Increase User Adoption with Your Own In-House CRM Support Entity in Dynamics CRM 2013 - a Step-by-Step Guide

User adoption is pivotal when implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM within your organization. A key component to turning your CRM implementation into a successful investment is by providing timely post go-live and on-going support in a manner that reassures your users that the system will be properly supported. Support could range from training, user feedback, suggestions, enhancement requests, technical issues, bugs, reporting requests, etc.

It’s best to have a solid plan in place, whether that’s using an existing I.T. ticketing system or having dedicated staff. But the reality is that many companies don’t have the time and/or resources to put something in place until after the first critical user adoption period has passed. If users don’t adopt to the system initially, it makes it much harder to get them on board later on.

One way to show your users that they’ll have the support they need is by creating your own internal CRM support entity. Having an entity dedicated to CRM support allows you to quickly implement, manage and maintain CRM support requests so that user adoption does not suffer, and your data quality remains high. Below is a quick and easy method to implement a custom CRM support entity. These steps assume you are somewhat comfortable with customizing entities and forms.

Step 1

Create a new entity named CRM Support.

Step 2

Create fields that will help you track the information you’ll need to best address CRM Support requests. In this example, we’ll assume that the following fields are needed to help us manage the requests:

• Name of the Request
• Type of Request (Question, Problem, Enhancement)
• Importance Level (Low, Medium, High)
• Department the request is coming from
• Description of the Request
• Status of the Request (New, In-progress, Resolved)

You will already have some out-of-the-box fields available for use such as Created On, Created By, etc. Try to limit the amount of fields you add to avoid making the submission process too cumbersome.

Step 3

Add your fields to the form. You may want to make the fields ‘required’ to ensure you have the information you need to address the request. You may find it useful to keep the ‘Notes’ section on the form. ‘Notes’ can function as a helpful tool to keep a running tab of what’s going on with the request. Users can also open the request and check any notes to get an update instead of contacting you directly.

Step 4

Create views to help you manage the requests. In this example, I will be creating a ‘My CRM Support Requests’ view which will serve as the default public view. The ‘My CRM Support Requests’ view will filter on ‘Created By equals Current User’ as the criteria. You may also want to create public or personal views for each status reason so you can easily view CRM Support requests by status.

Step 5

Deactivate any system-defined views that do not apply to your users. Removing these views will help avoid user confusion and improve the user experience.

After saving and publishing your changes, you are all set. Your users can now access the CRM Support entity and submit away.

Here’s a look at the views we’ve made available.

You can easily manage and export requests using your views.

The form is nicely laid out so users can easily enter information and anyone who opens the record will get a snapshot of the request with notes included.

As these requests come in, you’ll be able to monitor the types of issues users are having and proactively train or address them to stay one step ahead and keep user adoption and data quality high. You can also create a CRM Support Dashboard and create workflows to send email alerts to specific individuals based on the type of request that comes in.

That’s it! You’ve created a custom entity that will help support your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system, help you identify areas of your CRM system and processes that need attention and most importantly keep user adoption high.

Happy CRM’ing!

Contact FMT Consultants to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Written by:
Eddie Maldonado, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Consultant
FMT Consultants

Posted by: Jakob Bechgaard