Microsoft CRM Spring 2016 Update

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM development team have announced the latest update which will add even more new features that will be available in the 2nd quarter of 2016.  This release is focused on the integration of two of recent Microsoft acquisitions (FieldOne and Adxstudio), providing customers with market leading capabilities for field service and portal solutions for community engagement.

 Field Service enhancements for this release maximize effectiveness and customer satisfaction. Our solution matches proficiency and competency requirements against available resources, for even more intelligent resource allocation. And full integration with CRM provides a consistent look and feel that spans case management through work order completion.

Project service is a new end-to-end solution that helps organisations deliver revenue-generating customer engagements on time and on budget. It extends Microsoft Dynamics CRM to provide a single system of engagement for project sales, delivery, and billing that uses optimised resourcing and intelligent, skills-based assignments. The solution supports back-office integrations to productivity and business applications, and offers a mobile experience for customer-facing resources. Field and Project service share a resource pool, and scheduled shared resources are surfaced in each application for enhanced visibility.

Employee self-service and the ability to create an efficient and well-informed workforce is now available worldwide through CRM and our new portal capabilities. Employee self-service streamlines common tasks by empowering every employee with definitive knowledge.

Community Engagement. With the recent acquisition of Adxstudio, Microsoft will now have web portal functionality integrated into Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online as an add-on offering. Portals allow organisations to extend their CRM engagement scenarios with self-service profile management capabilities, rich content publishing, secure access and permissions controls, configurable extensions, and many more features. CRM portal capabilities are built with modern web standards in a responsive design for use on any desktop, tablet, or mobile device.

Intelligence. In this release, Microsoft will introduce guided navigation capabilities. Guided navigation provides context-sensitive interactive and scenario-based guided tasks and sidebars that are personalised to the user. Guided navigation helps onboard new application users quickly, facilitates user adoption of the application, and improves user productivity. This functionality will deliver guidance to support scenarios such as capability overviews for Trials, onboarding tasks for new paid users, sales scenarios for Sales Reps and Sales Manager, and “What’s New” content to introduce users to new features and capabilities in the latest release.

We will also introduce two new machine learning scenarios for Microsoft Social Engagement – Adaptive Learning and Automated Social Triage:

  • Adaptive learning. Through sentiment analysis, Microsoft are able to determine how a product, a campaign, or a brand is perceived by people on social media. Previously, sentiment was calculated from a static algorithm in a post’s original language. In this release, adaptive learning has been introduced, powered by Azure Machine Learning, which enables you to customise sentiment scoring models according to your business or industry needs. If you start curating the sentiment value, the system will learn from it and create a custom domain-specific model for each customer so you can reach higher sentiment precision as every business is different (think about the gaming industry slang). The Azure Machine Learning team added new functionality for retraining and instrumentation to support this adaptive model – for example, a ski or snowboard manufacturer receives posts stating a product is “crazy “or “sweet”, etc. You can adapt the sentiment to this industry by categorising “crazy” as good and it will maintain that relationship going forward.
  • Automated Triage. Based on machine learning technology, Microsoft Social Engagement will automatically detect intention in social posts and triage/route them as cases or leads into CRM. This will increase sales performance through suggestions on leads coming in from social channels as well as increase team efficiency for service organisations by identifying potential cases coming in through social channels. This helps improve team efficiency for sales and service organisations.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring 2016 Wave Release Preview Guide

Action Needed to Enable FantasySalesTeam for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

You may have received an email from Microsoft which reads “Action Needed to Enable FantasySalesTeam for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online”.

FantasySalesTeam is a company which Microsoft acquired in August 2015 and is currently in preview. It is included at no additional charge with Dynamics CRM Online Professional and Enterprise editions.

FantasySalesTeam is a gamification solution for Microsoft CRM which helps sales organisations boost sales productivity, revenue, and user adoption through creative and fun team-based competition. Through fantasy sports themed games and involvement of diverse employees, users “draft” teams and become truly invested in each other’s success. Individual and team results become highly visible, driving both competition as well as collaboration and creating positive, impactful cultural change.

With FantasySalesTeam, organisations will be able to:
• Award points for any activity inside Dynamics CRM
• Stream interactive TV leaderboards around the office
• Trigger video celebrations of gongs, fireworks, and more for individual and team achievements
• Include everyone in the company to draft fantasy teams
• Schedule automated emails with embedded results
• Produce rich graphs and charts of performance data by individual and team

To enable FantasySalesTeam, sign up at FantasySalesTeam preview. Please allow up to 24 hours to receive your unique code to participate in the FantasySalesTeam Preview. Only available for Dynamics CRM Online customers on versions 7.1 (CRM 2015 Update 1) and above. For the preview release, the supported language is English only.

For support during the preview, please visit FantasySalesTeam Dynamics CRM forum or contact us to arrange an online demo.

Mainstream support for Microsoft CRM 2011 ends in 6 months

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

Mainstream Support for Microsoft Dynamics CRM ends in just 6 months!

On the 12th July 2016, Microsoft will end mainstream support for Microsoft CRM 2011. This means that after this date, the only kind of updates that Microsoft will provide are related to security. No other updates will be produced and support will only be available to customers on a paid support plan.

Security updates should be available until the end of extended support which is the 13th July 2021

You can find out more information from Microsoft Lifecycle Services

We can help you upgrade to Microsoft CRM 2016
Drop us a line to discuss your options.

CRM Online Performance and Compatibility

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

Recently, we have been working with a few customers to fine tune the performance of their CRM Online systems. I would like to share the findings of our research with you.

Most of the time, and very rarely otherwise, CRM online performance is defined by end user connection, equipment, software and system configuration. I will discuss each of them to give you a little bit of insight.

Using an Online system you have to have an internet connection – quite obvious, but will any connection work well? Again, the simple truth is that the better connection you have the quicker your online system is most likely to respond. But even now – in 21st century (2015), what some geeks describe as location, there are still households and businesses with internet speed less than 2Mbps, when modern online society are working with speeds getting close to 100Mbps and in some cases a lot more. As CRM online information is communicated via secure ports of your connection – speed available through secure port may be a limiting factor. That may vary on each network settings and organisation requirements. To check your CRM Online response time from any of the locations you can go to https://<YourCRMURL>/tools/diagnostics/diag.aspx, please note that to run the test, you have to have System Administrator privileges. Recommended latency is under 100ms (under 150ms will work) and recommended bandwidth more than 50Kbps, but these values are recommendations only and do not guarantee satisfactory performance.

Equipment (hardware) does play considerable part in online system delivery performance as well. If you only generally do basic browsing, emailing and messaging – a very basic computer usually does the job well enough, but when accessing online systems like CRM and similar, the performance may be not up to satisfactory level. The following displays MS Dynamics CRM for Outlook Client hardware requirements:

Component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor

2.9 gigahertz (GHz) or faster x86- or x64-bit dual core processor with SSE2 instruction set

3.3 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 64-bit dual core processor with SSE2 instruction set and 3 MB or more L3 cache

Memory

2-GB RAM

4-GB RAM or more

Display

Super VGA with a resolution of 1024 x 768

Super VGA with a resolution of 1024 x 768

 

CRM Online can be accessed using different applications: the most direct way of accessing the system is using web application via browser, Microsoft Outlook with CRM add-in can be used, or Dynamics CRM mobile application when using a mobile device.

Users can access the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web application on the most recent versions of the following browsers:

  • Internet Explorer on Windows
    • Windows 10 supported when you use Internet Explorer 11
    • Windows 8.1 supported when you use Internet Explorer 11
    • Windows 8 supported when you use Internet Explorer 10
    • Windows 7 
  • Microsoft Edge on Windows 10
  • Firefox on Windows
  • Safari on Mac OS X
  • Chrome on Windows or Google Nexus 10

Outlook CRM add-in usually is used to give end user familiar Outlook interface and provide Exchange and CRM integration. The down side of this option may be, that first load time of Outlook increases as it has to load yet another add-in (as well as already installed ones such as antivirus).

To use Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Microsoft Office integration features, such as Export to Excel and Mail Merge, you must have one of the following Microsoft Office versions on the computer that is running the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web application:

  • Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft Office 2016
  • Microsoft Office 2013

For a mobile device, such as an iPad or smartphone, the following apps are available:

  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM for iPad
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Windows
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Android

Full compatibility and supported applications specification can found though the links at the end of this post.

 

And lastly CRM system setup and configuration can affect end user experience as loading a lot of JavaScript functions or iframes as well as running many workflows on forms does not help the cause.

It is worth considering pros and cons to what is the most optimal way of using your CRM Online system and chose the option that works best for you to get the best performance.

Some useful links.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531055.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699710.aspx

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3018360/

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7f9d8425-f26c-43ac-bdc7-ff258977ff80#BKMK_iPad

 

Christmas CRM Support

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

Please note that our offices will be closed from lunch time on the 24th December 2015 and will re-open on Monday, 4th January 2016. If you need support over the festive period, please email support@optimalcrm.co.uk. The mailbox will be monitored and one of our agents will get back to you as soon as possible.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish our Customers and Suppliers a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2016.

Keith and the Team.

Microsoft Office 365 Planner Preview

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

Office 365 Planner is in the process of being rolled out in preview to Office 365 First Release customers. Office 365 administrators who have opted into First Release will receive an email with instructions on how to set up the preview once it is available for their tenancy. Once administrators take the necessary actions, users can start using Planner by launching it from the Office 365 app launcher or via https://tasks.office.com

Office 365 Planner is a new experience in Office 365 that offers a simple, visual way to organise teamwork. Planner makes it easy for teams to create plans, organise and assign work, share files, chat about what everyone is working on and get updates on progress.

Planner preview is available to First Release customers on the following plans: Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E4, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 Education, Office 365 Education E3, Office 365 Education E4, Office 365 Business Essentials and Office 365 Business Premium.

Update: Follow this video for instructions on how to provision Planner on your Office 365 tenant.

Accessing the Interactive Service Hub in Microsoft CRM 2016

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

One of the new features in Microsoft CRM 2016 is the Interactive Service Hub or Engagement Hub.
By default, this feature isn’t accessible via navigation. When you first log in, you’ll get a notification banner at the top of the screen to navigate to it.

interactive-service-hub-banner
We found that after you first navigate to the Interactive Service Hub, we didn’t get the prompt to access it the next time and had to access it by directly entering the URL into the address bar. I’m sure it would be possible to add a link via your favourite sitemap editor such as XrmToolBox.

In CRM Online, you’ll need to navigate to https://orgname.crm4.dynamics.com/engagementhub.aspx
Where orgname is the name of your CRM Organisation. We are based in the European data centre which is crm4.

A few other notes about the Interactive Service Hub:

  • You can’t access the interactive service hub using In-Private browsing.
  • If you’re using Internet Explorer, and you see a message asking for additional storage on your local computer, click Yes. If you click Not for this site, the Interactive Service Hub application won’t load.
  • It is not possible to access the Interactive Service Hub via CRM for Outlook, Phones or Tablets.
  • Screen readers and other accessibility aids are not currently supported.

Windows Hello – Log in with your face!

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

Today I attended a Microsoft Partner event in Manchester. My favourite feature of the day was Windows Hello, a new feature in Windows 10 which enables you to log into your device without using a password.

To use Windows Hello, you need a suitable webcam which maps out your features, allowing you to log in using your face. You can also log in with a retina scan or finger print sensor.

Apparently, the technology is smart enough to recognise a real person vs a photograph and according to a study in Australia, it can distinguish between twins. As people generally carry their faces with them (cue face-off references), the technology is more secure than traditional password or PIN security.

The demo I saw was using a Surface Pro 4 as the webcam needs to be of a certain quality.

Check out the video below to learn more!

What does CRM stand for?

Posted on by Keith Cockerham

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.

What is CRM?

In it’s simplest form, CRM is a system or strategy that allows businesses to manage relationships with their customers.

At it’s core, CRM stores details about Leads, Organisations, Contacts and Sales Opportunities associated with them in one central location. Any correspondence is recorded against those records meaning that any employee who has access to the CRM system has the information required to service the customer.

What is Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management solution. Out of the box, the product focuses on Sales, Marketing and Customer Service (Help desk) but as it is highly customisable it can be extended to include other areas of the business.

Microsoft CRM was originally launched in 2003 and was the first application from Microsoft to be built from the ground up on the .NET framework.

Microsoft CRM 2016 What’s New

Posted on , updated on by Keith Cockerham

Due for release towards the end of 2015, here are some of the exciting new features you can expect in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016.

CRM App for Outlook

Microsoft CRM already contains a client for Outlook, which provides true offline capabilities inside the application you already use on a daily basis. In this release, Microsoft will extend this functionality into OWA (Outlook Web App). The new Microsoft Dynamics CRM App for Outlook makes it easy to track emails, add contacts from within an email or even create new records to track emails within the browser on PC, Mac or mobile browser on phone. The CRM App for Outlook will expand support to include Firefox, Safari for Mac and Outlook for Mac in addition to the currently supported IE and Chrome but will only be available for CRM Online.

Excel Integration

One area which has long needed a revamp is the integration with Microsoft Excel. In this version, it will be possible to conduct analysis in Excel Online, directly within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. You can now view data in familiar Excel templates, perform analysis, and upload the changes, all without switching applications.

Export and analyse data in Excel from your mobile device with added support for the CRM for Tablets and Phones apps.

OneDrive for Business

The existing integration with SharePoint has been extended to include OneDrive for Business. Users can now share content in OneDrive and SharePoint from CRM, giving a consolidated view of documents.

Document Generation

Building a beautiful document based on CRM data will be simplified with Document Generation. You will no longer need to manually extract CRM data for documents such as Account summaries, Quotes, Orders, Invoices, and product sheets. With one click users will be able to easily generate a document from CRM using pre-defined Word and Excel templates.

Capturing Customer Feedback

Dynamics CRM 2016 includes a new survey designer that to create and send out questionnaires to collect feedback from customers about your products or services. With the appropriate subscription, Customers can take a survey on a phone, tablet, or computer. When a customer completes a survey, workflow in CRM can trigger follow-up actions that occur immediately. Survey responses are stored with a customer’s record in CRM, so your teams see the customer feedback history as they work a with sales and cases.

Guided User Experience

CRM Online 2016 includes an in-product and context-based learning layer that speeds up your CRM Online training so you can get productive right away. The interactive assistance provided by the learning layer is specific to your role. For example, if you’re a salesperson, you’ll see what’s new content tailored for your role. If you’re a customer service rep or service manager, you’ll see different what’s new content. Over time, more learning experiences will be added for different contexts. With assistance tailored for your role, you’ll get just the right content at the right time.