Nov 10 11

shorty

test

changing layout

door: FrankvanDelden
Oct 7 10

Example: Add Twitter search widget to Microsoft CRM 2011by using a Webresource

One of the many new features of Microsoft CRM 2011 is the possibility of adding web pages and scripts to your form. To test this new functionality of Micrsoft CRM 2011, I decided to add a Twitter search widget to the account entity.

Benefits of interfacing Twitter in CRM 2011
Before creating a Webresource in Microsoft CRM 2011 with the Twitter Search widget I asked myself why I wanted to do such a thing. Here are my arguments.

  • Twitter is an extra source to help you prepare your (sales-)meetings.
  • Twitter can help you identify your customers challenges and experiences.
  • Twitter can help organizations to identify their customers and their challenges and experiences
  • I want to try the new Web Resource feature of Microsoft CRM 2011
  • And most important: It is fun!

What information are we looking for on Twitter?
The information shown in the Webresource will be Tweets related to

  • The company
  • The main product or brand of the company.

In my opinion it is an extra benefit to view tweets about the products of your customers. It will help you to identify the challenges of your customer.

For example: Microsoft. Off course there are a lot of tweets about Microsoft, but you miss a hell of a lot information if the tweets about (for example) Windows 7 are not shown.

How does it looks?
Screenshot below shows how a Twitter widget can be interfaced in Microsoft CRM 2011.

Example of Twitter interfaced in Microsoft CRM 2011
Example of Twitter interfaced in Microsoft CRM 2011 (click to enlarge)

 From the Tweets we can see that at this moment two topics are hot an Qurius.

  • Inspirience Center
  • Cloud Computing.

Step by Step: how tot add Twitter to Microsoft CRM 2011
The following steps are made to create the above interface of twitter in Microsoft CRM 2011.

Step 1: create new field ‘Main Product’
The information in this field will be used to store the name of the accounts’ main product or brand. (off course this step is optional. You can also create a search on other fields. ).

Step 2: create a Webresource in Microsoft CRM 2011
Go to Settings, customizations and add a new Webresource.

Webresource in Microsoft CRM 2011 (Twitter)
Webresource in Microsoft CRM 2011 (click to enlarge)

Step 3: add the code
Select HTML type and click ‘Text Editor’ to paste the following code:

<SCRIPT src=”http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js”></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT> var sAccountname = parent.document.forms[0].all.name.DataValue; var sMainproduct = parent.document.forms[0].all.new_mainproduct.DataValue; var sSearch = sMainproduct +’ OR ‘+ sAccountname new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: ‘search’, search: sSearch, interval: 6000, title: ‘Tweets about’, subject: sAccountname, width: 630, height: 210, theme: { shell: { background: ‘#d6e7ff’, color: ‘#000000′ }, tweets: { background: ‘#f7fbff’, color: ‘#444444′, links: ‘#1985b5′ } }, features: { scrollbar: false, loop: true, live: true, hashtags: true, timestamp: true, avatars: true, toptweets: true, behavior: ‘default’ } }).render().start(); </SCRIPT>

This code is based on the Twitter search widget.

Don’t forget to publish the WebResource.

Step 4: add the Webresource to your account form
Go to the account form and add the Webresource you have just created. Publish and your done.

NOTE: it is an interface, not an integration
As I have allready blogged in my example how to combine Microsoft CRM and Social Media. There are two options to combine social media and Microsoft CRM. This example is a interface and not an integration.

Enjoy!

door: FrankvanDelden
Aug 13 10

Your customers don’t want to talk with you, so start with e-service

This week I read an interesting article by Matthew Dixon and Lara Ponomareff called “Why your customers don’t want to talk to you.”

This article tells the story that nowadays people sometimes prefer self service to talking to their suppliers. Although companies tend to think their customers value live service more than twice as much as they value self service. It is shown that customers today indifferent about this. So your customer self-service just as much as using the phone.

So, why don’t your customers want to talk to you
On a psychological level, it might have to do with the unique element of control that self service affords. Or, maybe this self-service love affair is a product of our infatuation with gadgetry and electronic communication.

 Whatever the reason might be, a self service portal will definitely benefits to your customers loyalty! Luckily Microsoft released the e-service accelerator for Microsoft CRM 4.0 last year.

Microsoft e-service accelerator for Microsoft
The eService Accelerator is part of a free set of solutions that Microsoft has given to the Dynamics CRM customers. It contains a portal website (demo) and an integration of this portal and Microsoft CRM. The eService accelerator provides businesses the ability to deliver self-service capabilities to their customers while tracking and managing these interactions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The Microsoft CRM e-service accelerator allows your customers to

  1. Easy add cases / service requests
  2. Ability to instantly know the status of a case
  3. Searching and Scheduling service offerings
  4. Searching a Knowledgebase and FAQ
  5. Update contact information
  6. Update Account information

A good demo of the e-service portal is shown in this video of the self service portal.

Better be good than sorry

Research shows that customers who attempt to self service, fail, and are forced to pick up the phone are 10% more likely to be disloyal than those customers who were able to fully resolve their issues in their channel of choice.

57% of inbound calls come from customers who first attempted to resolve their issue on the company’s website. And over 30% of callers are on the company’s website at the same time that they are talking to a rep on the phone.  

More reasons to implement a self service portal to Microsoft CRM.

  • Each case can be a sales opportunity
  • Workflows can help your organization to structure the service processes
  • Save money
  • Work with shared mail addresses
  • Keep an eye on the workload of your service department.
  • And more

The Self service accelerator can be download from codeplex.

door: FrankvanDelden
Aug 5 10

Timesaver: Data entry with a business card scanner for Microsoft CRM

cardscanning process in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Business cards are probably the most common source of new contacts. To get around the work load of  typing in all the details for each of these contacts, I looked into a business card scanner for Microsoft CRM 4.0.

By using a scanner which will convert a physical business card (by using OCR) into CRM data. I will not only be able to save time (and money), but it will also reduces mistakes by manually entering the data into CRM and it will contribute to the end user adoption, because it is more user friendly.

 

Requirements for a business card scanner for Microsoft CRM 4.0

In the quest for the best scanning solution I made the following list of requirements.

  • The ability to create the following record types in Microsoft CRM:
    • Leads
    • Accounts
    • Contacts
    • Campaign Responses (nice to have)
  • No extra user interface. For better user adoption my users will only work with Microsoft CRM 4.0 (major)
  • Import card image as a file attachment into CRM (nice to have)
  • No new database. Business Cards information will be stored within Microsoft CRM
  • English user interface
  • Create own field mappings between scanned sections of the business card and Microsoft CRM attributes. (nice to have)
  • Recognize if a scanned business contact is related to an existing account (major)

With a little help from Google I found two possible solutions

Scan2MSCRM

Scan2MSCRM is a business card scanner to microsoft crm that can scan business cards and imports both their textual data and image to a new contact record, lead record or account record in your Microsoft ® CRM application.

Within seconds of placing a card into the business card scanner, Scan2MSCRM pulls the information off the card using OCR ( Optical Character Recognition ) technology, and imports the text fields of a new contact record, lead record or account record in theMicrosoft CRM (name, title, phone number, etc.), while also capturing an image file of the card.

The video below shows the possibilities of Scan2MSCRM (http://www.scanshell-store.com/scan-business-cards-to-microsoft-crm.htm)

Card Scan für Microsoft CRM 4.0

CardScan is a combined scanner/software solution, with which you can easily and comfortably capture business card data electronically. Gone are the times when you had to enter address data manually. Captured information is automatically assigned to the appropriate fields in the CardScan database and can be transfered to a Microsoft CRM.

The (german) documentationsays this products has the following benefits:

  • Easy Installation
  •  Customizable to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Duplicate detection
  • Scans contacts, accounts and leads
  • Import card image as a file attachment into CRM
  • Scan both front- and backside of a business card

What I liked most in their documentation was the following image.

Exisiting account in Microsoft CRM

This images says that it recognizes an accountname and it gives the user the opportunity to relate the contact (created from the scanner) to an existing account. (unfortunately the image is only in German).

Unfortunately none of the above scanners fit to my list of requirements. Because I only want one interface and I like the option of relate contacts to existing accounts, I decided to purchase the CardScan Scanner.

Update

At this moment I am installing it, after installation and testing I will update this blog (or write a new) with my experiences.

door: FrankvanDelden
Jul 16 10

Example how to combine Microsoft CRM and Social Media

Customer satisfaction is an integral part of company growth and success. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems offer businesses a way to keep current customers satisfied, as well as a way of finding new customers. Social Media can play a huge role in both these endeavors.

Many companies incorporate Microsoft CRM in order to manage and organize all the contact it has with both existing and prospective customers.

By combining social technology and Microsoft CRM a powerful tool arises..T he benefits of combining Microsoft CRM and Social Media are countless. Companies can use social media for providing better customer service to their already large customer base. By storing this information in Microsoft CRM, service and product quality can be improved.

Marketeer can use social media to reach more people and spread the word of their products and services. In the end, the main goals of both CRM and Social Media are providing better customer service and attracting new customer.

If you want to combine social media and Microsoft CRM, there are 2 principles:

  1. Interface. Data from social media will not be stored in the Microsoft CRM database. Microsoft CRM will only show the social media information.
  2. Integration. Using the Social Media platform API, data from the Social Media will be extracted and stored in Microsoft CRM.

Table below states some possibilities of bot principles. 

  Interface Integration
Data in CRM Database No Yes
Reporting on Social Media data No Yes
Workflows social media (status) updates No Yes
Complexity Simple Complex
Contact can update (own) contact information No Yes
3rd degree relations available No Yes

 Of course a hybrid solution is also a possibility.

Below is an example of an LinkedIn Interface in Microsoft CRM. With the code

LinkedIn interface in Microsoft CRM

function LinkedInLoader(crmFormField) {

 var ll = this;

    ll.scriptSource = 'http://www.linkedin.com/companyInsider?script&useBorder=yes'

    ll.field = crmFormField;

    ll.container = crmFormField.parentNode;

    ll.nameToSearch = crmFormField.DataValue;

    ll.spanId = ll.field.id + '_linkedin';

 if (ll.container != null) {

 var span = document.createElement('span');

        span.id = ll.field.id + '_linkedin';

 var td1 = document.createElement('td');

        td1.innerHTML = ll.container.innerHTML;

 var td2 = document.createElement('td');

        td2.appendChild(span);

        td2.style.width = '15px';

 var tr = document.createElement('tr');

        tr.appendChild(td1);

        tr.appendChild(td2);

 var table = document.createElement('table');

        table.width = '100%';

        table.style.tableLayout = 'fixed';

        table.cellSpacing = 0;

        table.cellPading = 0;

        table.appendChild(tr);

        ll.container.innerHTML = table.outerHTML;

    }

    ll.ApplyCorrections = function() {

 var div = document.getElementById('company-insider-info-window');

 if (div != null) div.style.height = '275px';

 else window.setTimeout(ll.ApplyCorrections, 500);

    }

    ll.Enable = function() {

 new LinkedIn.CompanyInsiderPopup(ll.spanId, ll.nameToSearch);

 new LinkedIn.CompanyInsiderStylesheet();

 var span = document.getElementById(ll.spanId);

 if (span != null) span.attachEvent('onclick', ll.ApplyCorrections);

    }

    ll.OnScriptReadyState = function() {

 if ((event.srcElement.readyState == 'complete') ||

     (event.srcElement.readyState == 'loaded')) {

            ll.Enable();

        }

    }

    ll.Load = function() {        

 var script = document.createElement('script');

        script.type = 'text/javascript';

        script.src = ll.scriptSource;

        script.onreadystatechange = ll.OnScriptReadyState;

        document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);

    }

}

if (crmForm.FormType != 1) {

 // Set the field that contains the company name

 var linkedInLoader = new LinkedInLoader(crmForm.all.name);

    linkedInLoader.Load();

}
door: FrankvanDelden
Jul 14 10

Download the latest Microsoft CRM 4.0 vpc’s

The current Microsoft CRM 4.0 VPC will expire soon (september 1st). Fortunately a new Microsoft CRM 4.0 has being re-released.  They say it has some cool additions like Office 2010, portal accelerators, and cool new profile tool that starts and stops services and caches pages for better performance on smaller machines.  Not only that, but it’s been made to work against active directory so you won’t need an internet connection.

This VPC will expire april 2011.

The newest Microsoft CRM 4.0 VPC can be downloaded from partnersource

Industry VPC’s on Microsoft CRM 4.0

Earlier this year Microsoft released four industry related VPC’s on Microsoft CRM 4.0.

Available industry VPC’s on microsoft CRM 4.0

You can download these Industry related Microsoft CRM 4.0 VPC’s at partnersource

Thanks to ColoradoJules for bringing this under my attention

door: FrankvanDelden
Jul 12 10

Microsoft CRM 2011 (Former CRM 5.0)

Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft showcased new capabilities that are coming in its next-generation customer relationship management (CRM) solution. The highly anticipated Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 — formerly code-named “CRM5″ — will be publicly available as a beta release in September 2010, beginning with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Microsoft also announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will be available in 40 markets and 41 languages by the end of 2010.

In June 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM were recognized as “a leader” for midsize and large organizations by Forrester Research Inc. in The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites For Midsized Organizations, Q2 2010 and The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Large Organizations, Q2 2010. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will build on and extend those leadership capabilities through the following experiences:  

Familiar Experiences

 

Intelligent Experiences

 

Connected Experiences

 

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will further deliver ‘The Power of Productivity’ through familiar, intelligent and connected experiences for customers and partners,” said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “For customers, it offers new levels of user productivity and collaboration that meet their specific business needs with a low total cost of ownership. For partners, it unlocks new opportunities and provides a single development environment for cloud-based and on-premise deployments. Together, this new release raises the bar in the CRM market.”

More information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and beta notification sign up can be found at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 website

Microsoft CRM 2011 view

door: FrankvanDelden
Jun 23 10

Green Microsoft CRM 4.0: Using a soundex to deduplicate your accounts and contacts

In my post about Green Microsoft CRM I wrote about using duplicate detection to be deduplicate your customer database. Duplicate detection is one of the default features of Microsoft CRM 4.0.  Using Duplicate Detection will improve the accuracy of your marketing targeting.It will prohibit your marketing department from sending a mailing twice to the same person (or company). And will in this way contribute to establish a sustainable organization.

In this blog I will explain the possibilities of Duplicate Detection and how to extend these functionality by using a Soundex. The Soundex algorithm converts a name into a four-character string which can be used for comparisons.

Soundex examples
 soundex(‘Kevin’) returns ‘K150′
 soundex(‘Ellery’) returns ‘E460′

Duplicate Detection rules
Duplicate Detection rules can be defined for different record types, including custom entities, and can be defined across record types as well. For example, a rule may be defined that states a Lead record is a duplicate if a contact record with the same e-mailaddress already exists. When a duplicate is detected, the system will alert the user. Regardless of the point of entry for data, such as bulk imports or synching offline data, an alert will be sent if a duplicate record is detected.

Duplicate detection job
Additionally, a system-wide duplicate detection job can be run, providing a list of possible duplicates which can then be cleaned by deleting, deactivating or merging records.

A real good demo about the Duplicate Detection feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and its use in helping to maintain good quality data. Is shown at channel9 by John o Donnel. Duplicate Detection in Microsoft CRM Demo

Duplicate Detection and Soundex Demo
The following is a demo about how to add a Duplicate Detection Rule based on a Soundex.

Step 1. Add Soundex attribute to your entity
Create a new attribute in your Microsoft CRM entity.
In this example I added an attribute (nvarchar) to the entity account.

Soundex Field in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Step 2. Add new attribute to your form. 
It is probably best not to display this value to the user and it could be hidden.

Step 3: Add Onchange event to the new attribute 
Apply “onChange” event to the primary name attribute using
JavaScript such as the code below to set the value of the Soundex field.

function soundex(str) {

    var i, j, l, r, p = isNaN(p) ? 4 : p > 10 ? 10 : p < 4 ? 4 : p;

    var m = {BFPV: 1, CGJKQSXZ: 2, DT: 3, L: 4, MN: 5, R: 6};

    var r = (s = (str+'').toUpperCase().replace(/[^A-Z]/g, "").split("")).splice(0, 1);

    var sl = 0;

    sl = s.length;

    for (i = -1, l = sl; ++i < l;) {

        for (j in m) {

            if (j.indexOf(s[i]) + 1 && r[r.length-1] != m[j] && r.push(m[j])) {

                break;

            }

        }

    }

    return r.length > p && (r.length = p), r.join("") + (new Array(p - r.length + 1)).join("0");

}

crmForm.all.new_soundex_name.DataValue=soundex(crmForm.all.name.DataValue);

 
It is worth noting the “onChange” event only fires when the data is input via the standard User Interface (client side). 
It is probably better to apply the Soundex logic via a server-side callout, but for the simplicity of this example we are just demonstrating a client-side approach.

Step 4. Create a new duplicate detection rule comparing the Soundex values
Create a new duplicate detection rule. You can use only the soundex attribute, or combine the attribute with other attributes.

Duplicate Detection Rule in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Step 5. Test the new duplicate detection rule
Once everything is in place, if you create an account named Franks Skishop and try and create a new account named Franks Skisho the duplication rules will detect a potential duplicate and alert the user accordingly.

Make your Microsoft CRM green with duplicate detection alerts

Disclaimer
This blog is based on a blog on advantageworks. It is posted without warranties.
The Soundex script is based on:  http://phpjs.org/functions/soundex:520

This is the personal weblog of Frank van Delden. The opinions expressed here represent his own and not those of his employer.
door: FrankvanDelden
Jun 21 10

Hustle and Flow, Microsoft CRM with Social Media. (part 1)

Those of us who make a living by sales, marketing and service know that CRM is a strategy and mainly a people game. All of the CRM applications in the world won’t beat the chemistry and aligned motivation that come from creative win/win deal-making, excellent service and/or high performing marketing campaigns.

Although CRM is a people game, CRM applications can help making things happen. Especially when they are connected with Outlook and Social CRM. This article about the benefits and possibilities of integrating my favorite CRM application, Microsoft CRM, with social Media.

In Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Outlook is the main component. This is good, it will help us to keep a Good Record of Who Said What in Emails, Phone calls and Appointments.

Unfortunately (out of the box) Microsoft CRM does not record the conversations that take place outside of these traditional channels,  the ones that happen on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media.

In other words there is (or will be) a need for expanding the CRM functionality with social media.

In this article I will explain the possibilities of Microsoft CRM and Social Media. I will do this by explaining the power of Microsoft CRM and Social Media for the hustle and flow.

Hustle and flow

Hustle and flow. Sales and Marketing are all about Hustle and Flow and you need both. Hustle is directed, focused activity (e.g. contact so-and-so and get them to commit to doing x, y or z). Flow is a relaxed state of ambient awareness that alerts you to new opportunities.

In other words Hustle is sales and direct marketing. Flow is about listening and market research.

Hustle and Flow, Social Media and Microsoft CRM

Next blogs on xrm-crm.com will be about hustle and flow, Microsoft CRM and Social Media.

I will write blogs containing the following subjects:

  1. What is Social Media?
    1. Social Networking
    2. Twitter
    3. Hustle and Flow; Social Media vs. Twitter
    4. Opportunities social media for Relationship Management (and CRM)
    5. Opportunities Social Media for marketing
  2. Social Media + Microsoft CRM = Social CRM
    1. What is CRM?
    2. Integrate or interface social Media in Microsoft CRM (technical)
    3. Microsoft CRM Social Network Accelerator
    4. Outlook Social Connector

 

See you next week!

This is the personal weblog of Frank van Delden. The opinions expressed here represent his own and not those of his employer.
door: FrankvanDelden
May 28 10

Make Microsoft CRM Green

Last week my employer Qurius released its new Vision
One part of the new vision is sustainability.

We partner with our customers today to help them face the challenges of tomorrow. We do this by delivering sustainable ICT solutions, services and infrastructures with visible, sustainable performance and permanent value.

This new vision kept me thinking for a while. Obtaining a clear picture of who needs, and who will buy, your product or service is one of the most pressing challenges today, and one that keeps companies awake deep into the night. Maybe you feel that your plate is already full. So how can your company incorporate yet another goal (sustainability) into your over-packed agenda, particularly one as lofty as going green?
Following steps can help you to make your Microsoft CRM application and strategy more sustainable/green.

Integrate your business applications
Try to integrate multiple, disparate databases and gain a clear, single customer/prospect view for driving your CRM application, your acquisition campaigns and your retention and growth initiatives. For example integrate your Microsoft CRM with your back office application(s) like Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Sharepoint.

At Qurius we use Scribe for integrating Microsoft CRM with one or more back office applications.

Utilize your CRM data
Improve the accuracy of your marketing targeting with propensity to purchase information, lifestyle and life stage segmentation. The more informations you gather in your Microsoft CRM database, the better your segmentation and the better the results of your marketing and sales will be.

Deduplicate your accounts and contacts
Use duplicate detection to be deduplicate your customer database. Duplicate detection is a default feature of Microsoft CRM 4.0.

Duplicate Detection in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Duplicate Detection rules can be defined for different record types, including custom entities, and can be defined across record types as well. For example, a rule may be defined that states a Lead record is a duplicate if a contact record with the same phone number already exists. When a duplicate is detected, the system will alert the user. Regardless of the point of entry for data, such as bulk imports or synching offline data, an alert will be sent if a duplicate record is detected.

Duplicate Detection Rule in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Additionally, a system-wide duplicate detection job can be run, providing a list of possible duplicates which can then be cleaned by deleting, deactivating or merging records.

A real good demo about the Duplicate Detection feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and its use in helping to maintain good quality data. Is shown at channel9 by John o Donnel

Start with digital Marketing from Microsoft CRM
Microsoft CRM gives you te opportunity to create and send e-mailings from your CRM database. You can send mails directly from CRM and/or Word Mail Merge. The add on 4communications from Green4solutions (what’s in a name) extends this functionality.

Truly leverage and harness the power of your data held in the CRM database with the 4 Communication suite. Good use of communication, in the form of emails, enewsletters, SMS messaging, online surveys, automated email acknowlegments and RSS newsfeeds can enhance relationships with customers dramatically.

The latest version of ’4 Communication’ enables you to create workflow rules in the CRM database and according to these rules, audiences will be created and automatically sent a particular eCampaign. Automated campaigns could be set up for reoccuring messages such as a birthday card or, if used with ’4 Booking’ pre-event acknowledgements and post-event surevys could be automated.
Use the 4 Template service to quickly prepare reusable, branded email layouts. Use tried and tested formats for newsletters, alerts, surveys, and last minute match ticket offers.

If your company still wishes to send printed marketing materials. Please, seek services that will help you make green printing and packaging.

Use Microsoft CRM Online
The hosted nature of Microsoft CRM Online is a lot more efficient than some older (on premium) systems . So going with a SaaS model is a good start in going green with your CRM. With virtualization, more powerful servers and web-based technologies, less servers sucking up energy are needed to run complex applications stacks. This cane further decrease the amount of energy used inside the organization.

More options for Green CRM
There are more options for making your CRM applications and CRM strategy green.
Some other time I will write a blog about these options. You can think about:
- E-Service requests
- All documentation regarding service in electronic format.
- Self service portals
- Digital Invoicing
- Improve targeting with custom reporting
- And more…

This is the personal weblog of Frank van Delden. The opinions expressed here represent his own and not those of his employer.
door: FrankvanDelden
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