by Gustaf Westerlund | Nov 1, 2012
Getting users, especially salespeople, to really use the CRM system is one of the most important parts of implementing a CRM system for an organization. There are numerous examples of CRM systems with lots of great features that just have not been used by sales people which causes the data in the CRM system to be incomplete and hence not very usable.
I am a big fan of computer games, currently Battlefield 3, and one thing many computer games excel in are that they are really good at user adoption, it is really the basis of it all. Without it, they just wouldn’t sell. There are ongoing trends in the business to “gameify” business applications to make them more fun to use and hence makes user adoption a lot better since you are makeing users really want to use the CRM-system.
One of my fellow MVP:s, Pablo Peralta, has been part of bringing forth a great new product, called CRM Gamified which brings some of the principles used in computer gaming to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Let your sales people compete in getting point for different task in the CRM system and have dashboards showing the leaderboard. So, do have a long a deep look at this addon. It could litteraly change the way you do CRM.
http://crmgamified.com/
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Oct 24, 2012
As I mentioned earlier, we had a CRM Techie AW at an hotel in Stockholm. It is now time again, so if you are a programmer, application consultant, architect or in some other manner work with Dynamics CRM from a technical perspective, do attend.
Last time we had some very interesting discussions regarding managed and unmanaged solutions. This time we are going to discuss supported and unsupported customizations and solutions. Which is a subject that I feel is very interersting and that there are many aspects of it that can be discussed. I previously this year wrote a posting on the subject, which you can find here: http://gustafwesterlund.blogspot.se/2012/06/unsupported-customizations.html
It will be located at the same hotel as last time, in other words Hotel Anglais next to Stureplan in Central Stockholm.
Further reading (in Swedish) and attendance submission can be found here: http://bit.ly/TechieAfterWork
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Oct 22, 2012
I really love CRM but as with all things you love, there are also areas where there are areas of improvement. One of these areas concerning Dynamics CRM is the functionality to create quotes by sending CRM data to a word document by using the mail merge functionality of word. Until Microsoft have fixed this, there are a few good options.
The basic functionality really consists of two parts. The first part is being able to create a document without being a programmer. The built in functionality of Dynamics CRM requires you to open the document press Alt-F9 to see the “backend” of the document and then be really savvy with Word template programming to make it work for you. The basic problem with it is handling subtables, like quote rows in a quote. As the data being sent from CRM to word is a large table with one row for each of the detail rows. The problems with this are:
– You cannot have two sub-tables
– As the word for-each functionality works in such a way that it loops through all the rows and when the cursor points to the row after the last, it will leave the for-each-loop. The header data is copies as fields to all rows. This means that you cannot, using the normal logic of a template, have a template that first shows all quote rows and then the total after the table, as the latter comes from the quote header. Microsoft have solved this by some rather intricate programming of the template that makes it almost unmodifiable for normal user and programmers not used to advanced word template programming.
I have tried one product and know of another that I have not had the chance to try yet, that try to rectify this.
The first one is DocuementCorePack from MSCRM-Addons in Austria. It has a very CRM-like addon to Word where you easily can insert the fields you like from the entities and related entities. It also has special logic for handling sub-tables and to save the document back to CRM or SharePoint. The installation program is also exemplary! It is very easy to install. They also have some additional tools that jack into to this program like the AutoMerge. The company behind it is a very stable company that has been making addons to Dynamics CRM since version 1 and they have even helped me make special adaptations to the program when I have had customers requesting this.
The second one is QuickBix Document Suite from the Swedish company QuickBix. I havn’t had the chance to try it yet but they have shown it to me and it has some very good features. They also have some impressive customer references. I have tried once to install it which I was sad to say was unsuccessful. This might however have been fixed or I might just have been unlucky. The people behind the company are very friendly and are always eager to help.
The prices vary for these products and I suggest going to their web sites or send them an email to find out the details.
In conclusion I never demo the built in functionality for generating quotes to word in CRM and I really hope Microsoft will fix this as it is rather fundamental to sales force automation (SFA). Until that time, and maybe also after, there are some very good alternatives at reasonable prices so do check them out!
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Oct 17, 2012
Today I received my two copies of the CRM Field Guide! A real monster book written by no less than 19 of my fellow CRM MVP:s. It is truly a great book with indepth chapters regarding many of the areas you touch when working as a consultant with Dynamics CRM. It is also very personal with lot of tips and tricks by some people who really know what they are talking about. If you havn’t already gotten a copy, hardcopy or e-book, head over to their site and buy one right now. http://crmfieldguide.com/. The e-book is a real help in the field, when the brick-sized hardcopy might be a bit cumbersome, but nothing meets the feel of a real book. (yes, I was once a publishing editor and have a real fetish for real books 🙂
Today this blog was also officially syndicated by Microsoft Dynamics Community blogs, as you can see here: https://community.dynamics.com/product/crm/crmtechnical/b/gustafscrmblog/default.aspx or you might actually be reading it at this new location.
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
by Gustaf Westerlund | Sep 28, 2012
Creating a CRM community in Sweden has long been a goal of mine why I am very happy to report that we the first community meeting finally has taken place. In hotel Anglais next to Stureplan in Stockholm, we had a CRM Techie After Work.
I was, together with Peter Björkmarker and Allan Varcoe responsible for the content of this first meeting. Peter and Allan took opposing sides in the use of managed solutions in customer projects (not ISV-solutions) and after the inital walkthrough there was a general discussion on the subject which I had the privilage of moderating. Microsoft backed up the event by the presence of Fredrik Wolbe.
I found the discussions very interesting and most of all liked the open attitude of sharing the experience and knowledge that we all have.
We also had some discussions on what to discuss next time we meet, and Fredrik Wolbe mentioned that he might get some product specialists to show us the new HTML5 GUI that most of us have only seen in screen shots. This was liked by most so Fredrik promised to try to make it happen.
The event was attended by about 20 people from different companies. Let’s hope there is even more people attending next time! I will be sure to post some info as soon as it has been decided.
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
Tip! There are rumours out of an extraordinary book coming out very soon! Keep you eyes and ears open!
by Gustaf Westerlund | Sep 25, 2012
There are many bloggers in the CRM community and in just the latest few months, several new CRM blogs have been started here in Sweden. I think this is great as experience sharing will make us all wealthier in knowledge and increase our edge on the competition from other inferior CRM-systems (none mentioned, especially not SF).
However, there are also several shady companies around that instead of creating their own content, blatently steal content from others. Probably because they do not have the competence themselves to write anything original. I think this is sad and it makes me angry as many of the bloggers around share their knowledge in their free time without any profit interest. This kind of behavior does risk some of these people to stop sharing which would be bad for us all, but great for the competition.
Some of these content theives, are not only lazy, they are also rather dim why a fellow blogger Jukka Niiranen, who was victim of one of these leeches, decided to play them a little prank. Do read about it and laugh!
http://niiranen.eu/crm/2012/09/getting-back-at-blog-content-thieves/
By the way, I write all my content my self, and if I am copy-pasting anything I always try to be very strict with the original source. If you have any comments on this, or feel that I have not given you enough credit for your work, please contact me.
Gustaf Westerlund
MVP, CEO and owner at CRM-konsulterna AB
www.crmkonsulterna.se
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