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Another great feature released in the Autumn enhancement was the improvements to the Reading Pane in CRM for Outlook.
Within Outlook you can now see for say an Account or Company, the view of Contacts associated, a list of notes and list of associated Activities too.
For example:
You still have the ability in CRM for Outlook to amend the reading pane too.
Multiple Categories & Series
To show you how to create a chart with multiple categories, here is an example with opportunities, using the sample data set.
The objective in this example is to create a chart for estimated revenue by month, but within each month we want estimated revenue grouped by user:
Finally remember to click Save & Close on the ribbon.
And when you use a chart like that, remember that the chart simply reflects data in the current view. So for this chart, it’s the Open Opportunities view that makes the most sense.
Here’s what the finished product looks like with the Open Opportunities view selected and the chart pane expanded to the right of the data grid:
Microsoft has also included other Chart Types too! Let’s modify this to display the Target values with a different chart type:
3. Select the Line chart for the Target (Money) series, then save and close.
This shows a line chart type for one series, and column types for the other two series.
Some other examples of the new chart types:
For CRM 2011 users, you have charts with multiple categories, charts with multiple series, and different chart types. Remember you still have the ability to export the chart’s XML file and enhance the graph even further!
If you have Microsoft CRM 2011 and have imported the Autumn feature release, then your Windows Phone 7 users have accees to a new Mobile application. If they go to the Marketplace on their phone and search for Dynamics CRM, they will be able to install the application.
This is what it will look like once they’ve entered their logon credeitials:
The list of entities and which fields are displayed is all ocntrolled from within the Customisation area of CRM.
The new Activiy Feed or What’s New is also included too:
You can access Account/Company along with Contacts too:
If you click on a Phone number , if will dial the number; if you click on a link it will open that record and if you click on an address it will map it too!
You can amend the view and also search for records from the mobile client:
The Windows Phone 7 is a great phone and gives your users a great CRM experience too.
The auditing feature in Microsoft CRM 2011 lets you track changes made to your business data. Use auditing to analyse the history of a particular record, view a summary of everything that changed, or to comply with regulation standards. Keep track of the changes done to a record, a field, or by a user. Microsoft CRM automatically creates logs for the changes that are tracked.
In addition to these, in Microsoft CRM November 2011 Service Update, you can also track when a user has accessed Microsoft CRM 2011.
Go to the Settings area / Auditing and select Global Audit Settings:
Within the Audit log you will then be able to see when users are accessing this system.
Auto-Following an Entity via Workflow
In this example, we will create a workflow that has a user automatically follow accounts that are created. After this workflow is created and activated, you’ll be rest-assured that any newly created accounts will be followed without having to do any extra work.
First of all, go to Settings / Processes / New in order to create a new workflow. Enter a name and choose Entity = Account/Company, Category = Workflow.
The default option is to have the workflow “Start when” the record (the account) is created and that’s what we want so we leave that setting alone. Add a new step that creates a Follow and click Set Properties.
In the properties, you want to set the Owner to be whoever it is you want to automatically follow accounts when they are created.
Since you want yourself to auto-follow accounts that are created, find and pick yourself in the look-up. Save and Close.
Now save and activate your workflow. And of course, you can modify the conditions of this workflow to suit your particular needs.
There you have it—an automatic way to follow/unfollow records in CRM 2011.
With the inclusion of Activity Feeds in the latest CRM 2011 update, we introduce the concept of “following” records. When you follow a record, you will see updates related to that record appear on your Personal Wall.
Here, we will go through the different ways you can follow records in CRM. Note that in order to follow any record of an entity, that particular entity must be enabled for Activity Feeds.
Following a Record from the Record Wall
Once an entity has been enabled for Activity Feeds, you are able to follow records of that type from the record form.
After opening the record form, navigate to the Record Wall tab where you will see a “Follow” button. All you need to do is click it.
After clicking the Follow button, you can see that you’re following the record and have the option to Un-follow it.
Bulk-Following Records from an Entity Grid or Advanced Find
If you want to follow multiple records of the same type of entity, you can do so from the Entity Grid. Select the records you want to follow and click on the Follow button in the ribbon as shown below.
After clicking the Follow button, a confirmation dialog will pop up where you can continue to confirm that you want to follow the selected records or cancel out of the operation.
Another way to follow multiple records at once is through Advanced Find. The same Follow button can be found in the ribbon on the page that displays the results of your query.
Un-following Records from your “Records Being Followed” View
On both your Personal Wall and own User Record Wall, there is a pane on the right-hand side with information about who’s following you and what records you follow. There is a link that shows the total number of records that you’re following. If you click on that link, a view called “Records Being Followed” pops up which shows all the records that you are currently following.
From this view, you can then select certain records and click the Un-follow button on the ribbon to un-follow those records.
We think you will find this new 2011 feature of great value to your company’s use of CRM.
The latest R7 release for CRM 2011 was deployed to the Microsoft Online environment on 25th October 2011 and this is also available to the on-premise 2011 users too.
One of the features available from this release is Activity Feeds. The new feature will allow you to start building your internal Social CRM which can help increase user collaboration and communication.
If you are in existing CRM 2011 customer you can import the solution from the Dynamics Marketplace: http://dynamics.pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/applications/microsoft-dynamics-crm-activity-feeds-12884926310
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activity Feeds provide real time notifications and quick sharing of information that the team cares about via quick and short updates. Activity Feeds enable a user to follow and listen in on important activities that take place around the people, accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities or anything else that they care about.
Feed status updates can be posted manually by users or automatically based on pre-defined system rules through workflow. Activity Feeds can also be posted to by external applications through the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web services API. Activity Feeds expose Microsoft Office Lync real-time presence functionality so that users can initiate communication activities such as IM, phone calls and emails.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activity Feeds will work with all deployment models for Microsoft Dynamics CRM including on-premise, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and partner-hosted.
Take a look at these postings to show you how to import the solution; how to set it up and how to use them:
How to setup and configure Activity Feeds
https://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/2011/en-us/online/5.0/help/source_sf_setup_activity_feeds.htm
How to use Activity Feeds
https://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/2011/en-us/online/5.0/help/source_sf_use_activity_Feeds.htm
How to follow colleagues and records with Activity Feeds
https://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/2011/en-us/online/5.0/help/source_sf_follow_with_activity_Feeds.htm
We think your organisation will find this new feature of great benefit to your use of Microsoft CRM 2011.
Contact our support team should you need any assistance with this new feature.
The CRM User Assistance team is pleased to announce the release of two new pieces of user documentation:
Based on frequent requests from customers and partners, these one-page documents help end users get up to speed quickly with Microsoft CRM 2011 (including Microsoft CRM Online January 2011 Service Update).
The documents are delivered in Microsoft Word .docx format to enable easy printing by end users and simple customisation by your systems administrator.
It’s an exciting time to be engaging with Microsoft CRM!
Microsoft CRM 2011 was a significant release for our customers with a broad range of new capabilities including role tailored dashboards, a new level of Outlook integration, expanded business process management through guided dialogs and a brand new performance management module – just to name a few!
Microsoft CRM is moving to a rapid innovation cadence where additional capabilities for Microsoft CRM (both Online and on-premises) are delivered in releases targeted for the Spring (Q2) and Fall (Q4) of each calendar year. The first of these releases will be the Q4 2011 Service Update.
To ensure customers ahave advanced visibility on upcoming capabilities, Microsoft have published a Release Preview Guide. This document provides details of new features and enhancements to be delivered (summarised in the diagram below). The Release Preview Guide for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q4 2011 Service Update is available here.
As Microsoft look towards the Q4 2011 Service Update and over the longer term, they is committed to delivering on our “Dynamic Business” vision and will continue to invest in delivering a solution that:
We look forward to continually unveiling the extensive investments in our product that drive business value for your organisation!
