Dynamics CRM has always provided the ability to attach documents to virtually any record in the system.  Documents attached to records in this way get stored in the database which means that you can access them while out of the office or offline.  Dynamics CRM 2011 provides a new and expanded way to share and collaborate on documents in Dynamics CRM using the document repository capabilities of SharePoint Server 2010.

Once Dynamics CRM is pointed to a SharePoint site, an administrator can configure virtually any record type for document management.  Once configured, creating a new record automatically creates a new document repository for that record in SharePoint and links it to the CRM record.  To interact with documents for a record in CRM, simply open the record and click on the Documents tab.  Now CRM users can take advantage of all of the document repository and collaboration functionality of SharePoint (upload, view, check out, etc.) without leaving CRM.  For non CRM users, the documents can be accessed via standard SharePoint clients like the web or Outlook extending this capability to your entire organization.

A common use for this functionality would be to manage document collaboration around the customer proposal process.  Proposals often go through many revisions and require input from multiple people across an organization.  Document management can be enabled for the Opportunity or Quote record type (or a custom Proposal record type) in Dynamics CRM.  Then when a new Opportunity is entered, the document repository for the Opportunity is automatically created in SharePoint.  Sales users can then upload and collaborate on documents from their familiar CRM interface, while stakeholders from the product engineering and finance departments can contribute via the SharePoint web interface or Outlook.

If your organization could benefit from the power of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for contextual document management or to address any other business objectives you might have, Please contact NexusTek at 303.773.6464

To read more about this blog, please visit www.nexustek.com

by Randy Bristol, Nexus Tek, Colorado Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Increase the Productivity of Your Organization With Contextual Document Management is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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1.     Define

Everybody agrees user adoption is a good thing, but nobody knows what it is.

This is an exaggeration to make a point: the concept of user adoption is not self-evident. If we want “high”, or “good” user adoption we need to be able to measure it, and we can’t measure it without defining it. Different organizations will have different definitions, which will depend on the overall goals for CRM. For example, if the primary goals for your CRM are sales management and forecasting, an important component of user adoption should be that sales reps’ opportunity pipelines are up to date.  A customer service organization might define user adoption in terms of case resolutions, appropriate documentation, activities associated with cases, and the like.

Sometimes people want direct measures of usage (who’s logging into the system and how often are they doing it?) and user activity (who’s creating and modifying records?).

The most important point is to define measures of user adoption appropriate for your organization, and to make them as precise and measurable as possible. Here are a few questons I recommend asking:

• Opportunity management: how complete, current, and accurate is a sales rep’s opportunity pipeline?
• Record creation: how many leads, accounts, contacts, and opportunities are users creating?
• Data accuracy/completeness: how complete and/or accurate is the information entered for a lead or customer record?
• Activity creation: how many appointments, phone calls, and emails are users completing?

2.     Measure

After you define what user adoption means for your organization, the concept of good user adoption implies you can establish measurable goals. This provides a segue into a more Dynamics CRM-specific discussion, so let’s take a look at how you might turn the four examples just mentioned into specific, measurable goals in CRM:

• Opportunity management
  • Each sales rep has a minimum of x open opportunities
  • No estimated close dates earlier than today
  • Estimated revenue or other indicators of deal size as accurate as possible
  • A sales rep closes x deals per month, or closes $x worth of sales per quarter, etc.
• Record creation
  • An inside sales rep qualifies x leads per month
  • Marketing increases page views by 1,000 per week
  • Marketing drives 100 registrations for an upcoming webinar
  • An account manager creates fifty new contacts per quarter
• Data accuracy/completeness
  • The only real way to guarantee that data are entered is to require it, but it’s a balancing act; the more required fields on a form the harder it is to work with.
  • Suppose you have the six critically important fields required on an account form, and want to encourage users to enter an additional ten. Consider adding a profile score as a custom field, and using a workflow to increment it by ten points when one of those nice-to-have ten fields is entered. Then you’ve got a nice 100-point account profile score you can feature prominently in reports and charts, and use to honor or shame account owners as appropriate.
• Activity creation
  • Use Dynamics CRM charts and dashboards to track activities completed over time by owner, department, activity type, and so forth. For some implementation details, here’s an article I wrote on Tracking and Scoring User Activity.

Also, consider using the goal management functionality, introduced in Dynamics CRM 2011. It’s got a bit of a learning curve, but it’s worth it. Here are a couple of recent articles I’ve written on it: Marketing Automation Goal Management, Part 1, and Part 2.

3.     Train

We all agree that users need to be trained. Beyond the obvious, here are a few specific CRM training do’s and don’ts:

• Don’t train too soon. Ideally, users are trained on the Friday before a Monday go-live. Of course in the real world the ideal isn’t always realized, but try to make the training as close as possible to go-live.
• Give your users hands-on training in a “sandbox” environment, where they can enter data, make mistakes, and generally get their hands dirty.
• Make sure your customizations are incorporated in your training, and train users on the things they are going to be doing. A generic treatment of out of the box CRM sales management features will be a waste of time for users who won’t be using those features.
• Avoid turning training into a feature-walk. Pick out a small number of things users will need to do every day, and make sure they know how to do those things well.
• Avoid the training-airdrop scenario. Training shouldn’t be a one-time event that happens to users. Rather, it should be an ongoing process that users participate in. Identify departmental power-users and give them extra training so you can push training closer to the people that need it.

4.     Engage

No matter how good your CRM is, there’s a tendency for it to kind of … sit there, lurking behind the scenes, waiting for users to go use it. For Outlook-centric organizations, use of the Dynamics CRM Outlook client is a must, and will definitely improve user adoption as it pushes CRM out in front of the user community. But while the Outlook client can help get your users engaged with CRM, most organizations need additional ways to reach out and drive adoption.

One of my favorite techniques to proactively engage users is to push CRM reports and links to their inboxes with automatic workflows. For example, here’s an email I get in my inbox every day at the same time:

I’ve got a webinar scheduled for May 31, and I use a Dynamics CRM goal record to track progress against the target of 100 registrations. The goal management functionality in CRM is great, but it’s also a good example of something that can get lost in the shuffle, especially if a user’s new to working with goals. But if you push an email like that one into somebody’s inbox, they really can’t miss it. As you see in the figure, you can include a link to the record, and it’s also an opportunity to continue the training/learning process (that’s the purpose of the bold-faced remonstration in the email).

There are plenty of variations on this theme: weekly or monthly goal progress reports for longer-term goals, weekly emails to push out a link to the sales pipeline report before the sales team meeting, and so forth.

5.     Provide the Carrot

Do things that make users’ lives easier, make CRM less of a burden. Here are a few of my top items in the carrot category.

• Use the Outlook client. If the Outlook client is configured correctly and users are properly trained, it’s the closest you’ll ever get to a pain-free CRM experience.
• Simplify. The easier CRM is to use, the more people will use it. There are tradeoffs: if it’s too easy chances are you aren’t capturing the data you need. But there are some rules of thumb you can use to avoid the other end of the user experience spectrum. For example, you probably really don’t need fifteen required fields on the opportunity form. But if you really do, put them all together up at the top where it’s easy for users to see them. And you probably don’t need more than seven stages in your sales process. And you definitely don’t need more than eleven!
• Provide mobile access. Over the next couple of years the mobile CRM experience will move from niche to mainstream, so you might as well get out in front of this one. Fortunately the tools are getting better…and easier to purchase, as we’ll shortly see when Microsoft unveils the CRM Anywhere release.
• Use InsideView for data enrichment. A long time ago I referred to the InsideView CRM integration as the ultimate CRM mashup, and I like it just as much today as I did then. If your marketing or sales folks ever need to research your customers in external data sources and then re-key the information into CRM, make their lives easier and your data better with a subscription to InsideView or a similar application.
• Use ClickDimensions to track high-value customer interactions. ClickDimensions is another CRM add-on I put in the carrot category, and it might just be the single highest-impact add-on product there is. After spinning out your first email blast and seeing all those opens, clicks, and form submits (and alas, the occasional unsubscribe) coming right back into your CRM where they belong, all nicely associated with contact and lead records and ready for follow up…well, your marketing and sales teams won’t want to be without that functionality any more.

6.     Apply the Stick

But whatever else you do, make sure to communicate that use of CRM is not a lifestyle choice – it is required. A failed CRM is almost always the responsibility of management, in this sense: if management is committed to the CRM effort, requires its use, and leads by example, you can make plenty of mistakes yet still end up with a highly used (and useful!) CRM. On the other hand, if management is not committed, doesn’t enforce use, and doesn’t lead, you can do everything else right and still end up with a failed CRM.

There seem to be two kinds of conversations I have with clients about user adoption. One kind is complicated and involves lots of issues like the ones I discussed in rules 1-5. The other is simpler, and goes something like one I had recently with the CRM owner at a company where a chunk of a sales rep’s variable compensation is based on the number of completed customer appointments. I was congratulating him on the great uptake their CRM’s getting, and he just shrugged and said “It’s not their option, it’s their job.”   Well said.

Please contact us at Magenium Solutions for more information on how to increase user adoption of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or connect with us on Twitter.

By Magenium Solutions, Chicago Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner

6 Rules for CRM User Adoption is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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At one point in time it made sense, both in time and money, to create large, one size fits all applications. Maintaining many different applications for specific tasks was a burden and added complexity to the IT department. However that has all changed now thanks to software being developed on modular, reusable, platforms that allows for the rapid development of role specific applications.

In one customer application the user’s role was to enter hundreds of leads at a time. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many different ways of handling leads and importing them, yet none were effective to handle the data, qualification, and validation requirements. Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s Web Services, a custom application was rapidly developed that greatly improved that user’s experience within the software.

The role-based interface becomes even more critical when developing software for mobile and tablet platforms. These systems have slower processors, smaller screens, touch interfaces and might be using costly cellular data plans. On these platforms, the user interface must be laser-focused on completing the user’s task as elegantly and efficiently as possible. Unnecessary functions and unused menus simply consume more of the sparse resources available.

The goal of these role-targeted applications is to be more than a tool to perform a role; it is to create a relationship between the user and the software. With the software so focused on assisting with a single role, it feels different. The software feels less like a tool that is used to complete a task than an integral component to the role itself.

Having tools that fit the user’s unique role and provides a streamlined interface into the larger software package provides for a better user experience and a higher level of software adoption. The return on investment comes from better data quality by implementing role specific data entry and data validation.

by The TM Group, Michigan Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

It’s More Than an Application, It’s a Relationship is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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According to this article in the Economic Times, Gartner predicts that by 2014, refusing to communicate with customers via social channels will be as harmful to the relationship as ignoring their emails or phone calls is today. This is a pretty bold statement, but safe to say, pretty accurate. Social media is our new way to engage, communicate, and relate with one another. If you don’t have a good relationship with your customers through social media, you risk losing them as customers altogether. Microsoft Dynamics® CRM can help you develop your social media strategy and stay atop conversations across multiple channels.

Integrating social media into your CRM is huge, but so is mobility! Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s mobility features are advancing companies into this mobile world and beyond. The next service update will allow customers to access the complete functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM on virtually any device with a new cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile client service for Windows Phone 7, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices. In this article on the Microsoft website, Dennis Michalis, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM said, “In today’s hyperconnected world, customers need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice from wherever they are.  These advancements, combined with the strength of the Microsoft platform, make Microsoft Dynamics CRM an obvious choice for any business.”

Please contact us at Sikich for more information on becoming a social butterfly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or connect with us on Twitter.

By Jim Drumm with Sikich, Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner serving IL and MO

Be a Social Butterfly with CRM is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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For those considering a switch to Dynamics CRM, it is the ultimate success story, and for Oracle and other competitors, it highlights the beginning of a significant shift in the CRM market. As Oracle’s legacy applications begin to show their age and their new products fail to capture the hearts of customers, many may turn to a thriving Dynamics CRM.

This will certainly change the perception of Dynamics CRM in the minds of those who believed it did not have the juice to take on a large enterprise deployment. Enterprise does not get much bigger than Microsoft, and this is proof that Dynamics CRM can handle the biggest and best.

The initial migration away from Siebel was actually somewhat unintentional at first. Many divisions within Microsoft refused to be crippled by the inadequacies of Oracle’s Siebel. The only alternative that did not involve a new CRM product was to devolve back to Excel. Instead, these Microsoft employees chose to move forward, adopting Dynamics CRM, which they already knew could handle the work load they needed from it.

For current Siebel customers who are well aware of its limitations and its dwindling shelf life, the Microsoft migration provides a glimmer of hope. Rather than being force fed with the dim prospects of adopting another bloated, inadequate Oracle product simply by default, they now have substantial evidence that Microsoft Dynamics CRM can take Siebel’s place and expand far beyond its limitations.

By PDG Consultants, New Jersey Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Microsoft Demonstrates Dynamics CRM Success with Its Own Move from Siebel is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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What can give your marketing team the data they need to generate effective marketing campaigns, as well as provide the sales team with the ability to close sales faster?  Microsoft Dynamics® CRM is the best of both worlds.  Powerful marketing and sales features will bring both  teams together, each working toward the same goal – providing superior customer service.

The marketing team can use powerful analytics built into Microsoft Dynamics CRM to design campaigns that best attract new customers and remind existing customers why they should return to your company.  Know what efforts are the most effective so you can save money on your marketing activities, and get better results.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers the sales team a deep view of customers so you can pull up sales histories and be prepared to replenish a customer before they know they need replenishing.  Automating common sales processes will reduce the time for the sales cycle.  Streamlining proposal and contract approvals means your customer gets the documents they need to make decisions.  The faster you get a proposal out, the faster it can get signed and returned.

Providing the marketing and sales team with the right technology will enable both departments to work with greater productivity, as well as provide better customer service.  Like other Microsoft products, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is easy to learn and use.  Each team can track proposals, customer history, marketing efforts, and other touch points in real time.  When everyone is on the same page, customers will get the superior attention they deserve and, in return, you earn improved sales and customer loyalty.  Contact Socius to see how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can improve the productivity of your marketing and sales departments, generate more sales opportunities, and strengthen customer relationships.

By Socius, Kansas and Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Strengthen the Relationship between Sales and Marketing with CRM Software is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Overall, this is a vote of confidence by Microsoft in the BYOD revolution–it’s not too strong a word–in the business world. With this upgrade, on-the-go sales and marketing staff will have access to Microsoft CRM data on the gadgets that they’re most comfortable with. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Users will be required to separately subscribe to the Dynamics Customer Relationship Management Mobile Service, regardless of their current deployment. Mobile CRM will connect to either premises- or cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics CRM systems.
• A Dynamics CRM Mobile Service subscription covers three mobile devices per user. Other vendors typically charge per user, per device.
• There will be offline access, except by Windows Phone 7, to CRM data, which then can be synchronized when the network becomes available again. Windows Phone 7 sync capability is in the roadmap.
• Microsoft will continue to support 3rd-party mobile solutions.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile will support true native applications, not just generic browser capability, for IOS, Android, and Windows 7 systems.
• But there will be comprehensive cross-browser access for Dynamic CRM Mobile. Users will be able to view CRM end-user pages from Safari (version 5.11+, Apple only), Chrome (version 13x, Microsoft only), Firefox (version 6+), and IE (7.x+, Microsoft only). Access to admin functions will be through IE only.

While cross-browser capability on multiple devices is powerful, Microsoft has focused on the native apps, making sure that users will get the best possible experience. The idea here is to preserve screen real-estate and just provide the CRM records, forms, and CRM navigation capabilities that are needed for specific roles— a unique iPad interface for Marketing, and another for Sales. Admins can configure these profiles from the Setting area, and once changed they will be reflected on everyone’s device.

Before we forget, there will be access to unique device capabilities, such as GPS. In the iPad demo we viewed, it was possible to quickly generate a direction map from a current location to the address of a client found in an Account record within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Neat.

 MIG & Co. – MIG is a Professional Consulting Firm that specializes in the implementation of business management software solutions including Customer Relationship Management. We automate business processes to ensure our customers work efficiently. Mig & Co. is a New York City based Microsoft Dynamics Gold Partner, primarily serving New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

by MIG & Co., New York Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

New Microsoft Dynamic CRM Mobile Capabilities! is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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The post was discussing the state of ERP service firms and how this company would transform the typical experience that customers have. This new company had three core promises: 

1. No surprises during the implementation
2. Responsiveness not just before, but after the implementation, and
3. Experience and versatility to solve complex customer problems 

If you take the ERP part out, these have been my main drivers for the past 20 years. My only thought was that it was too bad they did not have a CRM practice… 

But as of mid-April 2012 I am very excited to say that this has changed.  I have joined Catapult to lead the CRM practice and deliver the same dedication to customer engagement and solutions that our ERP clients have been enjoying over the past 4 months and the last 5 years under the Habanero umbrella. 

I joined Catapult after spending 20 years in a variety of roles throughout the IT industry including CRM and General IT strategy consulting, IT management, and IT service delivery management.  I have worked with a broad range of clients from Manufacturing, Distribution, High Tech, Financial and Professional Services industries, and have experienced the IT industry from both the client and the provider side. 

One of the universal problems I have seen throughout my years in IT is that when a client asks for technology to solve their business challenges, they are usually met by snake-oil salespeople (i.e. IT providers) who are only too happy to provide a panacea, a package of hardware and/or software guaranteed to be the ‘next big thing’. This often leads to “another failed IT project” where the client feels duped into spending 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 plus, only to find their problems still exist; now they have another server on a rack, or software sitting on their shelf. This model of IT implementation, and by extension, CRM implementation, simply does not work.  I have a vision to engage clients differently, viewing CRM as a process rather than a product.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offers much more than a shared repository to manage contact information. Many customers and partners view an implementation as synonymous with installing CRM software. Once the application is on a server or workstation, the engagement is complete. To gain significant value from CRM, we must help clients develop a long-term strategy to transform their customer interactions. While many engagements may begin with a phase that involves installing software and provides initial user training, we must jointly develop a roadmap of how the system can evolve to increase interaction effectiveness and efficiency.

From processes to incentives and metrics, user adoption and engagement are some key measures of implementation success. This can occur at every level of an organization: presenting information in an employee portal, tracking sales calls, or surfacing dashboards on customer segment profitability.  Our model will help make your relationships more valuable and profitable. If you want to discuss your vision for CRM contact me at Catapult ERP: 778.383.1090.

By Marcus Hooper – CRM Practice Leader – Catapult ERP - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner serving Vancouver, Canada and beyond.

How to Implement CRM as a Process Not a Product: A Vision for a New CRM is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Wherever you are in CRM, you will see a Home icon (which directs you back to the area of CRM you have marked as your default home), and a folder with a star on it; this is the recently viewed records icon.  When you click on the recently viewed records icon, you will see the 10 most recent views and the 40 most recent records.

Next to each record and view, you will see a push-pin icon.  When it is grey, the record is not pinned.  If you click on it, the icon turns green and looks like a pin pushed into a cork board.  These pinned records will remain there until you un-pin them.  The other records will disappear based on first in, first out.

I frequently use this feature as I have  clients that I work with on a daily basis so it makes sense to pin these records so they are easier to find and it saves me valuable time.

If you’d like to learn more about how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can increase your efficiency, contact DFC Consultants at 800-277-5561 or email sales@dfcconsultants.com .

Since 1989, DFC Consultants has been providing accounting software solutions, training and support in our offices in Fargo, Bismarck and Dickinson, North Dakota. Our passion is to assist clients in meeting their goals with professional services and powerful business solutions.

By Andrea Lange, DFC Consultants, North Dakota CRM Partner

Time Savers in CRM 2011: Recently Viewed and Pinning Records is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Altico Service + leverages Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and the Microsoft xRM Customer Portal Accelerator to provide:

• Visibility into the full lifecycle of a product from parts sourcing to the location of the finished product.
• The ability to gage key metrics such as profitability.
• Superior yet cost effective customer support.
• Improved handling of constantly changing regulatory requirements and the resulting business risk.
• Enhanced employee satisfaction and productivity.

Check out the Altico Service + Demonstration Video

Built on the Microsoft Azure platform, Service + is an integrated solution that extends the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with a self-service portal for customers or partners. With Service +, companies can:

• Track individual products in the field – past ownership, present ownership, and current physical location.
• Associate the individual product to customers, products, cases, vendors, and maintenance renewals.
• Track Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMAs) and apply workflows to manage the process.
• Collect and report on Customer Product Input (CPI).
• Better manage customer service contracts with “low balance” and other notifications, thereby facilitating incremental revenue.
• Assign assets to Vendors in order to provide visibility into the source of component and supplementary parts.

Service + clients have the ability to create and update RMAs, CPIs, and Service Requests directly within a cloud-based portal.

Do these scenarios strike a chord?

Scenario I – Fielding Support Calls: When, for example, a customer service representative fields a support call, he or she can simply ask for the caller’s name, immediately see the devices linked to that person and organization in Service +, and determine the specific model and serial number. The rep can then utilize existing the Knowledge Base or workflows to resolve the issue or route it to a specialist.

Scenario II – Regulatory Compliance:  If a regulatory agency requires the company to notify all owners of a specific product, Service + makes it possible for you to access the appropriate client lists in Microsoft Dynamics CRM so that you can rapidly identify owners of the affected product and send them an e-mail with the relevant details.

By Marcia Doron, Altico Advisors, Microsoft CRM partner serving Massachusetts (MA)

Dream Team for Asset-Based Companies: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online and Altico Service + is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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