM,Silverlight,WPF,Microsoft Office,SharePoint,Unified Communications,Dynamics CRM Online,Dynamics CRM Partner-Hosted,Azure Services Platform

Business Action Virtual Tour Recording – Day 4 – The Power of Choice

benriga — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:32:00 GMT

Last week we presented the content developed for the Business Action World Tour virtually via Live Meeting. We had hundreds of people register and join us for these events. The number one question people had was about getting access to the recordings for these events. I now have all the recordings and will publish these along with the Questions and Answers we fielded along with the calls.

On Day 4 (Thursday, April 30) we talked mostly about the Power of Choice in deploy of Dynamics CRM applications. We also talked about the Azure Services Platform and how it can used to extend Dynamics CRM applications out to the internet to build out self-service applications for your customers, partners, citizens, etc. We also spent some time walking through the Wide World Importers site to demonstrate just that.

I’ve provided the link to what I think is the best quality recording but have included an edited Q&A log combining questions from all 3 events. We presented each session 3 times a day (2:00AM, 9:00AM and 6:00PM Pacific time). Thanks to Trond Brande and Almut Tadsen for handling the 2:00AM calls. Girish and I would have been pretty sleepy by the end of the week if they hadn’t done such a great job. :)

Live Meeting Recording and PowerPoint Deck

I would recommend watching the High-Fidelity Recording available here.

Update: I’ve posted the PowerPoint decks for all the sessions on my SkyDrive.

Questions and Answers from Day 4

Question: Is this a Silverlight interface?
Answer: The flight booking page is in Silverlight. The Attendee portal is also Silverlight (you'll see that in a second). Everything else is built with simple ASP.NET.

Question: Are Dynamics CRM Live and the Azure Dynamics CRM services one and the same? Or do the Azure services offer more of the CRM capabilities for ISVs (such as custom plug-ins)?
Answer: Dynamics CRM Online (formerly CRM Live) is a finished service application. Windows Azure is a platform that you could use to host applications. Think of it as Windows for the cloud. CRM does not currently run on the windows Azure platform. It's been available for over a year while Azure is still in beta. We haven't made any announcements about moving CRM to Azure. I would expect that, over time, it will be moved there. You could use Azure today to build apps in the cloud that connect to CRM Online.

Question: As a ISV building vertical application on CRM, what's the best practice to manage customizations made by customers while control the versions of application. You know, MSCRM allow flexible customization for users without programming knowledge.
Answer: Answered verbally.

Question: Where are the Professional Developer conference videos?
Answer: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/

Question: Are there any plans to roll out CRM Online features such as landing pages, to partner hosted options?
Answer: Answered verbally

Question: Is it possible to set up a end users with crm online who don't have exchange, obviously the smaller sites - how does this work?
Answer: Answered verbally.

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,XRM,Power of Choice,Dynamics CRM Online,Dynamics CRM Partner-Hosted,Azure Services Platform,Windows Azure,.NET Services,Live Services

Business Action Virtual Tour Recording – Day 3 – Familiar Skills

benriga — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:09:00 GMT

This past week we presented the content developed for the Business Action World Tour virtually via Live Meeting. We had hundreds of people register and join us for these events. The number one question people had was about getting access to the recordings for these events. I now have all the recordings and will publish these along with the Questions and Answers we fielded along with the calls.

On Day 3 (Wednesday, April 29) we talked about Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server and Unified Communications and how you can take advantage of them to build on the familiar skills of your end-user while building on Dynamics CRM. By building on these services you extend your CRM application to more users, implement applications that consolidate multiple user interfaces into a 2007 Office system document or SharePoint Server Web page or build workflow process that helps users to regain control of critical documents. You also extend your reach to a growing market of customers looking to get more from the investments they’ve made in existing systems and deliver innovative, customized solutions to your customers faster.

Live Meeting Recording and PowerPoint Deck

I would recommend watching the High-Fidelity Recording available here.

Update: I’ve posted the PowerPoint decks for all the sessions on my SkyDrive.

Questions and Answers from Day 3

Question: Does Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook use VSTO to connect to the Dynamics CRM?
Answer: No, the Outlook client is directly integrated. If you think of accessing the 'interface' to do modifications you can't do that. But you could add your own things with VSTO.

Question: Is this Time Sheet functionality using CRM built-in Entity OR MOSS Template?
Answer: I'm not sure I understand what you want to know. The entities for the Time Sheet have been added in CRM. Does this answer your question?
Question: This means that these are custom entities added in CRM?
Answer: yes exactly

Question: Does the Silverlight/SharePoint/CRM combination allow you to build internal portals that allow you to capture customer inputs into CRM? What are the licensing implications of doing this?
Answer: The combination has no limits so yes this is one scenario for building portals. Another method would be to build self-service web application. We'll be talking about that tomorrow in the Azure Services Platform discussion. As for licensing SharePoint and CRM both have server and CAL licensing. You'd need to discuss your specific needs with a Partner Account Manager to ensure you can address your requirements.

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,XRM,Microsoft Office,Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server,SharePoint,Unified Communications,Office Communications Server

Business Action Virtual Tour Recording – Day 2 – Compelling Experiences

benriga — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:04:00 GMT

This past week we presented the content we developed for the Business Action World Tour virtually via Live Meeting. We had hundreds of people register and join us for these events. The number one question people had was about getting access to the recordings for these events. I now have all the recordings and will publish these along with the Questions and Answers we fielded along with the calls.

On Day 2 (Monday, April 28) we talked mostly about Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight and how you can take advantage of them to build compelling experiences for Dynamics CRM. We also showed a couple of groovy Dynamics CRM-specific demos that drove the point home.

Live Meeting Recording and PowerPoint Deck

I would recommend watching the High-Fidelity Recording available here.

Update: I’ve also posted the PowerPoint decks for all the sessions on my SkyDrive.

Questions and Answers from Day 2

Question: Which Vector Graphics is supported (.eps, .AI etc) ??
Answer: You'd have to convert them to XAML before using them, there are tools doing this

Question: This TimeManager app is available for download? Is it production or only for demo purposes?
Answer: That's demo only and not available publicly

Question: How is the connection between crm and Silverlight solved? via 2 web services?
Answer: yes, connection is web services

Question: What version of CRM is this?
Answer: 4.0

Question: Is this integration between CRM and Project?
Answer: You mean Microsoft Project Manager? No, this is a Silverlight application we created for demo purposes

Question: Is the dashboard available for download?
Answer: unfortunately not

Question: But do we have any guidelines or documentation on the same?
Answer: There will be links at the end of the presentation where you can find more information

Question: Is this Dashboard was developed using the CRM SDK? WebService means R u passing this info from CRM
Answer: The dashboard was developed using CRM Web services

Question: For the project dashboard demo, that u just demonstrated,did u also use SSRS?
Answer: We did not use SSRS for this dashboard

Question: Is Silverlight integration possible for CRM Online or limited to CRM on-premise deployment?
Answer: Silverlight may be used in CRM Online. You would use an iframe to insert the Silverlight control. You would have to host the Silverlight control on another server.

Question: "Time and Expense" and "Projects" is an adaptation with development to manage projects? Is this available to download or get information about this.
Answer: It is available here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/crm4dpedemo

Question: Is this Dashboard was developed using the CRM SDK? Web Service means R u passing this info (Project/TimeSheets) from CRM to server which posts back with dashboard page? Where the web service is hosted?
Answer: The web service is hosted in the CRM Server.

Question: Will WPF take advantage of hardware graphics acceleration
Answer: Absolutely. WPF takes full advantage of whatever graphics hardware you have available. It will scale up or down depending on what is available. This is one of the main differentiators from Silverlight. Since Silverlight is a web app and by definition cross platform it cannot take advantage of local hardware.

Question: Will the code also be available for review? This demonstration for the time sheet is very interesting but I haven't used WPF or Silverlight so having the code would be great!
Answer: Yes. Girish will be publishing the code for how we built these. He needs to clean up the code a little. This may take a few weeks. :) Look for the code of these on Girish's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/girishr

Question: Hardrock Cafe app?
Answer: is at the following location: http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

Question: What are the options for distributing WPF applications to end-users of CRM?
Answer: Click Once Deployment - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d(VS.80).aspx

Question: Can you suggest resources for charts in WPF? Can you compare the capabilities of building charts in WPF, Reporting Services, and Excel?
Answer: <Answered verbally>

Question: What does RIA Platform stand for?
Answer: RIA = Rich Internet Applciations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_Application

Question: Can we get our hands on the demos used?
Answer: <Answered verbally>

Question: I posted a question but didn't get response - my question was about the CRM customisation of time & expenses and project. maybe i didn't confirm correctly.
Answer: <Answered verbally>

Question: Would we expect to see these technologies in future releases of Dynamics CRM?
Answer: <Answered verbally>

Question: Code Gallery project for Customizations?
Answer: Here is the link: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/crm4dpedemo

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Dynamics CRM,XRM,Windows Presentation Foundation,WPF,Silverlight

Business Action Virtual Tour Recording – Day 1 – Line of Business Application Framework

benriga — Sat, 02 May 2009 03:12:00 GMT

On Day 1 (Monday, April 27) we talked mostly about the Dynamics CRM and how it can be used to build general purpose line-of-business applications (a.k.a. XRM).

Live Meeting Recording and PowerPoint Deck

I would recommend watching the High-Fidelity Recording available here.

Update: I’ve posted the PowerPoint decks for all the sessions on my SkyDrive.

Questions and Answers from Day 1

Question: Does the product provide analytics capability?
Answer: The Dynamics CRM product team have released numerous Accelerators including one that provides deep analytics capabilities. These are provided free-of-charge and are available with full source-code from CodePlex. (http://crmaccelerators.codeplex.com/)

Question: Can you create word document templates to generate Invoices or does the mail merge only work for email?
Answer: The data in CRM can be used for pretty much anything you need it to do. In one of the other sessions later this week we'll show you how you can pull data from CRM into a Word document to build a status report. That will be in the “Familiar Skills” session on Wednesday.

Question: Our interest is in building a line-of-business application using the CRM (XRM) platform. What is the pricing model for ISVs and what type of pricing can we expect?
Answer: There are various licensing models for ISVs. This will depend on how you sell and how you deploy. This can span On-Premises, Partner-Hosted and CRM Online. Licensing can include discounts, royalty pricing or Service Provider Licensing (SPLA). I would suggest that you work through this with a Partner Account Manager or Developer Evangelist. Please contact me offline with more details (including your location) and I can get you in touch with the right person on the right team. <use the “EMAIL” link at the top of this blog site to contact me> I should mention that we'll be going through the deployment options in the session on Thursday.

Question: I do not see how or where you can send HTML based Newsletters or email blasts. Do you have a WYSIWYG editor for html based newsletters?
Answer: That would be part of the basic end-user functionality in the Marketing module. In this case, Girish is talking about how you can build out new line-of-business applications. So as a developer you can design, develop and deploy a new application that builds on the functionality of Dynamics CRM or build something brand new. Either way you get your application built much quicker than if you started from scratch using ASP.NET, PHP, etc.

Question: Are there any pre-canned CRM applications that address an ISV process cycle => Similar to the Rational Clear Quest/ Clear Case process cycle with feature, development, support, and defect tracking.
Answer: There are ways of integrating with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server to handle some of those tasks. I don’t know of any pre-canned CRM (or in that case XRM) applications.

Question: Has CRM been used as an EMR with all the new healthcare IT funds out there? Can it be used as an EMR? EMR = emergency medical response
Answer: <answered verbally>

Question: Where can I get the hw specs used to develop the performance metrics he spoke about earlier?
Answer: Much more detail on this is available in the whitepapers published here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5852B14A-394C-4898-8374-CAF5E6479EB0&displaylang=en

Question: The mobile version of the pages wasn't available with CRM 4.0 RTM, have these been made available since?
Answer: Yes. Mobile Express for Dynamics CRM 4.0 is now available. More information here: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=624

Question: Will this virtual machine / crm database be available for download after the meeting?
Answer: This is using the standard Dynamics CRM VPC. We've only added a few custom entities. We could make those available if you think that might be useful. Email Girish or Ben offline

Question: One of the biggest stoppers for my company (the reason we moved away from CRM) was because getting invoices out of CRM was so difficult. Is there any plans on improving this simplicity?
Answer: I'm not sure what you mean by this. Invoices are straight forward to create in CRM. If that functionality is not appropriate for your organization, it should be relatively easy to customize that or integrate with an ERP system that could do that for you.

Question: Is the PSADemo system available?....we could use this!! We promise not to ask for support
Answer: Some of the demo has been posted to girish's blog. The plan is to release most of it over the next few weeks. Look for that on Girish's blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/girishr. you may want to email him directly to give him a nudge. ;)

Question: Can web services be used to retrieve custom entities?
Answer: Absolutely. Custom entities are no different than system entities. Custom entities are first class citizens in Dynamics CRM! :)

Question: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Performance and Scalability White Papers
Answer: Is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5852B14A-394C-4898-8374-CAF5E6479EB0&displaylang=en

Question: Where do we get the developers ramp up kit ?
Answer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720132.aspx

Question: Can we please have these q & a's emailed? we can't copy and paste from them.
Answer: We will post Q&A’s when we post the recordings (Done :) )

Question: Are you on twitter?
Answer: Yes you can follow us here: http://www.twitter.com/benriga and http://www.twitter.com/girshr

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Dynamics CRM,XRM,Line of Business Applications

Business Action Virtual Tour – Global Series of Events

benriga — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:21:24 GMT

We've had some great success with the Business Action World Tour events worldwide. We're now reprising that content virtually for those ISVs and developers who could not attend a physical event. Be sure to register via the links at the bottom of the post. Feel free to invite others… you know wake the kids, call the neighbors, etc. :)

We know that differentiating your line-of-business applications from those of your competitors has never been more important. If you’ve considered using Dynamics CRM as a line-of-business platform, Silverlight or WPF to build compelling experiences, Office or SharePoint to build on the familiar skills of your end-users or Partner-Hosting or Azure Services to extend you application to the cloud, well then this is the event for you. We’re hosting a series of 4 online events (across multiple time zones) that will help you understand how we can help you do that as a valued Microsoft Partner.

Because of the anticipated high-demand, we encourage you to register immediately to ensure your attendance at this valuable event. We’ve provided an overview below and the upcoming event dates and registration links at the bottom of this message. Be sure to register for all 4 online events.

A Line-of-Business Application Platform

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides the platform for getting your line-of-business applications to market fast. Clearly applicable in CRM-type scenarios, Microsoft Dynamics CRM also supports a wide range of business applications with the essentials required for building, delivering and maintaining them in multi-tenant Software+Services environments.

This event will demonstrate the power of Dynamics CRM as a platform for developing line of business applications. It will also cover how solutions built on the Dynamics CRM platform benefit from other Microsoft technologies to provide compelling experiences, build on familiar skills and give your customers the power of choice.

Compelling Experiences

Increase user productivity and accuracy by providing an attractive, easy to use application user interfaces on either the desktop or the web using one set of tools and knowledge. With Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) you’ll build the next-generation of Windows user experiences with deep support of data visualization, complex text content, rich media, dynamic interactive experiences, and branded or custom look and feel. With Silverlight you increase repeat visits and brand loyalty while dramatically reducing customer support costs through compelling, intuitive, high performance self-service web sites.

Familiar Skills

Increase the productivity of the users of your applications by providing a seamless and integrated end to end experience that empowers them to collaborate and get work done in familiar ways. Pull line-of-business processing directly into the Microsoft Office applications your users use day-in day-out. Unified communications across the Dynamics CRM and Office line of products, such as instant messaging, document sharing, and user presence, further promote and simplify ad hoc processes and keep people in the center of the workflow – where they belong.

Power of Choice

Whether you are deploying behind the firewall or internet-facing applications, build and deploy those applications quickly and easily by capitalizing on the same personnel, development tools investments, and knowledge that already power your organization. When you build on the Dynamics CRM platform you’ll be prepared to deploy your line-of-business applications on-premises, in partner-hosted facilities or in Microsoft own Dynamics CRM Online data centers. When you build the internet-facing self-service applications that integrate with your line-of-business solution, the Azure Services Platform helps reduce IT-related costs, freeing up time and capital to focus on your core business.

Be sure to register for all 4 events below.

	Line-of-Business Application Framework	Compelling Experiences	Familiar Skills	Power of Choice
Europe Middle East and Africa	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
North and South America	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
Asia/Pacific	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
Note: You are free to register for any time zone you choose. The content is the same for all time zones. *Note that you can only register for events in the future.*

Europe, Middle East and Africa (Mon Apr 27-Thu Apr 30)

9:00 AM UTC - Dublin, London
10:00 AM UTC+1 - Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, Copenhagen, Rome, Berlin, Prague, Stockholm, Budapest, Warsaw, Oslo
11:00 AM UTC+2 - Cape Town, Athens, Helsinki, Istanbul, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut
12:00 PM UTC+3 - Moscow, Kuwait City
1:00 PM UTC+4 - Tehran, Dubai
2:30 PM UTC+5:30 - Bangalore
4:00 PM UTC+7 - Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta

North and South America (Mon Apr 27-Thu Apr 30)

9:00 AM UTC-7 - Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Redmond
10:00 AM UTC-6 - Calgary, Denver, Mexico City
11:00 AM UTC-5 - Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago
12:00 PM UTC-4 - Caracas, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Miami, New York
1:00 PM UTC-3 - Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo

Asia/Pacific (Tue Apr 28 - Fri May 1)

9:00 AM UTC+8 - Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai
10:00 AM UTC+9 - Perth, Seoul, Tokyo
11:00 AM UTC+10 - Sydney
12:00 PM UTC+11 - Auckland

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Microsoft Dynamics,Dynamics CRM,XRM,WPF,Silverlight,Office Business Applciations,Sharepoint,Unified Communications,Office Communications Server,Azure Services,Windows Azure

XRM Basics Webcast

benriga — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:35:14 GMT

I just realized that I never blogged that Girish and I are doing a webcast for the XRM Virtual Users Group. The event is tomorrow morning. There are so many platform topics to cover. This initial session will be more of a basics session (say at a 100-level) to help everyone get up-to-speed with the various parts of the platform.

Building Complete Business Solutions with XRM and the Microsoft Platform

XRM provides the platform for getting your line-of-business applications to market fast. In this session, we’ll discuss how XRM supports a wide range of business applications with the essentials required for building, delivering and maintaining them in multi-tenant Software+Services environments. . We will also cover how solutions built on the XRM platform benefit from other Microsoft technologies to provide compelling experiences (using WPF or Silverlight), build on familiar skills (using Office or SharePoint) and give your customers the power of choice.

Meeting Thursday April 23 at 9am PST

More details are available on the XRM Virtual User Group. You should go ahead and become a member while you’re there (it’s free).

http://www.xrmvirtual.com/events/business-solutions-xrm-platform

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,XRM Platform,XRM Virtual User Group