Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 – What’s New?

At the July Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft demonstrated the new capabilities coming in its next version of its customer relationship management (CRM) solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

The new version will have the familiar interface and connected experiences users of the Microsoft Office suite are used to. This release will also integrate with Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, an online catalog of industry-specific applications and extensions, which will allow users to search for applications designed to extend and enhance their CRM solution.

Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, said “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011…offers new levels of user productivity and collaboration that meet their specific business needs with a low total cost of ownership…this new release raises the bar in the CRM market.”

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will build on and extend current capabilities through the following experiences:

Familiar Experiences

• Next-generation Microsoft Outlook experience. The best Microsoft Outlook client experience yet enables CRM information to take full advantage of native Outlook functionality including previews and conditional formatting.
• Microsoft Office experience. New contextual CRM Ribbon for Outlook and browser clients delivers consistent Microsoft Office navigation and user experiences.
• RoleTailored design. Role-based forms and views ensure business professionals have fast access to the relevant information that they need and are prevented from seeing data that they are not authorized to view.
• Advanced user personalization. Customers can create personal views, add commonly used records and design personal dashboards to measure performance.

 Intelligent Experiences

• Inline data visualizations. Business professionals using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can quickly create and share inline charts with drill-down intelligence to visually navigate data and uncover new insights.
• Real-time dashboards. Businesses can rapidly configure multiple real-time dashboards to actively monitor business performance and improve decision-making.
• Flexible goal management. Businesses can define key performance and business health indicators to track and measure progress against any organizational goal or metric.
• Guided process dialogs. In addition to automated processes, businesses can provide their employees with step-by-step guidance through any business process or interaction.

 Connected Experiences

• Contextual documents. For organizations with Microsoft SharePoint Server, people can easily provision SharePoint document repositories and embed directly within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
• Cloud development. Developers can develop and deploy custom code for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online using powerful tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio. Powered by .NET Framework 4, they can also incorporate Microsoft Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation and Language Integrated Query into their cloud solutions.
• Solution management. Solution developers can easily create, manage and help protect solutions from creation to distribution through versioning, dependencies and security features.
• Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace. Customers can quickly find, download and apply custom solutions and extensions embedded within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

If you’re interested in learning more about current or new capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please contact us. Sikich is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner headquartered in Chicago, specializing in the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We work with over 4000 customers in 4 states: Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas, in a variety of industries with a focus on manufacturing and distribution, professional services, education and not-for-profit.

By Sikich, a leading Chicago IL Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner serving IL, IN and MO