Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 – Dashboards Everywhere!!!

By Joel Hatin, Altico Advisors

This will likely be the favorite new function for many business users, support, and sales users alike in the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. In the past, creating custom dashboards for CRM meant integration with SQL Reporting Services or maybe SharePoint.  Dynamics CRM Online provided some basic dashboarding options – but they were limited. Users of the soon to be released Online version will have a glimpse of what Microsoft is working on for CRM 2011.  Not only did Microsoft create a powerful and easy-to-use dashboard designer, they made it so flexible that dashboards can be easily integrated directly into your views or your data entry forms.  Look no further for a reason to upgrade!!!!

In the previous releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, dashboards were considered to be something that you view at the top of an application (such as a “sales dashboard”). Those are still available.  But now you can have a dashboard for each view in CRM (my neglected accounts, my current pipeline, my activities, team activities, etc), as well as for each record (service incidents and satisfaction for a particular account, is but one example). Once you make the jump to CRM 2011, expect to be able to quickly understand and react to changing customer needs because…you’ll have dashboards everywhere!

For more information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM you can click on the following links:  Overview of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, CRM Marketing Automation, Dynamics CRM Sales Force Automation, CRM Customer Service Brochure, or an Overview of the New CRM Accelerators. 

Submitted by, Altico Advisors, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner for Massachusetts (MA)