I’ve been watching some of the recent Twitter posts about the purported shortcomings of Salesforce.com versus Microsoft Dynamics CRM so I thought I’d share them as they appeared (without adding any personal commentary) with our CRM Software Blog readers.
1-Salesforce.com does not offer an on premises option. Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers multiple deployment options.
2-Salesforce.com charges a monthly fee for offline access. The Outlook client provides full access to all data elements, workflows, and other entities, so users can be as productive when offline as they are when online.
3-Salesforce.com has no duplicate record detection. Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports duplicate detection out of the box, and enhanced functionality is coming with the Q4 2011 Service Update.
4-Users cannot access Global Search in Salesforce.com without enabling Chatter. (including documents) for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online at a price of $6/user/ month, and it deploys in less than two minutes.
5-Outlook attachments aren’t captured in Salesforce.com. This is standard functionality with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Outlook.
6-Salesforce.com doesn’t allow multiple profiles. Users must create profiles for every situation. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this is standard functionality. allows users to have multiple roles.
7-Salesforce.com for Outlook doesn’t allow users to create multiple day events. Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Outlook support a common productivity scenario like multiple day events.
Disclaimer: As a user of Microsoft Dynamics CRM I can attest to the accuracy of most of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM information above insofar as the functionality that I use. But I have not independently verified the veracity of the Salesforce.com information. Still, if you’re evaluating both CRM systems, these are some good points on which to focus.
By Justin Languirand,
Ashish and Jerry. I'm not a Salesforce expert, so I'll let you guys discuss the duplicate detention capabilities of Salesforce.com. As for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, 2011 allows you to configure duplicate detection rules based on created or updated records, on any record type, on any field or combination thereof.
For example, you could configure a rule to flag any Contact with the same first name, last name and first 3 digits of a zip code.
Salesforce does have duplicate record detection feature. It also offers you a feature to merge the duplicate records.
Thanks, Ashish. I appreciate the correction.
Where's the out-of-the-box duplicate detection? It will let you merge records, yes. But it will not automatically detect duplicates.