March 2008 - Posts
Microsoft has just released the latest update rollup for version 3.0 It contains hotfixes, etc. that have been released since Update Rollup 2. It requires that you already have Update Rollup 2 installed. There are two files to download, one for the server and the other for your Outlook client. The rollup can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d5b1fbbe-dfc2-4a33-b5fd-cae99e8e9dab.
Unfortunately the KB article describing the rollup doesn't seem to be available yet. Hopefully it will be soon.
Today I received my copy of the new "Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0" by Mike Snyder and Jim Steger and published by Microsoft Press (ISBN-13: 976-0-7356-2378-1 & ISBN-10: 0-7356-2378-3). The is their second book, marked as 2nd Edition. Their first was Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 which was handed out by the pallet load at Convergence in 2006. I wasn't able to go to this year's Convergence (just this past week), but i suspect the new book was handed out as well.
I considered the first edition to pretty much be the bible of CRM 3.0. I am sure this will become the bible of CRM 4.0. So far I have quickly scanned through the book and managed to read from the front cover through Chapter 1. Their style is very easy to read. You don't get bogged down at all. It's not an exciting mystery novel, but for a technical book, it's an easy read, so far. And even in the first chapter, I've learned some new things.
This book is not for the casual CRM end user. As a matter of fact, they state that if you don't know whether or not you have CRM Administrator privileges, the book's not for you. But if you are responsible for implementing CRM for your company, or have a good grasp of technology, the book is great.
The authors, Mike Snyder and Jim Steger, own Sonoma Partners, a CRM consultancy in Chicagoland. You can find their web site at http://www.sonomapartners.com/. You can order the book from Amazon here.
This week our Alamo PC SBS SIG was treated to a special presentation by Matt Makowicz, Making the transition to Managed Services. Matt was apparently making a circuit of south Texas and Charles Van Huesen gave him my info to perhaps put on a presentation for our group. Of course we jumped on the chance. Matt put on is 3+ hour presentation which only scratched the surface of this topic. Even if you aren't interested in moving to Managed Services, Matt's presentation gives lots of just plain business sense if you're trying to run a computer consultancy, whether you are a one-man shop or a larger organization.
I had first seen/heard Matt at the 2005 SMB Nation in Redmond. I thought it was probably the best part of the conference. As a matter of fact, it spawned a newsgroup on the subject (Matt may not know this) at SMBManagedServices@yahoogroups.com. Unfortunately I came away from that presentation with the notion that as a one-man shop, MSP was beyond my capability. However, Matt has revised his thoughts on this. With the addition of an appropriate help desk service, like Zenith InfoTech or others, even a one-man shop can provide a professional managed services using such a service provider. He also recommended using a practice management tool like AutoTask, ConnectWise, or (my favorite, of course) Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Matt offers a package of services to help firms move to managed services, or just improve their IT business. It includes not only his book, which he managed to sell several copies of at our meeting, but a boot camp and his 'community', and one-on-one counseling sessions. I recommend you check Matt out at www.AmbitionMission.com.
The other day I had my first opportunity to use the data import in CRM 4.0. It is REALLY SLICK!
CRM 3.0 import would allow you to import data into Accounts, Contacts, Leads, and Campaign Responses. CRM 4.0 will allow you to import into pretty much all entities. This is nice, this is slick, but not what's really slick.
CRM 3.0 makes you map values from the import data file to the appropriate fields in CRM. CRM 4.0 lets you build a data map where you do the same but allows you to save this data map for future use. This is really nice and slick. But that's not what's really slick.
When you've finished mapping your data and selecting your input data sources, etc., and you tell it to import the data, CRM 4.0 does it in the background and sends you an e-mail when it's done. Now that's pretty slick. The e-mail contains a link to the data import job where you can see not only how many imports succeeded or failed, but can see a list of all those records. In my case, I imported a bunch of fraternity brothers so I can send out some invitations. I had expected to have to do an Advanced Find for records created that day and then do a Bulk Edit to update the Description field with the fraternity info. But instead, i was able to access all those records from the Settings -> Data Management -> Imports and selecting the appropriate import job. This lists all the successful imports and all the failures. Pretty slick. I selected all the successful imports and Bulk Edited the info required for my fraternity. If I decide the remove all those records, like if I want to re-import them with additional info, I can do so quickly from Data Management/Import. This is pretty slick.
All in all, the new data import which allows import into most entities, allows creation and reuse of data maps, provides an email pointing to the import job so you can further manipulate the imported data is REALLY SLICK!
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 launch events are off and running. You can learn more about them from our friend Charles V on his blog or go directly to the launch site at www.dynamicscrmlaunch.com. But you'd best better hurry up and register now. I wanted to register for the Houston event since it's closest to me and it's already closed! But I'll be at the Dallas event. See you there!