It isn’t often that a Bing search I initiate to research a CRM error message points me to a patent application. But today that happened. The following warning message pops up from time to time when I launch Outlook 2010 on my work notebook computer.

The Bing search returned only one match as follows:

Which when I searched further I uncovered a  US Patent Application Publication published on Dec. 8, 2011.

Here is a link to the full patent application and a snippet from the first page appears below:

What is a patent application? This is what Wikipedia has to say about it.

“A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. An application consists of a description of the invention (the patent specification), together with official forms and correspondence relating to the application. The term patent application is also used to refer to the process of applying for a patent, or to the patent specification itself (i.e. the content of the document filed with a view to initiating the process of applying for a patent [1]).”

Disclaimer: I have been beating pretty hard on my Windows 7 machine for 3+ years. A lot of applications get installed and re-installed and I am always evaluating not only our own CRM extensions but also ones from other companies. As a consequence I see a lot of stuff happening that a regular CRM would user would never see.

Okay, I couldn’t resist checking out one of our CRM 2011 Online instances in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I am really pleased how well it works with IE 10 in that environment considering there hasn’t even been a whisper of talk about getting it ready for Win8. Although we can only suspect that the CRM Team has been hard at work on it as soon as they got their hands on an internal copy for testing.

While rummaging through the connection this morning I observed some cosmetic changes and a few bugs. Well not really even bugs since Win8 is just previewing in Beta now and no one is proposing that running CRM in it now is something you should event think about.

In any event I am collecting for fun a few screen shots of what I have discovered up to this point.

FYI – The fooling around I did (I wouldn’t call it testing) was done on a regular desktop machine after installing the default Consumer Preview without applying any edits to the system configuration – definitely a 100% out of the box environment applied to one of our 30 day trials of CRM 2011 Online.

 There is now an ‘X’ to clear out the contents of a text box
 
 Radio buttons have a slightly larger look and are more pronounced in IE10
 
 Looks like the scroll arrows are missing?
 
 Trying to run reports generates and error and no report. :(
 
 If you generate an error and then try to send it (or infact do anything – don’t send or click on X) it puts you in a continous loop that you can only exit via Task Manager (yes that still existst in Win8)
 
 Loading customizations presents an error
 
 After clearing the error nothing shows up in any of the customizations Window
 

Don’t like to read? Then watch this 42 minute video on the upcoming Dynamics CRM 2011 “CRM Anywhere” Release or also known as the Q2 2012 Service Update.

It is a You Tube video so you can even watch it on your iPad.

This coming week we are introducing our Nurture Marketing Solution adder to our Email2CRM application. Email2CRM integrates Dynamics CRM 2011 and the VerticalResponse email system to provide a sophisticated approach to business class email marketing with Google Web Analytics.

What is Nurture Marketing? The underlying component of a process to ‘nurture’ a lead or a new customer is founded on the principal of drip email marketing.

Wikipedia defines Drip Email Marketing as follows:

“Drip marketing is a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media can also be used. Drip marketing is distinct from other database marketing in two ways: (1) the timing of the messages follow a pre-determined course; (2) the messages are dripped in a series applicable to a specific behavior or status of the recipient.”

Our new add-on to the core Email2CRM system allows you to do just that. Leveraging the funcationality of the Static and Dynamic Marketing list tools in CRM you can define a list of recipients or characteristics of recipients that you want to email. Once associated with a campaign those individuals will receive the sequence of emails at the scheduled time over the designated time period. Should someone be removed from the marketing list because they no longer fit the criteria they will no longer receive any emails in the sequence.

During the week of March 12th we have several webinars to demonstrate how this solution works. Sign up for an Informational Webinar Today!

As a start take a look at how the system is managed via the new Nurture Marketing Campaign custom entity. Click on image to display full size.

 

This solution works with both CRM 2011 Online, CRM 2011 Partner Hosted, and CRM 2011 OnPremise IFD mode.

 

This week Microsoft MVPs from around the world gathered in Redmond for the annual MVP Summit. MVPs meet with their product teams to learn, share, sometimes debate business and techical issues and decisions, build relationships and have fun. This year 41 of the 55 Dynamics CRM MVPs from around the world attended the 3 day event. The CRM MVP group had the highest percentage attendance of any discipline. So if you found that MVPs were contributing to fewer forum answers this week you now know why!

This year’s celebration was held at the Seattle Seahawks Century Link Stadium. You will see from these pictures that MVP’s like to have fun. I personally had a great week and I am in awe of the technical knowledge that my peers have, their willingness to share and their contributions to the CRM community.

Unfortunately we are all under extremely tight NDA so there is no content we can blog about, but I can share with you what happens when MVPs chill out.

Century Link Stadium – it is very impressive
 Larry and the Cheerleaders
 Matt and the Cheerleaders
 MVP Paparazzi
 Larry, Shan devouring cotton candy, Jamie, Leon
 
 Andrii and Dave with a few new friends
 
 Roohi “Sam”
 
 Guy and Matt with Tanguy in the foreground
 
 Wim, Ronald, Richard
 

Picking which concurrent session to attend is one of the annual dilemmas I have faced at Convergence. Given a conflict, I have always opted to attend one of the focus group sessions that interested me over a session presentation at the same time slot. Why? Check out my reasons that follow, but in a nutshell, the focus groups offer real, live insight that can’t be obtained anywhere else and the presentation sessions are typically recorded and viewable after the event.

Here are 3 reasons why you should sign up for and participate in one of the research sessions scheduled by the CRM Engineering Team.  If one of the scheduled focus group sessions fits into your area of interest you should definitely sign up and participate.

The reasons are:

  1. Gain insight into the future direction of the product and influence its direction. Really, that’s not marketing fluff, you will get insight into where the product might be going, how the user interface could function and see into the Microsoft crystal ball. Insight into the possible future direction of the product often goes past what is even shared under NDA with Microsoft MVPs, partners, and participants in technology preview programs. Your feedback could influence the direction of the product. I have seen it happen.
  2. Meet some of the members of the CRM product management team up close and personal. You will find out how dedicated they are to building the best CRM product. CRM is not just a bunch of bits and bytes. You will be able to share with the people at your company  your experience interacting with the people behind the product. However, due to the NDA you will sign you will not be able to tell them anything about what was discussed.
  3. Get a Microsoft gratuity, which in the past you would select from a list of Microsoft hardware and software. You can use the item you select, give it to someone else – they make great birthday, holiday and Father’s day gifts. Note: I did not say Mother’s day or Anniversary gifts, been there, tried it, trust me it does not go over well – even as a joke. Or I heard that you can even turn it into cash by selling it on eBay. Be advised that if you participate in more than one session you could end up receiving items that total more than $600 and in that case you will get a 1099 Form at the end of the year to file with you taxes.

 

If one of the scheduled focus group sessions fits into your area of interest you should definitely sign up and participate regardless of the other session(s) going on at the same time.

The sessions are on the following topics:

  • Using external data sources to increase sales productivity within CRM
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Licensing model
  • Hosted Email connector overview and feedback
  • Social Customer care concept overview and feedback

 

I have signed up to be a participant in the CRM Online Licensing model session – hope to see you around the table.

The R8 (CRM 2011 R8 Release Preview Guide) release  this Spring will bring enhanced social functionality to the initial feature set introduced in November 2011. However, it appears what Microsoft might have in store for the Fall 2012 R9 release will take the Social functionality of the CRM system up by several orders of magnitude.

Microsoft’s “Project Vancouver” which is a SQL Azure Labs test project could be the foundation of the Fall release.

What is Project Vancouver all about? Here is  snipit from the site:

Our goal is to enable businesses to build connections and communities among customers, influencers, and their employees; to support customer needs for high value information guided by peers and experts/influencers; to engage in conversations and respond to buzz around hot topics; and to make the voice of community actionable across the product lifecycle.

Here is what the Project Vancouver data screen looks like. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this inside of CRM and linked to records, enhanced by workflow and user personalized? I can’t wait for Summer to be over and for November to come around!

Click on image to get full screen view.

 

Source: What’s on tap for Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM ‘R9′ update later this year

As a CRM Partner since 2003 we receive many official public announcements and announcements under NDA regarding the Dynamics CRM product roadmap. At Convergence each year we get updated insight into the business and marketing plans for the product. We love where the product is being taken as our financial future and the success of clients depends on it’s success in the marketplace.

So recently I was pleased to see how the CRM Team (at least the HR component) is positioning itself to new hires when I stumbled on this job posting for a Senior Product Marketing Manager – Dynamics CRM.

I really like their ultimate position against SFDC along with the reference to being a ‘game changer’.

 

 

 

 

I have inserted the entire jost posting below. Or if you would like to apply for the position you can view it online.

One of the really great features of Dynamics CRM is the power of choice – on-premise, online,  or partner hosted.

Very often companies say “I would like to give this ‘cloud thing’ a try but if I change my mind can I get the data so I can run CRM on our own server?” The answer is YES!

To initiate a migration, request an export of your organization’s data from Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support. Requests for trial exports are processed every Tuesday using the latest existing backup. There is no constraint on your continued use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. New data will continue to be captured until you go to the final export stage. Continue to use it while your CRM partner or your company does a trial re-deployment of the CRM data into your CRM 2011 on-premise environment. Don’t proceed from this step to the final export until you have thoroughly tested the new on-premise environment. Like dear old mom used to tell you ” A word to the wise is sufficient”.

When you are ready to make the real switch to get the final export file, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support will disable your CRM organization and make a full backup of the data.  The process of the final export requests starts on a Thursday; the data is prepared and published the next day – Friday. Therefore your total business week downtime will be approximately one to two business days.

Once you get the final export, restoring the data to a partner-hosted or your on-premises deployment should take less than a day. Then you will be back up and running on Monday. This presumes that you did atleast one successful trial migration.

There aren’t any fees charged to create the trial or final export files. Cancellation fees are waived when you migrate to another Dynamics CRM platform.

Additional information is available online – Microsoft CRM Online Data Migration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premises

Really, really BIG News about Dynamics CRM

Today – February 6, 2012 Microsoft is releasing preview guidance regarding the Q2 2012 Service Update

In this blog I have higlighted and summarized the 6 major categories. You can read more details at the official release site: http://crmpublish.blob.core.windows.net/docs/ReleasePreviewGuide.pdf
Today’s preview announcement is for R8. The tentative schedule is for it to release sometime this Spring. It is going to be HUGE! Looking ahead to the Fall there will be R9. Not much has been disclosed about it yet. But you can see on the time chart that Social will be the focus along with Next Gen Productivity. I wonder what that means?

Mobility

Not only are there mobile options from various third party providers, get a real CRM mobile client from Microsoft itself. Mobile Express no more as the only solution from Microsoft. Of course it isn’t free but for those that need it the cost is easy to justify.

Browser Flexibility

To quote Red Fox from Sanford & Son – This is the Big One. Running IE as the browser will no longer be the non-negotiable requirement. Run CRM in the browser of your choice and the device of your choice.

Social

Activity Feeds just got introduced in the November 2011 R7 release and they are going to get more functionality and features.

Industry Templates

Looks like more vertical market sample solutions from the MS team (Dynamics Labs) to demonstrate how CRM can be applied to any industry. These pre-built solutions can be used to jump start your implementation.

SQL Server 2012

SQL Server RCO is available and ready. Looks like CRM Online will be using it come this Spring. Along withe new BI solutions for SharePoint to integrate into CRM.

Certifications

They are going to keep your data even safer at Microsoft CRM Online and meet some of the most important and widely required agency, organization and rule certifications requirements will be met.