Microsoft CRM 2011 R8 Update

Today Microsoft announced what’s going to be in their next service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, codenamed “R8″, under the headline: CRM Anywhere.
The R8 service update is expected to be available Q2 2012 and promotes 6 areas of interest:

Mobility

Multi Browser Support

Social Improvements

Industry Templates

SQL Server 2012

Certifications

You can read more in the updated Statement of Direction.

Future of Accelerators

The Dynamics CRM team have announced that the following 4.0 accelerators are being upgraded to 2011 solutions:

Customer Portal

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Portal

Customer Care Accelerator

Read the rest here.

Converting 2011 Beta Site to Trial

Just a few weeks back into 2011 for me (nice long holiday ) and my first post of 2011.

Over the past week, we’ve been trying to convert several of our Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta sites to Trial. Upon visiting http://offers.crmchoice.com/crm2011-upgrade-customer-conversion/ and starting the process by selecting Credit Card payment, I immediately hit a snag with the sign in page- turns out I had to turn on ‘InPrivate Viewing’ in IE. (Goes without saying, that this process doesn’t work at all in anything other than IE.)

So after switching to InPrivate Viewing, I still had to sign-in about 3 times before it let me in. Once in, Step 1 is simply selecting the Organisation to convert. Step 2 asks you to complete your details. I discovered that I had to complete ALL fields on the page instead of just the mandatory ones. On Step 3, I had another snag. The page loaded with the banner and footer but nothing else. I could see a JavaScript error but the error didn’t offer anything of help. The Microsoft Support team told me that it was a known issue and the work around was to refresh the page (F5) when at Step 3. Tried it and managed to successfully complete it.

Hope that helps somebody else.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta Programme

Haven’t posted in quite a long time! That’s because we’ve had a huge upsurge in CRM demand and doesn’t look as though it will let off anytime soon.

Just a quick post to highlight that we (Gen-i) have been accepted into the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta Programme! We’re only one of 40 partners around the world and we’re undertaking a cloud based implementation for a brave customer. The stability of CRM 2011 Online has improved dramatically over the past few weeks and months and expect it to continue to improve (though I’m sure there are still a few bugs waiting to be found).

CRM 5 @ WPC

As expected, RTM web Q4 2010, RTM on-premise Q1 2011.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/jul10/07-12wpcdynamicscrmpr.mspx

Customer Care Accelerator

The Customer Care Accelerator (CCA) for Microsoft Dynamics CRM focuses on delivering contact center enabling functionality, such as the ability to create a unified desktop by combining data elements from disparate line of business applications and displaying it in a single user interface. The core Customer Care business scenarios highlighted by this accelerator include the following:

Integrated desktop: Customers can aggregate information from diverse business applications into an integrated desktop providing employees with a 360° view of the customer interactions. Customer service representatives have immediate access to business critical information to serve customers quickly and efficiently, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Eliminating Duplicate Data Entry: Organizations can streamline business processes by creating desktop automation workflows. Process automation eliminates the need for agents to re-enter the same data in multiple applications. Minimizing duplication helps to reduce human error and ensures a consistent customer service experience.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI): Organizations are provided with a consistent framework to connect CTI systems with key line of business applications.

Activity Reporting: Contact center managers have swift access to agent desktop transaction reporting, helping them to identify process bottlenecks.

As with all the other Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 accelerators, CCA is available as permissive shared source and is a reference example that can be adapted to fit the needs of a customer as well as additional business scenarios.

See here for more details.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Statement of Direction (Updated)

Find the updated Microsoft Dynamics CRM statement of direction from Microsoft here.