This is my third blog in a series concerning data integration.  In my first two blog entries we overviewed some of the data integration hurdles as well as some of the common methods used to discover the net-change data that will need to be translated.  Here in my third blog I’ll discuss some of the benefits of not integrating in real-time, but creating a batch job to perform the integration.  We’ll also look at the Business Rules that may need to be applied within the integration process.

Business processes are not the only consideration when designing your integration.  The environment, and specifically the hardware that the integrated systems reside on, can play a key role in determining the integration process to use.  For example, if your integration design requires polling a record set for the net-change data, that polling can effect performance.  But to a greater extent, the record set that is returned will typically populate any RAM that is available, and if there is not enough RAM to hold the entire return record set, then it will occupy static drive space.  Depending on how large the net-change record set is, that’s been returned, stealing all available RAM can seriously impact performance of the system.  Conversely, you may have designed a multi-threaded integration process, such as utilizing a message queue as a pickup point for the extracted net- change data.  Where running a multi-threaded process, you are able to translation a larger volume of data in a shorter period of time, but, that process will be very CPU intensive.

So, when developing your integration design, keep in mind that batch processing is memory intensive and multi-threaded processes are CPU intensive.  Depending on the environment you’re working in, you may have the inclination to build one type of integration process, but the impact of that process would be too costly in terms of system performance and end-user satisfaction.

This is a very typical scenario.  The CRM system breaks down ‘customers’ into different customer types.  Only ‘customers’ that have actually bought something are to be integrated into the ERP system.  So, you need to be able to filter records in order to meet the requirements of this business rule .  That filtering can take place in two different places, a) at the time of discovery of the net-change data or, b) during the translation process of the net-change data.  If you have used a query to discover the net-change data, you may only need to add something to the WHERE clause of the query, to ensure that only records that meet the business rule criteria are discovered.  If the application has it’s own net-change method, but cannot be modified to filter the records, you will need to build the filtering into the translation process rather than in the discovery process.  There can, however, be some advantages to filtering at the integration process level.  Let’s say that you only want purchasing customers being integrated into you ERP system, but you would like to see an aggregated view of all new customers that have been added to the either system.  When you filter out the customers at the translation point rather than the discovery point, you have the records discovered in the net-change process, so, the entire record set can be used to create customer, by type, reporting.

Another. more complex example would be; sales orders being placed in the ERP system and then translated to one of several warehouse systems for processing.  In this case, you not only have to filter the record set, but you also have to determine what translation processes will be used to ensure the sales order record is consumed by the correct warehouse system.  As you can see, business rules will have a huge impact on how you might design your integration process.  The entire solution may incorporate many different net-change discovery methods as well as many different data translation methods.  Don’t get caught building a useless solution, wasting time and money.  Dig deep into the requirements in order to develop the best integration processes for the given scenario your are working under.

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In my previous blog focusing on the hurdles of real-time, two-way data integration, I highlighted the hurdle of how to discover the data you need translated. In most cases, discovering the net-change data is all you want to translate on a real-time basis. Remember, a two-way integration means net-change data going in two directions or more (depending on the number of systems you’re integrating) at a rate determined by how many end-users there are on each of the systems being integrated. Business systems with a significant amount of end-users can create substantial volumes of net-change data.

In order to manage the volume of data flowing between systems, you must choose a net-change model to discover just the data that needs to translate. There are traditionally four basic models to choose from, one of which will discover the net-change data. They are not all equal though, so choosing will depend somewhat on the system(s) you’re working with and somewhat depend on the data model of the system(s) with which you’re working.

The four methods are as follows, in best practice order:

1. Application Method – this method is the most reliable and system efficient.  It relies on the system, or application, to find the net-change data and produce it in a format that is easily translated and consumed by other systems.  Some of the advantages of the Application Method are;
   a)  It typically can support deletes.  In other words, records deleted by end-users can be traced to the other integrated systems, and if the business rules permit, will delete those records as well.
   b)  It is more likely to produce the net-change data in the order in which it was changed.  This could become important if the net-change data is being produced in logical but separate extracts.  One example would be if the system that is producing  the net-change data, splits a sales order into a header file and a detail file.  The consuming system will likely have referential integrity rules that would not allow details to be consumed before the header.
   c)  It has, typically, very little impact on the producing system, providing an un-noticeable effect to the end-users.
   d)  Reliability is a key factor.  If the application is running, then net-change is being discovered and made consumable for other systems. 
    
2. Tracker-Table Method – Also known as the shadow table method, the tracker-table method is somewhat invasive, but is very useful in cases where the data model does not always supply a last modified date/time stamp on each record.  The tracker-table method does just what it says, it tracks the records that have had a change made to them.  It is invasive because it requires creating objects in the database of the system.  The idea being, create a table with at least three columns (ObjectName, RecordId,ChangeType).  This is the tracking table.  Then, place triggers on the tables which you are interested in seeing the net-change.  The triggers are designed to modify the tracker-table in the following ways;
   a)  If there is an insert on the table (a new record created),  the trigger will add a record to the tracker-table with three values; 1 - the table name where the changes came from, 2 – the recordId that was created when the record was committed, 3 – an identifier of the type of action that was performed (i.e. I = insert, U = update, D = deleted).
   b)  If there is an update made on the table, the trigger will search the tracker-table to find  the ObjectName/RecordId that corresponds to the record that was updated.  When the match is made, the trigger  then adds a ‘U’ to the ChangeType column indicating that the record corresponding to the recordid in the tracker-table, has been updated..
   
   Now that the net-change has been identified in the tracker-table, a mechanism needs to be developed (or a third-party tool employed i.e. Scribe or Informatica), to poll the tracker table for records with an ‘I’, ‘U’ or ‘D’, then join the recordid to the base table and retrieve the record that was changed.  Once retrieved, set the ‘ChangeType’ in the tracker table back to NULL.  Then simply choose the frequency that you want to poll the tracker–table for ‘I’, ‘U’ or ‘D’. 
    
3. Last Update Date Method – This method is non-invasive and can be as reliable as the Application and Tracker-Table methods. With this method you simply create a mechanism (or a third-party tool employed i.e. Scribe or Informatica) to poll the data-object for records that are new, or have an last update date/time stamp that is greater than the last time you polled the data-object.  There are a few other caveats to the WHERE clause but, essentially that’s all there is to it.  Here’s the kicker.  The reason that this method is 3rd in the best-practice ranking is because it is dependent on the clocks being used in the comparison, being synchronized.  If for some odd and perplexing reason one of your applications is getting it’s date/time from the desktop clock (or some other unreliable source), you would most likely end up with records falling through the cracks.  You must make sure the clocks you are using to compared and stamp are reliable.
    
4. Comparison Method – If you must discover your net-change records, and none of the first three methods can be applied, this may be your last option.  The Comparison Method (or snapshot method) consists of making a copy of the recordset in which the net-change data resides.  Then at some point after that first copy, take another copy of the object and compare each row/column for the differences.  This is an extremely laborious method, but at times, desperate men must do desperate things.

Lastly, what to do with concurrent updates to a record.  End-user #1  in sales, opens John Smith’s contact record to add a new cell number.  At the same moment End-user #2 in finance, opens John Smith’s record to update the billing address.  With applications like Dynamics CRM, Salesforce and SharePoint, the application logic will manage the concurrent changes and will make sure both are recognized and able to be discovered as net-change, and translated.  Other than that, it’s the ‘last out wins’ method.

In my next post in this series, we’ll take a look at working the business process rules and application rules, into the integration process, and, at what frequency should the integration run.

Of course one of the most anticipated parts of the Microsoft Convergence 2012 event in Houston was learning about the future of Dynamics CRM … what new features and functions does Microsoft plan to add? I must say that Microsoft did a better job than normal in providing a vision of what the future may hold. The very short summary is that over the course of the next 12 months, you will see Dynamics CRM become more: anytime, any device, any business – than ever before. In this article we’ll take a deeper look into exactly what that means and how to expect this to translate into changes in the platform over the next several releases.

CRM 2011 Q2 2012 SERVICE UPDATE (Dynamics CRM 2012?)

Microsoft has been talking about the next release of CRM for quite some time – it bears the sexy name “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Q2 2012 Service Update.”  It’s hard to hide the excitement as a name like that rolls of the tongue!  Prior to Convergence, Microsoft already hosted a number of events to discuss this release – expected to be available by July 1, 2012.  The highlights are below for those of you who have not yet heard the details.

Dynamics CRM 2011 on Any Browser: Microsoft is promising to deliver CRM via the most popular browsers as a part of this release including: Internet Explorer (of course), Firefox, Chrome and Safari.  So what’s all the fuss about?  In many companies there are users that are using Apple computers.  These have often been individuals in the marketing department who deliver important skill sets that require access to CRM, or  business executives who won’t give up their Macbooks.  In both cases the only option was to either have multiple different computers, or install a PC emulator on the Mac.  Neither situation was ideal.  Now these users can access CRM directly within their Mac.  This will also enable users of tablets (such as iPads) with compatible browsers to access CRM.  Outlook integration, however, is still available only in the PC/Windows environment.

Dynamics CRM 2011 on Any Device: With this new release Microsoft is rolling out expanded mobile capabilities – including a version of CRM for iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone devices.  With the iPad invading corporations everywhere, this is a welcome move on Microsoft’s part.  These new mobile versions of CRM had already been developed by CWR Mobility, an organization that partners with Microsoft.  CWR already had a mobile version of CRM for all of the above devices, and Microsoft is simply making this mobile version more readily available to businesses using CRM 2011 than before.  This is very good news because it means that this is not a “version 1.0” release of the mobile software – Microsoft is leveraging software that has been available for many years.  There is an additional fee for this capability (about $30.00 per user per month – each user can have up to 3 devices).  Feel free to contact us if you’d like to have Mobile CRM setup to work for your organization.

More Social Capabilities: In this upcoming release, Microsoft is taking the social capabilities within CRM 2011 to the next level.  Activity Feeds will be expanded to include filters based on: entity (for example, you can filter all updates to show only Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, etc), based on posts about you (it is, after all, all about you) or about your direct reports (who have gotten the idea into their head that it’s all about them).  If you haven’t already started to use Activity Feeds, then you should consider getting started right away.  Learn more: click here.

Faster CRM 2011 Online: Dynamics CRM 2011 presents very rich forms to the user.  But those rich forms come at a price – all of the logic and design elements for those forms have to be downloaded from over the web.  In some cases this can result in making the application slower than what users would prefer.  Microsoft has been addressing this by tuning CRM 2011 Online to improve performance.  With the Q2 2012 update they will also be introducing Rapid View Forms.  These are read-only version of forms that can be rendered much more quickly than standard editable forms.

But Wait … There’s More: Want more details about all the goodies in the Q2 2012 Service Update?  It’s available in the attached PDF (click the Adobe Acrobat logo to start the download).

CRM_2011_Q2_Service_Update_Details.pdf

CRM 2011 Q4 SERVICE UPDATE

Even more exciting was the news about the following update, which will come a bit later this year.  Although there is nothing as formal about this release as there is for the Q2 release, I sat in on a number of sessions where the vision for this update was discussed (and sometimes demonstrated).  Please take what is provided below with a large grain of salt – some of these items are me “reading between the lines” and others may slip to future releases.

Windows 8 + Dynamics CRM: I was very surprised to see how much work it looks like Microsoft is putting in to rewriting the CRM user interface to work with Windows 8.  I’ve included one of about 20 pictures I was able to snap in a session titled, “CRM Goes Metro”.  Metro is the new user interface design that Microsoft is rolling out across Windows Phone, Xbox and Windows 8.  It looks much better than I expected.  For those of you who use the Windows Phone, you’re already familiar with the buttons that function as “smart tiles” – giving you information (such as the weather) without even having to open the application.  CRM may have smart tiles that tell you the number of leads you have, past due opportunities, or high priority cases. What was most impressive to me was the way that CRM is being laid out to be much less data-entry intensive for users, while walking them through processes (in the same way, for example, that LinkedIN walks you through making sure that your profile is complete).  If Microsoft can deliver something as nice as what I saw in these sessions, then it will change the game.

A quick note to developers who may want to keep up with Windows 8 and CRM, Microsoft suggests the following tools and knowledge sources:

• Visit www.buildwindows.com
• Windows Runtime
• HTML/CSS for Metro
• Windows Library for JavaScript
• Microsoft .NET for Metro Style Apps
• Win32 and COM for Metro Style Apps

Social Integration: Microsoft plans to continue to expand what they’re doing with social integration.  I saw impressive demos of updating contact information directly from LinkedIN (some of this functionality is expected to be available in the Marketplace within just a few weeks, but the most impressive demo was done with Windows 8 and won’t be available until late this year).  Although I did not see this demoed, it also sounds as if Microsoft plans to develop integration directly to social networks so, for example, if someone tweets something negative about your organization, you can convert that into a case and work to resolve the issues with the customer.

Tablet and Mobile Behave Like Outlook: This is something that was only talked about briefly, but in at least one session I heard a mention of integrating directly with mobile Outlook and mobile phones so that emails and phone calls can be tracked directly from mobile devices without having to have the Outlook client installed.  This would be a huge leap forward for highly mobile users, or users who are accessing CRM from a Mac or another non-Microsoft platform.

CRM as the System of Engagement: There were a number of demonstrations showing how the mobile capabilities (both with Windows 8 tablets as well as with other form factors such as phones and iPads) could be used in a very efficient manner while interacting directly with customers.  One example that I thought was particularly exciting was for a retailer.  When the customer walked into the store, they could optionally check in with their mobile device; when they did so, the employees at the store were immediately alerted and the customer profile was made available with both recent and recommended purchases displayed on screen.

There are a number of very exciting developments right on the horizon.  What’s coming by July looks evolutionary, but what’s coming after that looks revolutionary.  Let’s hope that Microsoft can pull it off and take CRM to a whole new level that quickly!

Many companies spend a lot of money, time and effort to build a data warehouse and OLAP cubes, however they start using them to build the same old 2D reports that they were used to from the past. The standard 2D canned reports (Rows and Columns) can be built from any conventional relational database by writing some standard SQL queries. So why use an OLAP (On Line Analytic Processing) cube for such reports?

The OLAP cubes can handle large amount of data and can bring the results to you instantaneously and it is pre-aggregated. They are designed and built using de-normalized dimensional models optimized for faster data retrieval and reporting. They can hold all the data coming out of a data warehouse and they can also aggregate the granular data to many different levels. The big advantage is, the Microsoft SSAS OLAP cube can hold up to 128 dimensions and you can slice and dice the data using all the dimensions you have built into the cube. In addition, you can further slice the data using the hierarchies built within the dimensions. For example; You can slice the data by dimensions like Time, Geography, Product, Employee, and much more. In the Geography dimension you can also further slice the data by Continent, Country, State, County, City and Zip.

There are plenty of multi-dimensional analytic tools out there for the business intelligence presentation layer.You could take advantage of such tools to analyze the data coming out of the OLAP cubes and build real business intelligent reporting via dashboards filled with Gauges, Charts, KPIs, Grids, etc. Besides, a cube could also let various executives, managers and analysts in an organization to work independently at different level of data and reporting with added security features as well. Some of tools currently available in the market are Microsoft Performance Point 2010, Panorama, Power Pivot, & Reporting Services

 

After concluding the first day at the Microsoft Convergence 2012 event here in Houston, TX, I can summarize my feelings in one sentence, “It is a great time to be alive and working on collaboration!” Why do I say that? Here are a few brief insights:

Collaboration Has Changed Us

The initial general session opened with a song that was composed by artists working from different locations around the globe.  It was impressive to hear music that these individuals put together without having met each other.  During the session, I was taking notes on my slate using OneNote – these notes were syncing with our SharePoint server back at the office.  I was also having chat discussions with colleagues both at the event and back at the office via Lync and email.  Later, I was on a Skype call with a new prospect in Australia.  And it began to sink in how much things have changed over the past 10 years.  The idea of collaborating in real time, or even iteratively, with people around the globe, has moved from an idea to the norm.

The Future is so Bright…

But as much as things have changed, the future is even brighter.  I’ll do a separate blog on some of the changes to expect with the rollout of new versions of Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and Windows in the next 12 months, but here are facts you may not know about Microsoft:

• 95,000 employees in over 190 countries and over 600,000 partners – that is a tremendous amount of human thinking contributing to innovation
• 1.5 million people use Microsoft products – and they’re using competing products too, forcing Microsoft to continue to innovate
• The spend $9 billion in R&D annually – if I heard it correctly, they’re in the top few companies in the world in R&D spend – this will translate into exciting developments over the next 5-10 years that we’re not even envisioning today

Collaboration Done Right

After many years of working as a Microsoft partner, one of the things I have grown to appreciate is their approach to the market.  Make no mistake, I don’t drink all of the Microsoft kool-aid and I know that many have a very negative view of Microsoft just because they are the “big kid on the block.”  But they are doing a lot of things right and they get very little credit for it.  Specifically:

• Open Ecosystem: Although many would argue that Microsoft software is not “open” (which is true and, in my view, is a good thing), their ecosystem is open.  What does that mean?  Simply that they do not prohibit others from publishing improvements or add-ons to their products.  Anyone can publish a Windows program or CRM add-on (for example) without being forced to go through a “closed” marketplace that may mark it up or may eliminate competitive products all together.  The downside of this is that some low quality products can find their way to the market – the upside is that individual companies and developers have much more freedom to innovate (even if that means competing with Microsoft).
   
• Choice: Microsoft gives both customers and partners the ability to choose.  I had a number of conversations on the first day of the event with customers that said they began working with another company that made it very easy to get started, but they quickly felt trapped.  In some cases I heard complaints about working with a vendor that did not do knowledge transfer – so they could never learn enough to function on their own if they wanted to.  In other cases, I heard that businesses were frustrated because they were trapped in someone else’s cloud that was expensive and limited what they could do.  Microsoft has always worked to provide options (such as the ability to host in their cloud, a partner cloud or a private cloud), and to provide transparent access to knowledge.
   
• Partners: Microsoft has always been dedicated to supporting a partner channel. Although they are not always perfect in their execution of their partner programs, they have created millions of jobs around the globe in partner businesses.  They also understand that partners will often need to work with firms that compete with Microsoft; they may wish it were otherwise, but they understand how partner businesses work.  There is a downside – there are some partner firms out there that do less than high-quality work or that may have low-integrity sales practices; but there are also many thousands of partner firms to choose from that provide local, regional, national and global options to businesses located anywhere on earth.
   

I realize that this sounds a little bit like an advertisement for Microsoft.  From what I’ve seen, however, Microsoft attracts an undue amount of criticism. I have, admittedly, sometimes been in the chorus of voices offering (hopefully constructive) criticism.  But this is an organization that is having a tremendously positive impact for their customers, for their partners and for their employees.  With the values they have in place, I hope they thrive for a long time to come. 

Having been around collaboration (from the process, technical and human sides) for over 20 years, I’m more excited than I’ve ever been before about the prospects for the future.  Not just because of what Microsoft is doing, but because of how the entire world is changing.   Here’s to working together to use collaboration to make positive changes, provide tools that enable us to express a genuine care for colleagues and customers, and free people and businesses to innovate!

In some cases, if not all too some extent, integration between Dynamics™ CRM, Salesforce® or/and SharePoint® with your back-office system is the key to user adoption.  Real-time, two-way data integration allows all segments of the business to access the very latest transactional data, and the information that the data contains.  One example might be the keying of a ‘large’ order by a sales representative into CRM or Salesforce.  Having real-time, two-way data integration in place, that order would go directly from the crm system  to your ERP/MRP system for processing.  That in turn will reduce inventory and alert the operations team, signaling the purchasing department that orders need to be placed to backfill inventory and, signaling the operation manager that they will need to increase production to fulfill the ‘large’ order.  In some cases the integration of data can trigger an alert that will notify outside vendors directly that inventory needs to be replenished.

With access to current inventory levels within a sales rep’s CRM or Salesforce system, sales reps can make better informed customer promises with regard to when items will ship and/or if ordered items will be backordered.  This greatly improves customer satisfaction and adoption of the new CRM or Salesforce system.  Other advantages (among a plethora) is integration into SharePoint as well, where lists can be compiled to help make better business decision as well as having vital documents at your fingertips, which ever application you are currently using.

This is just one small example of how application data integration can improve adoption, and also improve the client’s business prospects.   My purpose in this blog is not to discuss the business benefits of data integration, but explore some of the architectural hurdles in designing the real-time, two-way data integration processes.  In a short series of blog entries, we’ll examine:

       How data is discovered for translation                                     

      When to discover data for translation                                        

      What data to discover for translation                                         

      How to handle concurrent data modification                          

     How to incorporate the client’s and the application’s                   
         business rules into the integration processes

We will, by no means, cover all the detail that goes into data integration, but will cover, at a high level, some of the hurdles and how to overcome them.  In some cases, there will be a choice of methods to accomplish a task, so, we’ll also talk about the best method to use in particular situations.  Some methods are tool agnostic, some will highlight how a tool like Scribe Insight provides easy access to data and the business rules around the data.  We’ll also see that many of the methods are application agnostic, meaning they can be applied to any system to system integration.

Data integration can be tricky stuff if it’s your first time tackling the subject.  Whether you are implementing a solution, or just need to talk comfortably about integration, there are several things to be careful of, but having said that, like anything else, it’s just a matter of experience before your comfort level is one that keeps your knees from shaking and your palms from sweating.

Are you planning to attend?   Great!  Ping me and let’s plan to chat.  It would be great to network with individuals who are looking for career opportunities or who would like to chat about the challenges that you are experiencing with your CRM project.  I’ll hook you up with a free copy of our CRM 2011 Bible if you don’t already have one (or if you want a second copy for your nightstand).

Make Parent Customer Required

The first tip seems fairly self-evident, but it is worth pointing out in case you missed it.  If you are a B2B firm, then you should consider making the Parent Customer field required on the contact form.  This enforces requiring that the user populate this form before they can save the record.  This is the first, easiest, and most important step you can take towards ensuring that you always have a value in the field.  Unfortunately, however, this step alone is not enough to guarantee that the field is always populated.  If a contact is created by clicking the “Create as contact” option from an Outlook email, it is possible for the user to exit the record without saving it (thus avoiding the requirement of filling in the Parent Customer field).  Data imports and other functions can also result in creating orphan contacts.  So what is a CRM administrator to do? 

Use a Workflow to Remind Users to Set Parent Customer

CRM to the rescue!  It’s pretty easy to create a workflow to remind users that a contact needs to have a parent customer assigned.  If you’d like a copy of a CRM solution with the workflow, please just ping me on the contact us page of our website and I’ll email this to you.   For those of you who are do-it-yourselfers, here are the steps to take:

1. Create a process on the contact entity.
2. Have the process execute “On Create” of a contact record.
3. Insert a short pause (maybe 5 minutes) at the start of the workflow (this allows time for the user to populate the Parent Customer field before the next step of the workflow is triggered – avoiding annoying email alerts that are not necessary).
4. Check to see if the Parent Customer field on the contact record contains data.
5. If it doesn’t contain data, then send an email to the individual that created the record reminding them to please add the Parent Customer to the contact.  Remember to make it easy for the user to find the record by inserting a link to the record directly into the email body and/or by setting the Set Regarding field so that a link appears in the CRM Pane in Outlook.

That’s really all there is to it.  Just remember to have a little bit of fun with the text of the email alert.  Tell your users that “CRM is very happy that you created a contact” or other funny comments that will help them remember to enter data correctly the first time (these funny comments have the added benefit of really annoying those users who require constant reminders!)

SharePoint has had excellent dashboard presentation capabilities for a long time now.  Dynamics CRM formally rolled out dashboard reporting with CRM 2011 (although using SharePoint and/or SSRS enabled dashboard reporting with previous versions of CRM).  Now that this functionality is getting embraced and adopted by many organizations, how can it best be leveraged to change the game by truly accelerating performance?  Simple.  Combine the best of Microsoft SharePoint, Dynamics CRM 2011 and TV or large monitors placed in public areas within your business.  Here’s how we’ve done it at C5 Insight.

First off, we created great dashboards using native CRM 2011 functionality (such as views, charts and, of course, dashboards).  We used these for a while in production to ensure that they were producing the kind of information we could use to drive behavior and/or make better business decisions.  This includes setting goals and using the goal management features of CRM to help individuals understand exactly where they stand relative to expectations.

Next, we did the same with SharePoint.  We looked at the kinds of information that is not in CRM that we would want to report on.  This includes things like financials, summarized project information (although this information is tracked by us in CRM, the native charts do not have sufficient functionality to present the dashboards we needed, so we used Excel services in SharePoint to render this kind of information) and the company calendar.  Some custom SharePoint information can be added, such as a Wiki where you enter daily announcements or a “welcome” message when you know a client will be visiting the office that day.

Third step?  The CRM dashboards can be merged with SharePoint by using Iframes or Web Resources within the CRM 2011 dashboards.  These components can “hold” the content that we want to present on our dashboards from SharePoint.  We can then trim away the CRM “flash” (such as the ribbon and menu) just by calling the correct URL so the dashboards are presented as a “kiosk”.

The last step: put large screen monitors, that can connect to the web, in key locations in your business.  In the nearby image, we’ve placed a monitor near our main entrance where people gather regularly; and we have another one in another office area down the hall.  These monitors are configured to show the desktop of a nearby computer (in our case, we’re running the Android OS on these monitors and they remote desktop to the machine, but many other options exist to enable this).  We also downloaded remote control apps that can run on iPhone, Windows Mobile or Android so that we can interact with our dashboards with our mobile devices (including our Kindle Fires – very cool!)  Multiple dashboards can be setup so that they dashboard rotates periodically, and so that information is refreshed periodically.

That’s how we did it – but it can work a bit differently depending on your situation.  One area that many larger businesses may need for their dashboards is a true BI (business intelligence) dashboard that combines data from multiple sources into a data warehouse and then renders that on a dashboard.  This, too, can be presented on an interactive monitor.  Adding a touch screen to this will be the ultimate, “Minority Report” experience … can’t wait to add that!

Interested in how to change the game in your organization with great dashboards?  Click here to contact us and let’s talk about it!

It is hard to overstate how important this functionality can be to a business.  If you’ve been working with social applications for a while, it is fairly natural to learn how to use CRM activity feeds.  If social networking is new to you, then you should take the time to learn more about activity feeds.  Click here for an overview.

But there is a problem.  Just as with any new approach to doing business, it can be difficult to get users to adopt this powerful new feature.  When working with some clients, I’ve heard comments like, “I already check email, voice mail and use instant messaging to exchange information – this is just another place that I have to remember to go.”  And I tend to agree with that.  Even though the “What’s New” wall is just a click away in the CRM menu, it requires remembering to discipline yourself to go to yet another part of CRM to make sure that nothing is slipping through the cracks.  So here are 3 ideas to help you get broader adoption of activity feeds across your organization.

1. Start with an Activity Feed Pilot Group

Don’t install the activity feed solution, provide an hour of training, and expect to see usage take off.  Rather, start using activity feeds with a small pilot group of users that are excited to integrate it into their daily work. Form a task force to discuss them and provide a bit of training, and meet every few weeks to review usage, discuss issues, and fine-tune how you have them configured.  Ask your task force to not only use activity feeds, but to think about why you would use this rather than another mode of communication (such as email).  You’ll find that this group develops best practices specific to your organization that you can use in training other users.

2. Integrate Activity Feeds into Dashboards

Another way we have found to aid with improving the adoption of activity feeds is to integrate them directly into your dashboards.  As you probably know, dashboards are more than just charts – they are an interactive tool that users can access to organize and manage their entire day – without having to navigate to all the various areas of CRM.  With that in mind, dashboards are a centerpiece of most of our implementations, so integrating the wall into the dashboard that they already use everyday means less clicking around to get them using activity feeds.  The image near the beginning of this blog entry is a demonstration of adding the activity feed to a dashboard that we use within our business.  Since the What’s New section is a web resource, it is fairly simple to add this to an existing dashboard.  Follow the instructions below to create a personal dashboard with activity feeds (if you want to roll this out across the business, then you’ll need to create a system dashboard):

1. Go to the dashboard you want to integrate activity feeds into.
2. Click “Save As” in the ribbon menu and name the new dashboard (you could also modify an existing personal dashboard, but this runs the risk of making changes that you cannot easily undo – I prefer to start by creating a new dashboard and then, once I’m sure I no longer need the old one, I delete it).
3. On the ribbon menu, click the “Web Resource” button on the Insert section.
4. Choose the resource named, “msdyn_/PersonalWall.htm” – see the nearby image for other properties to set on this form.
5. Position the web resource such that the user can see it clearly on their dashboard.  Depending on screen resolution, it should take from 1/3 to 2/3 of the width of the dashboard, and it should not be taller than can fit onto a single screen (lest the user has to use 2 scroll bars to navigate the wall).  This will take a bit of experimentation to get the settings right to fit in with your selected dashboard and screen resolution.

3. Create Groups

One last tip: create a “Groups” custom entity that individuals can follow.  That way, people can choose a specific interest that they want to follow.  For example, in our business, we have people who focus on Dynamics CRM, SharePoint, Salesforce.com and Business Intelligence.  We also have things that we want to publish for everyone to see.  So we’ve created a group for each of those things, we ask everyone to follow the “Everyone” group, and to also follow the other groups of their choice.  This gives everyone a way to communicate with each other around their specific areas of interest and expertise without having to read through irrelevant information that is not important to their job.  You’ll also need to create appropriate security groups to manage this new entity.  To help you along with this, I’ve created a custom solution that you can load into your instance of CRM.  To request it, contact us, and in the comment box request the “C5 Social Groups” solution – we’ll email it to you within a day.  Always remember to test out any new solution (including this one) in a test instance of CRM prior to rolling it out to your organization.

With those tips in mind, you can quickly get your organization down the path of adopting activity feeds in CRM 2011.  Happy virtual socializing!

We frequently hear complaints from sales users that they don’t like having to take the time to track meetings and phone calls in their CRM system.  Many sales people feel that this just takes away from the time that they can spend in conversations with prospective customers.  While it is critically important that sales people are disciplined about tracking relevant activities in CRM, there are some helpful shortcuts available to save some time – or to make use of “down time” while driving or waiting for a meeting.

One very helpful tool for tracking these activities comes from an unexpected source: Google!  Google has a free service called Google Voice.  The service is meant to be a helpful tool for routing calls (you can setup your Google Voice number to ring multiple phone numbers so prospects can reach you at your mobile, home or office number – you can even easily set it up to ring a land-line while you’re on vacation if you don’t have mobile service).  Google Voice also enables you to capture, and transcribe, voice mails.  Google Voice can send your voice mail messages to your email address automatically.  This voice mail transcription service is what you can use to save some time capturing meeting and call notes.

To take advantage of this, you can call your Google Voice number between meetings.  This can be while waiting for a meeting, from your car (of course you wouldn’t dream of doing this while driving … right?) or anywhere else that you have some “down time” and a mobile phone signal.  Call your Google Voice number, record your notes, and hang up.  Be sure to annunciate clearly – Google Voice transcription isn’t perfect and can sometimes lead to entertaining, or embarrassing, mistakes.  Google Voice transcribes the message and sends you an email.  When you’re back on Outlook, simply track the email (which includes the transcribed call notes) and regard it to the appropriate record in your CRM system.  You’re done!  That takes a lot less time than opening CRM, finding the customer record, creating an activity, and manually typing all of the notes.

If you have a talented CRM partner, they can setup a workflow for you that can automatically convert your tracked email into a phone call or appointment activity for you – so your notes will not only be tracked, but they will also appear as the correct activity type in CRM.

What will you do with all of the time you save? 

When reviewing a lead, account or contact prior to a sales call, it is always helpful to have as much context about a company prior to making the call.  Putting a Twitter feed on the CRM record for a lead can put this information in a place where it is easy for a sales person to quickly see it.  By passing in the name of the company dynamically, the feed can show relevant information about the specific company.

Twitter makes it pretty easy to generate the “base” code for integrating with CRM (or any website) as a widget.  You can find their tools for generating widgets here.  Even if you use my code, below, as a starting point, you’ll likely find this link helpful as you start to fine-tune your code a bit.

On the technical side, this post uses an HTML web resources to setup the Twitter integration on the Dynamics CRM 2011 lead form.  In general, this appears to be fairly straight forward, but there are a few ‘gotchas’ to work around.  Notably, ensuring that the script in inserted into the correct portion of the HTML code and structuring how you reference fields on your parent CRM form can be a bit tricky.

Here is a step-by-step guide to setting up the Twitter feed.  This assumes some basic knowledge of creating Web Resources in CRM.

1. Create a new Web Resource in the customizations area of CRM.  Use the following settings on it:

• Name: Twitter
• Display Name: Twitter Mash-Up by C5 Insight
• Description: Displays a Twitter feed for the company on the Lead entity.
• Type: Web Page (HTML)

2. Click Text Editor.

3. Click the source tab and enter or copy/paste the code from below.  IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not paste this code into the rich text editor – be sure  you are on the source tab.

   1:  <HTML><HEAD>

   2:  <SCRIPT charset=utf-8 src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js">SCRIPT>

   3:   

   4:  

   5:  true>

   6: