East Region Microsoft CRM Blog : ISV News

Dynamics CRM to ERP integration news!

chris.kahl — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:28:31 GMT

If you’ve been a Dynamics CRM or GP partner for a while you have most likely heard of, and probably even used, Scribe Software’s Insight tool for data migration or integration. They’ve been the go-to solution for many long-time Dynamics partners and for good reason – they really know their stuff! And, in addition, they are now and have long been very committed to the Microsoft Dynamics market and partner community. So it should come as no surprise that they have made a further commitment in an effort to become your “one-stop-shop” for all flavors of Dynamics CRM to ERP integrations. They have recently partnered with Celenia Software to offer CRM integrations for AX and NAV as well as the GP integration they’ve offered for quite some time. Read more about it by following the links below:

http://www.scribesoft.com/PR023.asp

http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/accounting/peek-future-scribe-and-celenia-combine-product-offerings-seeking-integration-across

Mea Culpa, mea culpa…I’ve been a very bad blogger!

chris.kahl — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:55:26 GMT

There has been so much information coming out over the past couple of months it seemed like not a day went by that I didn’t say to myself, “I really ought to post something on that!” and yet with my travel schedule and sincere desire to try out this thing they call “work/life balance” and actually take a little summer vacation, I have yet to post much of anything. SO…fair warning – watch this space as I will be posting at a more brisk pace for the balance of August to try an catch all you East Region CRM fans up on what’s new for CRM customers and partners and who in the ISV community has been bringing the VALUE!! Stay tuned…!!

Scribe Advance Training Class

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:52:01 GMT

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.

CWR Mobility Mobile CRM Client

chris.kahl — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:47:00 GMT

CWR Mobility has long been the Dynamics CRM client of choice for running on a Windows Mobile device. Here's a link to their web site:

http://www.cwrmobility.com/

The following excerpt from their web site covers the major features of the mobile application:

As a smart client application for field sales and service people, CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM leverages the power of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0 system and the advanced connectivity of the Windows Mobile Platform.

CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM provides your field force with timely, convenient access to customer and corporate data while reducing the time they need to spend developing time-consuming reporting for management. Mobile CRM makes your sales and service teams more effective, and more efficient.

Built for Mobile Professionals

CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM is built specifically for mobile sales and service professionals’ providing them with an unrivaled user experience through an intuitive, graphical user interface based on the familiar Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0 look and feel.

CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM is a cost-effective solution that can be deployed in as little as 15 minutes providing wireless handheld users with immediate and instant access to accurate CRM data in the field – including all standard and custom entities from Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0.

CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM delivers:

Access to Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0 while out of the office – allowing for up-to-the-minute data changes (from the field and the office) and instant access to current data.
A user-friendly interface on the Windows Mobile devices for intuitive CRM data access and entry by the mobile professional. Both while the device is connected online to a wireless service provider and offline, such as in an airplane, or deep inside a customer’s warehouse

Using CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM, sales and service teams have instant access to important customer information when and where they need it.

By allowing your sales and service people to quickly and efficiently update their customer information on the fly, your organization gets transparent up-to-the-minute reporting, while your people have more time to do what they are supposed to do: Sell and Service!

Great solution for small and medium-sized enterprises

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s), CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM for Dynamics CRM 3.0 and 4.0 is the perfect solution. The working patterns of SME’s lends itself well to mobile technology as these companies tend to spend disproportionately more time outside of the office. The smaller the firm, the more jobs they combine with owner-managers being the most notorious multi-taskers.

Spending more time out of the office means that access to a range of key applications, including e-mail, CRM and other enterprise applications will make the SME professional more efficient and responsive, and help reduce working hours.

But Mobile CRM is not just for smaller organizations, it can also be deployed by very large organizations that also have a need to make their mobile workers more efficient and effective.

Ten Digits MobileAccess for Dynamics CRM

chris.kahl — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:16:17 GMT

Ten Digits and Microsoft announced an alliance right before the Worldwide Partner Conference to provide CRM Mobile clients for both Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices. Full press release below:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jul08/07-03MobileBlackberryPR.mspx

Here's the link to the Ten Digits site:

http://www.tendigits.com/

MobileAccess® for Dynamics CRM is the company's latest product line that consists of the MobileAccess Client for BlackBerry and MobileAccess Server for Dynamics CRM. These products enable organizations that have deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM to increase the productivity of their mobile users by allowing them to use CRM online or offline.

MobileAccess includes numerous technical and product features with patented technology deployed today in many global enterprises. These features can be summarized by the following unique attributes:

Proven User Experience. MobileAccess is designed exclusively for wireless users with hundreds of successful deployments worldwide.

Always-Available Wireless CRM. Work anywhere with instant access to your data online and offline with full CRM functionality regardless of your location.

Multi-tasking, Graphical User Interface. Navigate instantly between various records, lists, tasks and applications without losing track of a thing.

Tight Application Integration. Dial phone numbers, browse websites and compose emails directly from fields. Log emails and phone calls from your BlackBerry to account and contact history in CRM. Use Microsoft MapPoint, MSN/LIVE, and Yahoo! web services to find timely information relevant to your CRM records.

Secure and Reliable. Unlike other solutions, our smart-client technology guarantees data delivery and complete transaction integrity.

Rapid, Low-cost Implementation. Automatically inherits your unique CRM customizations – no programming required – speeding deployment time and control cost.

CRM 4.0 Mobile News

chris.kahl — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:43:00 GMT

As much as I depend on my laptop to get my work done, I think I value my Windows Mobile device even more. I can keep abreast of the most critical email and text messaging traffic and convert what would often be wasted time into productive time. I have all my contacts, appointments, to-do's and even a select group of Microsoft Office documents of various formats available in an always-on, easily portable device. Heck, it even makes phone calls!

I get calls and emails on a regular basis about how to extend CRM to mobile devices so instead of just publishing another list of links, I thought I'd try to go into a little more depth.

So next week I'm going to put out a series of posts about our most popular CRM 4.0 Mobile ISV offerings and wrap up with a how-to about the future of CRM Mobile Express .

Stay tuned!

Updating CRM data from Excel.

Ben Vollmer — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:54:54 GMT

One of the things my customers LOVE about CRM is the ability to dynamically link CRM to Excel Spreadsheets. The next question is normally if I can update CRM from Excel.

One of my local partners, Prosoft Systems Intl, wrote a cool application based in Excel enables bi-directional updating to CRM. The preview version is wired to the Opportunities entity only, but in the future I expect them to enable this for all Entities. Frank would love your feedback on the product and said he will be posting weekly updates until the product is finalized. Some of the cool things include the ability to work with the CRM data in Excel while not connected to a CRM server. They will also be announcing a partner program soon.

For more information: http://www.mscrmexcel.com/products.htm

You can download the preview at: http://www.mscrmexcel.com/downloads.htm

Customer Service Example - AWESOME Job by c360 and MSCRM-Addons.com

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:36:56 GMT

So often, all I ever hear about from Partners is horror stories about dealing with other partner. I never seem to hear about the good things that happen. This is a story about something VERY good a partner did for another partner and Microsoft.

I was recently on a customer call with a partner in North Carolina. While prepping for the demo, we looked at the Group Calendar Add-on to meet some of the requirements. It could meet some, but not all of their requirements. One of their largest requirements was to look at a calendar based upon a selected office. (And this was on Wednesday afternoon) (So I could see everybody in the Charlotte Office and figure out who should take this prospect visit.)

Arvind over at c360 coordinated with Christian from mscrm-addons.com and by Monday, we had a fully functioning piece of software that did EXACTLY what our client was looking for and they even updated all of the software and published a KB article on the functionality.

http://support.mscrm-addons.com/Default.aspx?kb=10626

My hat is off to c360 and mscrm-addons.com for pulling this off. This was by far the most responsive I have EVER seen an ISV be to incorporating changes into their software.

Dashboards for Microsoft CRM

Ben Vollmer — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:05:33 GMT

While I have seen some VERY nice Dashboards for Microsoft CRM, I thought that Scott over at BridgeBuilder did a killer job with these. Here is what he wrote to me about the cool dashboards.

Here are some of the dashboards that we've built into Microsoft CRM. The possibilities are endless and these are intended to be visual aids so that prospects can see how dashboards fit into CRM.

It's really cool to see them work in real-time and watch the data update. Also, these samples were built on the Adventure Works CRM data so it's easy to demo.

Scott is looking for partners to work with him and would love to help you in building out dashboards for you. While this not a full blown product, in talking with Scott, he may be heading that direction if he gets enough interest. Anybody interested?

You can see more samples here.

Scott can be reached at:

Scott Spanbauer

BridgeBuilder

Tel: (704) 766-2676

info@bridgebuilder.com

www.bridgebuilder.com

Happy Selling!!!

Inline Editable Grids

Ben Vollmer — Fri, 18 May 2007 16:50:32 GMT

If you have not checked out this blog yet, I would encourage you to. :-) The guys over at Ascendix are doing some pretty cool stuff around CRM and commercial real estate. They have also released some of their functionality as a more horizontal solution. Check out their blog for some pretty cool tips around coding for CRM and the highlights of their products.

Link to AdvantageWorks - Blog

Microsoft CRM Hosted for Microsoft Partners

Ben Vollmer — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:00:00 GMT

This is a pretty cool way to be able to use CRM very quickly and easily. PartnerPoint has designed a copy of CRM especially for Microsoft Partners and makes it available for a very reasonable amount. If you needs are bigger, I would recommend a dedicated solution, but if you only have a few staff members or just want to play a little, this is a great service. I am going to get a copy to do my demo’s from. J

PartnerPoint, an online community of Microsoft Partners, is now providing its members with a shared hosted version of Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional.

The goal is to provide partners with an easy and cost effective way to begin to user Microsoft CRM either to manage their sales and customer service efforts internally, or to learn more about CRM so that they can assist their customers with their CRM needs.

Cost is only $55/month/user with as little as one user, and there is a Free 30 day trial period.

You can read more about it here. http://partnerpoint.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1089

ISV for Microsoft CRM 3: Eloqua - Advanced Marketing

Ben Vollmer — Fri, 19 May 2006 14:00:00 GMT

I saw this solution at Convergence, but have been really slow in posting this. This solution is way cool. If you want a marketing automation solution to add to Microsoft CRM’s existing marketing automation solution. While CRM’s marketing module may meet the needs of clients, for those clients that want WAY more than what we ship with CRM. For those clients, this solution is worth your time looking at.

Eloqua, a Microsoft Certified Gold partner, provides an integrated, hosted, all-in-one demand generation platform that automatically and routinely nurtures leads and feeds qualified ones into the CRM system for immediate sales follow up.

With Eloqua, marketers get more visibility into the results of their marketing campaigns by linking together web, email, search keyword and other key campaign components into one powerful analytics platform. And, Eloqua provides a single interface from within Dynamics for your sales reps to access their Eloqua tools including mass email capability, complete activity history (including web site visits) and marketing program automation.

You can see more about their solution at http://www.eloqua.com/microsoft/index.asp They are also looking for select partners, so if you are interested in being a partner, I would contact Michael Sitverv there for more information on their partner program as well.

Getting Answers to your Microsoft Partner questions

Ben Vollmer — Fri, 12 May 2006 14:00:00 GMT

So you have questions about your partner program information, your access to PartnerSource, getting a copy of something like a End User License Agreement, etc… (Non technical and partner related questions. Use the Telephone Partner Technology Specialists for your pre-sales questions.)

The Dynamics Partner Resource desk (PRD) will provide you with a single place to go to get your questions answered. If the PRD staff cannot answer your question, they will redirect it and will track it until you’ve received an appropriate answer.

The PRD is mandated to answer marketing, sales, training and programmatic questions. It will redirect you to our technical resources for technical questions and to the appropriate organization for licensing questions. Of course, if you already know where to go for your issue resolution, you should continue to go there.

By focusing on operations and support questions, the PRD will help you get answers much more rapidly and will ensure that you do get an appropriate response.

This resource does not replace your current Account Manager if you are managed locally, but does supplement and should provide you with faster and more focused support. Here is how to reach the Partner Resource Desk:

mbsprtnr@microsoft.com

Call 1-800-426-9400 (Open from 6 am to 6 pm PST)

Press 1 ("if you know your party's extension")

Press 81792

Event: Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Genesys - Upcoming Health Care Webinar - May 16th

Ben Vollmer — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Industry trend: technology and shifting customer expectations are changing the way healthcare consumer service centers operate

Technology and changing consumer expectations are transitioning the way healthcare service providers such as managed care organizations, hospitals, healthcare insurance companies and some hybrid organizations are operating on a day-to-day basis. In this Webinar join experts from Forrester, Microsoft® and Genesys to learn about technologies and methods that can improve operational efficiency and enable the adaptation of customer service approaches while maintaining cost management processes and achieving target margins. Additionally, you will find out about new tools and techniques that are readily available to help you get ahead of the game, improve agent productivity, implement an effective multi-channel customer service strategy and ”ultimately” build profitable and loyal relationships.

Analyst Brad Holmes from Forrester Research will discuss how health plan providers can easily apply technology to increase the loyalty of individual consumers. New technologies are available to help hospitals and healthcare insurance providers improve operational efficiencies and boost customer service. Brad will discuss strategies and simplifying technologies that are enabling health plans to:

Improve agent productivity and capacity for more complex service interactions

Get more out of existing customer service investments by integrating numerous channel alternatives into a trusted advisor platform

Proactively manage channel experience, efficiency, consistency and redirection not just call center effectiveness and efficiency

Maximize core concepts of integration, effectiveness and flexibility

Improve patient-facing operations and enhance patient service

In addition, Dennis Schmuland from Microsoft Corporation and Joseph Heinan of Genesys will talk about how this evolution of technology-based, consumer-centered models has healthcare service providers including managed care organizations, hospitals, healthcare coverage companies and some hybrid organizations, looking for new tools and techniques:

Improve operational efficiencies
Enable the adaptation of customer service approaches
Maintain cost management processes
Achieve target margins.

Event Details

Title:
Transformation Trends for Consumer Services in Healthcare Today

Speakers:
Bradford J. Holmes
Vice President, Research Director
Forrester

Dennis Schmuland, MD FAAFP
Director, U.S. Healthcare & Life Sciences
Health Plan Industry Management
Microsoft Corporation

Joseph Heinen
Vice President Marketing
Genesys

Date:
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Time:
11:00 AM Pacific
2:00 PM Eastern

Duration:
1 Hour

Register

Offering Microsoft CRM Hosted to your customers

Ben Vollmer — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:01:00 GMT

So one of the biggest advantages Microsoft CRM has is the ability to be able to be on-premise or hosted. (See Charlie Wood’s great article he has on the SaaS vs on premise with Microsoft CRM.) The on-premise product has been available for some time, so we aren’t going to focus on them right now. For the hosted, most of the partners I talk to still aren’t sure how to approach the opportunity. What I mean by that, is hosted another competitor that they have to worry about? The quick answer is no. Nor does it mean that you have to go out, become a data center and host Microsoft CRM yourself. (Which you can do.)

One of our hosting partners has seen the value in hosting Microsoft CRM, but does not nor will become a Microsoft CRM consulting company. This gives you the ability to be able to do some consulting around Microsoft CRM and not care if the software is installed locally or available as Software as a Service. (SaaS) They also pay a decent referral commission that gives you a monthly recurring revenue that overtime will overtake the CSA fees we pay to you for on premise software.

If you are interested, contact Lance at www.StreamSol.com They are also interested in hearing from our ISV partners that would like to offer their product in a Software as a Service model.

Lance actually also publishes a nice demo site where you can play with Microsoft CRM and OPENLY publishes his price list for CRM. Contact him today to see how you can partner to offer Microsoft CRM hosted to your clients and prospects.

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