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How do I setup a workflow to automatically notify my sales people when a customer’s support contract is approaching expiry?

Answer:

Assuming you are using the contract entity within CRM to manage customer support contracts, you can use CRM’s built in workflow engine to automatically notify the account owner when a contract is nearing its expiry date.  If you have rights within CRM to setup new workflows, navigate to Settings, Process Center, Processes within Microsoft CRM:

Click New on the toolbar to create a new workflow, and fill in the new workflow form similar to this:

Then click OK.

When the Process window appears, ensure that the scope of the workflow’s scope is set to Organization and that the ‘Start when: Record is created’ checkbox is checked.

Now we need to add the steps to the workflow; so click the Add Step button and select Wait Condition.  An empty wait condition will be added, so the first thing to do is enter a description.  To do this, just replace the text “Type a step description here.” with your own description.

Then click on   to edit the definition of the wait condition.

When the Specify Condition screen appears, set the condition up as follows:

 In order to set the date condition (in yellow above), put your cursor into the date field and then from the right hand side select 3 in the Month dropdown, ensure Before is selected in the field below, Contract is selected in the Look for: field and then click on Contract End Date.  This will then populate the date field with the dynamic value of ‘three months before the contract’s end date’.

Click Save and Close to save the changes.

The workflow’s steps should now look like this:

Now we need to add a step within the wait condition/timeout to send an email to the account manager.  To do this, highlight the very bottom line in the steps by clicking on the text ‘Select this row and click Add Step’ and then click on the Add Step button and select Send E-mail.

Again, enter a description for the step by overtyping “Type a step description here.”.  Then click on Set Properties to setup the email.  When the Email screen opens, you can setup whatever you wish in here, but given that this is to be an internal email, the important fields to get right are the To and Subject fields.

To set the To field so that the email is sent to the owner of the customer account record, put your cursor into the To field and from the right hand side, from the Look for: field choose Customer (Account) (under Related Entities) and then choose Owner from the field below.  Click Add and then OK to add the value to the To field as above.

For the Subject field, you can enter free text in here, however you can also use dynamic values to setup a context sensitive subject line.   Above, I have set the line to read something like ABC Ltd Support Contract Expiry: 14 January 2012.   All the dynamic fields are setup in the same way as the To field using the panel on the right hand side.  You can setup something similar in the body of the email if you wish.

Once you’re happy with the contents of the email, click Save and Close to save your changes.

When you return to the Process screen, you can add more steps if you wish, for example you might want to create a new opportunity record for the account manager.  Once you’re happy, click Save to save your changes, but for now don’t click Save and Close.  Before the workflow becomes active, you will need to Activate it.  To do this, click on Activate in the toolbar and click OK in the confirmation dialog.  The Process screen will now be set to read-only because once a process is activated, you cannot change the structure of content of the workflow without deactivating it first.

Close the process screen and you’re done.  For any new contracts that are setup in CRM, the owner of the customer account record will be automatically sent an email notifying them when the contract is three months from expiry, giving them plenty of time to get in touch with the customer and arrange the new contract with them.

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When it comes to having a successfully used CRM solution, your teams “Attitude Counts”

This is a re-post from Matt Keenan: (http://dynamicscafe.com/2011/10/attitude-counts)

“It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results”- Warren Buffet, Businessman & Philanthropist

Over the course of 20+ years of working in the CRM market, I’ve come up with a couple of fundamental principles that are proven time after time. Today’s post is focused on one of them.

Achieving success with CRM is based upon the attitude of the team and the executive sponsor, not the end user.

At its heart, this seems like a very simple statement. However, the ramifications are significant. CRM is not something that we do “to” people. It is a core business strategy driven around the philosophy of customer centricity and the active management of the customer experience. A customer centric business strategy is as basic as fiscal discipline strategies and employee recruitment strategies.

Discounting my wild pontificating, let’s get back to attitude.

The single most influential person that drives success in CRM is the Executive Sponsor. It is imperative they:

1. Openly and consistently communicate the strategy, direction, and purpose behind the CRM initiative
2. Clearly communicate the goals, targets and metrics the success of the initiative is tied to
3. Periodically update the organisation with results, insights and specific calls to action
4. Evangelise the CRM initiative with their C-level peers and their direct reports
5. Actively engage in the process of identifying and eliminating roadblocks
6. Leverage the CRM solution for reporting, insight, and action.

 With frequent public and vocal support and use of the CRM solution by the executive sponsor, the end user community will see their investment in learning and using the tool is not a simple exercise in administration or tracking. Their investment is driving the overall business.

 The attitude of the CRM project team is a key element to success as well. The CRM team must:

1. Be open to input and feedback from the user community
2. Be flexible in design and prioritization of the roadmap to meet the changing needs of the business
3. Stay committed to clear and concise communication about project achievements and challenges
4. Recognise and support the adoption challenges that all users will face when given a new solution.

 If we approach CRM as only technology, we will struggle to be successful. If we approach CRM without a communication plan, we will struggle to be successful. If we don’t link CRM to the strategic direction of the business, we will struggle to be successful. If we don’t listen to the voice of our users, we will struggle to be successful.

My ask of you is simple. Evaluate the attitude of your CRM team. Evaluate the attitude of your Executive Sponsor. Determine what messages we are sending to our users. Be realistic that you might need to execute a fundamental change in approach or a change in attitude.

Matt Keenan is a 20+ year veteran of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market and has extensive experience in sales, implementation, and effective adoption of CRM solutions from small companies to large enterprises. He has had the opportunity to work with customers like Dow Chemical, Wal-Mart, AC Nielsen, United States Department of Defence, Archer Daniels Midland, and United Airlines on their CRM initiatives.

The Microsoft Dynamics Community helps you connect with peers and industry experts—and gets your team fully engaged with Microsoft CRM.

You can get the latest news, tips and tricks, join Q&A forums on key topics, or check out the Microsoft CRM Team Blog on MSDN:

• Visit the Sales and Marketing Community.
• Visit the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community.
• Join the Microsoft Dynamics Community.

Be a part of the Microsoft Dynamics community  – join today!

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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.

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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:

1. Click Sales, and then click Opportunities.
2. Click the Charts tab on the ribbon, and then click New Chart.
3. In the Chart Designer, provide an appropriate name for the chart.
4. In the Series section, click the drop-down list and select the Est. Revenue field.
5. Accept the default option of Sum for the aggregate value.
6. Then click the field list in the Category section and select Est. Close Date. Accept the default option of Month to group by the month of the estimated close date.
7. Then click the Add a category button – this is what’s new.
8. Click the Select Field list and scroll down to select Owner. Here’s what the Char looks like at this point:

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:

More Chart Types

Microsoft has also included other Chart Types too! Let’s modify this to display the Target values with a different chart type:

1. With this chart selected, on the Charts tab, click Edit Chart.
2. Click the small chart icon to the right of the aggregate option on the Target (Money) series. You should see the fly-out panel where you can select a different chart type for that series only:

       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:

Further Charting

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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