PowerObjects » General

Footings are the foundation for any structure even MSCRM

JoeCRM — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:21:43 +0000

My neighbor recently jacked up his little cabin on blocks to build a new foundation for which to support his summertime home. It had been slowly lurching forward over the years and it was not going to be too long before it would have toppled into the lake. We have been watching him as he dug out the ground and poured concrete to make new footings to support his cabin. It evidently hadn’t been done right the first time around.

His trials got me thinking about building the Dynamics CRM foundation to support successful business processes. We must start with the footings to support the structure of our customer’s organization. It is fairly easy to identify business divisions, regions, territories or other units that form the org chart of an organization. Most of our customers have already identified certain key performance indicators they want to use to monitor the health of their sales or service models.

What is more difficult is identifying, building and quantifying the measurements of key performance indicators. What is the information that will make up your KPI dashboards and reports for CRM and how will it be derived? Business intelligence has become such a buzzword over the last couple of years, but it is precisely this vital information on the details of activity that provides feedback on the health of an organization and allows you to have CRM analytics. Take the time during your CRM / XRM implementations to identify the measurements you will use to monitor the steps in your business processes. Some helpful hints include:

Measurements to monitor Campaign initiatives or activities that result in relevant lead sources that ultimately close successfully.
Time elapsed between Opportunity sales step processes and the activity or communications conducted during that time to help move the process forward.
The measurement of activity in the regions or territories where your product or service sales has declined over a period of time.
Measurements to monitor Service contracts that have not been renewed or show inactivity by the customer.
Measurements to understand why there are Cases that have remained open past a threshold of time.

Build these types of measurements into your Dynamic CRM solution. They will help support the foundation of your organization to identify trends before you begin to slowly lurch forward.

Chicken or the egg – CRM or the process

JoeCRM — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:02:19 +0000

I’ve been following a discussion thread in a group that I belong to on a popular business focused social networking site. The membership of the group is comprised of Sales and Marketing VP’s and Directors. The thread that I am referring to has been very active and has had 125+ posts so far. What caught my attention on this thread was the premise of the question that started the whole thread – someone posed a question to the group wondering why CRM systems used such flawed logic to do sales forecasting. I have read and re-read the thread multiple times and there are all kinds of great comments and insights and similar and opposing theories, etc on how forecasting should work. Good stuff. The problem I have with much of the thread though goes right back to the original question in that a CRM system is just the tool…the business has to supply the logic. There is no one universal way that sales forecasting works. The needed logic is going to be different for each sales organization and even different within a sales organization that has a variety of product s and services that it sells, different types of customers, and so on and so forth. So the flaw in this whole discussion was looking to a CRM system to provide the logic to begin with.

There are certainly some standard theories and best practices for sales forecasting logic and that is generally the basis of what you find “out of the box” in today’s CRM systems. But, it should be viewed as just that, the basic starting point that you build YOUR logic on top of. In reality, you may or may not even use the base logic or functionality. What you need to do is to define how YOUR sales process works and the variables that drive that process and ultimately determine the logic you need to accurately forecast for your organization – what do you need for sales pipeline management – where will the sales process management come from?? Of course the typical challenge to this is almost a chicken or egg scenario…w/o data we can’t determine what our logic should be but w/o logic the data isn’t meaningful. To that I say…pick a place to start, make some assumptions, hazard a guess, draw straws, do whatever you need to do to begin to build the data that you need to that will help your ultimately determine your logic and adjust that logic along the way as you gain more information. A good partner like PowerObjects can help you through this process and then configure a Dynamics CRM system to match YOUR logic, whatever it is, vs. the other way around. If you look to the CRM system to determine your forecasting logic you risk inaccurate forecasts at best and maybe, having a lot of time to work on your short game at worst.

Event Management Accelerator Event Details Not Updating

PowerObjects - Doug — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:56:40 +0000

Have you recently updated the details of an event you have created using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Event Management Accelerator? Are you finding that the changes you have made to the event in CRM are not appearing on your event website? If so, you have come to the right place!

At first glance this issue may seem like a bug, but after doing a bit of research, it has become apparent that this is not a bug but instead a feature of the site that we need to work with a bit.

ALL websites developed using Advanced Developer Extensions for MS Dynamics CRM make heavy use of caching. This includes the Partner Relationship Management Portal, the Event Management Portal as well as a few other recently released acclerators. As a result of this heavy use of caching, changes made to a CRM entity (in this case an EVENT) will not immediately show up on the website.

Hitting the cache-invalidation handler will cycle the cache and make the changes we have made appear on the website. We have a few ways we can hit the cache invalidation handler:

- Save the web.config file (i.e: Add a blank row to the file and then save the changes)
- Rebuild the Website in Visual Studio
- Recycle the AppPool

While each of the above three options work, it can be cumbersome (or impossible) for an end user to perform those actions. Luckily, we have a much easier option that can be used to hit the cache invalidation handler.

What we will be doing in adding a SHORTCUT/FAVORITE to our Web Browser:

1. Add a new FAVORITE to IE. Call it ‘Cache Invalidation Handler’ an click ADD. (Don’t worry about the URL at this point; we will be changing it)

2. Right Click this link in your FAVORITES area and click PROPERTIES

3. Insert the following code in the URL field in the favorites properties window.

javascript:var sURL=document.location.protocol + ‘//’ +document.location.host;var oHttp=new ActiveXObject(“Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0″); oHttp.Open(‘GET’,sURL+’/Cache.axd?Message=InvalidateAll&d=’ + (new Date()).valueOf(),false);oHttp.Send();window.location.reload(true);(NOTE: The script above ONLY works with Internet Explorer!!!)

4. Save the favorite.

In order to use this script, you simply have to open the website you wish to refresh and then click on your favorite that you set up above. The cache for that website will be invalidated and you should see the changes you made.

Simple!

Completed workflows are now disappearing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM – managing the size of the AsyncOperationBase Table

JoeCRM — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:00:07 +0000

In one of the recently released update rollups a new registry is now available for reducing the size of the asyncoperationbase and workflowlog tables.

Setting AsyncRemoveCompletedWorkflows to a value of dword 1 will cause all successfully completed workflows to be immediate deleted after they are run. This can be beneficial, but only to a very large crm implementation or an implementation where workflows are very heavily used.

Another open that has been around for a while in reducing the size of this table is to set AsyncRemoveCompletedJobs a value of dword 1. This will cause only jobs that are not crm workflows to be removed from this table.

We recommend setting AsyncRemoveCompletedJobs but not AsyncRemoveCompletedWorkflows. If you are looking for help please consider PowerObjects in working with you for hosted XRM development – we are one of the leading providers of hosted Microsoft CRM and XRM hosting.

For more info:

AsyncRemoveCompletedJobs
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957871

AsyncRemoveCompletedWorkflows
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968755

You say tomato, I say tomato…

JoeCRM — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:03:18 +0000

So, there has been much written on the subject of user adoption and clearly, it is part art and part science in that there are many strategies and tactics and accompanying nuances for helping to achieve the needed adoption and create the ability to have effective sales process management. As you can imagine with selling and implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a Microsoft Advance CRM partner we get involved in many many of these conversations. I want to focus for a paragraph or so on what I have found to be one of the most basic but often missing or overlooked components of user adoption. A simple glossary of terms, or taxonomy or standard definitions, etc. Call it what you will, but documenting and gaining agreement by all on what a lead is, or a prospect or an opportunity, etc. I’ve had the occasion on numerous times to sit with a group of sales types, leaders and sellers alike, that are all from the same sales organization mind you and when I pose a seemingly simple question like “what’s a lead?”, I often get a wide ranging variation for an answer. Same goes for things like opportunities, sales stages, or processes, prospects, lead source, etc. And, it’s certainly not unique to sales. If you are going to try to get everyone to use the system in the same way, everyone has to speak the same language. My number one tip though is that once you create the definitions, WRITE THEM DOWN and refer to them A LOT at the outset and then reinforce them along the way.

If you don’t already have a standard glossary of terms or definitions, try the “what’s a lead” exercise with your team and see if you have alignment.

Of course the terms and their definitions are different for every organization but here are a few examples of how we define for our sales team.

Lead – an organization that has contacted us or we have contacted them and they have expressed interest in but we need to further profile and qualify to determine if they should be converted to a Prospect.

Prospect – an organization with an identified need that we have qualified as a potential CRM customer. A Prospect may or may not have a current, active opportunity attached to them.

Customer – an organization that is an active customer.

Opportunity – A specific sales opportunity and associated details that has been identified with a qualified prospect or existing customer. Account Executive must be able to demonstrate that Prospect or Customer is actively engaged with us for opportunity to be considered valid.

If you can get you team on the same page here it will allow you to have a defined process around sales process management and when you get to the point of pulling sales analytics your job will be much easier!

Coming Soon: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

PowerObjects - Doug — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:55:12 +0000

Today, at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Coference in Washington D.C, Microsoft officially unveiled and announced the next and greatest version of their popular Dynamics CRM software. Code-named ‘CRM5′, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is poised to deliver the ‘Power of Productivity’ through familiar, intelligent and connected experiences for people inside and outside an organization.

You can read the official press release here but here are a few highlights:

- Dynamics CRM 2011 will be available to the public in September 2010 as a Beta

- Role Tailored Design: Role-based forms and views ensure business professionals have fast access to the relevant information that they need and are prevented from seeing data that they are not authorized to view

- Inline Data Visualizations: Business professionals using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can quickly create and share inline charts with drill-down intelligence to visually navigate data and uncover new insights

- Real-Time Dashboards: Businesses can rapidly configure multiple real-time dashboards to actively monitor business performance and improve decision-making

- Flexible Goal Management: Businesses can define key performance and business health indicators to track and measure progress against any organizational goal or metric

- Cloud Development: Developers can develop and deploy custom code for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online using powerful tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio. Powered by .NET Framework 4, they can also incorporate Microsoft Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation and Language Integrated Query into their cloud solutions.

- Advanced User Personalization: Customers can create personal views, add commonly used records and design personal dashboards to measure performance.

Plus a ton more!!

Stay tuned to the PowerObjects blog for all the latest and greatest Dynamics CRM 2011 info!

Where are users logging in from into Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

JoeCRM — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:59:30 +0000

We recently began logging in a central database the ip address and correlated location of the ip address for all successful and failed logins. Using report builder 3.0 we then quickly created a parameterized report where we can easily search by user login, success/failed logins, and last x number of days. We can easily set this up for hosted Microsoft crm clients or ISV’s that we are doing their xRM hosting.

This is really neat as we can easily query where logins are coming in for a certain user or all failed logins during x number of days. Here is a screen shot of all unique locations that I have logged into crm during the past 30 days.�

Going a step further we then created a second report to graphically plot where all logins for a certain server are coming from. This too, is using an out of the box map wizard that is part of Report Builder 3.0. or we can create other types of CRM reporting with this data.

Next week we’ll have a step by step blog on creating one of these map reports plotting a count of customer accounts in a crm system in a map of the USA.

Improve Sales Process Management – Tracking Last Activity Date, Type & Subject for a Record

JoeCRM — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:18:37 +0000

Business Issue:

You want to have quick visibility into the last activity date or interaction, type and subject for a lead, account, contact and/or opportunity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The modified on date isn’t the appropriate indicator of last interaction as it represents the last time the record was updated. The last activity close date regarding this record would represent the last interaction date. Once you are tracking the last activity/interaction date, you can then run notification workflows when a lead or account for instance hasn’t had interaction within a certain time period improving your sales analytics.

Solution:

Add 2 fields on the form (s) that you want to track last activity for:

Date Field called “Last Activity Date”
Text Field called “Activity Type & Subject”

Here is an example on the lead form:

Configure a workflow rule for each activity type that you want to track. My example shows the tracking of phone call activities for leads, accounts, contacts and opportunities. Generally tasks and appointments are also tracked.

Workflow Name: Last Phone Call Activity Date

Entity: Phone Call

Scope: Organization

Start When: Record is Created, Record status changes

Conditional Statement: If Phone Call Activity Status equals Completed

Then conditional statement: check if regarding account owner contains data (essentially checking to see if this phone call is regarding an account or not)

If so then update regarding account record:

Last Activity Date = Actual Completed Phone Call Date

Last Activity Type/Subject = “Phone;” Subject of Phone Call

Repeat for contacts, leads and opportunities and/or any other record types you want to track last activity date, type and subject.

‘General Scheduling Engine Failure’ When Creating Appointment in CRM

PowerObjects - Doug — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:14:27 +0000

We recently came across an interesting issue in one of our environments.

The client was reporting the following:

-When attempting to create an appointment with the REGARDING set as a contact the user owns, an error message displays stating ‘General Scheduling Engine Failure.’ Enabling DevErrors in the web.config did not produce a more verbose error message.

-When attempting to ‘Track’ an email in CRM an error message is thrown stating ‘A SQL Error Has Occurred.’ Again, enabling DevErrors in web.config did not give us a more verbose error.

-The event viewer on the CRM server (and SQL server) did not record any of these errors.

Obviously not being able to track email or create appointments in the system is quite the show-stopper!

Our first instinct was to check the Security Role the user was assigned. Perhaps they were missing Create or Append privileges somewhere? This proved to be a fruitless endeavor as a quick test with a System Administrator role showed us that the error was occuring for that role as well.

We then performed a stack trace and uncovered the following:

Error: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.

Error Message: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.

Source File: Not available

Line Number: Not available

Request URL: &partyid={AGUID}&partytype=2&partyname=foo&partyaddressused=&contactInfohttps://SOMEORG/activities/appointment/edit.aspx?pId={SOMEGUID}&pType=2&pName=Al=

Stack Trace Info: [SqlException: Violation of UNIQUE KEY constraint 'UQ_PrincipalObjectAccess'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.PrincipalObjectAccess'.
The statement has been terminated.]

at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.InternalExecuteNonQuery(DbAsyncResult result, String methodName, Boolean sendToPipe)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery()
at Microsoft.Crm.CrmDbConnection.InternalExecuteNonQuery(IDbCommand command)
at Microsoft.Crm.CrmDbConnection.ExecuteNonQuery(IDbCommand command, Boolean impersonate)
at Microsoft.Crm.BusinessEntities.CrmCascadeDBHandler.GrantAccessBulkForCreate(Guid objectId, Int32 objectTypeCode, String principalIds, Int32 principalType, Int32 accessMask, ExecutionContext context)
at Microsoft.Crm.BusinessEntities.CascadeEngine.GrantAccessBulkForCreate(BusinessEntityMoniker moniker, Int32 accessMask, Int32 principalType, Guid[] granteeIds, ExecutionContext context)
at Microsoft.Crm.ObjectModel.CommunicationActivityServiceBase.CreateCommunicationParties(BusinessEntityMoniker moniker, CommunicationActivity activity, ExecutionContext context)
at Microsoft.Crm.ObjectModel.CommunicationActivityServiceBase.Create(IBusinessEntity entityInterface, ExecutionContext context)

After a bit of research I found a KB article which referenced the error and behavior I was experiencing: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956129

The KB article described the error I was seeing but it indicated that it was fixed in UR1 and my environment was on UR6!

I decided to reapply the KB I found as a final, deperate “Hail Mary” pass, and much to my surprise, it worked! After applying the KB users were able to create Appointments and Track Email as normal.

It turns out that the KB in question makes a change to the p_GrantAccessBulkForCreate stored procedure. For whatever reason, our SP was not updated when we applied UR1.

Strange Issue with a very easy fix!

Window was unable to open, and may have been blocked by a Pop-up blocker in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Part Deux

PowerObjects - Doug — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:14:44 +0000

Awhile back we posted THIS which described how to fix the error message shown below.

While that fix worked for the vast majority of users experiencing the message, there still was a small amount of folks who had the message persist after making the changes.

Last week Microsoft released Update Rollup 9 and in the accompanying KB article, they also posted the following tidbit:

The Internet Explorer team released a cumulative update on 1/21/2010. This cumulative update is recommended for customers that use Microsoft CRM. It will resolve issues caused by the popup blocker when using the CRM Client. It will also help resolve formatting issues when using the CRM web client submenus in an Internet facing deployment.

The IE8 cumulative update can be obtained from Microsoft Update. More information about this update can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978207.

IE8 users experiencing the pop-up blocker issue should download and install the update recommended by Microsoft above.