Here is our latest Demo solution for Event Invitation tracking within Microsoft CRM

This solution is designed to work with eCampaign to enable organisations to track Events and Event responses directly in #CRM2011 after send the related Accept and Decline Links via an email marketing campaign. 

For more information on eEvent and Invitation tracking please contact sales@mycrmgroup.com or register with http://downloads.mycrmgroup.com/

Thanks Alisatir

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

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)