LATEST UPDATE 6th December :- eMap is released via Download Centre

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eMap.aspx

LATEST UPDATE :- The new demo video is here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqLKpkrL3Ws&feature=plcp

It’s been a little while since I blogged about our forthcoming release of eMap which is a full integration with Bing Maps and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  There are a number of reasons for this and below we cover off some of the points on why we decided to delay the release to improve on what was the initial proto-type.
Originally we had built a solution in Silverlight that delivered some Bing Map functionality, but after further development we quickly realised that the adoption of Silverlight was probably not the best option for end users.  At this point we decided to hit the brakes and go with JavaScript and below you can see some of the results of how this looks in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. 

The one thing we really wanted to achieve was a slick look and feel that complemented the way CRM worked, but extend the functionality of MAPS so that end users could easily work with data as pins on a MAP.

 
You can easily see from the map pin pop-up on the above screen shot that not only is the data that is shown in the pop-up configurable but there are a number of functions that enable actions
These include:-

1. Add the pin to the route you are planning
2. Create any standard or custom activities in CRM
3. Assign a record to another CRM user

In nearly all circumstances we have followed the standard design and reuse of Microsoft CRM components so if you wanted to create an activity from the pop-up then you would see the standard screen in CRM

 If you then go onto create an activity as you would expect all the data from the record will come across to the newly created entity.

You can see from the side navigation tool bar that there are a number of MAP functions available for working with the data on the different layers. You can also see that you have the option to select different MAPS as within the eMAP solution there is the ability to create more than one map with one or more layers.  This means you could have a Customer map, or a Sales Opportunity Map by territory or a Service case Map, so the whole business can actively see where current activity is.

  
Currently in the eMAP solution there are 6 main functions to work with CRM data these are:-
1. Map Section:- As stated before you can create more than one MAP and this part of the tool allows you to select which map you want to work with.
2. View Type:- The view type allows you to select how you see the map either Aerial, Road or the standard Automatic setting.
3. Quick Filter:- As the name suggest this allows you to filter the CRM data on the MAP layers  by typing In a name of a company or a contact or related record that is displayed on the Map
4. Entity Distance Filter:- This filter enables an end user to quickly find records that are within a distance of each other and in the above example you can see contacts that are within 5 miles of an account record.
5. Route Planner:- The route planner is a great way of creating a drive route  or visit plan for a number of listed customers and there a number of way to do.
6. List Creator:- The list creator is a great feature for creating bulk actions and from here a user can create a bulk workflow job, add record to a Marketing list, copy data to the clipboard and bulk assign records from the selected list.

One of the great features of eMAP is the ability to create lists containing data so that different actions can be taken, the screen shot below shows a range of data that has been selected.

  
You can see that the data is then displayed in a table and from here bulk jobs can be performed. These tasks include
1. Copy the data from the table to the local clipboard so that it can be used in Microsoft Word or Excel or other applications
2. Run a workflow against selected records
3. Add selected records to a marketing list
4. Add the data selected to use a quick campaign
5. Bulk assigns records to a new user or different team or Queue.
So far we have only been looking at the Map capability from the left navigation but MAPs can also be included in individual entities giving additional functions

The screen shot below shows a typical account with a map

 
Note that related sub accounts and contacts can be shown at the individual layer and easy to get navigation and driving instructions to a contact can be obtained by using the router planner and adding the contact to the route.

This covers off most of the features available in eMAP with the first release with additional features like location sorting and data filtering coming in future releases.

eMAP is a practical and easy way to work with Data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and provides a great visualisation tool for Sales, Marketing and Service.
There are many features and ways to combine MAP and GIS features into your business.

For more information please register with the MyCRM Download Centre http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/ or email sales@mycrmgroup.com

What we need is an Image Gallery!!

Having had the opportunity to work on a number of projects and see a whole range of requirements and needs for CRM, I thought I would share this one as this forms part of our new solution ePicture.
I was recently working with a customer, who had a catalogue of images for products that they sold, these happened to be images of Telephone handsets and switches. 

There was a requirement and a need to include these images into CRM so they could be used with Quotes, Orders and web site integration.  It was also made quite clear that there was no apparent budget or desire to introduce a SharePoint instance or integration into the organisation.

As an organisation they wanted to keep everything in one please, one system and one over all solution with one technology, usually a difficult ask, but this is what we delivered to meet the need

ePicture (Images Galleries for CRM 2011)

First we thought about having an area in settings, which can enable the creation of image galleries so that we could easily add images to any record type or entity with in CRM

This way the ePicture solution can be used through simple configuration, any entity in CRM can have an associated picture gallery and the example I use is Contacts and Products. 

Let me explain Why

Online Selling and Online shops is growing at a pace and the old adage “A Picture Paints 1000 Words” rings true, as when you shop online or request a quote you are always more interested when you have a picture of the product your thinking of buying.  With ePicture you can enhance the product library in CRM2011 and send your customers compelling graphical quotes, which are generated through the standard reporting in CRM 2011.
The other use for ePicture here is the use of a solution like this to capture pictures of contacts on your CRM system.

Why you might ask

Well this is great when your organisation is inviting people to an event and you want to issue an ID card you can simple take a web cam and record at registration point the person’s photo for the event purpose, this said you can also use the same feature for leisure or club membership where it is important to capture an image of the individual. 

ePicture comes with an additional resource so that you can add a primary picture to the top level record while you may capture more than one picture for the individual in the image library.

ePicture will be release toward the end of May 2012 via the MyCRM download Site,

Register here http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/

Thanks Alistair

We are pleased to announce our first Workflow Function Library for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, in this release we have added 36 new function calls for CRM Workflow that extend the business logic for Business Automation and processing of Data

eWorkflow – Marketing 

                   Function – GetLastCampaignForMember 
                   Function - GetLastCampaignResponseForMember 
                   Function – MarketingSubscribeUnSubscriberMember 
                   Function – UnsubscribeMemberFromAllMarketingLists 
                   Function – IsAMarketingListMember 

eWorkflow – Calculations

                    Function – BasicMath 
                    Function – ConvertTextToNum
                    Function – EquationSolver/SumUp 
                    Function – CalculateMaximum 
                    Function – CalculateMinimum 

eWorkflow – Dates 

                    Function – AddBusinessDaysToDate 
                    Function – AddToDate 
                    Function – DateDifference 
                    Function – DateDifferenceBusinessDay
                    Function – GetDayNameAndNumber 
                    Function – PareseDateFromString 
                    Function – SubtractBusinessDaysFromDate 
                    Function – SubtractDaysFromDate 

eWorkflow – RegEx 

                     Function – RegexMatch 
                     Function – RegexRelpace 
                     Function – RegexReturnMatch 
                     Function – RegexStringFormat 

eWorkflow – Strings 

                     Function – CapitiliseString 
                     Function – PadString 
                     Function – RemoveWhitespace
                     Function – ReplaceString
                     Function – StringLength
                     Function – SubString

eWorkflow – Web 

                     Function –WebURLDecode
                     Function –WebURLEncode

eWorkflow – Sales 

                     Function – CountRelatedRecords (Entities)
                     Function – TotalValueOfInvoices 
                     Function – TotalValueOfOpportunities 
                     Function – TotalValueOfOrders 
                     Function – TotalValueOfQuotes 

eWorkflow – Other 

                     Function – CustomerType

We will be working on a release 2 and release 3 of the eWorkflow Library and will continue to extend the Library functionality, with community and customer feedback.

For further information please contact sales@mycrmgroup.com

Release 11th May 2012, Pre-Register Here http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/

Since the release on Microsoft CRM 2011 and the release of the Microsoft Online platform we have had many prospects and customers come and ask the same question and that is

Oh can I do that in Workflow?

To date the answer has been you can if your deployment is on-premise but not if you’re online, which usually starts of a conversation with the words “Are You Sure” and the “Sales Person told us it was exactly the same software”
So to clear that initial question or statement “Yes it is the same code build or same software” but and there is always a but, till now or until R8 is released you have not been able to run what are “Sandboxed” custom workflow plugins within CRM online.
Enter R8, R8 has many changes and support for different things but one little snippet we really liked was:-

"CUSTOM WORKFLOW ACTIVITIES IN CRM ONLINE
With the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q2 service update, developers can build custom .NET Workflow activity assemblies for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. These custom assemblies can be developed and deployed as part of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution package. Once a custom workflow activity has been deployed, it can then be utilized within the workflow engine for business process management. These new capabilities ensure parity in the developer experience between Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and on-premises. It also empowers organizations to bring external data, custom actions and integrations into their standard CRM business processes."

This means you will be able to run custom workflow plugins as part of a solution.  This really does bring in line the capability and functionality of CRM 2011 regardless of deployment type.
So why the blog post, well as expected we are now seeing customers come to us with requests for custom workflow plugins and to be honest we could build this on a one by one basis or a bespoke basis, but we have opted to release our full library of workflow extensions for CRM 2011.

eWorkflow
eWorkflow like all our other products and services starts with a download licenced install of a CRM2011 solution, once deployed you can start building extended workflows with the following additional functionality

Marketing
Marketing List Subscribe (/unsubscribe)
Marketing List Remove (all)
Get Last Campaign For Member
Get Last Campaign Response For Member

Sales
Get Total Value Of Opportunities
Get Total Value Of Quotes
Get Total Value Of Invoices
Get Total Value Of Orders

General Functions
Equation Solver
Basic Math
Convert Value
Maximum
Minimum
Add Business Days To Date
Add To Date
Parse Date From String
Subtract Business Days From Date
Subtract From Date
Regex String Format
Regex Match
Regex Replace
Regex Return Match
Capitalize String
Pad String
Replace
String
Substring
Remove Whitespace
URL Decode
URL Encode

See all the new Workflow Helpers 

 
So as you can see from the list above we have introduced a number of additional functions that can be used in CRM2011 but more importantly these are tested and supported to use straight from install.

We anticipate that on release there may be other functions that get added, but this includes the first release.

The eWorkflow Helper Library will ship with a number of tested workflow functions for #CRM2011 for both on-premise or hosted either online or partner hosted and can add a new level of automation to the implementation of CRM.

You can register for a free download account with MyCRM at http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/

Or email sales@mycrmgroup.com

Regards

Alistair

A number of our larger hosted and on-premise customers all seem to report the same problem in that they are not able to manage CRM user information effectively.   In many cases the CRM administrator from the organisation has had to remote into end users laptops or desktop to change personal settings and this increases the work load of many System administrators.

We took the suggestions made and created a wish list with the intention of creating a better user administration experience in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Our goal was to enable System administrator to have extended user settings for CRM and expose additional features that have been excluded from the standard Microsoft CRM admin area.

Introducing eUser – Extended User Settings

eUser from MyCRM Extended is an extended solution for User Management and administration of end system users which becomes a valuable add-on post a hand full of CRM users.

There are two main features sets with the new functionality and these are extended end-user settings and bulk end user settings
 
First we take a look at some of the end user extended record settings.  
As you can see from the screen shot below we have exposed a number of the options that end users can select for themselves so that an administrator can set these when adding a user account

The General tab shows how to set among other things dates and currency for the end user
 

If we now take a look at the extended activities tab you can see that extra setting have been created to allow an administrator to day and times

 
On the final extended user tab you can see a number of exposed features under formats, Email and Privacy

  
These final settings will enable administrators to set language, tracking and error responses.

We now go on to look at the new bulk setting features of the new user setting solution.

Introducing eUser – Extended Bulk Settings

In this part of the solution we show the new features for bulk setting user permission in CRM 2011
 
Here an administrator can bulk set how many records a user sees by default, the advanced find mode, the default tab and default pane for selected users. 

 
On the email tab as before the administrator can see options around email setting for the selected users.

The advanced find has also been configured to easily add selected users across the enterprise, so that an administrator can change setting on bulk
 

The new eUser module will be released via the download centre in March 2012 and will have a full 14 day trial.

To find out more about MyCRM Products and services please visit http://www.mycrmgroup.com

To register for a free download account please visit http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com

With kind regards

Alistair

Here at MyCRM we have now launched the latest version of our managed services for Microsoft CRM 2011, as before we have opted to add value over price per month and are pleased to offer 3 great solution packages from entry level to enterprise.

Enterprise CRM

Included in the Per User price:
• Full CRM License for access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
• Unlimited telephone and email support
• 5GB storage per CRM user
• Data Backups – Nightly
• Data Backup retention for 7 Days
• Monthly Backup Download on request
• 95.95% Network Uptime Guarantee

Extra above standard CRM

• 32 hours service time free for setup and configuration

• Fully Integrated Email Marketing with unlimited emails

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eCampaign.aspx

• Integrated Document Creation with ePDF

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/ePDF.aspx

• Integrated Number and form auto population with eNumber

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eNumber.aspx

• Integrated Tax calculation for key entities including product line override

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eTax.aspx

• Integrated 360 degree of the customer with eView

http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eView.aspx

• Integrated Document Management with SharePoint 2010

Optional Extras:

• All CRM Extensions from the MyCRM Download Centre Supported
• Additional Data Storage £9 per GB per month
• Additional Consulting service packages from £2850

Our hosted environment is fully managed by MyCRM and is hosted from UK Data Centers.

Our enterprise offering including support retails at £95 per user per month and includes service time built in for deployment and configuration, along with full telephone and email support.

To request a Demo of a trial of MyCRM 2011 click here http://hosted.mycrmgroup.com/pricing.aspx

Or you can visit our main site here http://www.mycrmgroup.com

Here at MyCRM we have now launched the latest version of our managed services for Microsoft CRM 2011,
As before we have opted to add value over price per month and are pleased to offer 3 great solution packages from entry level to enterprise.

Professional CRM

Included in the Per User price:

• Full CRM License for access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
• Unlimited telephone and email support
• 5GB storage per CRM user
• Data Backups – Nightly
• Data Backup retention for 7 Days
• Monthly Backup Download on request
• 95.95% Network Uptime Guarantee

Extra Included above Standard

• 16 hours service time free for setup and configuration

• Fully Integrated Email Marketing with unlimited emails

(http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eCampaign.aspx)

• Integrated Document Creation with ePDF

(http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/ePDF.aspx)

• Integrated Number and form auto population with eNumber

(http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eNumber.aspx)

• Integrated Tax calculation for key entities including product line override

(http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/eTax.aspx)

Optional Extras:

• All CRM Extensions from the MyCRM Download Centre Supported
• SharePoint Hosting and Integration from £8 per user per month
• Additional Data Storage £9 per GB per month
• Additional Consulting service packages from £2850

Our hosted environment is fully managed by MyCRM and is hosted from UK Data Centers.

Our professional offering including support retails at £65 per user per month and includes service time built in for deployment and configuration, along with full telephone and email support.

To request a Demo of a trial of MyCRM 2011 click here http://hosted.mycrmgroup.com/pricing.aspx

Or you can visit our main site here http://www.mycrmgroup.com

So even with the launch and subsequent rollup’s from Microsoft there is no easy way to send a quote or order confirmation out from Microsoft CRM 2011 with the click of a button.  I thought I’d take the time to document the process and then suggest some of the benefits of the ePDF solution from the end user.

The functionality to do this is in CRM but if you want to go from creating the Quote record to getting an email to send with the quote or order attached this would be the process

Create E-mail and Attach Quote PDF or Order PDF

The CRM 2011 Way

1. Click Run Report Dropdown
2. Select the report to run
3. Click „Export‟ button
4. Select Acrobat (PDF) file
5. Select where to save report
6. Close Report Screen
7. Click on the „Add‟ tab
8. Click on E-mail
9. Click on Save
10. Click on Attach File
11. Click Browse
12. Find where you saved PDF and click Open
13. Click Attach

 
As you can see from the 13 steps not exactly time efficient or best use of a Sales Persons time.  I then looked for another approach, and this would be to use the CRM mail merge functionality which when I did, I ended up with about 18 different steps to get a word doc attached to my email and to be honest found this quite confusing.

In projects gone by and that sounds really bad but I have seen a range of solutions offered most involving the purchase of more licences for another 3rd party tools that would integrate in CRM, which from an end user point view is not ideal as you then working in several different interfaces.
So after much investigation and not being able to find a solution I set about working with the team here at MyCRM to see if something could be done, not only for our customers but for me, as I use CRM 2011 all day long.

The Solution

Building on what we had learnt with CRM 4.0 we successfully, after a few updates released a solution called ePDF 

The ePDF solution is an addition or extension to the way CRM works and extends the following record types in Microsoft CRM 2011.
The ePDF solution allows the creation of a PDF attached files on an email to be created through a very simple process and extends the following record types.

1. Quote
2. Order
3. Invoice
4. Account
5. Contact
6. Service Activity
7. Contract
8. Lead

Working with the team I wanted to help make the process as easy and as straight forward as possible and to be honest anything that reduced the 13 steps above had to improve my working environment, so this is what we got the process down to

The ePDF way

1. Click Create PDF Report button on the entity tool bar
2. Select the report to run from the pop up screen
3. Click Create E-mail and Attach PDF from the pop up screen
4. Email window opens with PDF attachment of related quote or report generated.

So in a nutshell that was the reason behind ePDF and you can find more from the link below and download a trial for 14 days if you, like me, need to send quotes quickly.
 
http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/ePDF.aspx

Alistair (mycrm)