Dynamics CRM Spring Wave 14 Rolling Out

The Dynamics CRM Spring Wave 14 is rolling out.

The notifications started hitting administrator’s email in-boxes early this week. So, the release is actually a little early! Fine by me as I like nice surprises like this.

You can find more details and getting ready steps here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/get-ready-for-the-next-release.aspx

As a Friday Tip the following is what you can expect as part of the upgrade notice. This update isn’t exactly following the previously communicated process of CDU’s (Customer Driven Update). Microsoft was going to provide 90, 30, 15, and 7 day notices of upgrades once they were scheduled. In this case, the notifications just started showing up in email inboxes. Technically Microsoft applied a UR (update rollup) and you have the option of completing the steps for the actual CDU.

As a refresher, going forward a UR will be bug fixes and performance improvements, and will be automatically applied. A CDU will have functionality improvements and notifications and potentially additional steps are required from the customer/user.

In any case here is what the email will look like. if you haven’t received yours already.

Once you receive your notification, login to your CRM application and go to Settings, Administration.

Start with selecting the “Install Product Updates” link. This will take you to a nicely done additional details screen. Check out the materials here as Microsoft did a nice job.

Here is what you find if you click the More links on this page.

Now it’s time to click the Update button; you will get a chance to back out of your don’t want to start the process just yet.

Once you click OK on this page though, it’s too late. The upgade begins but you get to watch a nice little video while you wait. The update time varies, most are taking between 10-20 minutes.

That’s it! You are done.

After the upgrade is complete you will see the following changes to your system.

And here are the admin settings for configuring all the new Customer Service capabilities.

You are now ready to enjoy the Dynamics CRM Spring Wave 14 Updates.

Next tip I’ll cover the Social Listening and Marketing updates that are also included in this wave. There are a few more steps required to add those capabilities.

May 19, 2014

Dynamics CRM 2013 Spring Release Preview Guide

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Spring Release Preview Guide is now available.

You can download it from here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=395005

The CRM 2013 Spring Release Preview Guide highlights the new features and capabilities that will be released soon. The Spring Wave is one of the biggest updates?to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.?This is going to be HUGE! There are lots?of something for everyone in this release, including marketing, sales and service.

Marketing

Microsoft Social Listening enables you to identify who’s having social conversations about your company, products, competitors or another topics. Track buzz, trends and sentiment related to things like your customers, campaigns and competitors.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, provides?email marketing, landing pages, social campaigns and more on par to most of the third party marketing automation systems available today. Quickly and easily deliver qualified leads to your?sales teams and measure the return on marketing investment. It also includes lead nurturing and scoring, improved dashboards and analytics, and an awesome campaign visual designer.

Email Marketing

Send highly personalized E-mail messages to drive improved open rates. Personalize the content per sender, recipient, subject & content allowing you to send fewer emails with greater business results.

Deliver mass and transactional emails scalable to millions of emails to customers per day
Cross campaign rules to build sophisticated nurture and drip email campaigns.
Manage and control how many emails a contact can receive in a given time period to improve email performance.

Sales

For sales teams, there are enhancements to the CRM Tablet apps. We’ll see Social Insights right inside the mobile experience. Social Insights provides real-time company and contact information like financials, breaking news, social buzz and social connections. It’s very powerful for marketing, sales and account management professionals to help you engage more effectively to win more deals and spend less time spent researching and more time selling.

If you are an Android fan, the mobility updates will include a version for Android devices.?As before, the iPad is also supported.

The mobile experience will also be extended to include Customer Service capabilities optimized for people who want to?keep an eye on high priority Cases, monitor Queues?or route items across the queues to deliver amazing experiences no matter where you?are.

Customer Service

There’s lots of new “stuff” for customer service professionals?from the powerful self-service capabilities in the?recently acquired Parature, to the multi-channel capabilities coming in CRM including the Unified Service Desk to empower contact center agents to resolve customer issues with ease.

Parature includes lots of awesomeness including:

Parature Portal: a 24/7 customer support center that is seamlessly integrated into your?current website. It includes a searchable knowledge, submit help tickets, track its progress and receive automatic email notifications.
Parature Mobile Self-Service: Provides mobile friendly, responsive designs of the portal?that work?across desktop and mobile devices.?
Parature Facebook Portal: Seamlessly provides?FAQs and KB searches, or create help desk tickets from inside of Facebook.?
Parature Real-time Chat: provides instant live online support to provide?assisted support online. ?
Parature Knowledgebase: provides quick answers to common questions and support issues, plus essential downloads including forms, how-to videos, product manuals, knowledge base information updates and more.?

Server-side Synchronization Updates

Server-side synchronization allows administrators to easily manage the synchronization of email, tasks, appointments
and contacts between CRM and Exchange. No additional cost….unlike some other solutions out there!

The original release synchronized ?data?between Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Exchange on-premises deployments only. We will now see support for both?Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Exchange Online as well as the continued on-premise option. POP3/SMTP3 providers are also supported for sending and synchronization of Email.

SharePoint Integration Enhancements

Simplified integration between CRM Online and SharePoint Online will be managed inside of?Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. If you have?Dynamics CRM Online and SharePoint Online you will no longer need to install and configure the CRM List Component to enable the Document Management integration. Woo-hoo!

Sandbox Environments

A big request from larger customers and those that prefer dev/test and production environments. It will be point and click simple to configure isolated, non-production online environments. Administrators can make a copy of a CRM Online instance into a Sandbox Instance.

Minimal Copy only includes customizations & schema from source
Full Copy includes all application data, users, and customizations from source
Administrators can reset a Sandbox Instance back to factory settings (e.g. delete and re-provision)
Administrators can take/restore a snapshot of a Sandbox Instance??(only one snapshot per instance at any time)

And lots more good stuff!

Microsoft plans to deliver the Spring Wave features to CRM online customers as an automatic service update with the option to opt in for additional Customer Service capabilities, and to the on-premises customers as an installable service pack (SP1).

Market smarter. Sell effectively. Care everywhere.

April 22, 2014

Mobility Leads List of Top Digital Priorities

Mobility Leads List of C-Level Top Priorities

CIO Insights just posted one of their slideshows. ?You can view the slideshow of the survey results here: CIO Insight Mobile Priority Survey

The slideshow?is from an Accenture survey that shows mobility leads the list of top digital priorities. The survey, of nearly 1,500 global C-level executives, found adoption of mobile technologies and applications as top of their list of priorities.

While mobility is top of mind of most leading organizations, there are still challenges for some organizations, including;

strategic, organizational and operational shortcomings
struggles in the rollout of mobile capabilities
lack of formal metrics to measure effectiveness
insufficient funding

The good news despite these challenges, companies are moving aggressively to adopt mobile technologies and applications. The focus is geared toward helping them achieve their?business objectives.

While mobility is tops in the survey, rounding out the Top 5 include:

I?am seeing the majority of customers and prospects I talk to ALL have the above top of mind. It’s all related to helping how?we can understand and service our customers better. It’s about customer experience and business impact.

It’s not hard to understand why. I read an article?recently that showed 6 BILLION people now have cell phones. That’s nearly everyone on the planet.?We are clearly a mobile and connected world. So, it’s only natural that?customers and users need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice from wherever they are.

Another interesting fact from the survey, only 2% of respondents have NO mobile strategy. Let’s hope your organization is NOT one of the 2%. If you are, think about the fact that your competitors are thinking mobile.

Another factoid?is 83% of “leader” organizations compared to 77% of “other” organizations?rank mobility in their Top 5 priorities. Again, are YOU one of the leaders, or other?

If you prefer infographics, Accenture has posted one here for the survey results:?http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-mobility-trends-research-2014.aspx

You can also download a pdf of the survey here:?http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Mobility-Research-Report-2014.pdf

October 22, 2013

New Era in Dynamics CRM 2013

Notes from CRMUG Summit 2013, Tampa, FL

I have a few posts from sessions and content from the Dynamics CRM User Group Summit held in Tampa FL the week of October 21.

First up was the New Era in Dynamics CRM 2013 presentation by Param Kahlon, CRM Program Manager, for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Growth in Dynamics CRM continues and in fact is increasing
* 3.5m users
* 40,000 customers
* 66% choose cloud
* 36 double digit growth quarters and accelerating

Key themes for CRM 2013 and beyond
* Performance and scalability
* Agility and process excellence
* Social in context
* Reimagined user experience
* Role tailored mobile experiences
* Richness of custom extensions

One of the key UI/UX Designers for CRM 2013, Wayne Higgins, gave us a little perspective
* Reimagined UI and UX
* All about Efficiency
* New way to get things done
* Relevant tools available (max of 5 commands, drop down nav, etc.)
* Mobile optimized
* Start up experience, easy, user friendly, informative
* Information architecture

Business process management – respond quickly to individual customer need
* Power to business users
* Agility
* Configuration not coding
* Multiple processes
* Client side logic
* Web and mobile
* Rules drive
* Plan to add business process for vertical industries

XRM a much richer platform (back to Param)
* Custom entities flow to mobile devices
* Configurable tool tips
* Quick create for custom entities
* Image data type
* Fluid form entities
* Team selling focus
* Portable business logic (formerly called PBL, now Business Rules)
* Visual process flows for custom entities
* Bing maps for custom entities
* Multiple entity quick find, enhanced search on mobile
* Custom actions and real time workflows

Future
* Online first
* Productivity and communication
* Proactive
* Business process excellence
* User experience edge
* Universal social
* Ubiquitous access
* Mobility

Next few releases
* CRM 2013 now
* Subra, Q1 2014 online only
* Mira, Q1 MarketingPilot updates
* Leo, Q2 tighter Netbreeze and MarketingPilot integration

Subra

* Netbreeze, social list ending and analytical, will be amended directly in CRM
* Scalable online service
* Office 365 integration
* General availability integrated as office 365 service

Mira

* Extended global reach
* Online service only
* Tighter CRM integration
* Multiple channelled campaign management
* Lync and Skype enhancements

Leo

* Revamped customer service
* Mobile and social improvements
* New look for customer service
* State of the art experience
* SLA and entitlement compliance

Will ensure industry templates that have been available in Marketplace will continue to work on 2013 and will add business processes to these as well. Essentially free, unsupported, accelerators.

August 6, 2013

Dynamics CRM 2013 Blitz Day Technical Track Notes

CRM 2013 Blitz Day Technical Track Notes

Microsoft held the Dynamics CRM 2013 Training Blitz Day for partners on July 31. The sessions were split into two tracks, sales & marketing track and technical track. The notes below are for the ?Technical Overview for Application Consultants, Presales Consultants and Developers?.

The primary themes for Dynamics 2013 are:

Re-imagined User Experience (Flow UI)
Process Agility
Yammer Integration
Outlook Client Improvements
New Exchange Sync
Upgrade Process
Business Rules
Client Extensibility
Extensibility on the Server and Cloud
CRM as a Platform for Business Apps

The new UI that is available in the Polaris release will be complete for all entities. This release will include additional changes with the release of a new “ribbon” toolbar?(will be called the Command Bar) at the top. I like the new UI and it seems that it will be easier to navigate with very few popups. We will see a more streamlined UI with more white space which makes the app look a lot cleaner and more modern.

?Another new paradigm is the heavy process oriented flow of the UI. We do see this a bit in the Polaris Flow UI forms, where essentially the flow of a process is spread across the top 1/3 of the screen that represents stages, with steps associated within each stage. This will be across all of the main entities, including leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities and cases. From what I heard, new entities will have the same features, although not 100% confirmed yet. This could be a great differentiator, as these essentially “process flows” guide a user through an entire process. And yes, multiple processes and process switching will be supported.

Business rules and synchronous workflows are new features of Dynamics CRM 2013 and will expand the no-code capabilities of the product. Microsoft calls it “declarative” configuration; which is essentially more like the current Processes vs. the Form editor drag and drop (more descriptive, less visual). This is a new feature and DIFFERENT than Processes (Workflows & Dialogs) and different than plugins (which require code). Business Rules will support “no code required” rules; such as, if then else, change a field based on another field, comparisons, formula’s, etc. E.g. the ability to create a rule that says If field A = Red, then Set Field B = “123”. Or, If field C = “Blue” then show Tab 2. All in all a nice edition because JavaScript is required to do this today.

The mobile updates include a responsive design and ?write once? business logic. Responsive means the UI has the ability to detect the “size” of the screen and adjusts the layout automatically. The initial release will see support for Windows Phone and iPhone, with Android to follow shortly. On the tablet front, iPad and Windows 8 tablets, with no information on Android tablets, other than it’s on the roadmap.

There will be NO offline use for mobile devices in the initial release. One exception, there will be “offline” capability for Windows 8 tablets, but it’s a caching approach, so, don’t get sucked in by the marketing speak. This is not offline and merely has a few of the most recently browsed records offline. So, this means that Resco and CWR will still be the go to applications for full device offline capabilities. I suspect both will also be far more feature complete with device online capabilities as well, for the time being.

There IS still offline capability with the full Outlook client for Windows 8 tablets (Surface Pro, Convertibles, laptops, etc.). Good news on true offline, the Outlook client has been re-designed with a focus on performance and stability improvements. Technically they have created more “isolation” of running processes which is a fancy way of saying the code has been optimized. No numbers were shared but should definitely see better performance and less hit on client memory.

Editable grids is always a hot topic and we finally START to see these in CRM 2013. Initially the editable grid is on the Opportunity entity only, for easier product entry. It looks pretty good and provides in cell editing and configurable columns. Unfortunately this is the only place it will be available for now. The plan is to add it to other areas. I did not get an answer if this was a new “control” that could be re-used in other areas, I suspect not at this time.

Speaking of new controls, there will also be a new image control for adding images to entities. The one bummer about it, only 1 image control per form.

Server-to-server side sync for activities/calendar and email is long overdue and looks to be a good replacement for the email router; however email router is not going away at this time. Tracking selected individual items will still require Outlook, though. The first release will be an all or nothing approach, meaning, no rules can be configured for selective tracking of email or activities using server side sync. It will provide a way for mobile clients to finally have Calendar and email sync, which is a great step forward.

We have heard some information on the Yammer, MarketingPilot and NetBreeze acquisitions and they will play a significant role in the future of the product, but CRM 2013 will have limited integration with these products. Yammer will have the tightest integration and can essentially replace Activity Feeds (but AF is not going away just yet). The main thing to know about Yammer, it will NOT be free. In order to use the CRM-Yammer integration one will be required to purchase the Yammer Enterprise application, or, have an existing Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.? Rumors are that E1-E4 Office 365 will include Yammer integration with that platform, could not get an answer if that will include CRM if it is part of your Office 365 E-x subscription.

There will essentially be no MarketingPilot or Netbreeze integration with this initial release. There is a CRM connector for CRM-MarketingPilot today, it’s free, but currently limited to select Clients and Partners. We won’t see any real integration until the “Mira” release, sometime in 2014.

There were LOTS of questions on upgrading, what’s going to work, what will break, etc. A beta of the release is now available for downloading so we should be able to get an idea of what will happen with existing customization’s and configurations. Microsoft has claimed that MOST configuration and supported customization’s SHOULD work without issue. We shall see.

If you have been following my tweets, Yammer or i3 Community blog posts I provided an update that Microsoft is starting to announce release “dates”. No official date but indicators are late October will be the official launch of Dynamics CRM 2013

http://www.i3.infinityinfo.com/blogs/entry/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2013-official

July 3, 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 “Official”

Microsoft has announced the next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be available in the “fall of 2013”.

It is unfortunate that we did NOT hear an official release date, so, that gives Microsoft some wiggle room on what the definition of Fall is. I am all for quality releases and prefer a quality release over hitting a specific date, however, a date helps people with planning. As I learn more information on dates I’ll communicate that. The “unofficial” release date is October 2013. We saw a couple of dates slip late last year, so let’s hope Bob Stutz and company are better at hitting their targets this time around, and more importantly, communicating them in a timely fashion.

On to a few details.

The good news for all users is, this is a dual release for both Dynamics CRM Online as well as Dynamics CRM on-premise. The online version is officially called “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ’13”. Sound familiar? Yes, I know, real creative there, but, what’s in it, is more important than what they call it. Bottom line with Dynamics CRM, you have the power of choice. We still see a lot of clients that prefer to manage their own servers and software, with Dynaimcs CRM, you get to decide how to use it.

The official announcement:?http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-02DynamicsCRM13PR.aspx

This release includes a major User Interface overhaul. The user Experience has been “re-imagined” and will be a complete departure from previous versions. ?Below gives you some insight into what that new UI looks like:

No official word yet on whether or not the previous user interface will be completely removed or allowed to be turned on if needed. The stated goal I’ve heard so far, is all screens and forms will be the new UI/UX with no switching back to “classic” views.

Another major area of focus is on process oriented experiences.?Process guidance, based on industry-leading best practices, will help teams more easily, e.g., ?move from lead to close?faster than ever before. Flexible and configurable, it gives your organization the ability to be agile in the face of change. Essentially CRM will guide users through their processes. It’s like having built in step by step guides to working with clients whether you are in marketing, sales, or service/delivery roles.

Also planned are new tablet and smartphone experiences?with access to the CRM functionality and analytics. Smartphone apps for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 8 will follow shortly after. Here is a taste of the tablet experience.

Eager to weave Yammer’s successful enterprise social capabilities into more offerings, Microsoft has been making an effort to bring the technology to its business applications portfolio, including Office. Now, Dynamics CRM is getting in on the act.

Dynamics CRM 2013 will offer deeper Yammer integration, the new release will provide “capabilities for people to collaborate with each other and share customer knowledge through Yammer right within the CRM solution, enabling them to deliver amazing customer experiences,” Microsoft said in a statement. I can tell you we have started using Yammer internally for the last 6 months and see major improvements in collaboration and information sharing. If you are not familiar with Yammer, think of it as Facebook for your company, but really focused on teams working together.

In addition, Dynamics CRM 2013 will feature support and integration for MarketingPilot marketing automation. Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot, a provider of multi-channel marketing management software, late last year. I’ve had a little bit of hands and it’s has quite a few enhancements that you’ll be able to take advantage of. It has the usual suspects in Marketing Automation capabilities, including emails, landing pages, contact forms, and social media. Stay tuned for a deeper dive when we are given the ok to provide more details.

Finally, Microsoft recently announced Lync and Skype integration which provides for sharing of contacts and the ability for the two applications to connect to each other. Included in the CRM 2013 release will be improved seamless support enabling instant access to either or both of these applications. If you are not familiar with Lync or Skype, think of these as Facetime for your company and customers. It’s pretty cool and provides productivity boosts with built-on phone calls, conference calls, video calls, and desktop sharing.

Yammer Document Conversations in Office 365, OneDrive and SharePoint

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Spring Release Preview Guide is now available.

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CRM 2013 Blitz Day Technical Track Notes

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