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March 2006 - Posts

Friday, March 31, 2006 10:15 PM

Microsoft CRM 3 Mobile Ships!!!

We are pleased to announce the on schedule RTM of CRM Mobile 3.0 (US-English) . This release of CRM Mobile embodies the extraordinary hard work and dedication of a focused team. CRM Mobile 3.0 will be available as a web download early next week and will
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 9 Comments
Friday, March 31, 2006 8:55 AM

Accounting Today: Top 100 VAR list

So I haven't been posting in a while... Sorry about that. Convergence was a complete blast. I managed to come home to several hundred emails in the inbox. So three days later, I am still with over 100 to go... When I finish plowing through them, posts
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 2:21 PM

Bill Gates on Microsoft Software being offered On Premise or Hosted

"... Everything Microsoft does, over time, will be available either running as a server or you can run it on-premise or it can be hosted.... Salesforce.com in a sense has gone with a very expensive sales approach, along with hosting. Most people who do
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Friday, March 24, 2006 5:15 PM

Database Diagrams for CRM 3

Announcing the release of the database diagrams for Microsoft CRM 3.0. These Microsoft Office Visio diagrams show the logical database structure for Microsoft CRM 3.0. These diagrams were generated using sample code included in the Microsoft CRM SDK.
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 1 Comments
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Friday, March 24, 2006 11:10 AM

ISV Support for Microsoft CRM 3: KnowledgeSync by Vineyard Software

I have been using this tool for a bunch of years. (Since back in the GoldMine days.) This tool is great if you have workflow that you want to go between multiple systems, you want to do something that Microsoft CRM's workflow engine doesn't natively support
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 8 Comments
Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:00 PM

Tips to Speed Up Virtual PC for Microsoft CRM

Virtual PC’s can be the best way to demo Microsoft CRM as it allows you demo CRM with out using Terminal Services, a Web Connection or anything but laptop and the image. I get complaints from sales people and sales executives on the performance of VPC
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 28 Comments
Wednesday, March 22, 2006 10:05 AM

Things to Bring to Convergence....

If you or anybody from your team is headed to Convergence, make sure they pack a spare hard drive with at least 10 GB of Hard Drive Space. (External Hard Drives Only) If you are lucky, you may run across one of us who has a late Beta of the new VPC we
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 2 Comments
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:10 PM

Local Event: Best Practices for Building the Most Profitable Solution Provider Business

I saw a brief portion of this at the managed partner meeting in Vienna... This class is going to rock... HURRY... It will fill up quickly!!! Implementing technology solutions is just one part of running a successful solution provider business - and this
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Monday, March 20, 2006 7:35 AM

Microsoft CRM Monthly Value of Opportunity vs. Estimated Value of Opportunity

So lets say you have a client in the professional services, government contracting or fundraising organizations. One of the normal requirements for those organizations would be both the “Total” contract value as well as the “monthly” contract value. (So
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Attachment(s): MonthlyContractValue.zip
Sunday, March 19, 2006 7:36 PM

Running on Empty....

I am physically and mentally shot. (For those of you know me that to get mentally shot for me isn't all that hard... Simple math will do it some days.) So I am looking for ideas... You have a topic you want covered? A script you would like to share? An
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
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Friday, March 17, 2006 7:00 AM

Some Links and Light Reading for the Weekend - OnDemand CRM, Microsoft CRM Case Studies, Industry Article, etc...

So expect next weeks posts to be quite a bit slower. We have convergence coming up, so I have been busy trying to wrap up stuff here in DC before heading to Dallas . So to hold you over, how about some links to a little light reading. The Truth About
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:00 AM

Demo Tip: Showing Off Microsoft CRM's Security Model With Out Logging Out

So did you ever want to show a prospect how Microsoft CRM handles security? When I used to do this, I would log off and log back in as another user, which tends to disrupt the flow of my demo. So how do you handle it? It is actually pretty easy to do.
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 4 Comments
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Wednesday, March 15, 2006 7:00 AM

Demo Tip: Cleaning your desktop

So how often have you done a presentation and your desktop has dozens and dozens of documents, shortcuts, etc… My desktop looks like a train wreck hit it on most given days. I use my desktop as a dumping ground for things I should work with or look at.
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 6 Comments
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Tuesday, March 14, 2006 7:00 AM

ISV Support for Microsoft CRM 3: Group1 Data Quality Adapter

First Off, this is an ISV you should propose with EVERY CRM Deal you sell. Period. No Exceptions, no excuses. Quote this with EVERY Deal. This is much more than just duplicate detection. Incorrect or duplicate address records can bring even the most well
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 2 Comments
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Monday, March 13, 2006 10:50 AM

Local Partner Event: Partner Opportunities with the Shared Computer Toolkit

Do you have an academic customer? Perhaps you have a customer that has public kiosk workstations. Or are you tired of spending the first 30 minutes of a customer visit addressing the same configuration issues on the receptionist’s computer? Microsoft’s
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
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Monday, March 13, 2006 7:00 AM

Custom Field Prefix – How do I change?

Ok.. So those of you who know me or have meet me, know I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. And this post will prove it. I was on the phone the other day with Jan working on the new VPC for partners. Arash has been in there earlier in the day and when
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 8 Comments
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Friday, March 10, 2006 4:06 PM

Microsoft CRM SharePoint List View

The Microsoft CRM team has just released the List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. The List Web Part provides Windows SharePoint Services v2 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 users with the ability to embed Microsoft CRM data
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 5 Comments
Friday, March 10, 2006 7:00 AM

About the Mid Atlantic Microsoft CRM Blog / About Me...

So I have been an Entrepreneur as long as I can remember. My first business was started at the ripe old age of 12. My second one was started at the age of 17. The first business book I ever read was “The E-Myth” In this book, the author basically compares
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 2 Comments
Thursday, March 09, 2006 7:00 AM

Who are you?

So the blog has been up for about three months. (Since November) Traffic has WAY exceeded my expectations. Tommorow I was planning on sharing why the blog was created and a little about my thoughts on it... :-) But before that happens, I would love it
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 1 Comments
Wednesday, March 08, 2006 7:00 AM

Changing Port Numbers in Microsoft CRM

No I am not writing about the Dubai buying a bunch of US Ports … But let’s just say you installed CRM without REALLY reading all of the install screens. And then after the fact you wanted to run http://crm instead of http://crm:5555 So how do you do this?
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 8 Comments
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Attachment(s): CRMinReg.JPG
Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:00 AM

How to send emails automatically from a Campaign

Dana from the support group wrote a killer Knowledge Base Article that was just published. When you distribute e-mail activities for a campaign by using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the e-mail activities are not sent to the recipients automatically. You must
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 4 Comments
Monday, March 06, 2006 8:00 AM

Want information on the Microsoft CRM / Dynamics GP Connector?

Yeah, me too.. Menohar, one of the Program Managers on the Connector started a blog. Check it out here: http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoftcrmconnectors/default.aspx He has some great data on the integration points... Nice job Menohar!!!
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
Monday, March 06, 2006 7:00 AM

How Sales Teams Should Use CRM

Tom Pertzborn sent this article out to the team... Great read... I love the end of it, where it lists sales tools from CRM used by each job role. Read the whole article here. Sales Tools by Job Role CEO · Sales Forecast Accuracy · Forward Looking Visibility
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
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Friday, March 03, 2006 7:30 AM

I have been slacking... Some links... Using the Microsoft CRM SDK Offline and the RSS Connector

So I have been slacking in posting links to interesting blog posts... Two of the most interesting I have read in a while are on Michaeljon's Blog. One is a questions that gets asked like once a week that until today there was no good answer for and one
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
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Friday, March 03, 2006 7:00 AM

Local Training: Assessment Training Classes

This isn't focused on CRM, but are a great way how to learn to do assessments for customers around their needs. Think of this as how to do in-depth discovery around some subjects. Being headed by our local Superman of Servers, NS Rana. Learn about conducting
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 1 Comments
Thursday, March 02, 2006 6:40 PM

Local Event: Connected Customer Training

These events are AWESOME. Lisa did a cool job on these sessions.. The PowerPoint she includes is well worth the price of admission. (Which is free) It comes complete with everything, including her corny jokes. <BG> This is PARTNER Training.... Microsoft
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 0 Comments
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Thursday, March 02, 2006 7:00 AM

ISV Support for Microsoft CRM 3: TenDigits - Blackberry Solution for Microsoft CRM

So as many of you know, I think Mobile CRM is going to be huge over the next year or two. A month or two ago, I wrote about some ways to access Microsoft CRM from Mobile Devices including Pocket PC, Palm and Blackberry. So the BlackBerry is still the
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, March 01, 2006 7:00 AM

Bulk Edit in Microsoft CRM 3

Matt has a great post on how to edit multiple records in Microsoft CRM at the same time. This was a trick I was not aware of. Very Slick.... Check it out at: http://icu-mscrm.blogspot.com/2006/02/nice-bulk-edit-feature-in-crm-30.html I could see this
Posted by Ben Vollmer | 1 Comments
 
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