c360 Deserves Honorable Mention

With numerous Microsoft CRM projects starting and finishing at the same time, it's been incredibly busy at Navint.

In an ongoing effort to serve our Microsoft CRM clients by delivering the best possible solution, a particular independent software vendor (ISV) who is focused solely on Microsoft CRM deserves honorable mention.

If you've not heard of c360 or seen their Microsoft CRM solution enhancements, then I strongly encourge you to go check them out.

A few c360's solutions that have saved us a lot of time (and have proven to be THE ANSWER for a number of our Microsoft CRM clients) include:

Word Mail Merge. Navint is in the process of implementing this solution for one of our clients who has complex and ever changing quoting and invoicing requirements. Certainly less skills intensive than SRS, c360's Word Mail Merge solution provides a simple and flexible reporting interface that allows Microsoft CRM users to print quotes and invoices (or data from any other Microsoft CRM entity) in company acceptable formats based on precreated Microsoft Word Templates.

Multi Field Search. Given the ability to create custom entities in Microsoft CRM 3.0, it is obviously important that users are able to search across those entities. As many Microsoft CRM users have come to find out - usually after building their custom entities - the current Advanced Find functionality in Microsoft CRM is limited to searching across existing entities. In other words, if the characteristics of an Advanced Find search require multiple fields from both an existing entity (e.g., Account) and a custom entity, then you are stuck. However, c360's Multi Field Search tool takes care of this problem. Yes, Navint has a couple of Microsoft CRM clients that are very happy that this tool exists!

Record Clone Utility. For whatever reason Microsoft CRM does not yet have a native record cloning tool. That means if Microsoft CRM users want to create a new record (e.g., a Contact) that has most of the same address information as an existing Contact they have to rekey all that data into the new Contact record. But not if they have c360's Record Cloning Tool installed. And what's cool is that with this tool you can clone any Microsoft CRM record type. Better yet, it's FREE!

And although I haven't tested it yet, c360 recently released a solution called Import Manager which allows Microsoft CRM users to import Lead, Account, Contact data as well as any other data that they have built custom entities for. Furthermore, Import Manager includes functionality that maintains existing relationships between entities - this is key considering the limitations of Microsoft CRM's native Bulk Import Tool.

Some of you may say, what about Microsoft CRM's data migration framework? Or, what about Scribe? Certainly those tools work too. c360's Import Manager is a nice addition though.

Why Attend Convergence 2007 - Reason Number 37

Need another reason to sell your boss so that you can attend Convergence 2007?

Thanks to Arash Ghanaie-Sichanie you've got one more. And this one is especially good if you're interested in Microsoft CRM.

In his recent post, Arash promises to allow test drives of the all new CRM Titan developer experience and tools. He says he's planning to run a number of one-on-one API, workflow and programmability usability studies as well.

Go Arash!

Microsoft CRM V3C Terminal Server Scripts Available

Straight from the Microsoft Team Blog: The new Terminal Server scripts are available!

These new terminal server scripts provide support for the CRM V3C Outlook Client’s new custom MAPI store. Like the prior release, the new scripts are only supported on Windows 2003.

Get them here.

Microsoft CRM Analytics Foundation Released!

At long last Microsoft has released Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation, a business intelligence solution accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0

Available to Microsoft CRM customers and partners, Analytics Foundation offers:

- An OLAP cube (UDM) built on the default Microsoft CRM 3.0 schema
- Business Performance Dashboards across marketing, sales, and customer service
- Predictive Analytics (i.e., lead potential rating, marketing list generation, product recommendation)

Microsoft CRM Analytics Foundation leverages data management and analytics technologies from the Microsoft Business Intelligence suite of products including SQL Server 2005, SharePoint, Business Scorecard Manager, Excel, and PerformancePoint Server 2007 (when available).

For more information about Microsoft CRM Analytics Foundation or to download it for free, go here.

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself!

I've seen lots of buzz on the following issue related to the Microsoft CRM Outlook client:

- You have installed the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Microsoft Office Outlook
- You install security update 925938, or you install hotfix package 921562
- You open and close e-mail messages, you send e-mail messages, or you delete e-mail messages

Based on the above scenario, Microsoft Office Outlook intermittently crashes, and you receive the following error message:

Microsoft Office Outlook has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Additionally, the following message is logged in the application event log:

Event Type: Error Event Source: Microsoft Office 11 Event Category: None Event ID: 1000 Date: Time: User: N/A Computer: Description: Faulting application outlook.exe, version 11.0.8118.0, stamp 456628bf, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0,stamp 00000000, debug? 0, fault address 0xffffffff.

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. The hotfix corrects the problem that is described in this article. Apply the hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

To resolve this problem immediately, contact Technical Support for Microsoft Dynamics and related products to obtain the hotfix. You can log on to the Microsoft Dynamics site and create a new support request. For more information on fixing this problem please go here.

Or as Ali G would say, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself!"

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - Exchange 2007 Update

Are you running Exchange 2007 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0?

Microsoft recently release an update allows the distribution of Microsoft Dynamics CRM email message forwarding rules to mailboxes that are located on computers running Exchange Server 2007.

Get it here.