Microsoft CRM v3.0 for Small Business Server 2003 R2 localized versions availability

Localized versions of Microsoft CRM v3.0 for Small Business Server 2003 R2 will be available for download within a few days after the below scheduled completion dates:

German 6-Nov-06
French 6-Nov-06
Spanish 6-Nov-06
Swedish 17-Nov-06
Italian 17-Nov-06
Dutch 17-Nov-06
Brazilian 5-Dec-06
Polish 5-Dec-06
Danish 18-Dec-06
Finnish 18-Dec-06
Norwegian 17-Jan-07
Russian 17-Jan-07
Czech 30-Jan-07
Turkish 30-Jan-07
Portuguese 12-Feb-07
Greek 12-Feb-07
Hungarian 12-Feb-07

Download English Microsoft CRM 3.0 for Small Business Server 2003 R2 Evaluation version

Download English Microsoft CRM 3.0 for Small Business Server 2003 R2 MSDN version (login required)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Analytics Express: Foundation (release Q4 - 2006)

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Analytics Express: Foundation is a set of sample code, documentation, and tools that enable partners and customers to build business analytics solutions on Dynamics CRM 3.0, leveraging the Microsoft Business Intelligence suite of products (SQL Server 2005, SharePoint, Business Scorecard Manager, Office Excel, etc).

Analytics Foundation will enable ad-hoc analysis and reporting for managers, business performance management for executives, and predictive analytics for line of business users.

The package provides UDM cube samples, sample reports, KPIs, dashboards, and predictive data mining delivered through Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Analytics Express: Foundation is focused on addressing the following business needs:
1. Business Performance Management
2. Business Reporting and Ad-hoc Analysis
3. Predictive Analytics

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Microsoft Releases Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP

Microsoft Corp. today released to the public Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 for Windows XP, the latest version of the world’s most popular Web browser. Customers can upgrade and browse the Web with confidence knowing that the new browser provides a greater level of security, makes everyday tasks easier, and works well with the Web sites they visit.

“We listened carefully to our customers and are delivering a safer browser that makes the tasks they do every day much easier,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft.

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Document Management / Imaging

Document Management isn't the best element of Dynamics CRM 3.0. The document creation / saving process is not exactly what users want. This was even mentioned at the CRM 3.0 Intro meeting in October 2005 by various Certified Partners.

Maybe there is (better) Document Management in version 4.0...

Of course it's possible to create a document (mailmerge) and save it nicely in the database, but the (third party) add-on's handle this process much better.

Dynamics CRM Document Management / Imaging add-on's:

- Document Creation and Management: CRM Elements for Real Estate (Sonoma Partners)

- WordMailMerge for MS CRM 3 (MSCRM Add-On's)

- ImageNow for Microsoft Dynamics (ImageNow)

- CardScan for Microsoft CRM (CardScan)

- Microsoft Dynamics Snap (Microsoft)

and of course, there is also SharePoint by Microsoft.

I've seen some nice screenshot by Arash Ghanaie-Sichanie how this process can be in CRM

Microsoft executives and enterprise customers meet to discuss CRM road map and best practices

Microsoft Corp. announced the start of its first Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM North American Customer Summit today in San Diego.

Satya Nadella, corporate vice president and leader of the Microsoft Business Solutions division, delivered the opening keynote and outlined Microsoft’s major investments in technology and solutions across the company. The event brings together business and technology leaders from selected Microsoft® CRM enterprise customers in North America to share best practices and discuss future plans with the Microsoft CRM executive leadership team.

With the rapid growth of the Microsoft CRM community worldwide, Microsoft now plans to hold annual CRM customer summits in North America and Europe in addition to its popular Convergence user group meetings.

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Free Dynamics CRM Utilities

Since the release of Dynamics CRM 3.0 there have been released a lot of add-ons and utilities that makes your CRM more 'dynamic'. A lot of those tools are free utilities.

Of course there are the official Microsoft Dynamics CRM tools like the Data Migration Pack, CRM Mobile, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 List Web Part, and the BizTalk Server 2006 Adapter for Dynamics CRM 3.0 and great Microsoft CRM Sandbox applications like CRM Mobile Express and Business Data Lookup.

But there are more free utilities:

- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 [Email] Spell Checker by CWR Mobility
- Microsoft CRM 3.0 Image Add-In by CWR Mobility
- Dynamics CRM Caching Tool by Joris Kalz
- CRM 3.0 Report Scheduling Wizard by Microsoft
- Microsoft CRM System Tray Utility by Vigence
- XML Notepad 2006 by Microsoft
- IE New Window Maximizer by jiiSoft
- Microsoft CRM 3.0.5 SDK by Microsoft
- Microsoft CRM Synchronization Tool by Consonica (Justin's Blog)

Differentiate your CRM Live and Test environment

Guy Riddle has a nice feature on his blog that shows how to differentiate your CRM Live and Test system.

I work a lot with two instances of CRM (Live and Test environment) and sometimes this is confusing. By modifying the global.css file, you can change the colors of Dynamics CRM (Not Supported by Microsoft).

!!! When you upgrade/re-install/repair your system you may need to reapply this change you are about to make, so you have to make a copy of the original file and a copy of the modified file.

To make this change you will need to modify the 'GLOBAL.CSS' file.
This is located in your \CRMWeb\_common\styles folder on your CRM server. This file can be edited with Notepad.

Locate the following section:
body.stage{background-color: #acc0e9;padding: 10px;}

and modify the colour (I.e. replace #acc0e9)

Guy has also a nice post about adding your company logo to Dynamics CRM

New WordMailMerge for MS CRM 3.0 version (2.8)

New features of version 2.8 :
- Multiple attachments when sending newsletters
- Support for generating Word-Documents with data from a Marketinglist
- It is now possible to create Word-Documents and use data from the Many to Many relationships. For example you can now create a letter with a contact and you will receive all the data from related contacts through the relationships.You can also filter this data if you only want to have contacts with a specific relationship.
- Possibility to save only the UNC-Path of the document generated with WordMailMerge to the letter activity and then opens it with one button click in the letter activity.

Website MS-CRM Add-On's

Microsoft CRM 3.0 90-day trial versions for all released languages

Microsoft CRM 3.0 90-day trial versions for all released languages.

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Microsoft XML Notepad 2006

XML Notepad 2006 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents (like the Dynamics CRM customizations & workflow files).

Handy features include:
- Tree View synchronized with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values.
- Incremental search (Ctrl+I) in both tree and text views, so as you type it navigates to matching nodes.
- Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support.
- Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
- Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
- In place popup multi-line editing of large text node values.
- Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
- Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath.
- Good performance on large XML documents, loading a 3mb document in about one second.
- Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
- Intellisense based on expected elements and attributes and enumerated simple type values.
- Support for custom editors for date, dateTime and time datatypes and other types like color.
- Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree.
- Inplace HTML viewer for processing xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
- Built-in XML Diff tool.

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Implementation of Experlogix for Dynamics CRM

At this time we're implementing Experlogix's Master Product Configurator in the Netherlands for one of our Customers and I have to say, it's a fantastic product! I think it's one of the best and most usefull Dynamics CRM add-on's available.

Experlogix's Master Product Configurator can be launched directly from CRM’s Opportunity, Quote, Order and Service Contract screens to prepare simple or complex engineered quotes, calculate shipping charges, suggest up-sell opportunities, etc.

Read more about Experlogix's Master Product Configurator

Microsoft CRM V3R2 Update ships

The Microsoft CRM Team released V3R2, a slipstream release on CRM V3 which enabled seamless compatibility with Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2.

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Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide Update 3.0.5

This Implementation Guide provides the information required for a successful Microsoft CRM implementation. This guide addresses the planning, installing (both hardware and software), pre-deployment testing, and operating tasks for the maintenance of the Microsoft CRM system.

The 3.0.5 update to the Implementation Guide contains several changes including the following:

- Microsoft CRM client for Microsoft Office Outlook memory requirements update.
- Information about SQL named instances support.
- Pre-existing Microsoft CRM 1.2 callout support.
- More than 30 revisions, corrections, and additions.

This guide is written for the computer system administrator.

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Dynamics CRM 3.0 Update Rollup 1 news

This update will allow customers to run Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 with Office 2007.

This update will allow customers to run Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 with Windows Vista.

The update will switch the Microsoft CRM Laptop client for Outlook from an MSDE database to a SQL Express database (Office 2007). This means you can now take 4 GB of data offline with you, instead of the current 2 GB that MSDE supports.

The Outlook add-in will be much more integrated than the current add-in for Outlook 2003.

This update will include approximately 100 fixes previously available only as individual packages, and only by calling support.

This update will be released publicly via the Microsoft Download Center (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads), with a target date Nov. 15th, 2006.

UPDATE: This Update Rollup does not address CRM v3.0 Client compatibility with Windows Vista and/or Office 2007. Update Rollup 1 is meant to provide a streamlined way to deploy existing CRM 3.0 hotfixes. So the red marked text isn't right.

Here’s a Microsoft blog posting that does discuss CRM v3.0 Client compatibility with Windows Vista and/or Office 2007.