Customer Care, Configuration, Pricing and Quotation taken to the next level

With the new release of Microsoft Dynamics CMR 2015, Customer Care is taken to the Next level.

 

You have propably read the Whats New sheet provided from Microsoft.

One of the capabilities with this new release is Product Configuration.

MSD CRM partners and Companies using MSD CRM as THE customer relationship management solution, have in the past found that it lacked on features for product configuration, pricing and quotation.

 

Now this is far more advanced in this major release.

Not only do you have product families and hierarchically connected product structures and dependencies. You also have the ability to enter attributes on the product when Building up your quotations.

This is a strong feature that connects directly into the contract management, SLA and entitlement features in MSD CRM.

 

Trying it out is very simple:

- Go to Microsoft Dynamics Demos

- Log in (Create an account in a simple step to gain access)

- Deploy a new instance of any kind (If you choose to deploy the empty one, remember to install the demo data in case you want to see how the O365 product from Microsoft is build up)

- Create a quotation on any entity you feel like, but make sure the selected pricelist is set to a pricelist that actually contains pricelist items

- Observe the feature of entering additional parameter information on the quotation lines and make sure you dive into the products to explore the advanced capabilities for product configuration

 

The new capabilities puts MSD CRM in a very strong position when compeeting with other so called CRM applications and services. Hopefully Gartner, Forester and other will discover this in the nearest assesment they will be doing.

 

Enjoy life - Enjoy Microsoft!

 

 

Unified Service Desk available for MSD CRM 2015

For the early ones: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43110

What is Unified Service Desk?
Mirrors of applications running in an unified application. All configurable in MSD CRM based on helper entities with configuration parameters.
Have call scripts and actions to guide the user behind a call center desk.

Enjoy!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Online at http://demobuilder.cloudapp.net

SO - CRM 2015 is here

Log on to http://demobuilder.cloudapp.net and sign up for an empty instance of CRM 2015.

Enjoy

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Import

Import has been a hazel from the early days.
Now - Is this due to limitations in the standard import interface from the MSD CRM GUI or is it lack of knowledge and skills?

Back in the days where high tech was Xerox and telefax, the successful businesses were the once that knew the products they were selling.

Now a days.... Well.... Back on the track.

When you do import data there is one thing thing you should know: What is your tool box!
Knowing your tool box makes it so much easier to maneuver.

I use Microsoft Excel as the simple toolbox.
Example: Export a number of records from an entity, modify using all hacks like dlookup, lookup and concagnating of fields. Brings me far of we are talking simple tasks.
So advice number one: Learn your Excel commands and functions

Microsoft access is a bit more advanced. In Microsoft Access you would be able to establish the same schema and base of data, that you would like to migrate from one solution to another. Lets say  you have a task where you would like to migrate data from Sugar CRM to MSD CRM.
Export your data from Sugar CRM into csv files and link each of them from MS Access. Create the relationships between the individual tables and you are almost there.
Download the import templates for each of the entities you would like to migrate data to, and replicate that schema model in a set of views.
Now you could decide just to export the tables to csv files from MS Access, but if approach the task with try and error you might want to repeat the task.... Too time consuming...... You might consider building up a set of macros, that export the data based on a file definition, for you to get the same set of data in a structured and exact same format over and over again.
Second advice: If you have a migration task with multiple simple tables from one source, your could use MS Access.

Third option is if we are talking complex migrations and multiple sources. You would have to cleanse data and uniform them.
That takes a MS SQL database and might even involve the usage of Analysis Services and Integration Services, where you could benefit from the framework in place.
Now - That would take some skills to get there, but it is not that hard. Microsoft provides a set of free applications and services - MS SQL Express is one of them. You would get all tools to do complex migration of data with a certain amount of data.
Third advice: Learn how the MS SQL Express engine is working, what are the capabilities, features and functions and how you can import, export, transform and plan you data.

And then the other once: Dynamics Connector, Scribe, KingSoft and others.....

I hope this has given you some inspiration to dive into the world of data migration and data management.

Internet Explorer 11 is just blank

Been a while, but i feel the urge to share this issue.

My internet Explorer 11 running on Windows Surface Pro (1) showed nothing but a blank page. Frustrating as partner source and other relevant Microsoft Partner sites requires Internet Explorer.
But i managed to reset the settings and made the explorer function again.

Taken from this post

Here is how:

1. Go to "Control Panel"

2. Click on "Networking"

3. Under "Internet Options" click on "Manage Browser Add-ons" which brings up "Internet Properties"

4. Select "Security" Tab

5. Click the button that says "RESET all Zones to Default Level" Follow the prompts and allow it to reset all security to default levels.

6. Click on the "Advanced" tab

7. Click on the "RESET..." button.

8. A dialog will pop up saying you must close all applications, ... or something like that.  Close all applications.

9. Then, press CTRL-ALT-DEL and open the "Windows TASK Manager"

10. Go to "Processes" tab, and find the first of several processes labeled "iexplorer"

11. KILL ALL IEXPLORE PROCESSES... you MUST DO THIS, or the reset you are about to do, will not work.

12. For me killing the first iexplorer process, will kill it's child processes, but watch this closely, it may take a minute or two to complete.  

13. When complete, close out the Task Manager, you should have NO OTHER Apps running - just in case this matters.

14. Go back to  "Internet Properties" where you are ready now to RESET IE to defaults. 

15. Proceed with RESET.

Enjoy!