Thursday, July 24, 2008

Available Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Courses

A lot of people asking me which trainingen are available for version 4.0. Below you find an overview of Compu'Train and InfoSupport. These two are the major training institutes in the Netherlands.

Compu'Train
What's New in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (Clinic) - 1 day - €500
Installing and Deployment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (M8911) - 3 days - €900
Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (M8912) - 3 days -€1380
Microsoft Dynanamics CRM 4.0 Applications (M8913) - 3 days -€ 1250
Microsoft CRM Sales Management (M8521) - 1 day - €390
Microsoft CRM Marketing Automation (M8522) - 1 day - €390
Microsoft CRM Service Management (M8523) - 1 day - €390
Microsoft CRM Service Scheduling (M8524) - 1 day - €390

InfoSupport
Microsoft CRM Next Applications - CRM4APPL
Customization and Configuration in Microsoft CRM 4.0 - CRM4CONF
Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - CRM4EXT
Installation and Deployment in Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 - CRM4INST
What's new in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 ? Technical track - CRM4TECHN
Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Reporting and BI - CRMBI

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 User's Guide

Microsoft has releashed a printable version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 User's Guide. This can can be downloaded in DOCX or PDF format.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Gartner Names SalesCentric ‘Top 5 Cool Vendor in 2008’ for Relationship Charts

During my vacation I received an email of SalesCentric and Gartner.

SalesCentric has been included by Ed Thompson in the ‘Cool Vendors in CRM Sales 2008’ report, by Gartner Inc. in March 2008.

According to the report “Sales organisations using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for account management seeking to improve the account review process should investigate SalesCentric”. Additionally, “The application is cool because it enables salespeople to draw and redraw the organization chart using different relationship criteria, and even include "ghost" employees where the contact name is unknown but their influence is being felt.”

The primary objective of the report is to look at which technologies, vendors, applications and services will meet the needs of marketing and selling organizations. The report describes new vendors that provide innovative ways to help sales grow revenue.

“We’re delighted to be the only Microsoft related CRM vendor to have been named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner in this report,” said Matthew Crook, CEO of SalesCentric. “Through our Relationship Charts software we have clearly demonstrated how businesses can get the most from their investment by making CRM easy to use. Users can easily see and understand the overall picture and leverage valuable market and human insight to dramatically increase the quality of new business opportunities and close more business”.

Relationship Charts is a unique add-on to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that drives the adoption of this software by allowing account managers to easily view the relationships within a prospect’s organisation, including vendors and suppliers. This insight enables sales professionals to take action before the deal has passed. Relationship Charts seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, meaning users already familiar with the CRM package will require minimal training to begin creating and managing business-critical customer relationship information, vital to sales and marketing.

So again I really recommend everyone to include this GREAT addon to your standard implementation of CRM.

Update Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.2.0 Implementation Guide

Microsoft have updated the English version of the Implementation Guide to v4.2.0. This guide contains comprehensive information about how to plan, install, and maintain Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. I really recommend everyone to read and use the IG! This can be downloaded here.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Summer Holiday 2008 Marmaris Turkey

Dear blog readers, I will be on holiday from the 5th of july till the 19th of July. After my holiday I will update my blog as soon as possible. I wish everyone a great summer 2008.

SalesCentric deploy next generation of visual user experience

Just received the following email of SalesCentric and I wanted to share this news with my blog readers.

SalesCentric is set to unveil two new versions of Relationship Charts for Dynamics CRM at the WPC next week. Visit stand 383 and see the next generation of CRM visualization utilizing Microsoft’s Silverlight technology and the new service, Relationship Charts for Dynamics CRM Online.
Silverlight provides the foundation to take CRM and Relationship Charts to the next generation of visual user experience. Animation, zoom and multiple ‘actor cards’ that fan out give the user the ability to quickly see on one screen information that would otherwise take multiple CRM views to get.

Relationship Charts Online is an on-demand customer relationship visualization service for users of Microsoft CRM Online. The new Internet service will be available for customers of Microsoft CRM Online. Users seamlessly access Relationship Charts while working within the standard CRM Online service from Microsoft.

Relationship Charts will be available in two versions for CRM Online:
  • Relationship Charts Online Professional offers Relationship Charts within three CRM areas: account, contact and opportunity
  • Relationship Charts Online Professional Plus offers Relationship Charts within any CRM entity and displays any entity on a chart, including system users

People close five times as much business when they have relationships with key decision makers. Relationship Charts reveals the relationships within CRM.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

EBAX addon for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Last week I came in contact with Brad Nimitz, he is the EBAX Product Manager for Prosoft Systems. EBAX is a add-on application created to improve CRM’s efficiency and simplify the process of data input. EBAX takes advantage of the ease and speed of Excel spreadsheets to populate CRM’s data. Now users can enter all and any information into an Excel spreadsheet and with the click of the mouse update this data into CRM.
Prosoft Systems International established in 1992, is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft CRM, Office Application Development, Sharepoint, Custom Application Development, and Business Intelligence solutions.
I have downloaded the 14 days trial version and installed this on the Microsoft CRM 4.0 VPC, see screenshots below.

The installation of the EBAX addon is very easy to do.

After the installation is completed, you can inport the EBAX.xml into CRM.


After configuring Excel with the CRM Server (set the right URL of the website into Excel), the MS CRM tab will appear in the menu above.


Now you can easily upload data into Excel, adjust/modify the data and upload it back into CRM.

You can read a short summary of the EBAX addon below:

Note: The price of the EBAX addon is $85 per user with first year update subscription.
I must say that this addon is very easy to install and handy to use. A very nice feature of the addon is also the offline capability. So I recommend everyone to download the trial and see it yourself. For more information, please visit the website of Prosoft Systems International.