Microsoft Dynamics CRM - The Danish blog : tech

Better Together: Microsoft CRM and SharePoint

martinhj@microsoft.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:48:00 GMT

Whatch this live Webinar to learn about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint Better together.

What
Organizations around the globe are empowering employees, lowering costs and streamlining processes by using Microsoft CRM, Microsoft SharePoint - or both. This compelling session will demonstrate the accelerated success that businesses are beginning to experience when combining the strengths of these two tools.

Why
Attendees will learn how Microsoft CRM and SharePoint deliver a flexible platform of development tools that can be used to meet 90% of the requirements for virtually any IT project - significantly reducing the costs to develop and maintain custom applications. In addition, you will learn how the search, document management, business intelligence and Web 2.0 capabilities of SharePoint can combine with the activity management, customer tracking, marketing campaign and workflow capabilities of CRM to enhance employee, vendor, distributor, partner and supplier relationships.

When
Today - Thursday, June 18th, 10:15 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. EST

Sign me up!
Visit www.successaccelerators.com to register now.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Announcement: Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK Update V4.0.9

martinhj@microsoft.com — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:13:00 GMT

Announcing the new update to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 SDK. You can download it here or go to it live on MSDN here.

What’s new in this release? Some highlights:

Dependent Picklist Sample - This sample shows how to make the options available in a picklist field dependent on the selected option of another picklist. It supports chaining several picklist fields together. This sample also includes best practices for defining functions in the OnLoad event and reusing them in other form events.
Delete Async Records Sample - This sample shows how to remove completed records from the async table.
KB Article Topics - added topics that describe knowledge base article states, how to create, publish and remove the articles, and how to search for published knowledge base articles in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Visual Studio Templates
Updated Visual Studio projects to work for both VS 2005 and VS2008.
Updated support information for plug-in and workflow assembly backwards compatibility.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

50.000 Concurrent Users on Microsoft Dynamics CRM - New Great Enterprise Benchmark!

martinhj@microsoft.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:59:00 GMT

We are excited to share with you the results of a new performance and scalability benchmark for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In working with our partner, Intel, engineers from our two teams were able to greatly expand our enterprise benchmark – more than doubling previous benchmarks and achieve scale of 50,000 concurrent users. In addition, the architecture employed during this test cost less than $35K – or less than $0.70 per user, and incorporated new energy-efficient processors that generate up to 30% less power within an IT or datacenter environment.

By comparison, an October 2008 performance test for Oracle Siebel Release 8.0 scaled to 14,000 users and 1.6 million daily transactions leveraging Sun hardware that cost more than $150,000. Compared to this benchmark, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM scalability test drove 3.5 times more users and almost 2 times more transactions – while reducing hardware costs nearly 80 percent.

New standards
This benchmark sets new CRM industry standards in Number of Users and the Cost-Per-User for large-scale deployments. The results also reinforce Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a smart, cost-effective solution for the largest enterprises.

You can read the full press release on the blog here or at Microsoft PressPass here.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Press Release: Microsoft and Intel Demonstrate New Levels of Power, Price and Performance With CRM Scalability Benchmark

martinhj@microsoft.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:54:00 GMT

Enterprise-class scalability with reduced costs and environmental impact for on-premise and on-demand Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployments.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 3, 2009 — Microsoft and Intel Corporation announced performance results today for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that set new enterprise standards for scalability, cost and environmental sustainability. Through a combination of enterprise-class software and the latest Intel^® Xeon^® processor 5500 series, which can reduce server power consumption by up to 30 percent, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 scaled to more than 50,000 concurrent users over a high-volume workload — while experiencing subsecond response times.

“Our business strategy is to make CRM technology that is simple, flexible and affordable for companies of all sizes,” said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “In this benchmark, we’ve proved that Microsoft Dynamics CRM can handle extreme workloads with minimal investment in hardware and a reduced impact to the environment. We’re once again redefining the price-to-value equation in the CRM market, across all deployment models.”

By comparison, an October 2008 performance test for Oracle Siebel Release 8.0[i] scaled to 14,000 users and 1.6 million daily transactions leveraging Sun hardware that cost more than $150,000[ii]. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM benchmark scaled to more than 50,000 users and more than 2.9 million daily transactions — all from hardware that costs less than $35,000[iii], or $0.70 per user. In this comparison, Microsoft Dynamics CRM drove three and a half times more users and almost two times more transactions — while reducing hardware costs nearly 80 percent.

“Intel and Microsoft engineers worked together to optimize Microsoft Dynamics CRM for new Intel^® Xeon^® processor 5500 series-based servers with intelligent server technology capabilities and Intel Solid State Drives (SSDs),” said Boyd Davis, general manager, Intel Server Platforms Group. “This collaboration led to exceptional economic scalability and responsiveness results, which can enable companies of all sizes to deploy enterprise-class business solutions at a fraction of what these kinds of solutions have traditionally cost.”

Detailed performance tests and production runs were completed on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Windows SQL Server 2008 for 50,000 concurrent users, 5,000 concurrent users, 2,500 concurrent users, and 1,000 concurrent users. For scenarios with casual users or lower transaction rates per user, higher number of users can be accommodated. An executive summary of the performance and scalability benchmark is available by clicking here, and other white papers that outline the results of each test will be published in the coming weeks at http://crm.dynamics.com.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of adaptable, easy-to-use ERP and CRM applications that enable business decision-makers to run their business efficiently and drive business success. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

[i] Performance and Scalability Benchmark: Siebel CRM Release 8.0, Industry Applications and Oracle 10g R2DB on Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server running the Solaris 10 OS, Oracle Corp., October 2008

[ii] Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server Pricing Estimate as of May 28, 2009, Sun Microsystems, http://shop.sun.com

[iii] Microsoft Dynamics CRM benchmark hardware was priced using http://www.newegg.com on the configuration listed in the executive summary of the performance and scalability benchmark, available here.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Partner support (for Denmark)

martinhj@microsoft.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:52:00 GMT

This blog post is for the Danish partners only - or more precisely, the content that it is referring to, is.

Her på bloggen har vi nu samlet kontaktoplysninger fra bl.a. GPSD for dig som partner. Du finder dem på deres helt egen side via linket her og med link nede til højre.

Så har du altid bl.a. email-adresser og telefonnumre lige ved hånden.

Vi ønsker dig fortsat god dag og god fornøjelse med CRM :-)

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Update Rollup 4 is available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

martinhj@microsoft.com — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:37:00 GMT

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 4 has been released and is now available via the download center.

Microsoft Download Center page

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article (KB968176)

The build number of this update rollup package is 4.00.7333.1551.

Update Rollup 5 (UR5) will release on July 2nd.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the Lead - according to Gartner

martinhj@microsoft.com — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM accelerates for Sales, Marketing and Service Management processes, we all know that. Now, with CCF – Customer Care Framework, Gartner acknowledges this by placing Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the "Leader" quadrant on the April 2009 released Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Service Contact Centers.

Gartner says this:

The addition of the Microsoft CCF is a boost to Microsoft Dynamics CRM's capabilities.
The user interface is intuitive and appeals to broad audiences familiar with the look-and-feel of Microsoft's applications.
Microsoft is investing in knowledge solutions, Web self-service, business process capabilities and industry versions, adding to its basic customer service functionality.
The concept of xRM, where the customer is given the tools to create its own brand of CRM solution, is useful to reach a broad audience

Valuable resources
Information on Microsoft.com
The Gartner report
CCF Deployment Guide
CCF Development Guide
Download CCF 2009 including SP1 go to 'Servers' and then 'CCF2009'.

Learn more from your Partner-newsletter in Insights and on PartnerSource.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Announcement: The Agent Communications Panel for CRM - CRM + OCS + ACP = WOW!

martinhj@microsoft.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Now you will learn why I in March blogged about UC and OCS. The reason is - besides that UC is great and enables business development and improvement within communication processes - that we have made and now released the glue that binds CRM and OCS together to empower yet another big step for all companies.

The glue is called Agent Communications Panel - ACP. It offers a lot of improvement possibilities including:

make the employees CRM desktop aware of customer in focus and the history, ongoing orders, projects etc. – directly and automatic access all CRM knowledge
by looking up the customer in CRM on incoming phone call the employee will have displayed customer data and saves valuable time plus is fueled with extra valuable knowledge
more effective internal communication on customers, customer cases, projects, pipeline, ongoing tasks and other relation processes
exchange 'customer' above with the contact points in your line of business and repeat all, for instance vendors, patients etc. - xRM!

Example of how ACP looks for the customer care worker.

What is the Agent Communications Panel (ACP)?
ACP is an application add-in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 by the Office Communication Services (OCS) team. It combines Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

What does it do?
It enables contact center and call center agents to manage their communications (make calls, receive calls, conference, and chat) from within their Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.

Technical info
The Agent Communications Panel is an XAML browser application (XBAP). It is published to a Web server and opened from a Web browser.
ACP is released in English and there are no plans to release the ACP in any other languages.
The OCS team has released the technical documentation on the download site.

Get & use
The ACP is a free download and is supported by the OCS team.
To get it and learn more go to the Microsoft download center here.
To read more about UC go here.
To read more about OCS read my blog posts from March 2009.
To read more about CRM go here.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Microsoft Dynamics NAV - a CRMUG Roundtable session

martinhj@microsoft.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:55:00 GMT

Are you using Dynamics NAV along with Dynamics CRM? Then join this roundtable, hosted by NAVUG, to share & listen as other companies discuss their interest as well as experience around Integrating Microsoft CRM with NAV.

The Roundtable will explore the following topics:

What value does integrating CRM & NAV add to my organization?
What are the technical aspects of the integration?
How does Microsoft Sharepoint fit in?
Who has performed the integration & what can they share with me?

Logistics
Date & time: 28th of April 2009 20.30 - 21.30 Danish Timezone and 18.30 - 19.30 Icelandic Timezone.
The session will be hosted via Live Meeting.
For more information on this session and to register go here.
For more information about the "Dynamics CRM User Group" go here.

Thanks to the Dynamics CRM User Group for this initiative.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Announcement: The New Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Virtual PC Image Released (April 2009)

martinhj@microsoft.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:14:00 GMT

We are happy to announce that the brand new CRM 4.0 VPC now is available for download!

Among the content you will find:

The Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 List Web Part
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 and PerformancePoint Server Excel Add-In
and much more cool stuff! :-)

The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image will run until August 12th, 2010.

Together with the VPC you will also find demonstration scripts for assistance and inspiration with your demos.

Link to PartnerSource for download

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Business Productivity released!

martinhj@microsoft.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:09:00 GMT

The next accelerator has been released and renamed:

The Newsfeed Business Productivity Accelerator turns Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 into the hub of business activity, letting users keep up to date on events happening across the organization. The Newsfeed Business Productivity Accelerator drives user adoption by presenting CRM data to users in a way that is appealing and interactive, drawing them into the application and encouraging use.

What is it?
The Newsfeed Business Productivity Accelerator is a single report - a Dashboard - that can be used as-is after it has been uploaded to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The newsfeed is largely made up of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activities so any user creating activities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM will automatically be creating newsfeed items. Additional newsfeed items can be created when different events happen in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Any user with the permission to create workflow processes can configure new newsfeed items to be added to the dashboard.

NB: Currently this version of the Newsfeed Business Productivity Accelerator will only work with the On-Premise edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Get it here: http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Internet Facing Deployment Scenarios

martinhj@microsoft.com — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:32:00 GMT

This document from the Microsoft Download Center covers the following Internet-Facing Deployment (IFD) scenarios for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0:

Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 through the user interface (UI) setup
Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 with a configuration file
Upgrade Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 through the UI setup
Upgrade Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 with a configuration file

This document is intended to cover how to set up the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Web site to make it available from the Internet (not cover the steps that you must complete to make a server available from the Internet).

Download it here

Thanks to Anni Cita from GPSD for this resource.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Update Rollup 3 is available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

martinhj@microsoft.com — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:31:00 GMT

Please notice: Microsoft CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 3 has been released and is now available via the download center.

Microsoft Download Center page

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

Install Details

Update Rollup 1 and Update Rollup 2 are not prerequisites for installing Update Rollup 3
The Update Rollup 3 client can be deployed before the server is upgraded to Update Rollup 3
Update Rollup 3 can be uninstalled
The build number of the update rollup packages is 4.0.7333.1408.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

Microsoft Office Communications Server - addendum, download links

martinhj@microsoft.com — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:34:00 GMT

Thanks for all the input. This addendum post gathers download resources.

Trial Downloads
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
Attendant
Group Chat: Server Client Administration Tool
Group Policy Documentation
SDK
UCMA 2.0 Speech Language Packs

Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2
Pocket PC
Smartphone

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 SDK
(32 bit) (64-bit)

Other
Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client
Office Communicator Phone Edition (2007 R2)
Conferencing Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team

The new Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 - imagine this together with CRM

martinhj@microsoft.com — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:11:00 GMT

Here is a brilliant opportunity to get more out of CRM and at the same time to cut cost on travel, shorten the customer service cycle and bringing colleagues closer together, not meaning geographically but purely process-wise.

OCS empowers collaboration with customized presence states, Group Chat, Live Meeting, sharing desktop and more, even with the customer, is just at your fingertips and all of this goes very nicely hand in hand with the CRM system.

Are you already working with presence states and saving valuable time in calling or chatting with the right person available immediately instead of trying to reach busy colleagues and chasing somebody, who can help? Save a lot of time by knowing on beforehand if he or she is available, and if not, get notified when they become available.

More great possibilities include:

Audio conference call with customers and colleagues - online, with the click of ONE button, just invite to an appointment in Outlook
Build it into live business applications and business processes - Microsoft Dynamics CRM for one :-)
Move conversations between applications and devices - only focusing on the task at hand
Instant messaging with more than just plain text (namely rich text) and with more than one person, even go to Group Chat

A lot of really nice and business wise features are at the center of the new OCS and I urge you to take a closer look at the material and product. Just think of the added business value and possible developments of the business.

Now, look out for an upcoming blog post on CRM closer together with OCS.

Powerful stuff!

Useful links

Product Overview

Understanding unified communications for the call center

Getting Started

Downloads

Deployment Guide

Attendant Deployment Guide

Supported Migration Paths and Coexistence Scenarios

Capacity Planning

Thank you to Dietmar Dossow for some very useful TechNet-resources.

Enjoy! :-)

Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team