Service Update for Microsoft CRM: Q2 2012

Service Update for Microsoft CRM: Q2 2012

We are pleased to update you on the latest news on Microsoft Dynamics CRM v2011:

“Microsoft continues to bring new innovations and significant value in customer relationship management (CRM) software with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, a productive and flexible CRM solution that enables dynamic businesses to transform the way they find, win and retain customers.”

Below is further information on the above areas of enhancement which is Release 8 (R8) of CRM 2011. The tentative schedule is for it to release on April 30, 2012. However, it is likely to be referred to as the May 2012 Service Update. That is subject to change.   Looking ahead to the Autumn there will be Release 9. Not much has been publicly disclosed about it yet. But you can see on the time chart that Social will be the focus along with Next Generation Productivity.

1. Microsoft CRM Mobile
The next release will include a cloud based mobile CRM service called Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile.
This will be a hosted (subscription based) mobile solution that is based on CWR Mobility (it actually is CWR Mobility, but it will be available directly from Microsoft as a Marketplace offering).

The mobile clients and service will start at $30 per user, per month and supports the use of up to three devices per user. This is considerably less than $65 for the comparable offering from Salesforce. The supported devices are listed below:

It is common for sales, service and marketing professionals to use a variety of devices e.g. a sales person might have both a phone and a tablet device from which they need to access their CRM data and processes. With Microsoft CRM Mobile, each licensed mobile user can access Microsoft CRM from up to three different mobile devices. Microsoft CRM Mobile will also offer an offline mode on most devices so that Microsoft CRM can be accessed even when there is lack of Internet connectivity.

For those that want to run the mobile offering on-premise on their own servers, they will continue to purchase CWR Mobility directly from ConsultCRM under a perpetual license model. The mobile client and UI are identical to between the hosed and on-premises solutions.

2. Browser Flexibility
In addition to mobile flexibility, Microsoft CRM R8 service update provides the ability for end users to access the Microsoft CRM Web Client across all modern Internet Browsers on various platforms.
These include browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari running on PC, Apple Macintosh or iOS 5.x/iPad. This is a huge advancement, as the last few years have seen more enterprises becoming client platform agnostic.

3. Enhanced Social Experiences
This updates adds even more social capabilities to the very popular micro-blogging Activity Feeds feature that was introduced last Autumn.

 
Activity Feeds feature updates in this release:

• Ability to “Like” and “Unlike” Activity Feed posts
• Improved filtering capabilities, including the ability to filter @names in a timeline
• Improved following capabilities:
  • You will now be able to filter based on CRM views; meaning even if you don’t follow a particular opportunity or account, if an activity is triggered that would make it visible in your personalised CRM view, then it will appear on your activity wall
• Update to the Windows 7.5 Activity Feeds Mobile application too.

4. SQL Server 2012
SQL Server 2012 release candidate is available and ready for deployment. It is expected that CRM Online will be using it come this Spring. Along with the many performance improvements will be the new Business Intelligence solutions for SharePoint to integrate into CRM.

5. New Business Intelligence with Power View
SQL Server 2012 introduces a new Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Server 2010 called Power View, previously code-named Project Crescent. Power View is a next-generation BI tool for interactive data exploration, visualisation, and presentation.

It provides intuitive ad-hoc reporting for business users such as data analysts, business decision makers and information workers. In short, Power View provides better business insights and collaboration for casual and experienced users alike.

Power View allows a user to configure reports that connect to Microsoft Excel’s PowerPivot or SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). Power View is so much more than just breath-taking end user analytics visualisations and tools; it redefines the data analysis process for business and technical users alike.

With the Microsoft CRM R8 service update, Microsoft will be releasing a set of Excel workbooks with pre-defined PowerPivot models and Power View Report templates.

6. Rapid View Forms
In many organisations there are groups of users who typically use a CRM system to look up key information about their contacts, accounts, opportunities and cases but have no immediate need to modify that information. For these users the optimal experience is to load this information very quickly so they can immediately assess a situation and determine the correct course of action.

In order to provide this type of user experience, Microsoft is introducing rapid view forms. The rapid view form is a read-only form that can be configured like any other form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to display any record in the system.

• When viewing information in these forms, users can switch to an editing experience with the click of a button. Administrators of Microsoft CRM will have the option to set all forms to load in rapid view mode if appropriate for business needs. Individual users will have the personal option to choose the form mode they prefer (Rapid View or Standard Edit).

7. Certifications
They are going to keep your data even safer at Microsoft CRM Online and meet some of the most important and widely required agency; organisation and rule certifications requirements will be met.

8. Portal Enhancements
The Microsoft CRM R8 service update includes enhancements to the portal framework that powers customer and partner portals connecting to Microsoft CRM (both online and on-premises).

These portals can be run in your data centre or in Windows Azure. The R8 service update includes the ability for portals to use Microsoft Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS) for authentication. This empowers organisations to setup various standards-based identity providers such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live ID and ADFS 2.0 for portals that require authenticated sign-on security. This allows portal administrators to be in control of their identity management and relieves organizations from mundane password management.

Portals now also support the use of Office 365 and federated identity setup for Microsoft CRM Online.

Contact if you require any further information on these enhancement.