Dynamics CRM 3.0 User Satisfaction and Usage Survey

The CRM team in Redmond recently surveyed a group of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 users to discover what they liked about the product, how they used it, and what suggestions they had for improvement.

The results :

- CRM 3.0 users are much more satisfied than they were with previous versions. In fact, satisfaction went up over 60%.
- Another question asked was how much of an improvement 3.0 was over previous versions, and over 60% of respondents said “Huge improvement.”
- Another response that we found gratifying is that 53% of business professionals (sales, marketing, customer service, and business executives) reported that CRM was “extremely important” to their company.


The benefits respondents said they get from using CRM were (in the order of priority):

- Improves communication
- Enhances collaboration• Integrates with Microsoft Office applications
- Looks and feels similar to Microsoft Office
- Improves personal productivity
- Saves time• Improves business results
- Produces useful reports• Projects an impressive image
- Saves money

Some of the things to improve or to add for future releases:

- Proposals and quotes• Sales forecasts
- Customer service resource forecasting and scheduling
- Creating PR and marketing plans
- Developing pricing strategies
- Producing and distributing collateral
- Product performance
- Becoming an “expert” in CRM

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WordMailMerge for MS CRM 3.0 now integrates SharePoint Services/Portal Server with MS CRM 3.0

Now you have the possibility to generate Word documents and save the result directly to SharePoint. This enables you to see the generated documents which were saved via WordMailMerge to your SharePoint in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Features:

- Automatically save documents into a specific SharePoint folder/list/site depending on your server settings.
- The possibility to automatically generate folders for each row in an entity. This means a unique folder for each row in an entity(f.e. every account, contact, custom entity)
- Open/Save templates from/to your SharePoint and also manage your templates in SharePoint.
- Define different locations in SharePoint for each entity to save the generated documents.
- The integration offers the possibility to save generated documents to SharePoint and automatically insert a link into the letter activity. This means that the document can be opened with one click from the letter activity.

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Business Data Search Snap-In Available

Business Data Search delivers powerful search capabilities that allow an information worker to search for information across Microsoft business systems including Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX and SharePoint Server portals from within Microsoft Office Outlook as simply as searching email.

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Virtual PC 2007 is now available

Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance.

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SQL Server 2005 SP2 Now Available

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) enables SQL Server 2005 customers to take advantage of the enhancements within Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system. Specific enhancements include, but are not limited to:

- Enhanced BI Capabilities
- Interoperability Enhancements
- Performance and Manageability Enhancements

What's new?

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Next Office is Office 14 and not Office 13 - "13 is unlucky"

As stated, the codename for the upcoming release of Office, currently slated for a 2009/2010 release timeframe, is Office 14. Eric Vigesaa, Program Manager for Office system client applications, stated “Well, 13 is unlucky, so we’re calling it Office 14,”.

In lieu of the aforementioned, a lot of the innovations that go into the Office System are long-term investments which build upon the foundation and functionality delivered in previous releases; in this case, Office 14 will initially take away and benefit from Office 12 (= Office 2007).

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Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation Available!

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation, a business intelligence solution accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 customers and partners.

With the Analytics Foundation:
· Executives can better track and manage business performance with key performance indicators (KPIs) and Microsoft SharePoint dashboards.
· Managers and employees can create reports quickly and make better decisions with Microsoft Office Excel and Report Builder (part of SQL Server Reporting Services).
· Line-of-business users of Microsoft CRM across sales, marketing, and service can identify new opportunities to grow revenue and increase efficiency with predictive analytics.

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Snap-ins for CRM 3.0 and Office 2007

There are new snap-ins for CRM 3.0 and Office 2007 on the GotDotNet site.

Business Data Lookup, Customer Journal , and Custom Report Generator increase the productivity of information workers by allowing them to access relevant data where and when they need it.

Download the file to your machine and unzip it in a local folder. Follow the steps mentioned in the Installation Guide in the docs folder. Whitepapers in the docs folder explain each of the snaps in detail.

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 desktop client for Microsoft Office Outlook Compatibility Release for Terminal Server Deployment Scripts

This deployment package helps you to install and configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 desktop client for Microsoft Office Outlook® Compatibility Release in the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 Terminal Server environment.

This deployment package is not compatible with previous releases of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM desktop client for Office Outlook.

This tool must be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Outlook CD. This tool can be used as-is, or your system administrator can edit the main script file to meet the needs of your organization or network topology.

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