Totally off the Topic of CRM, but related to the Social Media aspects of what we do.  I am a musician and consider myself a bit of an artist.   So this event is close to my heart.   Grand Rapids has several pieces of art in the heart of Down Town.  Our City center has a Big Sculpture, and Calder painted the top of one of the City Buildings.   Which one can see plainly here from Bing =       Also a big sculpture park that has some huge pieces.   This one ...<< MORE >>

Integrating Customer Records between Dynamics SL (@MSDynamicsSL)  and Dynamics CRM (@MSDynamicsCRM) demonstrated. Here is a short video (8 Minutes) that shows how the Customer / Account integration works. ...<< MORE >>

There were several performance issues that were effecting some users.  So they rolled them into a hot fix.   The major issue was The 6.5.0 implementation was a breaking change in that pre-6.5.0 Update Source only fired on success; and 6.5.0 fired Update Source always).  6.5.2 will revert this breaking change by allowing you to to toggle when and how you want Update Source to fire (with the default being the legacy pre-6.5.0 behavior). Plus they added a new feature in response to user requests.  One of the new items for 6.5.2 will be to allow users ...<< MORE >>

Here is a quick peek at the CRM project object in CRM. You will get a feel for how the SL Project Data shows up in CRM. It will give you a flavor of how one can use Project in CRM to attach activities in CRM.        Click here for more information about EHTC's Dynamics LS Project Series integration with CRM: http://www.ehtc.com/ehtc/infuse.htm ...<< MORE >>

If Microsoft made a toaster……. Fill in your own joke here….. ...<< MORE >>

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Stumbled across this the other day.   http://BingTweets.com   Very interesting.    ...<< MORE >>

The official line from MSFT on this question: From a recent support case: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and VMware have not been tested for use with Microsoft Dynamics SL. We do not support Virtual Server 2005 or VMware for use with the following versions of Microsoft Dynamics SL: • ...<< MORE >>

Here is a quick demo of CRM to SL’s bi directional integration.  I am working on getting videos of all the major aspects of how the integration behaves.   Short and sweet and to the point  (~5 minutes) You will see a few more of these in the next few weeks.  Customer Integration Inventory Integration Infuse Configuration Utility Project Integration How Scribe is set up   ...<< MORE >>

One of the sites I use to keep up to date on the evolution of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is Channel 9.   This is a guerilla video blog taken by various MSFT staffers relative to every aspect of the the Microsoft world.  From campus culture, to partners, to deep technical details of current work happening in Redmond.  

If you are interested in seeing what I tune into while I am doing the dishes at home, this is it:

http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/CRM/

@CRMUG  I will be delivering a session on Integration and Migration strategies and methods with help from Scribe and some of the other solutions.  Additionally, we will be assisting with a few interactive sessions. More details to come.  Please reserve this date.  This is a fantastic opportunity to meet with Dynamics CRM experts, and customers from around the country.   Very inexpensive considering the content.  The CRMUG Summit occurs September 14 - 18 near Chicago, Illinois. Have you registered yet? Early Bird Pricing Ends June 30th! ...<< MORE >>

  Hey folks I will be speaking at the CRM Evolution 2009 Conference, which will be August 24-26, 2009 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. I am are scheduled to speak in the following session.   I hope to see you there, looking forward to eating BBQ at Virgil’s. The link to register is https://secure.infotoday.com/forms/default.aspx?form=crm2009speakers The link for more information about CRM Evolution 2009 is: http://www.CRMevolution2009.com Save up to $600 off your conference pass ...<< MORE >>

This came up today during our SL user group meeting.  How can we simply build a marketing list based on total orders?   This is a good question as the advance find is unable to do any math functions.  I can pick a specific set of customers based on what specifically they have ordered, but if I want to group or sort customers based on the total invoiced, that is going to be a problem.   A simple workflow and a single custom field can do the trick.   Mitch Milam addressed this issue on the CRM team blog a year ...<< MORE >>

Here is a quick 9 minute video on how to create an e-mail message in a CRM Quick campaign with an imbedded image.       To use this method you will need to download Windows Live writer => http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?sa=976584514 ...<< MORE >>

    This is an uphill journey with many stops and starts.  However I am determined to “Just Keep Swimming” I got to give a big thanks to #Tweakly and @GTDCoachKelly  I stat thru her tweakly review #tweekly: http://tinyurl.com/pl8y7a  A training class delivered over twitter.   Is this the shape of things to come?  Twitter is an amazing tool that I am getting to know even better.   I just need to use it a bit more,  get over all of the acronyms.  ...<< MORE >>

Congrats to Jill Dyche (http://twitter.com/jilldyche)  on the fantastic article on Destination CRM blog.   => http://www.destinationcrmblog.com/2009/05/19/guest-blog-the-mdm-forum-tom-siebel-sends-his-regrets/ Jill wrote the CRM handbook.   She has laid out a consistent message of CRM as a data federation tool, pushing and pulling data into various systems. Which is what I am passionate about. Integrating ERP systems into Microsoft CRM, our work every day.    Thanks Jill for the reminder that we are on the right track.  Also kudos to Josh Weinberger editor of CRM Magazine for reminding us why staying in the lead is so hard.  Because according to Tom Seibel Cloud ...<< MORE >>

Another method that I use is to save complex parts of the formula as user variables.  so in this formula I am trying to figure out the default Ship VIA method on an customer.  So my rule is going to be to look up the specific value in the the pick list mapping table, and if you can’t find it there use a default value we have in another table .   Basically if A=Null use B, else use A.    I found that Scribe and the CRM API does not deal with a NULL value well.  So ...<< MORE >>

From the Scribe Idea Form: Likely the steepest learning curve with Scribe is in using formulas and most development work and troubleshooting is often focused around formulas as well.  If the UI for the formula entry could be enhanced to make the structure of the formula more transparent it would greatly help in these areas. Even introducing support for Carriage Return and Tab in the formula text that would allow you to build the formula text split into lines and tabbed to reflect the structure of the logical operators would help quite a bit.   Answer: ...<< MORE >>

I am trying to fix my personal copy of CRM and Microsoft Office 2007.  I was missing the tool bar so I reinstalled.   Bad move now it doesn’t work at all.  So support directed me, after other attempts, to run the Microsoft Office Diagnostics.  A very nifty tool that checks and repairs most common Office issues.   One thing it did though was to try to connect to my other MSO apps and it had some issues.  It was Unable to Access a Required File.      So I got this message: Wait ...<< MORE >>

The Right Information in the Right Hands Dynamics SL has won awards for its project management and accounting capabilities and industry experts continue to talk about why Dynamics CRM is becoming the industry leader for customer relationship management. They are valuable tools operating alone, but they really shine when they are working together. For a project-driven company, think of the possibilities if you could initiate a project in Dynamics SL when you complete a sale in Dynamics CRM. What if you could track all the communication activities related to a project, as they happen, in Dynamics ...<< MORE >>

I have been confirmed to be a speaker at the CRM Evolution 2009 Conference, which will be August 24-26, 2009 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. I am scheduled to speak in the following session(s): August 26, 2009 ...<< MORE >>

Dynamics CRM 4.0  Accelerators boost your competitiveness by delivering functionality that is not available out-of-the-box today with CRM version 4.0. The release of these Accelerators demonstrates Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to drive innovation in between major releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Use these Accelerators to shorten your sales cycle and further leverage your investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The current release of Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes the following:

• Analytics: Extends business intelligence for Microsoft Dynamics CRM by delivering sales, service and operations dashboards
• Event Management: New functionality to plan, create, execute, and review events
• E-Service Portal: A configurable self-service portal for enhanced customer service through Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Enterprise Search: Rapidly configure portal views of CRM data within SharePoint (MOSS) and expose this data to MOSS enterprise search
• Extended Sales Forecasting: Enhanced sales forecasting mechanism for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
• CRM Notifications: Newsfeeds (RSS) that allow users to subscribe to CRM “events” relevant to their job role
• Business Productivity: A collection of time-saving productivity customizations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
• Sales Methodologies: Practical Guidance for adoption of third-party sales methodologies such as SPI Solution Selling, Target Account Selling (TAS) and Miller Heiman

Ready to put Accelerators to use for your business?  Contact me (pierreh@ehtc.com) for a demonstration.

You can download the presentation here.

4/16/2009, 1:00 PM -  2:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time – http://www.crmug.com

As you may know I am part of the team that provides technical expertise to the CRM User Group. This national organization meets online several times a month, provides session content during Convergence, and during our own conference in the fall. We have been redoing several sessions for members that did not get to Convergence. This session will focus on feature differences between 3.0 and 4.0, and upgrade best practices.  

So if you haven't upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 yet... Wondering why you should? Need to build a better business case? Already upgraded and want to share your experience or resolve an issue? Every installation is different - so join us to discuss the upgrade process and what version 4.0 offers. Share approaches for testing, training, and go-live. Review the Outlook client setup. And discover resources to help your upgrade go smoother and quicker. 

Did you miss Convergence?  No need to miss any of the great CRMUG breakout sessions - so join us for an encore performance of this popular CRMUG breakout session from Convergence.   This redux is an expanded version of the session that I did at Convergence.  So if you missed it please see if you can attend. 

If you haven’t considered joining the CRMUG please do so. You will find it to be a fantastic value.  

Scribe just released a new edition. I have been running Scribe for about 6 years now, been doing this too long. Here are 5 new important features that will help reduce the time it take to build DTS's. Plus it gives them a chance to sport the new logo. 

1) Added ability to rename target steps

Historically, the Scribe Workbench generated generic names for target steps created by the user. With Scribe Insight 6.5, you can now change the default name to something more meaningful to you. When you add an insert step you now have the option of naming the new step and adding a comment. Existing steps can also be renamed and the comments can be edited. To rename an existing step, in the Configure Target Adapter window, click on the step you want to edit, and click Rename Selected Step. This opens the Step Name dialog box where you can edit the step name and comments.

2) Enhanced step copy

Step copy now includes lookup and data link mappings from the original step as part of the copied step. I will be loving this as we have to tailor the DTS's to repeat the same steps for each price list. So it gets very busy to do it over and over and over. Here is why (http://blog.solomon2crm.com/2008/11/25/rgtsl-to-crm-multi-currency-part-1.aspx).

 

3) Added ability to refresh data without having to close and re-open the Workbench in the Scribe Workbench

A Refresh button in the Test dialog box lets you refresh your source data without having to close and re-open the Workbench.

4) Added ability to script values to use when updating source data upon integration completion

In the Configure Source dialog box, click Update Source. This opens the Update/Delete Source Rows dialog box. Click Insert Formula to open the Formula Editor where you can create and insert a formula. Formulas that you create and enter in this way are not checked or verified before being inserted, so please be careful. 

Currently there is an update source functionality when connecting to the source. If the source is updatable and the source keys are set then you are also able to update any source fields, especially XML messages, with the error message returned by the target whenever there is an error recorded. This will keep the error description within the source file and be easily reported back to the source system instantly. Added functionality also gives the option to automatically update a date field in the source with the date the record is successfully integrated.

5) GetRowError( ) function added to Formula Editor

The GetRowError() function returns the error for the target row being  processed if there is a problem or if there is an empty string after the row was processed successfully. GetRowError() can be used to update a field in the source with the error for the target row.

Barrons is reporting that Goldman is recommending selling off your Salesforce.com shares. It's trading and $32 but its target price should be $23 – that is a 30% drop. But since when is this news? Marc Benioff, CEO and Founder, has been selling 20,000 shares a day for quite some time. Their stock has tanked over the last year. It was trading north of $70 last year. People are concerned about the effect of the revenue impact of service based apps, also their development platform is not taking off as hoped. 

http://seekingalpha.com/article/100465-salesforce-com-pricey-and-coming-down-fast

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/04/01/sell-salesforcecom-buy-vmware-goldman-advises/trackback/

 

Scribe Insight Batch Files

Back in the day, we used batch files for tons of stuff, remember edlin?  I also remember using Copycon Autoexec.bat to create all the driver loads for NICs and mouse drivers. Oh the memories, no editors - just the command line and an a teenager's imagination.   Loading programs into your TRS-80 from a cassette tape;  getting your first modem, 1200 bps  2400 bps if you were lucky, all to download Oregon Trail from the local BBS; and talk some smack with the other Star Trek geeks; all the while we listening to the Police and Van Halen.

 

     

Well, I have found a good use for them again... to recycle the Scribe Services.  So here you go, 2 great batch files to have on your Desktop if you run Scribe Insight.

First to edit a batch file you need to right click on desktop and make a new text file.

 Then copy this text into the window.

net Stop "Scribe Monitorserver"
net stop "Scribe MessageServer"
net stop "Scribe EventManager"
net stop "Scribe BridgeServer"
net Stop "scribe AdminServer"  

Then save as

        StopScribe.bat

 Clicking on this file will stop all of the Scribe services on the box.

 Now you want to start them up too. 

 Here is the syntax for that file.

net start "Scribe AdminServer"
net start "Scribe BridgeServer"
net start "Scribe EventManager"
net start "Scribe MessageServer"
net start "Scribe MonitorServer"

Save as 

        StartScribe.bat

Now you have 2 icons on your desktop that will allow you to stop or start the Scribe Services with 1 click.   

 Note that the order of the start up and shut down process are important.  If you do it from the services control panel you start from the top down, and stop from the bottom up. 

I read the Microsoft Surface Team product blog. It always has cool stuff.  

Financial Services demo-

 

 Physics Engine Demo -

DaVinci (Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator) from Razorfish - Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.

 The best of all – The Parody Ad

 From Microsoft Yesterday.

“Please be advised that the Americas Operations Center (AOC) for Microsoft Dynamics based in Fargo, North Dakota (USA) is currently experiencing extreme flooding and winter storm conditions that are expected to continue in the area over the next 6 days. Due to the gravity of this situation and for the safety of all AOC personnel, the physical business offices will be closing this afternoon and operating remotely with contingency staff off-site through tomorrow Friday March 27^th 2009 to enable employees to focus on flood efforts.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends at Microsoft in Fargo.    

Directly from Scribe

“The Answerbook has been transitioned to the new Scribe Knowledge Base"

In speaking with our partners and customers over the past months the #1 request in support has been for us to offer more tools for you to help yourself. In response to this request one of the key changes we're making is to implement a new knowledge base as forums in OpenMind the week of 2/16/09. The key improvements to the new knowledge base are:

• Cleaner and more relevant knowledgebase articles
• Consolidated resources from multiple locations into one location: former Answerbook articles, technical workshop library, and the discussion forum
• Better search capability, syntax help and meta tag clouds for quick reference
• Scribe monitors will review submitted questions and answers, and once they have been verified the entry will be marked with a "Scribe Approved." This will ensure that readers can tell if content has been officially approved by Scribe, or if it is a helpful suggestion not yet verified by scribe.
  

All partners and customers can view the knowledge base in read-only mode without a login. Users with a login to OpenMind will be able to post questions and replies, get notified of additions to a chosen topic, and more. We have created a brief tutorial that describes how the new knowledge base works. View the tutorial now. Or visit OpenMind and the new knowledge base now.

Also In Scribe News:  They just announced that they have hired Microsoft Dynamics channel veteran John Gravely to lead the company’s Marketing and Product Marketing efforts. In his role at Scribe, John will be responsible for understanding market needs and opportunities, ensuring Scribe products meet these needs and opportunities, and communicating Scribe’s value to prospects and customers. In 2001 John founded c360 solutions, a developer of add‐on products, industry solutions and development tools for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. In 2006, John engineered the acquisition of c360 by CDC Software, a division of CDC Corporation (NASDQ: CHINA). As CEO of c360 John grew the company from 2 people to a globally recognized brand with over 2,500 customers in 40+ countries, 800 resellers, products in 8 languages and receipt of the prestigious Microsoft Partner Choice ISV Award for 2005. Prior to starting c360 John was the Eastern Region Consulting Director for the Professional Services team of Onyx Software (currently Consona CRM), a mid‐market CRM provider.

Congrats to John on his new digs in “the Barn” in New Hampshire.  The weather this time of year is a bit different from his old office at C360 in Atlanta.  Also I want to find out if he was able to get any of that China.com IPO stock from 1999.  If you recall CDC was one of the Dot Bomb IPO’s. It went from 20-180 in less than a year, the stock split several time in the first year of trading.  It was highly anticipated as it was the first Chinese internet company to list on Nasdaq.  The much hyped stock crashed just as fast.  By Nov 2000 it had fallen back to 10 bucks. And continued to die a slow death.  Friday CDC closed less than a dollar at $ 0.88. Sounds like John made a great move. I have met John at several events and he always engaging. He wrote one of the first Microsoft Dynamics CRM books  “Using Microsoft CRM” with Laura Brown. It is sitting right here on my desk, maybe I’ll bring it to Convergence to see if I can get him to sign it.  

 These are round table discussions that I will help facilitate. Hope to see you all there!

Dear Blog Reader,
I am getting burried in project work and prep for Convergence 2009. Here is a taste of what is going on:

1) SL to CRM integration projects
    a) CRM to SL project Integration - we will have a product release at Convergence
    b) CRM Service activity to SL Time Card - working on it for a specific customer
    c) 4 Current integration projects...most are behind schedule

2) CRM Projects
    a) 2 Current CRM Discovery projects
    b) 1 ACT to CRM migration project
    c) On-site customer visit in Phoenix between now and Convergence

3) Convergence Prep
    a) Speaking for 2 sessions - Need to prep
    b) Testing SQL 2008 VPC so we can get our certification for SQL 2008 by Convergence

So the blog articles are slow in coming.  But keep looking as I will try to throw some tidbits along the way.

Thanks,
Pierre



   

Vendomer.com is now online.  I have been working on several projects where vendors are also customers and customers are also vendors.  I have called these relationships “vendomers.” Most of these clients are in a Broker / Dealer relationship or are in the model of providing brokered services. One is a major chemical distributor.  They have to purchase and sell pool chemicals. So they buy chlorine by the tankerfull, which then gets processed by their facilities into pool cleaner.  During the time they are in possession of a few million gallons of the stuff, the spot price of the commodity may go up. They can sell some of their stock to the same people they bought the smelly stuff from in the first place. So this previous vendor is now a customer.  

Why is this important and why is this a problem one may ask.  You may ask, “Pierre, did you see Lost this week?  It was so cool when Hurley…..”  and I will say “No, I have been theorizing on ERP to CRM integration infrastructure issues specific to reconciling Vendor and Customer to a single record in a CRM system.”  I really need to get a life….

But I digress. The issue is trying to address this from a CRM perspective.  That is, from the Dynamics ERP side a vendor is a vendor and a customer is a customer. They are different entities, they are different records, different keys. etc.  So in a situation like this the poor sales guys are trying to figure our how much we bought from where and how much we sold to a specific company.  

Our solution for the integration was pretty straightforward. We built an xreference between the CRM record ID and the Customer ID and another one between CRM ID and Vendor ID.  So 1 Record in CRM, 2 records in SL.  Next we modified the sales order header to indicate that the Sales order was either a Purchase Order or a Sales order.  We then wired up the 4 dts coming into the 2 objects in CRM from SL to CRM. By the magic of Scribe Insight we are able to look at a single record in CRM for the Vendomer and in the order history see Sales Orders and Purchase orders. 

See….  Vendomer. 

The CRMUG will be facilitating discussions again this year at Convergence. The sessions were just announced today. The schedule it still being developed; however, the topics are now all set.

• Extending Dynamics CRM with the SDK
• Successful Marketing with Dynamics CRM
• Deploying Dynamics CRM at YRC Logistics - A Case Study
• Using SharePoint with Dynamics CRM
• Data Migration and Integrations with Dynamics CRM
• Integrating Dynamics CRM with Dynamics ERPs
• Leveraging Dynamics CRM Workflow
• Upgrading to CRM 4.0 The Smart Way

EHTC Technology Solutions is a sponsor of CRMUG. We are encouraging all of our customers to get involved in the CRMUG.  EHTC continues it commitment to the CRMUG and hopes that you can find the time to attend one of these sessions.  Hope to see you there.

One of the unexpected behaviors of the Solomon Business Objects is that they validate Customer data during any sales Order insert. This can deliver some confusing errors because what appeares to be an error with the Sales Order is actually an error with the customer. Recently we ran into one site where the Sales Orders randomly failed. It became clear that the sales orders and the DTS were correct but the customer record was bad. By that we mean that the Default Ship to ID on several customers were NULL#.  

This Script will show you all the bad customers.  If this returns any records they should be corrected.

Select Custid, dfltShiptoID from SERVER.SOLOMONAAPP.dbo.Customer

where dfltShipToID=''

Last week I wrote that about 60% of Mac users are using Microsoft office. Actually that number is officially 77%, as reported in Mac World.

 http://www.techflash.com/Microsoft_Mac_Office_77_37139129.html

 
Stored Procedures are EVIL is an article released by Tony Marston, who is a veritable fountain of SQL knowledge and theory. I would amend his comments to say Stored Procedures (SPROCS) are sometimes a necessary evil.  I agree with everything Tony says. Periodically we need to use stored procedures in our solution. One time is when we use SPROCS to generate a SL customer number. A technical limitation of Scribe is that it only connects to 2 data sources. So during the step where we take the xml from CRM and insert it into the staging table for Infuse to process, we need to generate the customer number. At that exact moment, we need to query SL to see if the customer ID we are creating exists.  It is at that point we have a PROC that we have written to fetch the customer IDs and compare.

We have several triggers on the SL database. This is the most reliable Scribe method to capture net changes in any ERP system. Relative to CRM we do not touch the database at all. 

Here are some reasons to stay away from SPROCS:

Stored procedures are not customizable This is a big issue if you want an application where the customer can insert their own business logic, or where different logic is required by different customers. Achieving this with application code is a piece of cake, but with database logic it is a can of worms. Database triggers are hidden from the application A big problem with database triggers is that the application does not know that they exist, therefore does not know whether they have run or not. This became a serious issue in one application (not written by me) that I was maintaining. A new DBA who was not aware of the existence of all these triggers did something which deactivated every trigger on the main database. The triggers were still there, they had not been deleted, but they had been turned off so they did not fire and do what they were supposed to do. This mistake took several hours to spot and several days to fix. Version Control It is easy to control all changes to application code by running it through a proper version control system, but those facilities do not exist for stored procedures and triggers. How much damage could be caused if a stored procedure were to get out of sync with the application code? How easy is it to check that the application is running with the correct versions? How much more difficult would it be if the application you were supporting was running on a remote site with nothing more than a dial-up connection? This is a reason why some teams avoid stored procedures like the plague - it eliminates an area of potentially disastrous screw-ups.

In our client work, we deal with many  IT folks and they often want to go to triggers to build work abounds. I always recommend against it.  If we can do it in a DTS, at least  we will get some more awareness and control over what is going on under the covers. 

Here is a data flow diagram.  It shows where we are using SPROCS. 

Scribe has invented a method to call a SPROC as a step in a DTS. Which we use for auto Customer nuber generation.

In yet another article of brilliance titled “Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself,” Don Reisinger, a self confessed Apple biggot, Vista users are encouraged to ditch Vista. In his article, he suggests that PC users fed up with Vista, like rats abandoning a sinking ship, are throwing in the towel on Vista and should be looking for alternatives like Apple.

Most of this mumbo jumbo about Vista is more about users' perceptions and marketing hype, than anything actually broken in Vista. If he is like most Mac people I know, this man would be the first to tell you that he can run Vista on his Mac. Granted, Microsoft (MSFT) has a major PR problem on its hands. But articles like these point out the bias that most tech writers have — they are in love with the Apple Computer.  

“As a daily user of Mac OS X, Ubuntu, and Vista, I'm keenly aware of what works and what doesn't. Mac and Linux work.” How about this quote: ”The road ahead looks dangerous for Vista and Microsoft must realize that with Mac OS X hot on its tail, Vista is simply not capable of competing at an OS level with some of the best software around. If Microsoft continues down this path, it will be Vista that will bring the software giant to its knees—not Bill Gates' departure.”

Come on — is he serious?  The people who own the 180 million computers that are currently running Vista are not going to go  “Oh my Digital Music Rights are too secure I need to sell my HP and buy an Apple, or Red Hat computer.”  The failure is in the softer marketing MSFT does versus the aggressive marketing of Apple. So there is tons of hype but the Mac vs. PC wars were fought and lost by Apple many years ago.  Apple still sells about 2% of the desktop computers in the country. That is not going to change drastically. Most all of the Apple revenue and profit improvements over the past 5 years are all due to the iPhone and iTunes. Actually, while the Window PC’s have increased overall sales 2% this year, Apple has shrunk 1%. Sales of the Apple desktop machines are down 35% this year. If it wasn’t for the iPhone and iTunes, Apple would be 1/2 the company, and riding a thin margin toward collapse. 65% of their revenue comes from the most competitive market in the world, consumer electronics. Which is why Apple’s stock is not looking so attractive now. Customers can too easily stop using their products. Apple Earning per share is about $1, where MSFT is about $2.  

I am not bashing Apple. I think they have a fantastic product, and their brand and marketing strategies verge on brilliance. Their customer loyalty is amazing. They are what Martin Lyndstrom calls a Smashable Brand, recognizable in any form. And just as Harley Davision now makes more on licensing their name to clothing companies than making motorcycles, Apple has reinvented itself again and again to match the needs of customers, taken huge risks, and built some great products. Although they lack the deep connection to business decision-makers and have not built out a compelling reason for running one's company on Apple (unless you are a tech writer in the Bay area, or run an ad agency). they have built something that is truly a product of passionate and brilliant folks.  

Microsoft loves them too. Several years ago I did an analysis for some clients on Microsoft profits. At the time, Microsoft actually made as much profit on the sale of most Apple desktops and laptops as did Apple. About 60% of all Apple desktops ran Microsoft Office. When you run the profit margins on a $1,500.00 computer, Apple makes about $120 profit on that sale. Office sells on the Apple for about 300 bucks. Microsoft made about 70% profit on that sale.  So 300 x .7 x .6 =  about $120. Gates knew this about 10 years ago when they invested about $5 billion in Apple; it is a cash cow for Microsoft. The numbers are a bit dated, but the fact remains that the business of Apple versus PC is a stupid fight and there are much more interesting things to discuss now. 

And on a technical note, most of the issue with Vista have been because too many IT professionals, AKA "Nick Burns, the Company Computer Guy,” have failed to implement the desktop using machines that matched the power required to run the machine. Vista was designed to run on a fast computer, with 4 to 8 GB RAM, on a 21 inch monitor. As most companies have found out, they lack the testing, training, and hardware to move to this platform. So when the projects fail, the IT folks put the blame on Vista and not their inability to correctly manage a proper  rollout. Sure, there are going to be technical issues with any upgrade so that is why you test, and plan, and train your users.  

Just as 8 bit computing ended, and then 16 bit,  the world of 32 bit desktop computing is coming to an end.  I was at a conference recently and spoke with several of my friends from Microsoft and the phrase they used was the “32 bit platform is in its sunset years.”  Microsoft is not committing their vast innovation developers in building out more 32 bit platform apps, that is why the push to Vista and Windows 7. The XP platform has reached it technical limits. Let’s move on people. Vista is here to stay, and Windows 7 will be out next year, and the band will play on. In the meanwhile, Apple’s stock price and future will remain a rollercoaster. Get over it people…..  Submit…. You will be assimilated into the collective…. Resistance is futile…You will love Windows…... Your life is over as you know it…. All your bases belong to us….. Submit to me… Worship me….. We are Windows……

Free CRM 4.0 Training Guide<< MORE >>

More Than a Million Without Power in New England After Ice Storm.  That puts our friends at Scribe without power.  As of 3:00 pm they were still not able to take phone calls, and their support site is down.  However, e-mail is working for them. So if you have any issues......   support@scribesoft.com

Stay warm guys, drive safe.  BTW if you ever are in Manchester, NH you need to stop by their office.  They literally work in a barn.  It is a 200+ year old barn that has been fitted for office space. It is very cool!

 

I use this thing every day. I read about 200 blogs and this application pulls them all together for me. However ,when they are broken like this.... Not good.   So much for Web 2.0....

I am working on an integration with SL multi currency  CRM multi currency.   I have many parts to this to manage so in this post I will just describe the products issues.

But we will still have issues with Phone number formatting, state code validation, and passing currency values into SL with the sales orders, and synchronizing the currency conversion rates between CRM and SL.   More on these issues in later posts.

For now let's put products into CRM using a SQL query, and Scribe DTS. 

1) CRM supports multi Currency

2) Each Order From CRM to SL needs to contain the target currency of the customer.   In our system US dollars, Mexican Pesos, or Italian Euros.

3) To be on a sales order in CRM in Pesos or Euros multi currency needs to be established.

Easy enough to do: Settings | Business Management | Currencies

 

4) Next Price List items need to be made for each inventory item in each Currency. For all 3 currencies this is going to call for a 9 step DTS.

• the First 2 steps pull in the Currency Conversion Rates as variables.  Step 3 is update/insert the Product Record. 
• Step 4,5 insert/update the Price List Item for Each Product on US Dollar Price List for the Stock Unit of Measure and then for the Alternative unit of measure converting the stock base price to the correct price based on unit. 
• Step 6,7 and 8,9 do the same as 4,5 but add the multiplier for the currency conversion as SL stock base price is expressed in the US dollar for this install. 
• This calls for a large update job 250 items with the standard SL UOM conversions turn into over 2000 steps.  
• When completed we will see a product on 3 price lists with each UOM expressed. 
• Here is a product where stock UOM does not Convert to any others. 

Here is one that has several Alternative UOM's available in SL.  Remember the SL rule is that any unit that can be converted to the SOTCK UOM is a valid Selling UOM.  This "Feature" makes for many interesting combinations.  

4) Now we have inventory Items in the System with 3 currencies, on 3 price lists, with converted prices, and ready to sell.  I haven't addressed rounding issues, and the date that the price conversions happen.  These issues will still need to be decided with the customer as we move thru the rest of the integration.  

 

Next I will show you how we get these on sales orders.  

Having your inventory items in CRM has been for a major boon to productivity for many of our distribution customers. What often happens is that the purchasing agents are constantly being asked by sales folks, "When are we going to have a given product in stock,?" and "How many are we expecting to get?"   It seems like a simple request.  The technical issue is that SL is set up to manage multiple warehouses (sites), and when you find the table that contains the inventory quantities you will find that there is a one-to-many relationship between inventory items and sites, and there are about sixteen different fields that represent quantity.

Our solution has been to build a view in the SL app database with the following criteria, and then build a DTS that plunks the ReqDate and QtyOnPo into fields on the CRM inventory items. In the Scribe DTS we are using a time-based DTS and using the lUpd_DateTime field with a Date Diff formula. The sync status fields normally used do not get fired during quantity updates, or Purchase Order Transactions until the product is received. So this solved several problems at once. 

Build a view in SL app:

SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT a.InvtID, SUM(a.QtyOnHand) AS QtyAvail, AVG(a.AvgCost) AS AverageCost, SUM(a.QtyOnPO) AS QtyonPo, a.LUpd_DateTime,

MAX(c.RequiredDate) AS ReqDate

FROM dbo.ItemSite AS a INNER JOIN

dbo.Inventory AS b ON a.InvtID = b.InvtID LEFT OUTER JOIN

dbo.POReqDet AS c ON a.InvtID = c.InvtID

WHERE (b.TranStatusCode = 'AC')

GROUP BY a.InvtID, a.LUpd_DateTime

ORDER BY a.InvtID

Overview

Video: General Overview - Time: 15:00
This video will provide a navigation overview of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online via the Outlook client and Internet Explorer Web Browser.

Video: Sales Overview - Time: 12:00
This video will show the sales features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online from creating a lead that leads to an opportunity that then
leads to a quote.

Video: Workflow: Sales Process Overview - Time: 25:00
This video will show to how easy it is to utilize workflow to create a sales Process.

Video: Customer Service Overview - Time: 14:54
This video will provide an overview of the customer service functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Video: Marketing Overview - Time: 21:04
This video will show the marketing features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, including Campaigns, Marketing Lists, Campaign Activities and Responses, and Reporting.

Video: Service Scheduling Overview - Time: 13:55
This video will provide an overview of the service scheduling functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Video: Reporting Overview - Time: 15:29
This video will show the reporting capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Video: Working with Accounts & Contacts - Time: 05:30
This video will show how to work with Accounts & Contacts within Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Video: Internet Marketing - Time: 02:29
This video will show the new Internet Marketing capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work

Jon Gordon

Negativity in the workplace costs businesses billions of dollars and impacts the morale, productivity and health of individuals and teams. In The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work, acclaimed motivational speaker, Jon Gordon, shares an enlightening story that demonstrates how you can conquer negativity and inspire others to adopt a positive attitude. Based on one company’s successful No Complaining Rule, the powerful principles and actionable plan are practical and easy-to-follow, making this book an ideal read for managers, team leaders, and anyone interested in generating positive energy.

Both of my managers are excellent at this — staying positive! In all of my years, I have never seen more negative energy in customers and partners as now. This is a great book for helping folks stay positive.

 

Event:

CRMUG Workshop: Using the CRM Platform for Building Complex Business Applications -
The Sequel

Date and Time:

11/06/08 12:30PM - 2:00PM EST

Description:

Are you leveraging the integration of Dynamics CRM with the Microsoft Stack?  Did you miss our session on October 14th?  Here's your second chance! Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a robust platform that can be used to build different lines of business applications besides the out-of-box functionality of sales, service and marketing.

We’ll look at how one such business application could be built and how it can provide a seamless user experience by integrating with various technologies like WPF, Silverlight, SharePoint, and the Office Business Applications.  

On our first call in September, we were blown away by the free tools that are available to rapidly expand the CRM application. 

By popular demand, this sequel will focus on what can be done with the Accelerators just released from Microsoft. Join Girish Raja, Dynamics Technical Evangelist (http://blogs.msdn.com/girishr) and Reuben Krippner from the Microsoft CRM Team (http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/pages/bio-reuben-krippner.aspx) as they reveal the hidden power of a robust, integrated solution for your business.

 A new tat over the weekend.  

 

946649 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946649/EN-US/)
Error message when you retrieve CRM schemas from a CRM 4.0 Web Service: "401 Unauthorized"
February 14, 2008

948045 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948045/EN-US/)
Outlook stops responding when you track an Outlook contact in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
March 5, 2008

948035 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948035/EN-US/)
FIX: The "New Record" button and the "Add Existing Record" button are missing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
March 12, 2008

948876 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948876/EN-US/)
Internet Explorer stops responding when you use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Web client to save or to send an e-mail message that has a large body
March 12, 2008

949141 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949141/EN-US/)
Error message when you click "View in CRM" after you create an appointment in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook: "At least one recipient could not be resolved to a record in the system"
March 12, 2008

948005 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948005/EN-US/)
The OnSave event code or the OnLoad event code is not triggered after you modify a step in a workflow rule in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
March 12, 2008

948155 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948155/EN-US/)
A date or a time may not be converted to UTC time in the database for some time zones in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
March 13, 2008

947860 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947860/EN-US/)
FIX: Error message when you use the Response messages of the SetStateEmailRequest object to set e-mail messages to Completed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Crm Exception: Message: The specified sender type is not supported"
March 13, 2008

948008 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948008/EN-US/)
A new follow-up activity is still owned by the original user after you change the user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
March 13, 2008

948157 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948157/EN-US/)
Error message when you create a new record or open an existing record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Invalid Argument"
March 16, 2008

948002 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948002/EN-US/)
The started time and the completed time are incorrect in workflows on an entity record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
March 17, 2008

948122 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948122/EN-US/)
The collection of installed localized labels is incomplete when you use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 metadata Web service to retrieve the collection
March 19, 2008

947401 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947401/EN-US/)
Error message when you import customizations to another Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 organization: "Identifiers cannot be more than 50 characters long"
March 19, 2008

949086 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949086/EN-US/)
You receive Outlook sync messages when you view a shared calendar or a shared contacts folder in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
April 1, 2008

951179 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951179/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to go offline in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook with Offline Access: "Failed move data for entity"
April 6, 2008

949569 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949569/EN-US/)
The Duplicate Detection function cannot detect duplicate records when you use a pre-update plug-in assembly in the update process in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
April 17, 2008

948121 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948121/EN-US/)
Outlook may stop responding when you exit Outlook, go offline in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook, or go online in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
April 17, 2008

951180 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951180/EN-US/)
Error message when you upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Action Microsoft.Crm.setup.Server.DeleteHotFixesAction failed. Object reference not set to an instance of an object"
April 25, 2008

948746 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948746/EN-US/)
Error message when you execute a plug-in on a nondefault organization instance in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "The request failed with HTTP status 401 unauthorized"
April 27, 2008

948298 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948298/EN-US/)
The records list in the Look Up Records dialog box is not filtered by a new contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
April 27, 2008

948629 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948629/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to go offline in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook with Offline Access: "Failed move data for entity 'Plug-in Assembly' during action Insert, countRows=[Number]"
April 27, 2008

948172 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948172/EN-US/)
Error message when you delete a queue item from a queue in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Record is unavailable"
May 3, 2008

948588 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948588/EN-US/)
Error message when you import customizations in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Failure: bulkoperation: Invalid Argument"
May 4, 2008

951884 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951884/EN-US/)
The Microsoft.crm.Application.Hoster.exe service stops running when you run the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook with Offline Access
May 5, 2008

950229 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950229/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to add a product to an opportunity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "An error occurred during pricing of a detail line item"
May 6, 2008

949347 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949347/EN-US/)
The "Move Up" button and the "Move Down" button are not available when you open the Attribute page for a bit type attribute in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 6, 2008

949925 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949925/EN-US/)
A service case is not assigned to a user when you click Assign in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 12, 2008

952945 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952945/EN-US/)
The Privacy tab on the Set Personal Options page does not contain a link to the error reporting privacy statement in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 12, 2008

951718 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951718/EN-US/)
You receive script error messages when you browse through pages under the Microsoft Dynamics CRM folder in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
May 15, 2008

948604 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948604/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to provision a language in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Cannot insert duplicate key row in object 'dbo.LocalizedLabel' with unique index 'ndx_LocalizedLabel_ForSingleSelect'"
May 19, 2008

952724 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952724/EN-US/)
You cannot view any e-mail messages in the folders after you install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 On-Premise client for Outlook
May 19, 2008

951301 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951301/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to go offline in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook with Offline Access: "A SQL Server error occurred. Try this action again due to configured cascading"
May 29, 2008

947978 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947978/EN-US/)
Some string variables are not passed to a custom Web form after you set a custom Web page as the default home page in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 29, 2008

951206 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951206/EN-US/)
A FetchXML statement that contains the <Link-Entity> statement may return incorrect data or incorrect data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 29, 2008

953185 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953185/EN-US/)
The Resume function does not work as expected when you run the function for the Update Contract States job in the Turkish version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
May 29, 2008

950202 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950202/EN-US/)
The translated labels disappear when you add a new value to a picklist field of an attribute for an entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 3, 2008

951477 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951477/EN-US/)
Error message when you run the "Send Direct E-mail" functionality by using a user-defined query in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Either you do not have access to the record or the record does not exist"
June 3, 2008

949719 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949719/EN-US/)
Error message when you track a received e-mail message or when you send a tracked e-mail message in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "An error occurred promoting this item to Microsoft Dynamics CRM"
June 5, 2008

947818 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947818/EN-US/)
A field that does not have a name appears on the Non-Event Dependencies tab in the Form Properties dialog box after you create a new custom entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 5, 2008

950006 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950006/EN-US/)
An e-mail activity is not added to a case when you convert the e-mail activity to a case in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 5, 2008

952925 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952925/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to add a user to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 from a trusted domain: "An error has occurred. Try this action again"
June 9, 2008

951274 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951274/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to import an organization into Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Exception System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryServicesCOMException (0x80072030): There is no such object on the server"
June 9, 2008

950414 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950414/EN-US/)
Error message when you promote an e-mail message in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook: "An error occurred while promoting a Microsoft CRM e-mail message"
June 9, 2008

951502 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951502/EN-US/)
You cannot open an e-mail message that is sent from a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 user
June 16, 2008

951919 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951919/EN-US/)
A workflow rule does not continue even though the "Wait" conditions are met in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 17, 2008

951197 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951197/EN-US/)
The "ModifiedBy" field of a record is not automatically set when you enable or disable a user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0
June 18, 2008

952149 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952149/EN-US/)
The Male label and the Female label are translated incorrectly in the Czech version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (952149)
June 18, 2008

950542 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950542/EN-US/)
Synchronous plug-ins do not respond to the events that are triggered in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 19, 2008

949068 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949068/EN-US/)
The Regarding field in an e-mail activity contains no value when you use a template that contains a Regarding field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
June 21, 2008

952018 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952018/EN-US/)
A POP3 provider delivers hundreds of copies of the same e-mail messages to a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 database
June 24, 2008

950374 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950374/EN-US/)
Text appears in a single line when you open the Preview page for an activity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
July 16, 2008

955049 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955049/EN-US/)
Error message when you try to go offline in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook: "Failed move data for entity 'Saved View' during action Insert, countRows=13"
July 16, 2008

952019 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952019/EN-US/)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 E-Mail Router service stops processing e-mail messages after a specific period of time
July 16, 2008

951711 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951711/EN-US/)
An update is available for the Israel 2008 daylight saving time changes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 client for Outlook
July 21, 2008

951098 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951098/EN-US/)
The Year view of the MiniCalendar view does not display the data correctly if you click to select the "Show week number in Calendar views" check box on the Customer Regional Options - Personal Options form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
July 23, 2008

948843 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948843/EN-US/)
You may experience slow performance when you run or edit workflows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
July 24, 2008

950175 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950175/EN-US/)
You cannot use Outlook as expected until all Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 add-ins are loaded
July 25, 2008

952815 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952815/EN-US/)
Error message when you run an Advanced Find query in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "Microsoft CRM Unhandled Error Details: Server Error in '/' Application"
July 25, 2008

950088 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950088/EN-US/)
E-mail messages are not sent from Outlook Web Access, from Outlook Mobile Access, or from Outlook Rules after you open the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
July 28, 2008

948126 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948126/EN-US/)
Not all workflows are displayed in a lookup window for the relationships of an account in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 1, 2008

951538 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951538/EN-US/)
The value in the Actual End column is incorrect in the "My Received E-mails" view in the E-mail type activities list in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 1, 2008

951174 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951174/EN-US/)
The content in the Notes tab may not be displayed when you click the Notes tab in an entity page in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 13, 2008

952547 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952547/EN-US/)
A record moves to the bottom of the grid area if you expand the preview section of the record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 13, 2008

950886 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950886/EN-US/)
Error message when you start the report wizard or when you perform the Bulk Import activity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "The logged on user does not have the appropriate security permissions to view these records or perform the specific action"
August 13, 2008

950154 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950154/EN-US/)
Error message when you change the Parent Account field in an opportunity form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: "No Attribute"
August 14, 2008

954498 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954498/EN-US/)
The marketing list still contains the members that you want to remove when you click Update Marketing List in the Manage Members page in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 14, 2008

954800 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954800/EN-US/)
Outlook stops responding when you open, close, reply to, or forward e-mail messages in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
August 14, 2008

952115 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952115/EN-US/)
The dynamic value fields contain no content when you use an e-mail template to send a direct e-mail message in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
August 14, 2008

Not only do we consult on CRM for our clients, we are also users of the system.  EHTC Technology Solutions is part of Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C. (EHTC), a professional corporation that was established in 1977 by Dennis M. Echelbarger. Since that time, our firm has grown to become one of the largest, most successful, local accounting firms in the Greater Grand Rapids area of Michigan, and we are a recognized leader in the business community. Our success is based on building partnering relationships with our customers. We are large enough to serve a wide diversity of customers but small enough to maintain personalized attention. 

We have highly customized CRM. It was installed in 2004 so we have had the system for 4 years.  So when CRM 4.0 came out we took a more formal approach to the upgrade.  Here is a copy of the punchlist we used.

On the day we went live with new system we went around to all the desktops and babysat the install.  All the issues we had were related to workstation problems.  Not CRM issues but problems with low RAM, users installing popup blockers, and the like. We have only 1 machine that refuses to run the CRM installer because it thinks it has the wrong version of office.  Overall a pretty good install by all accounts, which for our internal systems comes down to a measure of user interruptions.  To them, CRM was down for a Friday afternoon in July.   Little did they realize the energy and effort that went into a successful upgrade.     

This is what it took. This process took us 60 days to complete as it contended with other projects. 

Be sure to review the Summit schedule at www.crmug.com before you arrive in Vegas for your game plan.  A couple of items I’d like to highlight:

· There are 2 Conduit sessions scheduled for Monday morning (9/22) – this is a unique opportunity to provide feedback on the product directly to Microsoft.  Capacity is limited, so get there early!

· We are kicking off a new Special Interest Group!  If you are interested in participating in the our new BI/Reporting SIG, join us Tuesday morning (9/23).

· We are launching our first Regional Chapter! If you live in the Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver) you’ll definitely want to participate in this Regional Chapter.  Join us Tuesday morning (9/23). 

· CRM Support / R&D Concierge Desk – have a burning issue or question you need answered regarding Dynamics CRM?  Come talk to the expert team from Microsoft in the Expo Hall throughout the conference. 

Not to mention four role-targeted tracks, a Town Hall session with Microsoft CRM leadership, fantastic partner showcases, a bustling Expo Hall, and of course - networking with other CRM users. 

See you there!