ThermoWorks Thermapen

Probably the most used and indispensable tools in my cooking is the highly accurate and fast Thermapen! To get the best results, accurate temperature control is critical. If you want that wonder and expensive ribeye to come out a wonderful medium-rare, it has to be by temp…don’t believe that old kitchen tale about feeling your palm or below your thumb based on springiness. It does not work. The Thermapen works! I pull my ribeyes at 120, the carry over heat will take it to that perfect 125-130 for an amazing steak experience!

The ThermoWorks Thermapen is a high-precision digital cooking thermometer designed for home and professional use. It is a compact and lightweight tool that allows you to quickly and accurately measure the internal temperature of your food. Whether you’re grilling, roasting, baking, or making candy, the Thermapen gives you an instant and accurate reading to help ensure your food is cooked to the perfect temperature.

The Thermapen features a large, easy-to-read LED display that shows the temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and its ultra-fast response time means you can take a temperature reading in just three seconds. The thermometer’s foldable design makes it convenient to store and carry, and its waterproof construction means you can use it in any kitchen or outdoor cooking situation without having to worry about damage from spills or splashes.

The Thermapen also features a range of advanced features, including an automatic backlight that illuminates the display in low-light conditions, a max/min temperature function that allows you to track temperature changes over time, and a rotating display that automatically adjusts the orientation of the display to suit the way you’re holding the thermometer.

Overall, the ThermoWorks Thermapen is a versatile and reliable tool for anyone who takes their cooking seriously. Whether you’re a professional chef, a home cook, or an outdoor griller, the Thermapen gives you the confidence to cook your food to perfection every time.

RECOMMENDED 👍

June 6, 2014

Quickly Create A Personal View – Dynamics CRM 2013

Friday Tip! How to Quickly Create a Personal View in Dynamics CRM 2013

This tip is courtesy of a fairly recent feature in Dynamics CRM 2013. A personal view is a list or group of records that can help you target and segment lists of your CRM records. Most users know they can create a Personal View in Dynamics CRM 2013 using Advanced Find. Nothing wrong with creating personal views using Advanced Find, it just takes a few more steps than what I’m going to show you.

Let’s say you have a field for that ranks?your customers and prospects, e.g. A, B, C, D, etc. Now you want to create a list of all your A and B current account records. Here are the simple and fast steps to create an AB Current Accounts list.

I’m going to start with my All Accounts view to make sure I get all the AB Current accounts in my list.

Start by selecting the Filter button on your list.

?Now we can enter our filter criteria. In this case I am going select the Rank field and simply check A and B

Let’s also select the Account Status field and check Current.

Once all your criteria is added, select the View?drop down, then scroll down and select “Save Filters as New View”.

This will display the Save as form, in this case I’m calling the view AB Current Accounts…name yours as you need.

That’s it! You have your new view. Now you can share it with others as well!

Pretty sweet right. This approach saves several steps and who doesn’t like doing things faster and more efficiently.

May 22, 2014

Sharing Saved or Personal Views ? Dynamics CRM 2013

Sharing Saved or Personal Views

Sharing Saved or Personal Views that you or your users have created is a great way to encourage adoption and use of Dynamics CRM. With some of the UI/UX changes in CRM 2013 the question of how to share Views has come up several times recently. Oddly the ability to share a View or List you create in CRM is a little ?hidden?. To shine some light on these great views that are worth sharing, follow the steps below.

Navigate to Advanced Find.
1. E.g. go to Opportunities
2. Click the ellipsis
3. Click Advanced Find

On the Advanced Find form, click the Saved Views button.
Select the View (or multiple views) you want to share.
The Share button becomes enabled, click it. The Share saved view form is displayed.
Select the users or teams you want to share the view with.
Select the type of access you want the others to have. In most cases, leaving the default Read is fine for most needs. Click Share and you?re done! The selected users will now have access to the view.

If you haven’t checked out Dynamics CRM lately, or use a different CRM, check out Dynamis CRM 2013 here:?http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm.aspx

March 14, 2014

What Customers Want From Partners

I attended a Convergence Pre-Game customer panel session where 4 customers talked about “what customers want from partners”. I heard some really good insights into what customer’s really want and expect from partners.

The session opened with the moderator asking “What one word describes your expectation for a long term, positive relationship with your partner.

Amaze!
Communication
Experience
Initiative

Below are my general notes regarding additional feedback and expectations.

Don’t send in junior consultants that are not experienced, we want people that know what they are doing.
Each customer has changed partners looking for the right fit (this spells opportunity)
Customers generally have their top people engaged, we expect the partners to do so as well.
Customers don’t like it when the courting phase is over. Don’t make it obvious when your energies have switched to other customers, projects, new stuff.
Partners like to trump their experience..they all say we have done thousands of implementations..the customer perspective is then “oh then we are just one if thousands”.
We just helped one of your competitors…that gets our attention.
Pair the right resources…if the customer person is technical then make sure the main person that interacts is technical.

On SOW’s and contracts.

Give good estimates.
Approach with a win win mentality.
Strive for a partnership.
Sign off on all documents.
Get people to sign off on initial project and on any changes.
Make the investment on the front side, drill into the needs then give us the pricing.
If projects are hourly, itemize the billing and don’t be too general.
Giving options is a good thing, but, recommend as well.
Be clear about what the customer can do realistically and what the partner can or should do. Let us know what can be done out of box, or if something is fairly simple. Give us some ownership.
What sources of information do customers find useful: CRMUG, collaborate with the customers, books, blogs, conferences.
Black and Veatch, ALL of their projects and consulting work is fixed fee AND they get a 30 day warranty.
Works best for them to have fixed fee…ranges are a problem.
Requirements must be clear.
A couple are ok with hourly, but for smaller projects and where the requirements may be a little loose.

Best approach from a people/person approach is to have an account manager as a single point of contact. Prefer it. It should not be the consultant or technical resource. It’s a value add person, NOT billable!

Most like over communication…feel like the partner cares…too often partners take too long to respond or provide updates, particularly on issues. Don’t make me call you to get a status update. Even if you say “we are still working on it”, this is ok.

Confront brutal facts and issues up front and head on….don’t wait.

SLAs?

Yes, expected and do track them.

Online tracking systems?

Yes, prefer to have online tracking for anytime, anywhere communication.
Also want to talk to someone Easier for me to wait if i see it online.
When I reach out to you, it’s important!

Training and other best practices

Separate sow for training, implementation and other stuff
Training up front, before the project starts, helps with developing requirements.
Want to see “English” design documents, easy to read, not just technical, execs need to read/understand them
Ask if customer has resources to translate technical docs to simpler docs
Ok with cutting back on some documentation.
Don’t discourage us from using features.
Customer should NEVER be more excited about the product than they are.
The partner should be major proponents and cheer leaders for the product.

What we expect

Integrity, customer focused, fair, honest, dependable, drive to success, amaze us, be creative, deliver measurable ROI, really understand our processes and help us improve them.

Do more than just implement. Look for partners that talk about CRM, that blog, have good content, do more than just implement.

Shared values. Flexibility. Give us the time and attention based on our needs. It cycles so be flexible.

Be proactive with solutions. Help,me make the right decision.

All in all some really great insights and well worth paying attention to!

November 8, 2013

How to Mirror Your iPhone or iPad on a Laptop

Have you ever wished you could display your iPhone or iPad on a laptop or PC? Well, it’s always been a big PITA thanks to Apple and their restrictive lock down policies on these devices. In the past one had to Jailbreak their device to make this happen….and who really likes messing with that? Obviously, jailbreaking is still possible but I really hate to spend the time and effort messing with that, particularly with the cat and mouse updates required when Apple patches the “holes” that allow this to happen.

Yes, there is also the ability to plug in an expensive VGA connector and display your device on a monitor, but, that’s not ideal, especially for people like me who need do a lot of demo’s. This approach makes things like a projector, Lync, GotoMeeting and Webex impossible.

Well, finally Apple added a feature called Airplay that makes this possible. It’s still not as easy as it should be; and, it’s still not really built in. In order to make this happen on your device of choice, you need to purchase an additional software app (for your laptop or PC, not your device). I recently checked out AirServer which to setup, configure and use. You can choose to run it on your Mac or PC and the iOS device requires iOS 4.2.1 or later, and they have to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

AirServer makes sharing your iPhone or iPad screen to your computer with AirPlay mirroring. After you install AirServer, your computer name will appear in the list of devices available for AirPlay Mirroring on your iPhone or iPad and when you select your computer, your iPhone or iPad screen will pop up on your computer screen, just like it would on your television with an Apple TV or VGA connector. Now it’s super simple to just share your desktop in a Lync or GotoMeeting; or show it on a projector and demo whatever you need from your iDevice.

If you want to check our a trial version you can get it from here:?http://www.airserver.com/trial

October 24, 2013

CRM 2013 Upgrade Considerations and Key Platform Enhancements

A great session on Dynamics CRM 2013 upgrade considerations and key platform enhancements by Matt Barbour, Microsoft Senior Program Manager.

Discontinuing support for

Windows Server 2003
Windows XP
IE7
Exchange 2003
Reworking some of the accelerators several have been around since v4
This is a one way upgrade
Must upgrade from ur6 or ur14 or higher. CRM 2011 MUST be on one of these patches or the upgrade will refuse to complete
Supporting both in place and migration updates
Base and extension tables are merging in this release
- Reason, improved performance (no joins), less locks, better design
Merge tool is suggested for large data sets. Guidance will be coming on size for when to use merge tool vs during the upgrade
Two new services added, CSS writer and monitoring service
VSS writer – online backup support for CRM, meaning live backup, SCOM support
Monitoring service – health monitoring, will support only 1 test/check for Orion, more tests to be added to future releases, integrates with SCOM pack
Email Connector service – email router v2, this will be part of CRM, no longer need to install email connector separately.
- Today only works on like for like, either online only or on-premise only, this will change in future
Solutions, 2011 will import smoothly into CRM 2013, suggest partners install CRM 2013 dev instance, upgrade the CRM 2011 components and feautes to 2013, then create new 2013 solutions, then use these for updating production systems

CRM versioning system changes (improvements and consistency)

Major.minor.UR/lob.build

CRM 2013 “Orion” is 6.0.0000.xxxx
If second number changes, these are feature changes, adds
If 3rd number changes, these are bands or fixes
R2, service lack, feature lack, mean Minor update
Update roll ups are
Fixes and security only…no more feature adds

Other new adds

OAuth authentic a model, required for IFD deployments
Can’t speak yet about OpenID support
New image data type
Added left outer join to fetchxml (woohoo!!!)

Real time workflow

Transaction aware
Supports both pre and post pipeline support
Security aware
Fits existing workflows can be converted to workflows

Actions / PBL / Business Rules

Access teams (woohoo!!!)

Supports team selling scenarios, enhances security model
Works the way you do
Adding a user records grants them specific access
Can have multiple access teams per entity
E.g. Teams that come in nod do out at different times of a process
Ownership vs collaboration
Does not require team ownership of records
Scalable for large number of dynamic teams
When to use Access teams.
- When number of users are dynamic and fluid, use team ownership
- When number of team’s are fixed, use access teams

September 16, 2013

7 Things Every Successful Medical Device Sales Rep Needs To Know

medical-device-industry-management | Photo Courtesy of Depositphotos http://depositphotos.com/3359845/stock-photo-Cute-young-female-using-a-the-help-of-the-internet-to-study.html?sqc=20&sqm=178611&sq=1hdycl

The knowledge required for medical device sales reps to succeed is constantly expanding, and sales training won?t be enough for them to keep up. A post on the Business 2 Community blog nails all the points about why reps must continuously stay up-to-date with the medical device industry, including medical device industry trends, regulations and competition.

Medical device sales CRM systems can help by bringing the information that reps are typically searching for directly into the system. It allows users to easily keep up with industry news or trends and can even send alerts about a competitor based on news articles or social media posts.

The best part is the system captures all this data from multiple sources and puts it in one place within the medical device sales CRM system. That means busy medical device sales reps don?t have to spend hours searching on the Internet for news or topics that are important to them and their customers.

The Business 2 Community article refers to an anecdote about a ?Book of Knowledge? ? not an actual publication, but a metaphor to describe the variety of information sales reps need to have at their disposal. The article lists seven extremely important things for medical devices sales reps to know from the ?Book of Knowledge.?

Who does what: Reps have to be familiar with the responsibilities and concerns of physicians, staff and administrators.
Medical knowledge: Reps should be up-to-date with the latest medical device technology, anatomy and studies relevant to their devices.
The competition: Reps must understand how their competitors? devices work.
The hospital: Reps need to know the rules for visiting labs and operating rooms.
Issues and ethics: Reps should be knowledgeable about areas such as FDA regulation and health care reform, as well as ethical standards such as Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) standards.
Economics: Reps should know how money flows through hospitals and the health care system.
Medical device sales skills: Reps must always be revising their approach to keep up with customers and medical device trends.

Keeping reps informed about everything they need to know requires input from sales trainers, managers, marketing and IT, the post explains.

How does your company keep reps up-to-date on everything they need to know? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Infinity Info Systems Presenting at CRM Users Group (CRMUG)

Infinity Info Systems Presenting at CRM Users Group (CRMUG) in Tampa!

Tampa, Florida is the place to be October 20 ? 24, 2013 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers, partners, and prospective customers.

Infinity Info Systems is once again contributing our time and talented people in sharing impactful information for increasing your CRM success. Bob Peskin and Mike Hammons will both be presenting some really great content.

CRM Reporting 201: C-Level Visibility with Dynamics CRM Dashboards
Managing Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Office 365 Environments
Techie Talk: Upgrading Complex Systems
Techie Talk: Reporting Panel
Techie Talk: Upgrading Complex Systems
User Adoption: Making Progress with Social CRM
User Adoption: Taking Advantage of the Outlook Client

Another great reason for attending this year, Microsoft will be providing the first public, comprehensive review of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013…including about thirty minutes of live demonstrations by Param Kahlon, Group Manager at Microsoft.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, formerly code named ‘Orion,’ will be featured in the CRM keynotes for both The Partner Connections Event and CRMUG Summit. You don?t want to miss this! The sessions that follow Param?s will dive deeper into new features and functionality that will blow Dynamics CRM customers away.

Keynote Times and Dates:

For CRMUG Summit, Tuesday, October 22nd from 8:00 am ? 9:30 am
For Partners – The Partner Connections Event, Sunday, October 20th from 1:00 ? 1:45 pm

A quick note for our Partner friends and colleagues. The Partner Connections Event is the premier opportunity for Microsoft Dynamics Partners to build sales, marketing, leadership, consultant, and developer/architect skills by networking and learning from each other and industry experts. We hope to see you there!

This weekend (September 15) is your last chance to save $100 on Summit registrations – don’t wait any longer to sign up!

August 21, 2013

Dynamics CRM No Code Multi-Select Picklist

How to Create a Dynamics CRM No Code Multi-Select Picklist

What is a multi-select picklist you may ask? Here is an example. Let’s say that you need to track multiple specialties for the physicians in your CRM database. E.g. Cardiovascular Disease, Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology. Another example might be, what your contacts interests are; Baseball, Basketball, Curling, Football, Golf, Soccer, Swimming, etc.

In most cases, I see this implemented with some code that looks something like this…

Nothing wrong with this approach, it just requires some code and someone to manage and update that code when changes are needed.

I’m a big fan of no code configuration or customization where possible. The benefits with this approach are:

There is no code to maintain
Does not require a developer to manage and update; business users can easily make changes as needed
?Upgrades smoothly

I am also a big fan of NOT re-inventing the wheel. So below, I provide a couple of great resources that inspired this post. First is the link that gives you some more background and screenshots on creating Dynamics CRM no code multi-select picklist.

http://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/richardknudson/archive/2011/05/08/many-to-many-relationships-in-dynamics-crm-2011.aspx

The next is a video from one of the great Dyamics CRM MVP’s that are out there, Richard Kudson, take it away Richard…

Friday Tip! How to Quickly Create a Personal View in Dynamics CRM 2013

Sharing Saved or Personal Views

7 Things Every Successful Medical Device Sales Rep Needs To Know

Infinity Info Systems Presenting at CRM Users Group (CRMUG) in Tampa!

How to Create a Dynamics CRM No Code Multi-Select Picklist

Join us for a webinar on?10 Tips to Grow Your Life Sciences Network with LinkedIn, Social Media and CRM.