Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales Archives - Page 2 of 7 - FMT

It all begins with an email, phone call or physical meeting.  You scramble, trying to make sure you write down every single detail, but let’s face it!  We can’t possibly write as fast as people talk. I used to think of myself as more of an “old-school” type when it came to notetaking, document management, calendaring, and especially to-do lists.  I had a notebook for essentially everything.   In recent years, I have learned how to ditch the pen and paper and become better acquainted with Microsoft and friends. Here are three ways to save a tree and some time.   Creating the Opportunity in CRM Setting Tasks Setting tasks ensures there is always a future action item to follow through the sales process. Set Reminders Setting reminders allows you to complete follow-ups, document revisions, and deadlines. Calendar Invites/ Appointments Creating these are helpful in that they synchronize to your phone […]

Testing is an important part of every application. Even if a company does not have a dedicated testing team, it is imperative to ensure that any custom development or custom solution is working properly before deployment. Black box testing is a process that involves testing an application from a high level, without any access or knowledge of the code. If you are familiar with creating black box test cases, then you are probably familiar with Microsoft Test Manager and the functionality that it provides. If not, then this blog should help break it down for you and give a few reasons why it can be so useful. What is Microsoft Test Manager (MTM)? MTM is an application that provides the ability to test a solution or a product before deployment. MTM integrates with Team Foundation Server enabling increased visibility within a project. Because of this, it is possible to create […]

 As of the December 2016 update for Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises), Dynamics CRM functionality is now included as a part of Dynamics 365. In order to enhance the CRM user experience whether to make it more user-friendly for mobile clients or to enrich the ease of use for web clients, the CRM 2016 spring wave includes many new and interesting features for end users.      Editable Grids in CRM 2016 Spring Wave In the older Dynamics CRM releases, the users were not able to enter any data directly into Grids (like form views) or subgrids on the forms. They had to click each record individually, open its form, edit it and save it. Users complained that this function required too many clicks.  With the new editable grids, the users can do the following: Inline editing of any type of field in any row. Group and sort by any […]

Rollup fields are a great addition to Dynamics CRM. Rollup fields are calculated by Asynchronous System Jobs which runs in background. By default, Mass Calculate Rollup Field job runs every 12 hours after a Rollup field is created or updated. This delay is needed to assure that Mass Calculate Rollup Field job runs during the non-operational hours of an organization. But in some business scenarios, users need this calculation in real-time and on demand. Dynamics CRM has an option available, called Online Recalculation. If a user hovers over the rollup field on the form, one can see the last time this field was updated, plus a Refresh icon to recalculate a rollup field. The following figure shows Online Recalculation: Limitations with Online Recalculation The Online Recalculation option is only available in Online Mode. You can’t use it while working offline. The Maximum Hierarchy Depth is limited to 10 for the source record. This […]

One of the most common requirements that I’ve encountered across all of my CRM implementations is the need for automatic e-mail notifications. That is, upon the trigger of various events, such as creation, status change, or deletion of an Account, Contact, or Opportunity, appropriate users in the organization need to receive an automatic e-mail notification. With all the emails already sent back and forth cluttering up the Inbox, I know I personally could do without the extra ones generated by a Dynamics CRM System. But what if you could just receive a push notification on your phone instead? Well, using Microsoft Flow—Microsoft’s new cloud-based workflow engine—you can! Not only that, you can do it quickly, and simply without a single line of code. Microsoft Flow Just released to the public on November 1st, using Microsoft Flow’s connection to Dynamics CRM Online is easy as pie. The authentication is automatically handled […]

Just when you thought you had your work life organized, a new quarter starts and you’re buried with new leads, ongoing tasks with current clients, and the grueling search for new opportunities. Sloppy Sales Syndrome strikes again. On top of dealing with your own workload, the pains of postponing the sales cycle while waiting for deliverables from other resources on your team can be frustrating. But why wait for other people to assist you when you can be proactive and speed up the sales cycle on your own? In this blog, we’ll share 3 tricks that will help you take control of your opportunities using Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. 1. DocuSign: Automated Document Delivery How often do you hear a client use the excuse, “My boss is out of the office and can’t sign your agreement until he returns?” With the new DocuSign CRM add-in, you can leverage automated templates […]

Do you deliver a complex product or service utilizing several team members or simply want to execute internal projects? If so, the right software solution can help improve the management and delivery of your projects. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides a complete end to end solution with Project Service. From project creation and team allocation to deliverable execution, everything is integrated into Project Service for unsurpassed collaboration and visibility. In this blog, we will take a brief look at the features that will be explored in our Project Service nVerge session and how they can be combined with business processes such as marketing activities, sales opportunities, and service calls, or can run independently through the creation of standalone projects. Project Management Once a project is created, tasks are listed within a timeline to organize the activities needed for a successful delivery in the work breakdown structure. Attributes specific to each task are included […]

Are you required to dispatch teams into the field in order to perform operations efficiently? If so, you could greatly simplify the process of managing your field operations easier with some help from Microsoft Dynamics CRM  Field Service. From product installations to routine maintenance, field operations require a complicated web of systems just to function. Often times, with these complications comes lost data, additional manual effort, and reduced visibility. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. By bringing everything under one roof with Dynamics CRM, your organization can effortlessly track anything from initial marketing activities to a service call for field service, all on one platform with effortless up to the minute reporting on each piece. This insight can lead to a powerful competitive advantage in the market. In this blog, we will preview some of the features of Dynamics Field Services that we’ll cover in depth in the […]

Microsoft continues to improve their products to align with the company’s mobile first, cloud first mantra. Believing that working on the go is a key pillar for business productivity, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 update 1 and SP1 dedicated a special effort to enhancing the mobility experience. The key features in the latest release of CRM 2016 ensure that employees have access to information and vital functions 24/7, from anywhere! Let’s check out the new mobility features: Company News Timeline Solution Company News Timeline Solution, which can be added to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform in a few minutes, enables your sales representatives to stay on top of all the news related to their accounts, leads, contacts, and opportunities right from their CRM mobile app. The Solution automatically captures the latest and most important news articles from Bing news.  The Solution also organizes the content by time (Today, This Week, Last Week) […]

We all know Survey Monkey is a great and simple survey tool. However, we are also aware that it requires third party tools, hours of headaches and unnecessary confusion to integrate all that rich data we’ve collected into our CRM solution. Well, if you have Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 you can say goodbye to Survey Monkey. In the latest version of Dynamics CRM, Microsoft has introduced a new feature called the “Voice of the Customer (VotC).” In this blog we will take a look at this new feature and how it will allow you to brand, build, distribute, and analyze surveys right out of Dynamics CRM. VotC can do everything Survey Monkey can do, and more! 1. Branding The Voice of the Customer allows you to create multiple survey themes to reflect your company’s branding guidelines. Upon creating a new survey, you can select the theme you want to use […]

Contact Centers are a goldmine of opportunities to increase productivity, and Unified Service Desk (USD) for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the perfect productivity tool to mine those opportunities. This blog will outline three common productivity gains contact centers can glean from using Unified Service Desk. 1. Increase Agent Productivity Automating processes with USD can drive increases in agent productivity. At one call center I helped, agents had to log into four different applications to find customer data! The agent would go from application to application searching for the customer’s information all the while you could hear the customer getting frustrated on the phone. With Unified Service Desk we were able to automate searching all of those systems and displaying the customer’s record with a just a few clicks for the agent. As a result, the call center was able to reduce average handle times and they were able to increase […]

Everyone wants to be in the “Cloud,” but the thought of working directly with a large vendor may be intimidating. Dealing with multiple support agents and large annual commitments may be concerning to your small/midsize business. If your company currently uses Office 365, Azure, or CRM Online, why not work with a local partner who can accommodate your business needs? This blog will review key benefits of partnering with a Tier 1 Cloud Solution Provider and the seamless steps to make it happen. Like the clouds in the sky, the benefits are endless! Support from familiar faces Continue working with the same consultants who have successfully implemented other projects for your company. We understand your business and your IT environment. Consistency is key and this will reduce the time spent onboarding new resources. Billing Forget about the annual agreements. CSP offers month-to-month plans with no commitments. FMT also offers payment […]