Forrester ranks Microsoft Dynamics CRM ahead of Salesforce.com

Sanjay Jain psoted this:

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Recently, Forrester announced the results of its rankings for its CRM Sales and Customer Service Wave reports. Forrester ranked Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the #1 solution in the Direct Sales Management category, beating out Salesforce.com, Oracle Siebel, SAP CRM, and all others in SFA. Also, Dynamics CRM was ranked as #1 in the “Record Customer-Centric” category over Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP. This category focuses on complex B2B relationships where customer service is driven from within the CRM solution. 

 

Earlier this year, Forrester published two other wave reports: Midmarket CRM Suites and Enterprise CRM Suites. These reports evaluate leading CRM products from an all-up perspective in terms of overall value and long-term viability for companies in the midmarket and enterprise segments.  In both of these reports, Forrester ranked Microsoft Dynamics CRM higher than Salesforce.Com. In the midmarket category Dynamics CRM beat Salesforce.com to finish #2 behind Oracle Siebel. In the enterprise category, Dynamics CRM beat Salesforce.com to finish #3 behind Oracle Siebel and SAP-CRM. 

 

You may access the full reports below from our corporate site (microsoft.com).

·         The Forrester Wave^TM: Sales Force Management, Q4 2008: click here.

·         The Forrester Wave^TM: Midmarket CRM Suites, Q3 2008: click here.

·         The Forrester Wave^TM: Enterprise CRM Suites, Q3 2008: click here.

 

Sanjay Jain

Microsoft Dynamics ISV Architect Evangelist

Blogs:  Team’s Blog + Sanjay’s Blog

Blog Move: Speed Racer - Call CRM at speeds that would impress even Trixie

posted at: 9:37 AM by Aaron Elder

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It's been a year since Invoke Systems and Ascentium merged and we finally took down the old clunk server that was hosting the old Invoke Systems blog.  This blog is of course still getting lots of hits and due to popular demand, I am going to migrate a few choice posts on our current blog.  Note these posts are all related to Microsoft CRM 3.0.  Here is the first.

The other day I was doing a bit of testing to find the fastest way to make rapid calls to CRM Web Services.  The truth of the matter is that when you are calling CRM Web Services you are pretty much down to the metal; so the only places I found to make optimizations were at the .NET Web Service Request level and at the server level.  The good news is that with a few very easy tweaks you can improve rapid CRM calls by almost 50%!

The results are based on a test that involved performing 250 Account create operations in a single-threaded clean CRM 3.0 RTM environment.  Please note that this article is about improving performance for operations such as data imports and bulk operations.  The same user and CRM Service are re-used for all 250 calls.  Be warned that not all settings are "safe" to use in all scenarios... please read up on the suggestions prior to implementing them in a production system.

The results of this study are as follows.

Test	Results
Raw Dog	15402.1472
PreAuthenticate	14450.7792
PreAuthenticate & Unsafe	12638.1728
Just Unsafe	9633.8528
Unsafe + IIS Tweaks	8862.744

[IMAGE MISSING]

So what does all this mean?  The answers are below.  For simplicity of the code samples, I assume you have already declared and setup a CrmService, the credentials are set and the URL is configured.  I also assume there is a CRM Account called "acc" that is ready to go.  Something like this:

CrmService crm = new CrmService();
crm.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
crm.Url = "http://localhost/MSCRMServices/2006/CrmService.asmx";

account acc = new account();
acc.name = "Test";

"Raw Dog" - This is the most straightforward and basic way of calling the CRM service, the code looks something like this:

crm.Create(acc);

PreAuthenticate - This is the first optimization that people seem to use and it does indeed provide a small benefit (~7%) over the default settings.  The code looks like this:

crm.PreAuthenticate = true;
crm.Create(acc);

So why does this work?  Reading the documentation suggests that this simply saves a round-trip required by NTLM's challenge-response authentication system.  MSDN: "With the exception of the first request, the PreAuthenticate property indicates whether to send authentication information with subsequent requests without waiting to be challenged by the server. When PreAuthenticate is false, the WebRequest waits for an authentication challenge before sending authentication information." - Of course since most systems have "Keep Alives" enabled and my scenario is using the same connection over and over, the savings are minimal.

PreAuthenticate & Unsafe - This attempt adds the "UnsafeAuthenticatedConnectionSharing" option to the mix and we get yet another boost in performance (~12% over our last test and ~18% for our first test).  The code looks like this:

crm.PreAuthenticate = true;
crm.UnsafeAuthenticatedConnectionSharing = true;
crm.Create(acc);

So why does this help?  When used in conjunction with "Keep Alives" this option keeps an authenticated connection open to the server.  MSDN: "The default value for this property is false, which causes the current connection to be closed after a request is completed. Your application must go through the authentication sequence every time it issues a new request.  If this property is set to true, the connection used to retrieve the response remains open after the authentication has been performed. In this case, other requests that have this property set to true may use the connection without re-authenticating. In other words, if a connection has been authenticated for user A, user B may reuse A's connection; user B's request is fulfilled based on the credentials of user A."

This option is very powerful and before using it be sure to read up on it here.  Since the connection is authenticated and shared, you need to make sure that two different users don't come in on the same connection.  If they do, the server will thing the user is the first user that opened the connection and allow the 2nd user to do whatever the 1st user could and to do it as if they were the same person.  There is a way around this using the property "ConnectionGroupName" property.  For my scenario of a bulk import, the only user that will be using this connection is the migration user and it will be the same user from start to end, so we are ok.

Unsafe - Now something curious happens when we keep PreAuthenticate off, but leave UnsafeAuthenticatedConnectionSharing on.  This is where things get a bit odd, this is faster than have both options on; a full 38% faster than the original test as a matter of fact!  The code looks like this:

crm.UnsafeAuthenticatedConnectionSharing = true;
crm.Create(acc);

Why does this work?  Well the answer is I don't know and I have talked to people on the CRM team and the .NET team and nobody has a really good answer.  The good new is that it does, perhaps it is best to leave it at that.

Tweaks - Finally, if you follow all the recommended steps for configuring a high-performance ASP.NET application (disable logging, enable ISAPI caching, make sure ASP.Net is tweaked) you can get a final little nip of performance.  Basically do what this article says and we get another 9% bump in performance.

 

Disclaimer:
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Statement of Direction

This document outlines the future direction of Microsoft Dynamics CRM through to the next major release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM “V.Next”, which will be aligned with the Office 14 wave of product releases due in late 2009/early 2010.

Customer Link:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/documentation/whitepapers/MD_CRM_SOD

Partner Link:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/marketing/statementofdirection/MD_CRM_SOD

*Note* that this document is intended to be periodically updated as details are developed and it is not intended to be a detailed specification as items may change or be dropped over the course of time. Notice of any updates will be provided.

PinPoint

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a full participant in the beta for PinPoint, a unified online business marketplace for small and medium-sized business customers and partners. Pinpoint helps customers discover, discern and engage with Microsoft partners to fulfill their unique technology needs, while unlocking business opportunities for partners.

Resizing A Virtual PC Hard Drive

Saturday, May 24, 2008 9:42 PM by Simon Hutson
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Holy Diver...

The other day I was working on one of my Virtual PC demo images, when I noticed I was running out of disk space. When I originally created the Virtual Hard Drive (.VHD) I just accepted the default size of 16GB without thinking, but more and more often I find I need to install other products such as SharePoint Server, BizTalk Server, PerformancePoint Server, which inevitably require extra disk space.

After a little "liveling" (what is the live.com equivalent of "googling"?) I found a great utility called VHD Resizer, which does exactly what its name suggests. Once I resized the drive to 32GB, I started up the image but found that my C: drive was still limited to 16GB. Using the Windows Disk Management tool, showed that disk had indeed been resized, leaving me with my original 16GB partition plus 16GB of unallocated space.

I tried to extend the partition using the DISKPART.EXE command line utility, but I quickly found out that you can't extend a boot partition. However, this morning I was chatting with Scott Vessey, a friend who works for a VMWare training partner Magirus, who shared a trick to get this to work.

1. Use VHD Resizer to create a new .VHD file from the original Virtual Machine .VHD file


2. Add the new .VHD as a second drive to the Virtual Machine


3. Start the Virtual Machine, run the Disk Management tool and rescan the drives to enable Windows to see this as an NTFS partition.
   
    
   


4. Start a command prompt and run "diskpart.exe". Select the correct volume and extend it.
   
   
   


5. Refresh the Disk Management tool and you should now see the re-sized partition.
   
    
   


6. Shut down the Virtual Machine and re-configure it to use the newly re-sized .VHD file as the primary disk.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Found on MS CRM Team Blog, by Reuben Krippner

SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS) provides tools for data mining with which you can identify rules and patterns in your data, so that you can determine why things happen and predict what will happen in the future—giving you powerful insight that will help your company make better business decisions.

You can use data mining to answer questions such as:

• What will customers buy? What products sell together?
• How can a company predict which customers are at risk for churning?
• Where has the marketplace been, and where is it going?
• How can a business best analyze its Web site usage patterns?
• How can an organization determine the success of a marketing campaign?
• How can businesses prevent poor quality data from entering the system?

In March 2008, Reuben Krippner presented two breakout sessions at Convergence US on Extensibility with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

During these sessions I covered a number of live demonstrations of how you can extend and integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM. One of the “big hit” demos involved the use of the SQL Data Mining Add-in for Microsoft Excel 2007 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I have packaged up this example as a hands-on-lab for you to try for yourself. It is very important to note that as part of your investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM the underlying SQL Server 2005 platform provides you with very powerful Analysis Services. Everything that is used as part of this example is included with SQL Server 2005 Standard and Enterprise editions and the Excel add-in is completely free of charge – incredibly powerful and your only investment is time!

For loads of background materials on SQL Server Data Mining go to http://www.microsoft.com/sql/technologies/dm/default.mspx

A few explanatory notes first! As always, the samples are supplied as is with no support or warranty provided by Microsoft. Feel free to take this utilize as you see fit. Special thanks go to Philip Rawlinson from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM UK team who set out the concepts for me to borrow and extend! This utility will work identically with either Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 or 4.0.

Steps to follow:

Step 1: Install the Data Mining add–in for Excel 2007 (check that this has installed correctly by starting Excel 2007 and you will see a new section in the ribbon called ‘Data Mining’.

Step 2: Start Excel 2007

Step 3: From the ribbon interface in Excel 2007, select Data à From Other Sources à From Microsoft Query

Step 4: We need to create a data source for Microsoft Dynamics CRM – this connection will point at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM filtered views (more on this later).

Step 5: Select <New Data Source> and click OK.

Step 6: Set the name of your data source to be Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Set the driver to be SQL Server and then click the ‘Connect...’ button.

Step 7: Pick a server from the list provided or enter ‘.’ if this is on the local SQL Server. Click Options >>.

Step 8: Select your CRM database from the Database drop-down list. It should have a name like organizationname_MSCRM. Click OK.

Step 8: Click OK.

Step 8: Click OK.

Step 9: Scroll down the Available tables and columns list and expand FilteredSalesOrder. Select the following columns from FilteredSalesOrder:

• salesorderid
• ordernumber

Step 10: Scroll down the Available tables and columns list and expand FilteredSalesOrder. Select the following columns from FilteredSalesOrder:

• salesorderid
• productidname

Step 11: Click Next>

Step 12: Click OK – we will manually build the join in the next step

Step 13: Drag and drop salesorderid from FilteredSalesOrder to salesorderid from FilterSalesOrderDetail – this creates the join between the two views so that the sales order relates to the individual products purchased as part of that sales order.

Step 14: Click the Return Data button to publish this data to our Excel worksheet.

Step 15: Click OK on the Import Data dialog box

Step 16: Delete the two salesorderid columns in our worksheet as we do not need them anymore. Right-click the column-heading and select Delete.

Step 17: Click the drop-down arrow on the ordernumber column heading and select Sort A to Z

Step 18: Select Data Mining from the Excel 2007 ribbon and then click Associate – The ‘Associate’ Algorithm is a mathematical formulae that is built to detect patterns in data and lends itself to analysis for cross sell initiatives.

Step 19: Click Next in the wizard

Step 20: Click Next in the wizard.

Step 21: In this next screen you can change the parameters of the Data Mining Model

To learn more about these parameters please refer to:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174768.aspx

Step 22: Change the Minimum Support value to 5 for your first run to ensure you get a result set back (this is the minimum count of similar transactions to include in the model), if this also fails perhaps lower this and also the probability. Again to learn more about these parameters use the link above.

Step 23: Click Next

Step 24: Check the box marked Enable Drill Through and click Finish.

Step 25: View the results – Here we are looking for a high ‘Importance’ and then a high ‘Probability’. In the example here we can see that a rule has been detected where there is high probability of selling a ‘Road Bottle Cage’ with a ‘Road 150 Red’. Again for more information on the parameters please go to the article link above. Click the Copy to Excel button to bring the results back to your Excel worksheet.

Step 26: Click on the Dependency Network tab to see the rule set depicted graphically in terms of the associations between products purchased.

Step 27: With this insight you could now set up a marketing campaign and target those individuals where they have bought one product but not another. The possibilities are endless and this just illustrates the use of one of the data mining algorithms at your disposal, e.g. this could be used in service organisations to find the most common combinations of service issues or where one issue directly causes another.

Have fun with these samples! The world of predictive analytics awaits and is free-of-charge!

Kind regards,
Reuben Krippner
Published Monday, April 28, 2008 7:58 AM

Scheduling and emailing reports with CRM

David Jennaway wrote this article.
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A common customer request is to be able to schedule CRM reports and automatically send the report to one or more users by email. This can be done without the need for any code, but needs a combination of configuration within both CRM and Reporting Services.

CRM Configuration
CRM reports are designed to be run under the context of the user running the report so as to return only the data that user has permission to see. Due to this configuration, Reporting Services will not permit you to schedule CRM Reports out of the box (if you try, you'll get the error 'Subscriptions cannot be created because the credentials used to run the report are not stored') . The easiest way to resolve this issue is to download the CRM Report Scheduling Wizard from here and install it on the CRM server.

Then, navigate to Workplace, Reports in CRM, select the report you want to schedule, and go to More Actions, Schedule Report. As you will do the scheduling later within Report Manager, I'd suggest you select the following options:

• Generate snapshots 'On demand'
• 'Make snapshots available only to me'
• Specify any parameter values
• You then need to specify the credentials under which the report will run. This needs to be a valid CRM user
• 'Yes, generate the snapshot now'

Reporting Services configuration
The rest of the configuration is done via Reporting Services. First of all, you may have to configure the email properties of Reporting Services. To do this open RSReportServer.config, which by default will be in the Reporting Services\ReportServer directory under the SQL installation directory in Program Files. Within the 'RSEmailDPConfiguration' element you will need to set values in, as a minimum, the 'SMTPServer' and 'From' elements. You may need to apply other settings. For more information see the documentation for SQL 2005 or SQL 2000

Scheduling the Report in Report Manager
You can now schedule the report. Browse to Report Manager (by default it will be in the Reports virtual directory), go to the OrganisationName_MSCRM folder and the report you have scheduled (it's name will have the suffix On demand Snapshot). On the toolbar you should have a button 'New Subscription'. Click this, select 'Report Server E-mail' in the Delivered by drop down, and set all other options as required. (If 'Report Server E-mail' is not an option, go back to the instructions in the above paragraph

How to customize the Marketing List Member view?

The MSCRM BI Team posted this article.
-------------------------------------

That's the question often asked by all the people customizing MS CRM. Simply, going to customization area does not allow you to customize the Marketing List Members view. So how to do that?

We should begin with noticing the fact that there are three types of marketing list by default in MS CRM - one for Leads, one for Contacts and one for Accounts. So if you want to customize the Marketing List Mamber view, you will have to know for which entity you would like to customize it. Once you know, it is worth noting somewhere the type codes for these entities, i.e. Account = 1, Contact = 2, Lead = 4. Knowing these values, we can proceed further.

For each entity type there are several views (e.g. "All members"). So you have to decide which one you would like to customize before you begin with the customization.

 Once you have done all this, follow these steps to customize the Marketing List Member view and enjoy all the advantages of MS CRM customization :)

 

1. We assume that we want to customize the All Members view for the Marketing List containing accounts. 

Go to the MS CRM database and use SQL Server Management Studio or Query Analyzer to enter the following query:

SELECT * FROM SavedQueryBasy WHERE name LIKE '%members%

2. You will be presented with the list of views containing members. Find the one that you want to customize and be sure that you look at the one for the entity, you would like to customize. So, in our example, we want to customize the view containing accounts. Thus, find the row that contains 1 in the ReturnedTypeCode column.

3. Once you've done this, copy the GUID of this view from the SavedQueryId column

4. You can leave the Management Studio now and go to CRM web client

5. Go to "Settings" / "Customize entities" and select the Account entity

6.  Go to "Forms and views" and open any view to customize it

7. Now, press CTRL+N on your keyboard to open the address bar

8. In the URL, replace the GUID of currently customized view to the one you have copied in point 3. and press enter to refresh the window

9. Wow! You are now presented with the Marketing List Member view that you would like to customize. Customize it using normal MS CRM mechanisms!

10. Once you finish, "Save & Close" the window and the entity window

11. In the "Customize entities" view click "More actions" / "Publish all customizations"

12. Once the customizations are published, you have your new Marketing List Member view :)

 Happy Customization! :)

You can follow these steps for all other views.

Please note that this customization (simply saying, as any other requiring to query the db and not shown on the web client) is NOT SUPPORTED!

 

Error When Creating A New Appointment

Danny Varghese wrote this blog on 03.14.08

One of our clients recently had an issue where a user got an error message when trying to create a new appointment.  Upon saving, a dialog pops up “The record you are requesting is currently unavailable.  Either the record was not found or you don’t have sufficient permissions to view it.”  When getting that message, I thought it was a permission issue, but that was quickly ruled out.  After much searching, I ran across a post on Ronald Lehman’s blog.  He posted the solution to this, but I wanted to reference this as well because our client received it a few times.  Also, it took me quite some time to find this post, so hopefully we can give it more exposure.  The url for Ronald’s blog post is: http://ronaldlemmen.blogspot.com/2007/05/error-when-creating-new-appointment.html. 

Basically he goes on saying that this is caused by an “orphan” record in CRM.  The SystemUserBase table in CRM should have a one to one correlation with the Resource table.  That is if a record exists in the Resource table, but not in the SystemUserBase table (as was our case), then this error would be received.

After running the query he suggested and “cleaning” up the data, that resolved the issue.

Sorting By Multiple Columns In Microsoft CRM

Microsoft CRM views in 3.0 are a great way to view important parts of records in a clear concise manner. The views also offer sorting which is an even greater plus for many users. What may not be known however is that users can sort by multiple columns!

Simply hold down the SHIFT key, and viola! This can be especially helpful for views that have columns with data that have similar values. A prime example is in CRM, if there are hundreds, or even thousands of Contact records, and the view might have first and last name columns. The likely hood of having duplicate first names is high. So if a user wants to sort by first and last names, he/she can hold down the SHIFT key, and click on the first name and last name column.

Show all of the open Activities on the General page

show all of the open Activities on the General page as well. That was as simple as adding an iframe and building a Url to point to the Activities;

//Only use on the edit form
if (crmForm.FormType == 2)
{
//Set the dropdown to Follow Up
document.getElementById("followup_context").selected = true;

//Call the onchange event of the dropdown
RelatedInformationPane.LoadContextData();

//Get the current Account's Id
var objectId = crmForm.ObjectId;

//Get the Security Token
var securityId = crmFormSubmit.crmFormSubmitSecurity.value;

//Load the iframe
document.getElementById("IFRAME_Activities").src = "/sfa/accts/areas.aspx?oId="
+ objectId + "&oType=1&security="+ securityId +"&tabSet=areaActivities";
}

Where Do I Find? By Ben Vollmer

Be has a Word Document with a ton of useful links that can be found on the East Region Microsoft CRM blog here. I have converted it to HTML and it is shown below.

Content Item Title	Description	Confidentiality	Partner Source	Customer Source	MSPP Partner Portal	MS.com
Marketing
Sales Force Automation Brochure	Four page brochure describing the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SalesAutomation Module.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Marketing Automation Brochure	Four page brochure describing the Microsoft Dynamics CRMMarketing Automation Module.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Customer Service Brochure	Four page brochure describing the Microsoft Dynamics CRMCustomer Service Automation Module.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Enterprise (Depth) Brochure	Four Page brochure describing Microsoft Dynamics CRM and theenterprise.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Win, Drive, Grow (Breadth) Datasheet	Use this two page datasheet for a Microsoft Dynamics CRMoverview.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
What’s New in 4.0 Datasheet	This two page datasheet provides an overview of the new CRM 4.0features and their benefits to the customer.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
What’s New in 4.0 - Top 60 Feature Guide	This multi-page guide goes into depth on the new features in CRM4.0 and their benefit to the customer.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Datasheet	This 2 page datasheet provides an overview of the CRM Onlineproduct and it benefits as well as Microsoft Dynamics CRM generalbenefits	Cust	LINK	LINK	LINK	In process
Better Together Guide	This multi-page guide describes how Microsoft Dynamics CRM worksbetter with other Microsoft products.  Provide to BDMs as atakeaway and to highlight the benefits of staying with Microsoftstack or to other non-CRM Microsoft individuals to allow them tosee the value of adding CRM to their accounts.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Customer Showcase Brochure	This multi-page Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customer ShowcaseBrochure highlights 27 success stories from customers that havedeployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM. (Version 08-051 adds 6 customers)	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Healthcare Vertical	This accelerator, built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, showcaseshow Microsoft Dynamics CRM is relevant to customers in thehealthcare industry and provides a baseline for partners/customersfor further development.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	In process	LINK
Customer Showcase Video	This four minute video profiles how Microsoft Dynamics CRM‘Fits’ businesses such as Nortel, Renault, DallasCowboys and Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe B.V.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	LINK	LINK
CRM ‘Sizzle’ Video	This short (1 minute) video is intended to generate excitementfor events and other customer/partner interactions. The video alsocan be used to display on a monitor in a repeating fashion duringan event.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	LINK	LINK
CRM Online Evidence Video – Data ReductionSystems	Data Reduction Systems is a document management company whichspecializes in information management for large and small clients.Company members discuss why they switched from Salesforce.com toMicrosoft Dynamics CRM Online and the benefits that they haverealized with the move. (3:00 min)	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
CRM Online Evidence Video – High 5Sportswear	High 5 Sportswear manufactures and distributes team athleticapparel to more than over 4,000 customers in the United States andCanada. This video discusses their Microsoft Dynamics CRM Onlineimplementation and the benefits that they have realized. (1:45 min)	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM BDM Decks	Use these PowerPoint presentations to aid in the sales process.Included are is a CRM Overview master deck plus supplemental decksfor Sales, Marketing and Customer Service modules as well as anEnterprise deck to focus on the needs of this customer group.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
ROI Discussion Tool	Use this tool in discussions with Customers to identify andarticulate the potential value of a Microsoft Dynamics CRMimplementation. Also included is a 55 minute web seminar describinghow to use the tool in a meeting with a potential Customer.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
CRM Sales Lead Assessment Tool	The CRM Sales Lead Assessment Tool is intended for partnersneeding to ramp up new sales teams unfamiliar with MicrosoftDynamics CRM and Microsoft® Outlook®2007 with Business Contact Manager.  The tool provides thequestions to help sales teams start a conversation about whichMicrosoft solution will best meet those business needs.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service ContactCenters, 2008	Gartner recently released the 2008 Magic Quadrant for CustomerService Contact Centers.  Once again, Microsoft placed verycompetitively against the entire universe of CRM softwarecompanies!  In the 2008 report, Gartner ranked MicrosoftDynamics CRM at the top of the “Visionaries” quadrant.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
AMR Report-- Microsoft and EDS Go After the ContactCenter, Together	AMR Research covers their assessment of the Microsoft DynamicsCRM/EDS partnership from three perspectives: EDS, Microsoft and theCIO.  Overall the report is positive.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
Compete Guide - vs. Siebel	This four page guide describes how to sell Microsoft DynamicsCRM vs. Oracle Siebel.	Partner	LINK	N/A	In process	N/A
Compete Guide- vs. Salesforce.com	This four page guide describes how to sell Microsoft DynamicsCRM vs. Salesforce.com.	Partner	LINK	N/A	In process	N/A
Compete Guide- vs. SAP	This four page guide describes how to sell Microsoft DynamicsCRM vs. SAP.	Partner	LINK	N/A	In process	N/A
Small Business Summit CRM Online Video Keeping Customers – Lure ExecutiveServices	The founder of this executive search service discusses howMicrosoft Dynamics CRM Online is essential to her small business.(Length 8:15)	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
Small Business Summit CRM Online Video From Trash to Cash - 1-888-Trash It	The founder of small full-service debris removal company that isstarting to franchise discusses the advantages of MicrosoftDynamics CRM Online. (Length 8:30)	Cust.	LINK	LINK	In process	LINK
Analyst Evidence Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics	This links to the monthly compilation of Microsoft DynamicsAnalyst evidence compiled by AR/PR.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	N/A	N/A
Partner Specific
Partner-Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM Brochure	Are you actively recruiting service providers, systemintegrators or independent software vendors interested in launchinga hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM offering? Use this brochure tocommunicate some basic information about the partner opportunity.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Partner-Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM CostModels	Are you assessing the impact of launching a partner-hosted CRMoffering? If so, you can use these spreadsheet models, presentationand recorded Live Meeting file to help you gain a betterunderstanding of costs, different go-to-market models andbreak-even points.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Support
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resource Center Video	Customers and Partners now have a convenient, comprehensive andconfigurable resource center easily accessible from within theirCRM application.  This video showcases how this compelling newproduct feature can positively impact their work and theirbusinesses (2min, 11 sec).	Cust.	LINK	LINK	in process	LINK
Demand Generation and Readiness
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 ‘Thru Partner’Event in a Box	All the materials needed for a Partner to promote a CRM event.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Global Readiness TourTraining Kit	Material from the To Partner Microsoft Dynamics CRM GlobalReadiness Tour including: presentations and session videos.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
What's New in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 TrainingManual	Training Manual for What’s New in 4.0 course (less labsand demos). Use as a reference.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Pricing and Licensing
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Pricing and LicensingOverview Presentation	Presentation that provides an overview of Microsoft Dynamics CRM4.0 pricing and licensing.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Pricing and Licensing DetailPresentation	Presentation that provides details of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0pricing and licensing.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Pricing and Licensing UpgradeGuidance Presentation	Presentation that provides details of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0upgrade process/rules.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Pricing and LicensingGuide	This Guide provides an overview of the licensing structure andoptions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Pricing and Licensing Guidefor Business Ready Licensing	This Guide provides an overview of the pricing and licensingstructure and options for Business Ready Licensing of MicrosoftDynamics CRM 4.0.	Partner	LINK	N/A	In process	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Key Licensing/Schedule Info -February	This document provides clarifications to various licensingquestions as well as the current language release scheduleincluding media.	Partner	LINK	N/A	LINK	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Key Pricing and LicensingInfo - March	This document provides clarifications to various pricing andlicensing questions.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	in process	N/A
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Licensing Key Guidance	This PowerPoint slide provides a matrix with current informationas to how to obtain license keys for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Itincludes the various editions, means of obtaining the code andmedia provided.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	in process	N/A
Technical
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Planning and DeploymentGuidance for Service Providers	These three whitepapers cover the additional information neededby Service Providers seeking to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0in their data center, or Enterprise Customers wanting to leverage4.0’s multi-tenant architecture in their IT infrastructure.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 RTM VPC	Download this virtual machine to run Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0demonstrations in a one PC environment.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Demonstration Tools	These user friendly tools are intended to make working with theVPC easier to set up demos.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Additional Demo Data	This Excel file provides additional data for use with the RTMVPC.	Cust.	LINK	N/A	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Enterprise Performance andScalability White Papers	Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed to meet the performance andscalability requirements of large enterprises.  The benchmarktest results detailed in these white papers can help customers andpartners understand various aspects of performance and scalabilityin version 4.0.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Developing ISV Applications Using Microsoft Dynamics CRMWhite Paper	Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports a wide range of businessapplications with the essentials required for building, deliveringand maintaining them in a multi-tenant Software + Servicesenvironment.  In this white paper we explore how, withMicrosoft Dynamics CRM, an ISV can quickly build, deploy and manageline-of-business applications.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	in process	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - Help Version 4.1	The Microsoft Dynamics CRM documentation team has updated theHelp for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 based on feedback fromcustomers and partners. In this update, you will find expandedinformation and clarifications on many topics, as well as bug fixesand new topics to support late-breaking product features.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	in process	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Advanced Data Migration MapEditor	The Map Editor allows users to prepare the advanced XML mapsneeded for migrating data into Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 usingData Migration Manager. This tool enables the user to create andedit entity maps, attribute maps, complex transformation maps, picklist maps, reference maps and user maps.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Performance Toolkit	The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Performance Toolkit was createdby the Microsoft CRM product team to formalize testing of MicrosoftCRM 4.0.  The performance toolkit is intended to be used byMicrosoft Dynamics CRM Partners and customers to collect data tosupport their CRM deployment decisions.	Cust.	LINK	LINK	LINK	LINK
Windows Server 2008 Support KB Article	Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is compatible with Windows Server2008. This public Knowledge Base article written by the CRM SupportTeam covers common issues encountered with deploying MicrosoftDynamics CRM 4.0 on Windows Server 2008.	Cust.	N/A	N/A	N/A	LINK
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 BizTalk Adaptor 4.0Compatible	This version update of the CRM 3.0 BizTalk Adaptor allows thesame functionality as before but makes it compatible to CRM 4.0.	Cust.	N/A	N/A	N/A	LINK

 

Resource Center Articles

 

These are newly released ‘customer-ready’ articlesavailable in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Resource Center.

 

Article	Confidentiality	Abstract
Getting your personnel started with Microsoft Dynamics CRM forOutlook	Customer	Set up your personnel to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM forMicrosoft Office Outlook, and send them instructions how to getstarted.
Data migration troubleshooting	Customer	This article provides additional information whentroubleshooting using Data Migration Manager to migrate data toMicrosoft Dynamics CRM.
Key management in Microsoft Dynamics CRM	Customer	Learn what features and practices you can use to help makeMicrosoft Dynamics CRM more secure when you access the applicationover the Internet. Key management determines how digitalcertificates are generated and issued.
Put strategy behind product pricing	Customer	Put strategy behind product pricing with Microsoft DynamicsCRM. This flexible pricing engine has the tools you need tocalculate product prices based on a variety of pricingmethods.
Take advantage of e-mail communication methods	Customer	Bulk e-mail, quick campaigns, and full campaigns -- thereare several distinct ways to connect with your customers usinge-mail in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. What's the difference betweenthese approaches, and what scenarios might you use them in?
Capture and share your team's collective knowledge	Customer	Not everyone can be an expert. Create a knowledge base ofarticles to capture and share your organization's valuableinformation.
11 Things to Know About Customization	Customer	Conceptual article aimed at system administrators,developers, people who customize CRM. This article contains linksto 11 other articles in a series format. Revised for 4.0.
Design considerations for business units	Customer	Conceptual article aimed at system administrators, peoplewho deploy and customize CRM. This one is about structuring CRM foryour business hierarchy. Revised for 4.0.
Edit your Site Map: Configure the Site Map to customize applicationnavigation	Customer	Combination how-to and conceptual article for systemcustomizers, developers, and system administrators. New for4.0.
Close multiple activities with a workflow	Customer	Scenario-based article with how-to steps for one of4.0’s new features. General interest. New for 4.0.
To delete or not to delete: How Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlookhandles deleted records	Customer	This article explains some of the behavior of CRM thatcauses confusion for users. It contains guidelines and 2 tableswith examples. General interest. New for 4.0.
Going global with Microsoft Dynamics CRM	Customer	Follow an IT manager in Switzerland as he takes advantage ofnew international features to roll out Microsoft Dynamics CRM forhis coworkers worldwide.
Data migration overview	Customer	Though there are many details to track when migrating data,the basic process is straightforward. The information in thisarticle and diagram illustrate a typical migration of existingcustomer data to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
Default values of Status and Status Reason Attributes	Customer	Each record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM has two attributes toidentify the status of the record: Status and Status Reason. If youare planning customization of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, deciding whenworkflow rules are needed, or migrating data from a previouscustomer relationship management (CRM) system to Microsoft DynamicsCRM, use the Status and Status Reason reference information in thisarticle in your planning process.
Make Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client-to-server networkcommunications more secure	Customer	When making necessary decisions that can help protect data,we recommend that you understand the following information aboutMicrosoft Dynamics CRM network communication and about thetechnology options that are available to you that provide moresecure data transmissions.
Tricks and Tips from People Who Use Microsoft DynamicsCRM     Submityour tip about Microsoft Dynamics CRM	Customer	This is a place for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community toshare best practices and tips about using Microsoft Dynamics CRM.The information on this page is provided from users to users.   The Microsoft CRM community needs your best practices,shortcuts, and tips for using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Use this linkto submit a tip or trick for consideration.