East Region Microsoft CRM Blog : CRM Launch

Demo Tips: Patch Tuesday!

Ben Vollmer — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:27:54 GMT

So this should be a Demo 101 tip. If you are running your demos in a virtual environment like I do, make sure that your host machine gets all of it's patches BEFORE you launch your virtual machine in full screen. (What is Patch Tuesday?)

Last week for the CRM Launch in Reston, which was held on a Wednesday, my Laptop grabbed a Wireless network and during my demo it downloaded all of the Windows Vista hot fixes to the host machine while I was running in full screen.

Which meant that about 3/4 the way through my demo, the host machine rebooted. (Because all of the patches downloaded and applied themselves in the background.)

Thankfully Andrew was in the back of the room with a fully functioning CRM Online Demo Machine prepped ready to give demos after the session was over. Upon asking him nicely, he brought the machine to the front of the room and the demo continued.

To me that shows that A.) I should turn off WiFi before my demos and B.) We have a KILLER platform. Why? It it allowed me to seamlessly jump from On Premise to Hosted within minutes.

But from now on, I will be pay very close attention to what day of the week my demo is on and the current status of my machine's updates. :-)

CRM 4.0 - Where do I get those License Keys again?

chris.kahl — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:59:00 GMT

We have so many great people on the CRM team around the world that I spend a fair amount of time reading their blogs to keep up with all the little issues, details and factoids that affect CRM partners and customers. One recent issue that has been making the rounds is surrounding where to get your license keys. Fortunately, Simon Hutson from the UK has recently published a concise and thorough rundown of where to get keys for just about any scenario. Thanks, Simon!

http://blogs.msdn.com/ukcrm/archive/2008/01/14/where-is-your-crm-4-0-license-key.aspx

East Region Launch Tour “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, Featuring SharePoint”

Ben Vollmer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:52:41 GMT

www.dynamicscrmlaunch.com is the official page for the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Launch here in the US. Allison Dawson from the East Region Marketing team has done a killer thing for you as a partner. She has managed to get an additional 12 Launch cities for the East Region. Umang, Susan, Chris and I will be the presenters at these events.

What does this mean to you as a partner? You now have a number of additional cites you can drive customers to. And doing so is VERY easy!

East Region Launch Tour “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, Featuring SharePoint”

All CRM partners can drive demand to this 2 hour event
Partner Organization must have minimum of three confirmed registrants in MPE to attend (no poaching!)
Badge of attendees will read “<<Customer Name>>, guest of <<Partner Organization>>”
Events will be promoted on National Event Map
Sponsorships limited to ISVs

Customizable invitations located here

The Dates Are:

3/5 Birmingham

3/5 Rochester

4/16 Edison

3/19 Baltimore

3/19 Ft. Lauderdale

3/19 Hartford

3/19 Richmond

3/20 Wilmington

4/1 Albany

4/1 Harrisburg

4/3 Pittsburgh

4/3 Uniondale

To get your own events, follow the following steps:

Login to www.microsoftpartnerevents.com
Choose “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Launch, Featuring SharePoint” from Left Navigation Bar
Choose the event(s) near you to which you wish to drive demand
Add your logo and custom introduction and click “Accept” to create your own click to attend site

Greetings from TechReady6!

chris.kahl — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:04:00 GMT

Hello everybody. Welcome to my inagural blog post. So I will readily admit that I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing. Please be generous with your praise and constructive with your criticism as I attempt to fill the ginormous shoes of Mr. Ben Vollmer on this blog. I know it won't be easy but I promise to do my best.

I had the priviledge and pleasure this past week of attending TechReady6, Microsoft's twice-a-year geek-fest here in sunny Seattle. As a relative newby to Microsoft, it has been great to witness the level of technical expertise and forward thinking evidenced by the various speakers and product team members I have seen present here There is so much cool stuff coming down the pike it is almost scary. That said, one of the biggest areas of interest has been around Business Intelligence topics and tools; Performance Point, SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint are all converging into a pretty formidable BI framework. "So...", you're asking, "...what the heck does this have to do with CRM, Chris? " Great question! The real pay-off to a successful CRM implementation is the deep level of customer interaction data that can be captured and analyzed. With some of the tools I've seen here at TechReady, I am looking forward to showing customers the kind of insights and true business intelligence they can mine from CRM using tools they are already familiar with like Excel and SQL Reporting Services.

And it's not just me saying this stuff. Take a look at the blog linked below to read what our friends at Gartner are saying about Microsoft BI.

http://blogs.msdn.com/bi/archive/2008/02/06/microsoft-bi-actually-leading-in-the-gartner-bi-magic-quadrant.aspx

I look forward to getting to know all the regular readers of this blog that Ben has done such a great job of building into a world-class Dynamics CRM resource. Please feel free to add your comments and suggestions to help me maintain the high standards Ben has set.

Sharing the Blog....

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:45:49 GMT

As many of you may know, I got a new job on July 1st 2007 as is the annual Microsoft tradition. In early September, we hired a fine resource from one of our local partners. As a result, Chris Kahl joined our team.

He resides in the vast metropolis of Berlin, MD, which is about 10 minutes from my wife's favorite place to visit. (The Ocean City Boardwalk...)

Downtown Berlin

As such, he has taken over at the Partner Technology Specialist for the Mid Atlantic Area. Which means he now covers partners and deals in PA, MD, VA, WV and some parts of DE and NJ.

Chris has been doing CRM for about 10 years including a stint with Siebel. (Which he is truly sorry for and has repented.) He loves spending time with his family and drives a beat up old Saab...

Look for Chris at events in the Mid Atlantic Area and if you have not yet been introduced, he will be posting here shortly with a short bio and start taking over some of the day to day operations of the blog.

My personal blogging and other nonsense that has posted here will be posted to my personal blog, which should be up later this week.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 RTM VPC Now Available

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

I swear I have fielded about a dozen questions about this in email in the past couple of days. :-) Well, the good news that the VPC is now available. This VPC is set to expire in April 2009.

The partner tat built this also worked on some Demo Tools. Here is a quick list of the tools... I will post more in a day or two...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Demonstration Tools

These tools provide a simple user interface that allows you to easily enter, edit and re-use data to populate or modify your instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The tools download includes utilities to:

· Generate Data

· Change the Dates and/or Times for Data

· Create Dependent Picklists

· Generate E-Mail

· Set Icons for Entities

· Change the CRM Navigation Pane

· Replace Strings in CRM

Virtual Machine

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dd939ed9-87a5-4c13-b212-a922cc02b469&DisplayLang=en

Demonstration Tools

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=634508dc-1762-40d6-b745-b3bde05d7012&DisplayLang=en

Sample Data

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d5f77ee7-3d01-4944-b5dc-c8cdc8123df4&DisplayLang=en

Slide Decks, Data Sheets and more for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Ben Vollmer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:50:00 GMT

UPDATED The team is working on getting this data available on both PartnerSource and the Microsoft Partner Portal. Until they are up, here are some of the files. This includes the Sales, Marketing, Service and Overview decks. The data sheets will be up this afternoon as well.

Update-

Decks are indeed posted to PartnerSource... So here is the link to the official versions. :-) Enjoy!

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/sales/marketing/presentationdecks/md_crm_bdmdecks.htm?printpage=false

Data sheets... Well that is another blog post.... :-)

Follow-up from Multi Currency, Multilingual and Multi Tenancy LiveMeeting

Ben Vollmer — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:28:00 GMT

We had an awesome turn out today. As promised, here is the slide deck from the LiveMeeting. You can view the LiveMeeting by registering here for it. It will email you a recording of the LiveMeeting. Enjoy!

Postings....

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:19:50 GMT

I just noticed I really haven't posted much in a month or two and then in one day four or five posts popped up. :-) Sorry about that. I have been super busy with getting stuff done and the blog was sorta kicked to the bottom of the to do list. Duly noted. Blog will be updated much more frequently. (And I didn't just want to cut and paste product announcements from the Product Team like some people....)

On my to do list is updating many of my code samples from 3.0 to 4.0 that used "unsupported" customizations. That will probably happen later next month.

In the mean time, in the East Region we are in full swing planning for the CRM 4.0 Launch events. Look for more details here next week as we have some East Region only events you will LOVE to participate in.

LiveMeeting for Partners: Multi Multi Multi

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:10:57 GMT

I am doing a Live Meeting for partners on Wednesday. Come on and join in if you really are that bored. :-) The good news is that it is recorded and you can watch it to cure your insomnia. :-) Some of the features of 4.0 we have been talking about for about a year or so have been Multi Currency, Multi Language and Multi Tenancy. There is a whole series coming up covering a wide range of 4.0 "stuff" I am sure you will enjoy! Look forwarding to speaking with you on Wednesday!

Microsoft Partner Readiness Link for Live Meeting

The Microsoft CRM 4.0 E-mail Router with POP3

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:48:44 GMT

The email router is all new in 4.0. And some of the options rock. I like being able to expand out the email router to either the server or the client. And Michael Lu, a program manager on the dev team shows us how to setup Microsoft CRM 4.0 with a POP3 GMail Account. This is a pretty cool video. And subscribing to Mike's Blog is always fun. His travel stories rock!

Michael Lu » Adventures of a Vagabond » » Blog Archive » The CRM 4.0 E-mail Router with POP3

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:45:50 GMT

Check out the first post on the Dynamics CRM Live Team Blog. It is from a past and present co-worker of mine Eric Boocock. Eric is one of the TS's for CRM Live. I would subscribe to their feed to get the latest and greatest around CRM Live.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - Citrix Ready

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:44:33 GMT

I know of several partners who have been emailing me on a weekly basis to ask about this. :-) Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is compatible with Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 (32 & 64 bit). This should help out a partner or two in deploying CRM. You can read more about it at: http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/citrixready/product.asp?contentID=1297093#top

My Hat is off to the team in the dev organization who made this possible.

Early Access: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client Posted

Ben Vollmer — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:09:56 GMT

I get a weekly email from the Download Team listing all of the new products available for download. In this weeks newsletter, the Outlook Client for EA 2 Clients was posted. So if you have access to Early Access of CRM Live, it is now available. :-)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live Early Access II for Microsoft Office Outlook

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live EAII for Outlook enables access to the same data through Outlook as through Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live.

You can get these newsletters as well. Subscription Center and select the Download Notification Notifications. Well worth your time. I also find some nice little hotfixes, etc that get posted there. :-)

Enjoy!

CRM 4.0 Download Bits

Ben Vollmer — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:16:02 GMT

As Philip Reports, the 4.0 bits are now available for download. :-) Enjoy!

Documentation:

Server:

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Server (trial keys are on this page)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 E-mail Router (On-Premise and Hosted Editions)

Client: