CRM 101 ? The Basics of Customer Relationship Management

What is CRM?
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, can be defined as a software program, business strategy, or internet system that helps a business manage and organize its customer database. This includes contacting customers more efficiently, keeping leads hot, aiding in workplace effectiveness, and generally improving customer service and business relationships.

How Does CRM work?
Essentially, CRM works by allowing a representative or agent to access detailed customer information quickly and efficiently while the client is on the line. This means less hassle for the client and a quicker transaction.

For example, say a client contacts a company representative about possibly purchasing the company's product. With CRM, the representative would be able to see if the client had bought anything previously, and if so, what their name is, their age, how long they've used the company, what products they've bought before, how often they buy the product, and much more. This would then allow the representative to suggest and recommend the product or service option that best suits the customer in a timely manner.

Who does CRM benefit?
The beauty of CRM is that is benefits both the customer and the business or service provider. Customers receive a higher level of customer service because their needs are met and anticipated, allowing them to relax through transactions that are often much quicker than they're used to.

The business benefits via improved sales, higher customer confidence and satisfaction, and a more effective work environment. With CRM, a small business or large corporations can know what its customer wants; thus it can provide the service or product the client wants, keeping them as a repeat customer and gaining greater sales volumes.

What are some CRM applications?
CRM applications are created around the same idea as a spreadsheet, where values can be filled in and tabulated to quantify, analyze, and interpret data. A CRM application can both collect and analyze information simultaneously. This means faster, better applications and better ease of use. Clients can download, share or install these programs at their leisure via sites like Salesforce.com.

What is online CRM?
Online CRM is where a business uses an online system to manage its CRM. Straightforward and easy, online CRM is an option often taken by smaller businesses as it allows any representative to access a client's information immediately, without hours of tedious training. A example of an online CRM system might be a 24-hour call center.

What is web based CRM?
Web based CRM is where a business uses real-time updates that are integrated with their existing CRM system. This allows new information to be accessed immediately without any time lapse. It is different from a software-based Customer Relationship Management program in that it allows for live, as-it-happens updates. Thus customer information is always fresh and current.

How do CRM systems help businesses?
CRM systems help businesses by improving customer service and relationships, generating quality leads, monitoring accounts more effectively, always keeping data fresh and ready so leads don?t grow cold, allowing mobile CRM (orders through a mobile device), and managing sales.

Salesforce.com is the world's first on-demand application service and a giant in the field of CRM. With over 24,000 customers, over 500,000 subscribers, and a 97% customer satisfaction rate, Salesforce.com continues to lead their field. To find out more about them, please visit www.salesforce.com .
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Small business CRM: How to select the right CRM software for your company

You've decided that you need a better customer relationship management system ("CRM") for your small business. You need a good place to store and access your customer information just like bigger companies. You want to be able to generate meaningful reports and manage your marketing campaigns. But there are so many options in all price ranges.

So how do you choose the best CRM software for your company?

What is CRM, exactly?

In its simplest form, CRM is a database where sales and marketing teams store critical account data such as contact & account information, lead source, sales activity history, purchase history, and marketing campaign data and projections.

CRM can also be an important reporting tool. For example, you can use it to

• Generate revenue projections for a product, a sales rep, and your company as a whole
• Tie revenue to the original marketing campaign
• Pull up lists of leads and activities by sales rep
• View the number of leads you have at each step in your sales process
• Track your progress against your goals
• Manage marketing campaigns
• Capture leads from your website
• Minimize the time your team spends creating manual sales & activity reports

Choosing the right CRM

When you choose the right CRM software, you gain knowledge and power to keep your team on track and measure progress against goals.

• Best case: Your CRM matches your marketing, sales, customer service and retention strategies. It's easy to use and provides reports that eliminate the need to generate tedious manual reports. It may integrate with other software like accounting and inventory, enabling your entire team to view important data and reports in real time.
• Worst case: You don't have a solid system for managing customer information; it's kept in various files or databases that aren't linked. It's difficult and time-consuming to create revenue projections, sales reports and marketing campaign reports. The result: lost revenue, productivity and opportunity. Even worse: you use paper files.

How to compare CRM software

The key to selecting the right CRM is to analyze your needs.

• Decide what information your team should be able to access and how they'll use it.
• Identify who needs to use the system and where they're located (i.e. in different offices).
• Determine what reports you'll want to generate, particularly your revenue and pipeline reports.
• Identify the marketing programs you'd like to be able to run and how that information can help you better manage your accounts.

If you've outgrown your current system, you may be able to purchase add-ins to give your existing system more power. You may also decide to evaluate new systems to give you the true functionality you need.

Select a CRM vendor

Once you've defined your requirements, look for a CRM package that meets your needs. Remember that many systems come in several versions; you can start with a basic version and upgrade as you grow, but make sure the upgrade process is seamless.

Manage CRM implementation

When you're nearing the end of your selection process, get ready for implementation.

• Create an implementation team.
• Develop a schedule for key tasks: configuring fields, migrating data, creating reports, training users.
• Create a solid training plan.
• Launch the software.
• Do followup training to ensure that your team uses the software as planned. Most implementations fail because employees don't use the software properly.
• Gather feedback and modify the software configuration as needed; make it as intuitive and powerful as possible.

There are plenty of consultants who can help you through this process. But you can save a lot of time and money by educating yourself. We've created a free CRM selector tool to help you define your needs and narrow your vendor list -- just email us now and we'll send it to you.

James Sagar is one of the creators of the Marketing M.O., web-based software that delivers marketing strategy, guided best practices and interactive templates in 29 business marketing subjects. Entrepreneurs, executives and marketers use the M.O. to solve the challenges they face each day.

How To Select The Right CRM For Your Business?

Learning the ins and outs of any software package is never an easy task, trying to find the time to learn it all within the limits of a free trial, and then apply it to your specific business needs can prove to be a complete turn off!

For the uneducated CRM mind, choosing the right on demand Customer Relationship Management platform, ?on demand? meaning a fully hosted solution that you access over the Internet; can be a logistical nightmare.

From simple acronyms such as CRM, SFA (Sales Force Automation) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) to the more complex terms such as Application Programming Interface and Workflow Automation, there is an overwhelming amount of information you need to know before you really begin to look at a product.

This article aims to address these issues and encourage you to take a more conceptual approach to learning and understanding CRM. Consider this; every site you visit will more often than not appear to be the answer to your prayers. However, knowing what to look for can quickly rule out the pretenders from the contenders.

? First off, ask yourself ?can I customize the product??, ?or can they customize the product for me?? Any company pushing a product that cannot be tailored to suit your needs is not worth your time. No matter what they say or preach, their solution cannot meet the needs of every individual company?s business needs.

? Secondly, look for a company and product that has multiple editions/platforms, such a company has worked with different industries already and tailored their product to meet specific industry needs, and is obviously willing to work with their customers.

? Third, look for a road map, investing in a company that offers no information on the direction of their product, and future version/feature releases does not show a willingness to meet your future business needs. You want a product that will grow along with you, not one that will hamstring you as you grow.

? Finally, look for a product that is applicable across your company, if you are paying full value for a CRM solution; make sure you can use the application across your enterprise. Having a fully hosted operating system backed by and Service Level Agreement will ensure that your entire organization is on the same page.

In conclusion acquiring the right CRM package is no easy task, however, researching the market based on the above criteria will ensure you acquire a CRM solution that will meet your specific needs today, and continue to meet your needs as you grow.

Colin Duffy enjoys writing about CRM subjects and on demand CRM software vendors such as Salesboom (http://www.salesboom.com )

Web based CRM guide 101

One of the primary factors in the success of any company is the liaison it shares with its customers. CRM or Customer Relationship Management designates all features of interaction a company shares with its customer. This includes everything from sales to service.

CRM is basically a business strategy designed to accrue gains, generate revenue and cater to customer needs and satisfaction. With the e-media picking up pace, the manner in which companies approach their CRM strategies has greatly changed. This has even altered the consumer's purchasing attitude. So these days CRM too has become a web based effort as most of the customer relationship is handled electronically.

The web based CRM service is more effective. Web-based CRM services mainly covers three areas of service- sales force automation, management of customer relationships and customer services and automated marketing.

A web-based CRM software is a web-based system used for contact management, marketing and sales support, project tracking and other tasks associated with CRM. This software enables teams and departments to share a central and fresh database. The software facilitates its users with an online contact manager and a project-tracking tool, either over the web or within the corporate intranet. With the aid of the CRM software you can view and manage contacts, customer's record, hot leads, projects and left-out work, from anywhere and with any web-browser. Moreover unlike the intervening and needed to be testified upgrades of an enterprise software, the upgrades to the web based software do not affect the organization's regular operations in any manner. Due to these features more and more companies are driven towards this web-based software.

Siebel Systems Inc., HydraNet and Push CRM are some eminent names in web-based software service. Lately SAP has also blessed the market with on-demand Customer Relationship Management solution. A web based CRM has many names out of which on-demand CRM is one.

These systems provide agents with the most up-to-date information on all customer service transactions. The software adds to the strategic value and business of the organization by automating sales, marketing and customer service. For instance the SAP product specializes in providing core sales-force automation features for managing customers, contacts and sales pipelines.

The software runs and keeps a complete track of your data after it is downloaded or purchased and then installed on your server or web-host. Usually the CRM software runs on all significant platforms such as Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Novell (6.5) and so forth. Since the software serves many purposes at the same time, it is quite expensive. However an incredible competition in the market has enabled the software seekers to exercise their choice to a certain extent.

In choosing a web-based CRM software it is important that the user should firstly analyze his or her budget or the budget of the organization. Secondly also check your organization's partner ecosystems. A user-friendly hosted CRM system, an on premise version or the combo of both should follow this and finally try to go for software that can fit any type of user, any size company and in any industry.

Mansi gupta recommends that you visit Web based CRM for more information

CRM Software

CRM Software is an integral part of a businesses Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

So what is "CRM Software" ?

In simple terms a CRM Software is software that a business uses to improve the relationship it has with their customers.

It's hard to define everything CRM Software can do. So I'll outline the uses of CRM Software then give some examples.

CRM Software is a vital component to a businesses overall CRM strategy, yet the whole business needs to understand CRM in all departments and functions of the business and behave appropriately to make CRM work.

An effective CRM will include methodologies, strategies, software and web-based capabilities that help an enterprise organize and manage customer relationships.

Why use CRM Software?

CRM Software is used to help businesses:

(a) understand their customer, and
(b) understand their customer's wants and needs, and
(c) help the business serve them more efficiently and effectively.

In turn this will help the business to improve customer satisfaction, increase staff productivity, slash operational costs and maximize the effectiveness of each customer interaction.

Let's talk about these three different areas.

A CRM Solution to understand the customer


A CRM Solution allows the user to collect as much information about the customer that they can. They'll collect names, addresses, contact numbers, age, sex, number of children, etc. A CRM Solution does this to, amongst other things, help 'classify' their customers.

A benefit of a CRM Solution is that a user can help analyse which types of customers are best for their business.

Then once they know what customer ' types' are best they can then market to them in a 'personal' way - using the information gained about them.

A CRM Solution to understand the customers wants and needs
As information is collected about the customer's personal life, information is also collected about their buying habits and stored in CRM Software.

Humans are creatures of habit. By analysing the information collected about the customer and their buying habits the CRM can be used to help the business identify what the customers would most likely want or need to buy.

For example, if your CRM solution information lets you know that your best customers typically like buying 'red apples' in November for an average sale price of $15. You can prepare a marketing approach that is sent out to them prior to November that will steer them towards buying $30 worth of apples.

The customer sees it as useful because it's something they like to do at that time of year, and you're offering them a reminder and perhaps an incentive to buy more. The business benefits by structuring the offer to increase the sales value and therefore increasing the profit return.

A good CRM solution will allow you to do everything that I've just mentioned. You'll be able to bring up reports, write letters and then print them or e-mail them to a define part of your database.

A CRM Solution is useful to also target new customers

Information gathered in the CRM will help the business to target more of the preferred customers. An analysis using a CRM solution could tell the business, for example, that single males between 30 to 35 years of age that earn between $50,000 and $60,000 are the best type of customer for the business.

Knowing that information from the CRM, the business can then hire a list from a direct mail list broker of all the single men that fit the description and target their marketing toward them.

The CRM solution activity of improving the relationship with the customer is to help keep the customer more loyal to the company and thus improve the profitability of the business.

A CRM Solution to help efficiency and effectiveness of business

A good CRM Solution application will help the business to become more efficient and effective.

The business can become more efficient because if a customer contacts the business, within seconds the customer service representative can produce the customer's file. This will tell the employee all about the customer and their interaction with the business.

So a CRM solution saves time for the business and is able to help the employees deliver high levels of personalised service.

A CRM Solution software program and approach can help the business become more effective. An example would be marketing.

Knowing all the information about the customers, the marketing strategies can be targeted towards the customers in a personal way. Thus marketing to a defined target market with a past history the potential of improved results is far greater than marketing to a 'cold' list.

This article should only be viewed a very broad overview of what CRM Solution could do.

On this web site you'll find more detail and resources to help you understand and use CRM for your business.

There are many providers of CRM Solutions, I suggest you get a demo and work out what you're looking for in your CRM Software and then try a few to make the best CRM solution decision for you.

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Selection: AX, CRM, GP, NAV ? multinational corporation

For Multinational corporation MRP selection is typically complicated by the following:

• Country Specific Taxation.  Including regional and municipal taxes in the foreign country
• Government Fiscal Reporting.  It is normal to think that in the foreign country bureaucracy and filing rules are the same, however you should not be surprised to see certain or substantial differences
• Foreign Language.  When multinational corporation penetrates to the local market ? it should keep ERP transparent and somehow offset the ?language and cultural? problems

For Multinational corporation MRP selection is typically complicated by the following:

• Country Specific Taxation.  Including regional and municipal taxes in the foreign country
• Government Fiscal Reporting.  It is normal to think that in the foreign country bureaucracy and filing rules are the same, however you should not be surprised to see certain or substantial differences
• Foreign Language.  When multinational corporation penetrates to the local market ? it should keep ERP transparent and somehow offset the ?language and cultural? problems

Microsoft Dynamics project ? or formerly referred as Project Green should unify and modulate all Microsoft Business Solutions ERP applications: Microsoft Great Plains/Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Navision (former Attain) Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft (Navision) Axapta/Microsoft Dynamics AX. The challenge of unification probably will result in quality change for the unified interface, such as Web/Business portal/Microsoft Outlook & MS Office integration, Deployment of new technologies, such as Microsoft Sharepoint with workflow automation. Plus the development platform for Microsoft Dynamics products should shift from proprietary tools, such as Microsoft Dexterity, C/SIDE, MorphX (no confirmation for Axapta yet ? but we guess it should follow) to C# and VB.Net with VisualStudio. In this small article we will try to orient IT managers in Microsoft Business Solutions MRP products selection for international and regional markets.

• Microsoft Dynamics AX. Microsoft Axapta, opposite to Navision or Great Plains where market shares are gained/divided and competition is based on renovations and product improvements, Axapta has great potential yet to be deployed, coming from its modern and very futuristic system design and architecture. Being targeted to upper mid-market and corporate clients Axapta shows very good progress on emerging markets: in Russia for example the number of Axapta installation is similar and comparable with the number of Navision installations. Plus, in 2005 large number of Microsoft Business Solutions gold certified partners rushed into Axapta consulting arena ? this is seen in the USA, UK, Australia and continental Europe. In Brazil currently MBS in local Portuguese Axapta launching mode ? localized for Brazilian tax code
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Is planned as front CRM solution for the majority of Microsoft Dynamics ERP system: integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP is available for GP 7.5, 8.0, 9.0 and CRM 1.2 and 3.0, Microsoft Navision ? through third party integrations, Axapta integration is planned. Microsoft has Microsoft CRM as worldwide product, so you should not have any doubts regarding your regional market.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP. The regional markets for Great Plains 9.0 and following Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 version will narrow: United States, United Kingdom, Canada: both English and French speaking, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other English speaking countries in Asia, Africa and Worldwide, plus Spanish Speaking Latin America. Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 will not be available for Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland ? the last version localized for these European countries will be 9.0 ? June 2006
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Currently Navision has very good presence in Europe, including East Europe: Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia. Microsoft also localized Navision for new markets, where it just moved in: Brazil for example ? it was interesting development in Brazil ? first Microsoft probed Solomon, then Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 and in 2004 replaced it with localized Navision
• Competition. Oracle is on the way with Oracle Fusion project, aiming on Oracle Financials/Applications/E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and potentially Siebel integration. SAP with the purchase of new mid and small market ERP: SAP Business One and Mendocino ? for SAP R/3 is catching up

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA/Canada: 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Europe: +44 20 8123 2580, +45 36 96 55 20, Mexico: 52-55-535-04027 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.ronix-systems.de http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally

Microsoft Dynamics ERP Selection: GP, AX, NAV, SL, CRM ? notes for consultant

Microsoft recently (in September 2005) renamed its ERP product: Great Plains ? Microsoft Dynamics GP, Navision ? Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Axapta ? Microsoft Dynamics AX, Solomon ? Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft CRM ? Microsoft Dynamics CRM. 

Microsoft recently (in September 2005) renamed its ERP product: Great Plains ? Microsoft Dynamics GP, Navision ? Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Axapta ? Microsoft Dynamics AX, Solomon ? Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft CRM ? Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  The idea is probably nice ? to unify future concordance product under Microsoft Dynamics name.  There are multiple possibilities, however in getting all MRP systems merged into one Microsoft Dynamics and what should be taken as base and what should be phased out.  We can not be judges ? we will give you some facts for you to take into consideration.  This article is planned as a first entry point to look ?under the hood? of Microsoft ERP applications and probably compare the facts with the competition: SAP (especially SAP Business One if you are small or mid-size company or international branch of multinational corporation), Oracle E-Business Suite/Oracle Financials, also referred as Oracle Applications.

• Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0/Microsoft Great Plains.  This ERP was initially architectured by Great Plains Software ? Great Plains Dynamics and Great eEnterprise hit the market in earlier and middle 1990^th.  If you remember those old-good-days of IT boom ? nobody knew which operating system will win: Unix/Solaris, Microsoft Windows, Apple MAC OS.  This is why ? the traditional (and pioneering way) for those days was to create a shell, written in C language to abstract you from Graphical platform.  Great Plains Dexterity was this shell, programming language (sanscript).  The second fundamental idea was to abstract Great Plains Dynamics from database platform, however the abstraction was done on the level of ?budget? database platforms: Ctree/Faircomm, and Btrive, later on Pervasive SQL 2000, for Microsoft SQL Server 6.5/7.0/2000 Great Plains used atomic stored procs approach to speed up database access.  Nowadays Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains versions 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, 7.5 are available for Ctree and Pervasive, however since version 8.0 Microsoft Great Plains is available on MS SQL Server/MSDE platform only.  Currently Microsoft Great Plains 9.0 is offered in USA, Latin America, Canada (including French Canadian version for Quebec), UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries where official language is English ? such as South East Asia, for instance.
• Microsoft Navision/Navision Attain/Microsoft Dynamics NAV.  Some ERP analytics believe that Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions (later renamed into Microsoft Business Solutions) bought Navision Software (est. in 1984).  The fundamental ideas of Navision come to its own shell ? C/SIDE, database proprietary platform: C/SIDE, etc. Navision was designed to be flexible and grow with your business ? from small to upper mid-market.  Navision Software had its own marketing plans prior to be purchased by Microsoft and expanded in continental Europe, UK, USA (competing with Great Plains Software and Solomon Software).  When Navision was bought by Microsoft ? Microsoft Business Solutions offered and promoted Navision in East Europe: Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, etc.  Plus it tried Navision in Brazil (over 100 implementations - 2005).  Navision is more flexible to localization challenge (than Microsoft Great Plains)
• Microsoft Axapta/Microsoft Dynamics AX ? it seems to be rising star for Microsoft and it can compete with upper ERP/MRP mid-market. Axapta has modern design and its ability to expand is still in its architecture modern model (versus Great Plains or Navision ? where we see integrations with MS Office, Web Fronts/Business Portal/eConnect/eCommerce type of improvements).  In late 2005 we see US and UK MBS VAR activity to sign for Axapta and consultants training.
• Microsoft Dynamics SL/Microsoft Solomon ? this ERP is for project-driven organizations.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0/Microsoft CRM 3.0.  This CRM solution from Microsoft is abreast of the majority of Microsoft recent ideas and innovations: Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, XML Web Services driven MS CRM SDK with C# and VB.Net sample code.  Currently MS CRM 1.2 and 3.0 has integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP 7.5, 8.0 (with service patch) and 9.0 (coming?)

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally

Microsoft Dynamics ERP: GP, AX, NAV, CRM ? which one to select

Being in MRP implementation, customization, integration, data migration/conversion business for many years, we would like to give you some orientation, in the case if you are on the way of ERP selection for your company. 

Being in MRP implementation, customization, integration, data migration/conversion business for many years, we would like to give you some orientation, in the case if you are on the way of ERP selection for your company.  In this small article we will be talking about Microsoft Business Solutions ERP brands only, you can check our future publication to get similar orientation on Oracle and SAP ERP products.

• ?Legacy? vs. ?Modern? ERP.  It might not be the focusing question, however we?d like you to look at the ERP products from this perspective: Java/EJB Sun Microsystems conception is less then 10 years old, and now Microsoft .Net/C# construction is in the process of getting market from Java.  Similar time test should be given to ERP system ? if the system has legacy architecture ? it might be candidate for replacement or be seriously re-written/renovated.
• International aspect.  If you think your company is and always be focusing on the US market and will do business with local folks only ? this paragraph might be skipped.  For the rest of us ? and we are in this cohort ? we should watch closes Microsoft Business Solutions international policies.  When Great Plains Software and Navision Software were independent software vendor and being forming their international policies completely independently from one another ? both had intentions to expand to all the world markets: USA, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, South and Central America.  Now, when Microsoft sells all former GPS and Navision ERP products ? it can choose one product over the other to promote on the regional market ? simply due to the fact that it has to invest into ERP localization.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP - Great Plains.  Great Plains Software pioneered in the earlier 1990^th with its graphical and DB platform independent product for Mac and Windows: Great Plains Dynamics.  The shell was written on C programming language and was named Great Plains Dexterity.  Currently with Microsoft Dynamics project initiative ? Microsoft renovated Dexterity ? it supports now COM object calls and so XML web services, but it is not pure .net application/shell ? Microsoft is investing in web interfaces for Microsoft Dynamics GP ? Microsoft Business Portal for GP is very good example.  Microsoft Dynamics GP incorporated all the best technologies from Microsoft Office to .Net, but its design was done more then 10 years ago.  Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 is available in English, Latim Americal Spanish and Canadian French, plus German, Dutch and French/France versions will be available for version 9.0 only ? they will not be supported for future version of Dynamics GP.
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV ? Microsoft Navision - Navision Attain.  Navision Software was established in 1994 and since then it gained European ERP mid-size and portion of USA market, especially for light manufacturing.  Navision success should be attributed to Denmark software development market miracle of earlier 1990^th.  Navision went even further into graphical and DB platform independence ? it designed its own database platform ? C/SIDE ? Navision separated SQL coding from the database itself.  Currently MBS promotes Navision on MS SQL Server platform and its database independence is losing its actuality.  Navision was localized by MBS to the majority of East European, South American and other emerging markets ? if you are in Europe, South America, Asia and looking for supported reliable solution on your regional market ? you should look at Navision first.
• Microsoft Dynamics AX ? Axapta.  Axapta was the newest ERP designed by Navision Software prior to its acquisition by Microsoft.  The architecture is dated at the end of 20^th century.  Axapta needed some time for Microsoft to get upper mid-market ground ? traditionally occupied by SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards.  Currently Microsoft is localizing Axapta to Brazilian market ? due in April 2006.  Very good chances are in East and Continental Europe, including UK.  In 2005 US Microsoft Business Solutions regional and nation-wide VARs invested into Axapta consulting practice ? training and certifying consultants, marketing campaign, etc.  Very good chances for Axapta for US mid-market and and upper mid-market clientele and prospects
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 or simply Microsoft CRM 3.0 is promoted by Microsoft Worldwide.  So, do not question it from the international perspective ? you will have integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP, Navision (through third party integration), Axapta ? in progress, plus with IBM Lotus Notes Domino ? via Alba Spectrum Lotus Notes integration.

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.
We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN

Lotus Notes Domino and Microsoft CRM Integration

Well, even if  the combination might look very unusual, we see the coexistence of these two systems, especially in large corporations, non-profit organizations.  Technically Lotus Notes Domino has parallel structure, including Domino email server.  Lotus is extremely flexible and you can program your own CRM or purchase CRM for Lotus, however Microsoft CRM has Microsoft SQL Server database and very simple Sales automation module.  Lets look at the integration reasons and scenarios. 

Well, even if  the combination might look very unusual, we see the coexistence of these two systems, especially in large corporations, non-profit organizations. Technically Lotus Notes Domino has parallel structure, including Domino email server.  Lotus is extremely flexible and you can program your own CRM or purchase CRM for Lotus, however Microsoft CRM has Microsoft SQL Server database and very simple Sales automation module.  Lets look at the integration reasons and scenarios.  Be sure that each specific case requires custom programming, tuning and support.

• Why Lotus & MS CRM?  There are several reasons to combine the two.  First Lotus Domino has very long history and is present on the market over 15 years.  Corporations might have business system built upon the Lotus Notes Domino platform and it is not desirable or even feasible from the complexity standpoint to phase it out.  The second reason is possible IT strategy to balance multiple platforms to avoid over-dependence on one vendor (such as Microsoft).  There might be also licensing issue if corporation has several hundred Lotus licenses it doesnt want to lose them and pay for 200 Microsoft CRM users.  In this case MS CRM might be the solution for Sales department and all the other departments should stay on Lotus.
  
• Lotus Domino as Messaging for MS CRM.  There is no need to program this custom piece, just use MS CRM Lotus Domino connector, supported by Alba Spectrum Technologies.  It has advanced functionality, versus standard MS CRM Exchange connector.  Instead of using GUID in the email header, it scans Contacts, Accounts, Leads emails for matching.
  
• Lotus Workflow.  Workflow is possible in Lotus and MS CRM.  In Lotus, however workflow is the most advanced.  You can use Lotus Workflow and then upon the completion it can transfer control to Microsoft CRM.  This is typical Microsoft CRM SDK (to program MS CRM) and Lotus Java Agent programming from the side of Lotus.  Lotus workflow may work with integration to your ERP/Accounting application, such as Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, however this is outside of the scope of this article.
  
• Lotus/CRM Activities Synchronization.  One of the popular requirements is the synchronization of Microsoft CRM Activities: Appointment, Phone Call, Fax, etc. with Lotus TOTOs.  This should allow users work on the same project sharing Lotus and MS CRM data space.

If you need help in the integration or customization, feel free to call us: 1-630-961-5918, 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

Microsoft CRM Programming Secrets tips for developer

This article is for advanced Microsoft CRM SDK C# developers. It describes the technique of direct SQL programming, when SDK doesn't have the functionality to do the job.

Introduction. Looks like Microsoft CRM becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision (the last two in progress).

Here we describe the technique of creating closed activity-email using MS CRM SDK and direct SQL programming.

Imaging something like this. You need to handle incoming email before it is committed to MS Exchange database. You need to analyze if incoming email doesn't have GUID in its Subject (GUID will allow MS CRM Exchange Connector to move email to Microsoft CRM and attach it to the Contact, Account or Lead) - then you still need to lookup MS CRM in case if one of the accounts, contacts or leads has email address that matches with sender email address - then you need to create closed activity-email in MS CRM, attached to the object and placed into general queue.

How to create MS Exchange handler is outside of the scope, please see this article:

http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Dexterity_SQL_VBA_Crystal/ExchangeHandlerExample.htm

Now the code below is classical MS CRM SDK and it will create activity email:

public Guid CreateEmailActivity(Guid userId, int objectType, Guid objectId, string mailFrom, CRMUser crmUser, string subject, string body) {

try {

log.Debug("Prepare for Mail Activity Creating");

// BizUser proxy object

Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Proxy.BizUser bizUser = new Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Proxy.BizUser();

ICredentials credentials = new NetworkCredential(sysUserId, sysPassword, sysDomain);

bizUser.Url = crmDir + "BizUser.srf";

bizUser.Credentials = credentials;

Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Proxy.CUserAuth userAuth = bizUser.WhoAmI();

// CRMEmail proxy object

Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Proxy.CRMEmail email = new Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Proxy.CRMEmail();

email.Credentials = credentials;

email.Url = crmDir + "CRMEmail.srf";

// Set up the XML string for the activity

string strActivityXml = "";

strActivityXml += "";

strActivityXml += "") + "]]>";

strActivityXml += "";

strActivityXml += userId.ToString("B") + "";

strActivityXml += "";

// Set up the XML string for the activity parties

string strPartiesXml = "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "" + crmUser.GetEmailAddress() + "";

strPartiesXml += "" + Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otSystemUser.ToString() + "";

strPartiesXml += ""+ crmUser.GetId().ToString("B") + "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ACTIVITY_PARTY_TYPE.ACTIVITY_PARTY_TO_RECIPIENT.ToString();

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "" + mailFrom + "";

if (objectType == Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otAccount) {

strPartiesXml += "" + Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otAccount.ToString() + "";

}

else if (objectType == Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otContact) {

strPartiesXml += "" + Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otContact.ToString() + "";

}

else if (objectType == Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otLead) {

strPartiesXml += "" + Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ObjectType.otLead.ToString() + "";

}

strPartiesXml += ""+ objectId.ToString("B") + "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ACTIVITY_PARTY_TYPE.ACTIVITY_PARTY_SENDER.ToString();

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "";

strPartiesXml += "";

log.Debug(strPartiesXml);

// Create the e-mail object

Guid emailId = new Guid(email.Create(userAuth, strActivityXml, strPartiesXml));

return emailId;

}

catch (System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException e) {

log.Debug("ErrorMessage: " + e.Message + " " + e.Detail.OuterXml + " Source: " + e.Source);

}

catch (Exception e) {

log.Debug(e.Message + "" + e.StackTrace);

}

return new Guid();

}

Now I would like to share the trick with you - there is no method to make this activity closed in MS CRM SDK 1.2 (if somebody knows the one - I owe you small pocket aquarium - smile!). Obviously Microsoft doesn't support if you do direct SQL programming bypassing SDK. However I would say this is not direct objects creation - this is rather flags correction. So here is what we have - this procedure will do the job and make activity closed:

public void UpdateActivityCodes(Guid emailId) {

try {

OleDbCommand command = conn.CreateCommand();

command.CommandText = "UPDATE ActivityBase SET DirectionCode = (?), StateCode = (?), PriorityCode = (?) WHERE ActivityId = (?)";

command.Prepare();

command.Parameters.Add(new OleDbParameter("DirectionCode", Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.EVENT_DIRECTION.ED_INCOMING));

command.Parameters.Add(new OleDbParameter("StateCode", Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.ACTIVITY_STATE.ACTS_CLOSED));

command.Parameters.Add(new OleDbParameter("PriorityCode", Microsoft.Crm.Platform.Types.PRIORITY_CODE.PC_MEDIUM));

command.Parameters.Add(new OleDbParameter("ActivityId", emailId));

log.Debug("Prepare to update activity code " + emailId.ToString("B") + " in ActivityBase");

command.ExecuteNonQuery();

}

catch(Exception e) {

log.Debug(e.Message + "" + e.StackTrace);

}

}

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, California, Colorado, Texas, New York, Georgia and Florida, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

akarasev@albaspectrum.com