Unlimited OneDrive space for Office 365 subscribers

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Today, Microsoft announced that users of OneDrive and OneDrive for Business will be upgraded to unlimited storage space at no extra cost. Home, Personal and University customers are being rolled out over the coming months with OneDrive for Business customers being upgraded from 1TB to unlimited space in early 2015.

Home, Personal and University customers can get to the front of the queue by going to http://preview.OneDrive.com. Commercial customers on the Office 365 First Release programme will be upgraded early 2015 and all other customers shortly afterwards.

Microsoft CRM and Windows 10

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Update 25/1/15 Build 9926 (released 24/01/15) It is now possible to add WIF 3.5 via programs and features which works with CRM.
Thanks to James Crowther @ Tecman for pointing this out.

Previously;

The Outlook Client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is was not officially supported with Windows 10 Consumer Technical Preview but there was a workaround, see bottom of page for details.

It is possible to install the Microsoft CRM Client for Outlook on Windows 10 CTP but you will receive the following error message when trying to configure the client:

Cannot connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM server because we cannot authenticate your credentials. Check your connection or contact your administrator for more help.

[Expanded Information]
Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.IdentityModel, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
at Microsoft.Crm.Outlook.ClientAuth.ClientAuthProvidersFactory`1.RetrieveUserCredentialsAndSignIn(Uri endPoint, Credential credentials, Form parentWindow, Boolean retryOnError, IClientOrganizationContext context)
at Microsoft.Crm.Outlook.ClientAuth.ClientAuthProvidersFactory`1.SignIn(Uri endPoint, Credential credentials, AuthUIMode uiMode, IClientOrganizationContext context, Form parentWindow, Boolean retryOnError)
at Microsoft.Crm.Application.Outlook.Config.DeploymentsInfo.DeploymentInfo.LoadOrganizations(AuthUIMode uiMode, Form parentWindow, Credential credentials)
at Microsoft.Crm.Application.Outlook.Config.DeploymentsInfo.InternalLoadOrganizations(OrganizationDetailCollection orgs, AuthUIMode uiMode, Form parentWindow)

This is because (WIF) Windows Identity Foundation 3.5 is not installed which is used to authenticate you with Microsoft CRM. In Windows 8.1, it can be installed by adding it from Windows Features. Windows 10 comes with Windows Identity Framework 4.5 which is not backwards compatible with WIF 3.5 and, if you try installing it, you will get an error saying a newer version is installed.

Workaround
The workaround is to manually copy the Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll (v3.5) from another PC onto your Windows 10 CTP computer. You will also need a copy of GACUTIL.EXE which comes with Visual Studio but again can be copied from another PC.

Finally, open an Administrator Command Prompt and run GACUTIL /i Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll

You should then be able to configure CRM with Office 365.

On our machine, GACUTIL.EXE was in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin
and Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll was in
C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Windows Identity Foundation\v3.5

Has this solution worked for you? We would love to hear from you, contact us and let us know if it worked or not.

Microsoft Office Sway

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Office Sway is a brand new application which is part of the Office family. Currently in Preview, It’s a new way of visualising and sharing ideas and data. Information such as pictures and text can be pulled from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and OneDrive and then dragged and dropped into Sway.

Sway’s built in design engine then automatically formats content using built in algorithms. The design can then be tweaked by emphasising and rearranging images. Sway takes user feedback and dynamically updates the content.

Here is one of our first experiments with Office Sway

Whats new in Microsoft CRM 2015

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

The Microsoft Dynamics team have recently released the CRM 2015 Release Preview Guide. This details the changes coming in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (2015 Update), Microsoft Social Listening and Microsoft Dynamics marketing. With the NEW products they aim to enhance Microsoft Dynamics customers’ abilities to provide outstanding customer experiences.

Guided Sales Processes

Improves on Business Process Flows allowing branching capability and helps guide sellers toward a desired outcome using automated business process and enforcing business rules across devices.

Product Families

Boost selling effectiveness with the ability to bundle products and up-sell / cross-sell related recommended products. Adds product attributes to help simplify and minimise product management.

Sales Hierarchies

Manage and report on your sales data that maps to your business.

CRM for tablets enhancements

Addition of: flexible, role tailored dashboards and analytics, personalised home pages and ability to navigate by hierarchy. Improved support for working while disconnected has also been added with offline drafts allowing users to create records offline and being able to synchronise changes when reconnected.

Case Management

Additions to the SLA feature introduced in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 include improvements to case management by allowing agents to pause and resume SLA’s and track the time a case was on hold or awaiting customers to make sure SLA’s are met.

Microsoft Social Listening

Social media channels can be monitored and tracked in real time. Information can be acquired about products, brands and competitors from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Videos (YouTube, etc.), Blogs and now news.

Search

Improvements to quick search make it easier and faster to find customer information
Better synchronisation between CRM and Outlook or Exchange – More types of information can now be synchronised including; assigned tasks, additional contacts and appointment attachments

NEW Outlook Configuration Wizard

The Configuration Wizard for CRM has been redesigned to make it easier to configure CRM for Outlook and also to be able to manage additional CRM organisations.

Business Rules

Improvement to Business Rules includes a much richer set of logic support to enable greater flexibility in creating Business Rules. Support for default values and behaviours has been added.

Business Process Flows

Programmatic access to active and enabled processes has now been enabled allowing action to be taken not just based on the process context, but the stage context the user is working on and currently viewing.

Calculated Fields

Users often want to know information that is the result of a calculation. Until now this would have required code to be written. Calculated fields allow a user to define formulas and conditions required for calculations on field data from within the CRM user interface without the need for writing code.
Business rules Editor Improvements

Rollup Fields

Rollup Fields can capture key business metrics at a record level from related entities. Aggregated data can also be rolled up from child records to parent records.

Field Level Security

Field level security has been extended for inbuilt fields as well as custom fields. They allow for setting user access or visibility to individual users or teams to individual fields. For example an admin can restrict the purchase price of products from being viewed by certain individuals.

Marketing

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing will also be updated and will include: a NEW Email Editor, enhanced Campaign Management Console, Integrated Social listening, NEW sales Collaboration Panel, B2B Marketing webinar integration and improved lead scoring, NEW Marketing Calendar, Click to Call from Lync and Internal Process Automation.

You can download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Release Preview Guide here.

Don’t dig, just DELVE

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Microsoft Office 365 was designed to help users be more productive, flexible and collaborative. But working together and sharing Information can soon generate documents and data at a phenomenal rate. Soon managing to find a specific document let alone information in that document can become a managerial headache.

But fear not Office Delve will soon be at hand. Instead of constantly looking for relevant Information and documents, let relevant information find you. This is what Office Delve does. It displays the information that is most relevant to you, in a card layout design, based on the work you do and the people you are working with.

Delve knows what is relevant to you by using the new Office Graph technology which uses complex techniques to map relationships between people, activities and content throughout Microsoft Office 365.
Office Graph currently works with content and signals from email, Yammer, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business, with email attachments, OneNote and Lync coming in future updates.

Delve makes work easier to navigate by saving you from having to dig through emails, search Yammer, Sharepoint or OneDrive to find what you are looking for, by delivering it up to you.

Office Delve is available now with Office 365 Enterprise plans and will be rolled out to other Office 365 plans by Jan 2015.

Optimal CRM Birthday BBQ

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

A big thank you to everyone who joined us last night to help celebrate Optimal CRM’s first birthday. We had an amazing turnout of around 50 friends, family and colleagues to help us celebrate.

Thanks to Chris Marsh for the awesome BBQ, Philip and Chris Oldfield for making it possible, Ken, Kate and everyone else who helped out.

It’s been a crazy, busy year but great fun. Thanks to all our customers, suppliers and partners for your business over the last year. Here’s to the next 12 months where we have some exciting projects coming up (some international), an office move and expansion.

Spring ‘14 Release Videos for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Microsoft have released a series of videos to help customers get more out of the new Spring ’14 release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM as well as Microsoft Dynamics Marketing and Microsoft Social Listening. You can check them out below.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Get started with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Service Management Overview
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Sandbox Instance
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Product Updates
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online License Management
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Case Management Enhancements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Queue Enhancements
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Routing Rules
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring ’14 Overview of Unified Service Desk

Microsoft Social Listening

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Spring ’14 Overview
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Spring ’14 CRM Connector Setup
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Spring ’14 Administration in O365

West Yorkshire Charity Cycle Ride

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Chris and Ken on a Training run on Holme Moss

Over the August Bank holiday weekend, 2 Optimal CRM team members, Chris Oldfield and Ken Bearpark, undertook a gruelling 300 mile charity bike ride around the perimeter of the old West Riding of Yorkshire. They were part of a 29 strong team of cyclists ranging from top club cyclists to near novices, however all put in months of exacting training to accomplish the feat. Optimal’s Chris Oldfield, a veteran of many multiday charity bike rides praised all the support team, which included Optimal CRM’s Lead Consultant Keith Cockerham, for their selfless dedication in giving their time and energy to the cause.

The ‘Geek Squad’ as the Optimal CRM guys have been dubbed, couldn’t resist using their technological know-how before and during the event. They regularly logged their training rides using Strava on iPhones and challenged each other by posting their endeavours in league tables or beating each other’s personal bests on segments of routes they had cycled. Even when the weather was inclement, turbo training sessions took place using Bluetooth LE sensors to record the activities.

While Chris and Ken were having ‘fun’ the serious sum of several thousands of pounds have been raised for the charity.

The route undertaken by the riders as logged on Strava

Rider group photo at the start at Tapton Hall, Sheffield

Enable offline access in Outlook Web App

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

Did you know that you can take the Outlook Web App offline?

You can read and compose emails as well as view your calendar from your web browser without an internet connection!

To enable offline mode, log in via https://outlook.office365.com got to Settings (cog at the top right of the screen) and choose offline settings and “Turn on offline access”.

Some web browsers may display a warning about the website accessing disk space – accept this message.

To disable offline access, go to Settings, Offline Access and choose “Turn off offline access”

Offline access is only available on PC’s and Laptops and is unavailable on Tablets and Smartphones. The last 3 days or 150 emails will be displayed from recently accessed folders such as inbox, sent items and drafts. The previous calendar month and future appointments can be accessed.

Happy 25th Birthday Microsoft Office.

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Keith Cockerham

On the 1^st August, Microsoft Office turned 25 years old.

Microsoft Office has come a long way since its first release on 1^st August 1989 which consisted of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Now, Office 2013 is part of Office 365, and woven into the fabric of the cloud. It is available on a wide variety of devices, from PC, to Smartphone and Tablets. Recent additions to the office family include collaboration software such as Yammer, Lync, SharePoint to OneNote for note-taking.

To celebrate 25 years of Office, Microsoft are searching out the stories of how people are using Office to achieve great things in a series called behind_the.docs. This can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you have a story about what you’ve accomplished with Office over the years, you can share it using the hashtag #behindthedocs

Click here to Trial Office 365 free for 30 days.