Many CRM users who have CRM for Outlook installed on their PC’s also open the CRM web client to browse CRM. When asked why they do this, they often reply “because I don’t like to leave my inbox.” They will use CRM for Outlook for tracking e-mails and appointments, and then open the web client if they want to open an account or view their pipeline.
The concern about leaving your e-mail can be a valid concern, if you have to flip out of CRM when you get notified that new messages have arrived. Also, more people are using multiple monitors, and want to be able to run Outlook and CRM side-by-side.
However, CRM 2011 for Outlook is the premier user experience for Microsoft CRM. By not using CRM for Outlook to navigate Microsoft Dynamics CRM, there are some fantastic functionality enhancements that you are not able to use, like flagging records, tabbed views, advanced filtering, grouping, or conditional formatting.
So if you need to run CRM in Outlook and also see your inbox, what should you do?
One option of which many users are unaware is you can actually run two instances of Outlook side-by-side.
1. Open Outlook and navigate to the CRM solution.
2. After Outlook launches, click the icon for Outlook in your start menu. This will launch a second Outlook window defaulting to your inbox.
You will now have two Outlook windows open, one showing your inbox and the other showing CRM folders. You can now see your inbox and use the full CRM functionality.
Based on my tests, running Outlook in this manner uses only slightly more system resources than running just one instance.
