East Region Microsoft CRM

Certification process for Pervasive Data Integrator compliance with Microsoft Dynamics moves ahead

Looking for some cool data integration and migration tools?  Pervasive has some pretty nice products and is deep into the Certified for Dynamics process.  Definitely worth a look …

From the Pervasive Software e-newsletter:

Pervasive Data Integrator recently passed the Software Solution Test for Microsoft Dynamics, a major requirement for “Certified for Microsoft Dynamics” status. “Certified for Microsoft Dynamics” is Microsoft Corp.’s highest standard for partner-developed software and represents a significant step in elevating the standard for partner-developed software solutions for industry-specific business applications. VeriTest, a service of Lionbridge, performed independent and rigorous testing on Pervasive Data Integrator capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics. Pervasive Software has also earned the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner designation with the ISV Competency. Read more >

Better late than never…another great post from Menno

I’ve been meaning to post about the oft-asked questions surrounding audit trail capabilities using CRM 4.0.  Low and behold, once again Menno has beat me to it.  As is so often the case with the powerful development platform that is Dynamics CRM, there are several options available to address the audit trail requirement.  Menno does a great job of discussing three of them in the blog post below.  Enjoy!

http://www.tekoppele.com/Blog/post/2009/05/22/3-FREE-Ways-to-Audit-Data-in-Microsoft-Dynamics-CRM.aspx

Calling all CRM partners!!

I know you’re busy.  I know this is the last month of Microsoft’s fiscal year.  I know you’ve been meaning to get around to it.  The reality is that there are still quite a few CRM partners who have not updated their certifications by passing the exams for version 4.0 (or even 3.0!)  The July 1st deadline is rapidly approaching so please make sure you have double checked in VOICE to verify that your technical staff are up to date.

Here’s a link to the details: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/training/news/ProductRecertification.htm of the current certification requirements for all the Dynamics products and how to check your organization's status in VOICE.

Here are the exams you’ll need to pass:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Applications Professional Exam, Prometric Exam # MB2-632
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installation & Deployment Exam, Prometric Exam # MB2-633 
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customization & Configuration Exam, Prometric Exam # MB2-631

If you missed the April and May Exam Cram sessions offered by the Partner Readiness team, you can still access the online on-demand training on PartnerSource.

If you prefer live classroom training you might want to consider a class offered by one of our training partners.  Stephen Noe at BizITPro just sent me some information on an August CRM bootcamp series they are running to help partners maintain their CRM Competency.  Registration closes July 13th so be sure to get in early.  What vacation could be more fun than spending a week in scenic Raleigh NC learning all there is to know about Dynamics CRM?

Looking for some new cool CRM add-ons?

Our friends at Prosoft just announced 4 new add-ons for Microsoft CRM.  Incredibly, one of them is even free.  Yes - FREE!  Apparently Frank and his developers love working with Dynamics CRM 4.0 so much they do this stuff for fun and then give some of it away.  How can you not like these guys?

• Note Count is a free add on to Microsoft CRM that allows users to see how many notes are associated with the record.  If there are any notes, the tab will turn red and display the count.

http://shop.prosoft-sys.com/notecount.aspx

• View Count for Microsoft CRM

One of the most commonly asked for functions of CRM is a count of records in the view.  Prosoft's View Count add-on is composed of 2 parts. The first part, available on every view and advanced search, is a display of the number of records in the view (highlighted in red).

The second part is a report that displays a count of active and inactive records for entities selected in the configuration utility.  This quickly and easily allows administrators to see which entities are growing the fastest.

http://shop.prosoft-sys.com/viewcount.aspx

• Email Signature for Microsoft CRM

The Signature add-on allows the administrator to put a signature template at the bottom of emails created with Microsoft CRM.  When a new email record is created, the signature will automatically appear at the bottom.  Using the configuration tool the signature can be customized to show the user fields you need.

http://shop.prosoft-sys.com/signature.aspx

• Appointment Start Time for Microsoft CRM

When creating appointments or tasks in CRM and the date is changed, the time is automatically set to 12AM (midnight).  This add-on will change the default start time to be whatever is selected.

http://shop.prosoft-sys.com/appointmentstarttime.aspx

The hits just keep on coming!

Update Roll-up #4 is now available for your testing and deployment pleasure!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968176

Update Roll-up 4 is a cumulative update roll-up that includes all the fixes for the issues that are documented in Update Roll-up 1, in Update Roll-up 2, and in Update Roll-up 3.

For more information about Update Roll-up 1 and about the issues that it resolves, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

952858 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952858/ ) Update Roll-up 1 is available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

For more information about Update Roll-up 2 and about the issues that it resolves, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

959419 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959419/ ) Update Roll-up 2 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is available

For more information about Update Roll-up 3 and about the issues that it resolves, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

961768 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961768/ ) Update Roll-up 3 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is available

Happy Friday!!! The New VPC Image is here!!

The Demo Team would like to announce that the CRM VPC is available to partners on Partner Source at https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/deployment/methodology/vpc/MSD_CRM4VPCApril09

It is also available on VM Express. Using VM Express you may be able to download the VPC in as little as 45 minutes. This is the fastest way to get the VPC. For those of you who have already installed the VM Express three DVD set, all you need to do is open the VM Express tool and navigate to the CRM Product category.  You will see a magical new entry called "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Virtual Machine 2009"...highlight it, select where you want to save it and press the "Install Now" button.  You are now free to enjoy the rest of your weekend!

New CRM VPC Image update!!

Kudos to Phil Haase and the rest of the team who have supported and  produced the newest CRM demo image.  Internal release is happening now with posting to PartnerSource to follow in the next couple of weeks.  Please be patient as the Fargo staff that will post the image to PartnerSource has obviously been experiencing unimaginable challenges.

For now, the best thing you can do as a CRM partner to be prepared is to make sure you have secured a copy of the Microsoft Dynamics Virtual Machine Demonstration Toolkit and loaded it's contents onto an external hard drive or other storage device.  Full instructions on how to obtain the Toolkit is contained in the post from two days ago here.

The Big Easy Offer is back and better than ever!

The Big Easy 3.0 is available now through the end of this fiscal year. 

Check it out here:

 http://www.microsoftincentives.com/BigEasy3/

"Hey Chris! Where can I get that Virtual Machine Toolkit thingie?"

So...with the drop of the new and vastly improved CRM VPC image imminent, many partners are asking me where to get the base image and VM Express tool they'll need to access and download the aforementioned image.  Which brings us to this post...

1. Log onto PartnerSource

2. Go to Ordering Home

3. Click on “Place an Order” box

4. Scroll down to “Sales and Marketing Collateral” and click the link

5. Expand “For North American Order” on the left of the screen

6. Expand “Media”

7. Select “Other Media”

8. Select the first item – “Dynamics Virtual Machine Demo Toolkit”

9. Enter the quantity in the box and click “Add to Cart”

10. Select “Purchase” and follow instructions for payment and shipping method.

Or you can try this link to see if you get all the way to step 8 in a single bound:

https://mbs3.microsoft.com/onlineorder/

And as soon as I know where to download the VM Express file containing the updated image, I will post it here.  You can bet it'll be somewhere on PartnerSource...so stay tuned!

Startups: Announcing 2nd Microsoft Dynamics CRM Incubation Week

Startups: Announcing 2nd Microsoft Dynamics CRM Incubation Week

From Sanjay Jain's blog:

On popular demand after very successful 1^st CRM Incubation Week, we are pleased to announce 2^nd CRM Incubation Week (Boston, week of 20^th April).

The current economic downturn is putting many entrepreneurs under increasing pressure, making it critical to find new resources and ways to reduce costs and inefficiencies. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Incubation Week is designed to offer following assistance to entrepreneurs.

· Learning and building next generation business solution on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform (a rapid application development platform to reduce the cost and Go-To-Market time) with help of on-site advisors (Microsoft Dynamics CRM experts).

· Getting entrepreneurs coaching from a panel of industry experts (academic and angel investors)

· Generating marketing buzz for their ideas

The 2^nd CRM Incubation Week is being held at Microsoft Technology Center, Boston, MA from Mon 4/20/2009 to Fri 4/24/2009. This event consists of ½ day of training, 3 ½ days of active prototype/development time, and a final day for packaging/finishing and reporting out to a panel of judges for various prizes.

This event is a no-fee event (plan your own travel expenses) and each team can bring 3 participants (1 business and 1-2 technical). To nominate your team, please submit the following details to Sanjay Jain. Nominations will be judged according to the strength of the founding team, originality and creativity of the idea, and ability to leverage CRM as a Platform.

Follow the link to register your organization for consideration:

http://blogs.msdn.com/SanjayJain

Update Roll-up 3 for Dynamics CRM 4.0 released!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=05453fa4-9551-4a88-9852-634a9ad0e140&displaylang=en

Here in the midst of Convergence 2009 in The Big Easy our illustrious product team has yet again surpassed themselves with a third update roll-up - "a tested, cumulative set of updates for Microsoft Dynamics 4.0...packaged together for easy deployment."

So now you all have something to do over the weekend!

Update Roll-up #2 is now available

OK, OK It's been available for a couple weeks now.  Sheesh!  Everybody's a critic!

Here's the link...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=aa671769-61e9-45c4-919f-c88199aa4241&displaylang=en&tm

I have moved on…

It has been 3 and a half years since I started blogging here on MSDN. It has been a fun ride, and one that I will never forget. This blog went from last place to the Top 100 of all blogs on MSDN. (Second only to the CRM Team’s blog.) I did however, make some major mistakes early on. Key amongst them are the URL for the blog. In July of 2008, I changed jobs, got an AWESOME new manager and job. (As well as a new house, etc…) With that being said, I screwed up the branding early on. :) And now seems like an awesome time to fix that.

So I have changed blog providers. Instead of being here on MSDN, I have moved to www.businessnone.com for the blog.  http://feeds.feedburner.com/BusinessNone is the new address for the RSS feed. Please update your RSS readers and Favorites.

Chris Kahl who assumed my old role in the Mid Atlantic Area has graciously agreed to continue to maintain this blog. Please feel free to stop by and harass him.

So for those of you still asking questions, yes I am still employed by Microsoft and no I am not doing this right before I leave. (At least that I know of…) The website name Business None came from a friend of mine. When I was working at my last company before Microsoft, we sublet some office space from a development / infrastructure shop in Columbia, MD. They picked up SAP’s BusinessOne about 3 months into my renting an office. The consulting staff hated BusinessOne. They started calling it BusinessNone. And I saw the domain was available and grabbed it. It has been hosting graphics for this blog since it’s inception.

Look forward to seeing you on www.businessnone.com and please excuse the mess as I migrate stuff over there.

Scribe Advance Training Class

I am very tardy in publishing this. :) Last month I was invited by the fine folks over at Scribe Software to attend their Level 2 Scribe Insight Training program. I have been using Scribe since dirt was formed, but since joining Microsoft 4 years have not used to it for anything other than demo’s and the occasional piece of troubleshooting I get ramped into.

All I can say, is WOW. Scribe has made some HUGE improvements in the software in the past 4 years. If you haven’t looked at Scribe in a while, I would urge you to do so again. If you do use Scribe, this class is for you. It is all of the stuff not in the manual and a TON of tips and tricks on how to get the most out of Scribe.

The class is being offered all across the US, so I would sign up for it if you are interested. They keep them pretty small. Below the photo of the day is a brief description of the class. The next two coming up are at the end of the month in New York City and Boston.

(J.R.- Interdyn-CFO Consulting /Mark & Ben – IBIS / Glenn- LBMC /Guillermo – eParnters)

This course is designed for technical consultants who implement integrations using Scribe Insight. Through instructor lead discussion and hands-on labs, the students will learn the best practices for building one-way and two-way integrations. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is used as the use-case for hands-on labs and some course materials will center around specific integration methodologies with Dynamics CRM. Students completing this course will have a thorough understanding of the integration design patterns and features Scribe uses when building its own integration templates with Scribe Insight. This is a full two day course.

The course is designed for students that have completed Scribe’s certification training and familiarity with the Scribe Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics is highly recommended. Prior field experience implementing integrations with Scribe Insight will be helpful in understanding the concepts in this course.

Update Roll-up 1 is now available for Dynamics CRM 4.0

The headline says it all.  Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=57c6267b-3b13-49dd-bfed-3cc83633aea7&displaylang=en&tm

Make sure you back up your databases before applying the update!