Each year at Microsoft Convergence, the company unveils the latest and greatest new features and upgrades coming to its Dynamics software lines. This year is no exception! There’s been talk of many great enhancements coming to Microsoft Dynamics CRM later this year. A few of these discussed at this year's Microsoft Convergence conference I am most excited about include:
- OneNote integration
Why I'm excited and you should be too:
While the details on exactly how this one is going to work still remain a little fuzzy, if you're like me and use OneNote daily as a one-stop shop for keeping well organized notes about everything you're currently working on, OneNote integration with Dynamics CRM could be a godsend. Here's an example of how it may be useful. Let's say you're a sales manager who likes to take notes on your sales meetings. Using OneNote, integration with Dynamics CRM could ensure that your notes always contain the most up-to-date customer information. Right now, if you want to take any information that you originally captured in OneNote and associate it with a record in CRM you must reenter the information in Dynamics CRM. But, new integration between these two systems could mean the end to spending valuable time performing duplicate data entry.
- Numerical lead scoring
Why I'm excited and you should be too:
Many sales and marketing managers are already familiar with the idea of lead scoring. It allows you see at a glance which of your current opportunities are most likely to convert, so that you can prioritize how you spend your limited time and financial resources. Having that available from directly inside Dynamics CRM will allow users to spend less time switching between applications to get the information that they need to do their jobs effectively.
- Improved integration with Office 365 and Power BI
Why I'm excited and you should be too:
Many of us spend much of our work day inside of one or more components of Microsoft Office, be it Word, Excel or both; that's why deeper integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office is so exciting. Having the information we need readily available to us without having to switch between applications means being able to get more work done in less time. For example, according to Bob Stutz, corporate vice president of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing, "the release will have an immersive Excel experience, enabling a sales manager to perform 'what if' scenarios in Excel and update their forecasts right within CRM."
- A new social engagement tool
Why I'm excited and you should be too:
If you're a marketing or sales professional like me, one of your main focuses is probably tracking the activity around your product and services on various social media platforms. Right now, most of us use any number of the various third-party tools currently available to do this. However, with the next release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM you will be able to do this right from within your customer relationship management system and take your tracking one step further. With the new social engagement tool coming to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you will be able to perform data analysis based on the information captured within your social media platforms and interact with customers on social media, all without leaving the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.
If you would like to learn more about the latest Dynamics CRM enhancements unveiled at Microsoft Convergence 2015, check out these other articles:
If you'd want more information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and what sets it apart from other customer relationship management solutions, please .
If you have questions or would like to discover whether Microsoft Dynamics CRM is right for your organization, please feel free to . We are happy to discuss your business' specific needs.
By: Laura Heinbockel, Intelligent Technologies Inc., a North Carolina Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner
