@work Management Associates @atworkcrm - Tumblr Blog

Post 12: Learning Review and Additional Resources

Additional Resources

The following resources on Dynamics.com can provide you with additional information about integrating Yammer and Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Introduction to Yammer

Installing Yammer

Installing product updates

Use Yammer to collaborate

Posting, following, and unfollowing in Yammer

Demo video of Yammer and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

Frequently Asked Questions about Yammer

Post 11: Learning Review and Additional Resources

Learning Review

In this deck, we provided information covering:

The benefits and features of Yammer integration into Microsoft Dynamics.

The process of integrating Yammer into Microsoft Dynamics.

With this information, you should be able to:

Describe the way Yammer integrates with Microsoft Dynamics and the benefits that has.

Develop a strategy that utilizes the three most important attributes of Yammer Microsoft Dynamics: direct integration into work areas, real-time collaboration, and control over conversations and system posts.

The Story of a: Christmas Relationship Management System

Intro

Year round for the past couple of hundred years Santa & his elves have worked day in and out to prepare for Christmas Eve. It seems so simple, your child sets their heart on a toy, pops a letter to Santa in the mail, and voilà on Christmas Day they rip open a neatly wrapped present. But has anyone ever thought about the work that goes into that present. The preparation, the dedication, the ups and downs? There are millions of kids around the world, all with different expectations, all relying on Santa (the only true global service provider) and his team.

Problem Description

Before life became so digital a child would eye down something they dreamed of owning, scribble a few options on piece of paper and then hand this over to their parents. The parents would post an envelope to the North Pole and off went their child’s hopes & dreams. But Santa & the elves, didn’t just receive that one letter, they received millions of letters. These letters would flood the mail room of the North Pole, stacks & stacks, higher than any elf could imagine climbing. No matter how much they expanded the mail room or increased the number of elves, it had become too overwhelming. But keeping in the spirit of Christmas they remained joyful & positive and went to work opening each letter and taking the requests into consideration. Besides the endless letters there was even more paperwork, the double or triple checking of the naughty or nice list. For the most part this was Santa’s job, but he did enlist the help of elves to check on the kids across the world and report back to him. All year, a close eye was kept on these millions of kids to see who would receive that one wonderful gift or who would receive a lump of coal instead. The paperwork floating around the North Pole was endless but did make for a great bonfire on New Year's Eve.

Once Santa made the final decision whether the child deserved a present or not it was then up to the elves to fulfill the child’s wishes. Starting immediately the elves went to work building and creating these wonderful presents. But things didn’t always run smoothly despite having hundreds of years to perfect the art of the Christmas Eve delivery.

There were times that stacks of letters toppled over and children with the same names ended up with the wrong presents.

The year the Chief Elf told his staff to make dolls that laughed but by the time word of mouth spread the little elves made dolls that cried instead.

The mistakes and struggles went beyond the workshop, what about loading up Santa’s red bag, can you imagine the task of separating the toys properly so that when Santa reaches in the bag he pulls out Madison’s present and not Elizabeth’s.

Or what about coordinating the delivery routes? If Santa reaches London and finds Billy’s (from San Francisco) baseball glove in the bottom of the bag it could be disastrous.

Not to mention narrowing down the list in the first place, how does Santa know if your child actually wants the wagon instead of the bike, as a parent did you think to specify this before mailing the letter?

This is why Santa & the elves get very little vacation time, the work takes all year. If only there was a solution?

The Solution

In January of 2013 Santa and his elves made a decision. They decided that they could no longer accept the risks involved in missing Christmas and disappointing all of the children in the world. On top of that after all these years of promising his beloved elves, Santa wanted to give them that extra day off in December he never was able to give so they too could enjoy the holiday season.

Initially Santa created an elf team of his most senior elves to lead in the investigation that would save Christmas.

The team consisted of 3 elves:

Chief Operating Elf (COE)

Regional Elf Manager (REM)

Quality Elf Assurance (QEA)

They thought of all different kind of scenario's that would prevent the issues they have been facing from re-occurring in 2013.

The top 3 ideas ranged from:

Giving everyone the same present.

Moving Christmas to January 15th.

Stop giving presents to kids older than 4 years old.

After presenting their plans to Santa (who took the role of Senior Executive Sponsor) they all agreed that they could and would not disappoint a single child in the world. With that in mind Santa remembered many years ago when he delivered a very special Christmas present to a very special little boy and then all of a sudden Santa jumped up and said, "Microsoft." He remembered delivering a present to a little Bill Gates who at the time had always been talking about using a computer to change the world. Immediately Santa's elves jumped online and started to look at what would help solve their problems using a computer.

At first they saw many different things online that seemed as if it would help solve their problems but after several hours of searching they noticed that something called CRM kept popping into the picture. All of a sudden the Chief Operating Elf noticed that CRM was an abbreviation for Customer Relationship Management………..he thought for a few seconds, searched a little more and noticed a similar term called xRM, which was an abbreviation for Anything Relationship Management.

He then jumped up and ran to Santa and in all of his excitement told Santa that he had found the answer which would save Christmas for years to come. Santa replied in a very jolly manner, "what have you found my friend?"

The elf replied; "I have found a Christmas Relationship Management system"

Santa and the elf began to laugh and smile thinking of all the children that would be happy because Christmas was saved. After a few minutes Santa asked the elf, "tell me which problems will this CRM system help us solve?"

The elf smiled and explained to Santa that the CRM system would help them solve:

Maintaining a clean data source of all the houses in the world.

Identify which families live in each house even when they move.

Track the developments of each family member during the year.

Introduce a streamlined process in order to:

Decide if the children were naughty or nice each year.

Advise the perfect presents based upon, interests and social insights.

Preparing the present and wrapping the present.

It even helps track stock of toys, wrapping paper and the sleds.

Schedules the appointment for the drop-off of the present and exact location.

Finalize the entire process by checking if the child was very happy with his/her present

The System

As Quality Elf Assurance, I was responsible to work with our vendor during the implementation project. A few of our favorite highlights are mentioned below.

Basic Structure

Initially it was very important for us to understand the basic structure which our vendor designed. During the requirement gathering workshops we of course thought that we were implementing a Christmas Relationship Management system and everything would need to be custom. However I was very impressed when the vendor not only showed me the working structure in a design document but also rapidly prototyped examples of the setup in the CRM system.

Figure: Basic Account Structure

System Records

The following areas of CRM were configured exactly for our needs!

Account

When opening an Account in CRM we now have a perfectly clean segmented database of all our customers. For delivery purposes we store the address and are even able to track if a house has a chimney or not. One of our favorite features was being able to easily keep track of which families moved from house to house.

Figure: Account record

Main Contact

In order to keep track of each family we introduced the Main Contact. This record contains the Family name along with the number of Children. By using what we called Sub-Contacts we are easily able to track all of the family members within a particular Family.

Figure: Main (Family) Contact record

Sub Contact

The Sub-Contact is the heart of our CRM system:

Figure: Sub-Contact (personal contact)

Here we not only track all of the personal contact information such as; Age, Gender and number of children, we also make use of a very powerful feature called Connections. In the below example I am able to see all of the connections and the roles of those connections that Sophia has to other Contacts in our CRM system such has her cousin's Jessie and Alyssa:

Figure: Connections to a Contact

The key point for us selecting Dynamics CRM was for its amazing capabilities in supporting our unique Business Process. It's not every day that someone changes how Santa and his Elves deliver Christmas to the entire world. So when the vendor demonstrated what we call, "The Night Before Christmas 2013" Business Process Flow we immediately saw how are lives were going to change. For hundreds of years we have worked on perfecting the art of delivering Christmas to our customer and in a matter of hours we were able to not only automate a significant part of our process but also introduce genuine improvements such as social monitoring to decide the perfect gift:

Figure: Picking Your Present Business Process Flow

Figure: Social monitoring data for Contacts.

Case

Once the perfect gift has been selected we move forward in our "The Night Before Christmas 2013" Business Process Flow and reach the stage of wrapping and distributing the gift.

Without even knowing it our CRM system automatically creates a Case and tracks the details of which Present is magically going to appear in Santa's bag when he arrives at his appointment.

Figure: Case record

We asked our Regional Elf Manager how this process has helped change her job and she replied "one of the major advancement areas we are able to introduce this year thanks to the time CRM has saved us is personalized wrapping paper for each gift, we think this will increase the joy of our customer."

Appointment

This schedules the appointment for Santa's drop off and unfortunately other than the standard appointment features you expect this part has to remain Santa's own Intellectual Property :-)

Figure: Appointment record

Santa's iPad

There was one twist in our story and that was that Santa never actually learned to use a computer. During the implementation Santa spoke to his Chief Operating Elf about his fears of using a computer and luckily the vendor explained that Dynamics CRM has full tablet and phone support. Therefore the Chief Operating Elf told Santa to start using a tablet to listen to his favorite holiday music and watch his favorite Christmas movies so he would be prepared for the training which was being provided by the vendor.

Santa decided to start using an iPad due to the fact that he really only wanted to consume content and not create content. During the user training the majority of elves used a computer as they wanted to take advantage of the rich Outlook features Dynamics CRM offers. However to everyone's joy Santa was able to follow the complete training using only his iPad.

Below are a few examples of the Christmas Relationship Management system on the iPad which Santa is now joyfully using:

Main Contact

Keeping a consistent look and feel the Main Contact record we viewed earlier on our PC is displayed in the following similar manner on the iPad:

Figure: Main (Family) Contact record iPad

Instead of scrolling with our mouse or touch pad we are able to swipe left or right with our finger to find more information. For example when Santa is looking at the Family Martin he is able to swipe left and see the individual members of the Family Martin:

Members of Main Contact Family

Figure: Family Members iPad

Sub-Contact:

From the list of Family Members Santa is of course interested in viewing Sophia’s details so he simply taps on her name/photo and we jump into Sophia’s contact record.

Figure: Sub-Contact (personal contact) iPad

As you can see even on the tablet experience we are able to see the “Night before Christmas 2013” Business Process flow and move forward to the next stage. During our training Santa was so impressed with how easy it was to use the CRM system he asked all of us, "I wonder how they are going to change all those songs about me checking my book into me checking my iPad."

Where are they now?

The Elves: Enjoying that extra day off in December and planning how they can improve the CRM system even more for Christmas in 2014.

Santa Claus: Happily telling his story to Mrs. Claus about his good investment in CRM this year and enjoying all of the milk and cookies he received.

The vendor: Joyful to be working on several new CRM Online projects in 2014 and continuing to support Santa and his Elves!

Last but not least we would like to say that all of this was made possible thanks to Standard Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013....Well, except for Santa, his Elves and Christmas"

Merry Christmas to all from the @work Team!

Post 10: What Yammer Integration Looks Like

Sometimes pictures really are worth a thousand words:

Post 9: Rules and Automatic Posts

Rules and Automatic Posts

The entities and rules listed under on this page are available in Yammer.

Entities, rule types, and auto-posts you want to see should be enabled before you save.

Inactive entities can be enabled, but will not post until they are activated and have different auto-posts enabled.

Post 8: Connect, Configure, and Customize

Connect, Configure, and Customize

Follow these directions to connect your organization to Yammer and customize it:

Connect your organization to the Yammer network that has been set up for you.

After your network and your organization are connected, you’ll see a confirmation message at the bottom of the screen. To change which record types can post automatically to Yammer, click Set/Edit message rules.

On the Post Rules Configuration list that appears, make sure that only the records you want enabled are marked Enable for Yammer. If the Post to Yammer Activity Stream rule (or posttoyammer attribute) is set to True in Post Rules Configuration, that activity will post to Yammer.

Post 7: Locate the Configuration Panel

CRM 2011: In the left navigation pane in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, choose Settings, and under System, choose Administration:

CRM 2013: In the top navigation pane in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, choose Settings, and under System, choose Administration:

Post 6: How to Get an Enterprise Account

How to Get an Enterprise Account

Microsoft Volume Licensing Services confirms eligible purchases of Enterprise-edition Yammer with the customer’s online services administrators.

Your online services administrators opt-in to Yammer via a web activation form.

Yammer confirms eligibility and your selection of a verified administrator.

Yammer provisions your enterprise domains.

Your verified Yammer administrator receives the Welcome to the Yammer Community email and full Admin Console access.

Post 5: Install Product Updates

Install Product Updates

Only Applicable to Subscriptions Started Prior to January 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Product Updates need to be installed before Yammer integration. The following updates are available in the current release:

Guided process forms for sales: this is a significant improvement to the user interface seen throughout leads, opportunities, contacts, and accounts.

Guided process forms for customer care: a significant Cases user interface improvement.

Yammer: Yammer adds the ability to collaborate in real time using social networking on your sales and service records.

Streamlined navigation pane: the navigation pane on the left side of the application has been reorganized and shortened, to make things easier to find.

iPad support: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online users can install product updates and access their data using the iPad.

Improved dashboards: dashboards now include an activity history, complete with a log of communications related to each user’s work.

Post 4: Integration Process Overview

Integration Process Overview

To integrate Yammer with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, follow these steps:

Post 3: Caution!

Caution!

Yammer brings great features to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2013. However, there are a few things you should know:

Installing Yammer is permanent. You will not be able to replace it with Activity Feeds later. Sign up for a trial of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to preview the Yammer functionality if you’re unsure.

You can’t use Yammer and Activity Feeds simultaneously. You can use only one or the other.

If you’re using Activity Feeds, keep in mind that to refer to it later, you’ll need to search using Advanced Find, rather than seeing old data automatically appear in your Yammer conversations.

If you select a default Yammer group for users to post to from and then delete that group in Yammer, you’ll need to change the group association. The group must be deleted in both your organization and in Yammer.

User posts are stored in Yammer, not in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online; however, system posts are stored in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Currently, Yammer integration only works with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Online. Integration for on-premises instances is planned for late 2013.

Post 2: What is Yammer & Why Integrate Microsoft Dynamics?

What is Yammer?

Yammer is an Enterprise Social Network that brings social networking to the business world. Yammer allows employees to:

Follow the activity of colleagues.

Receive updates on important business records and collaborate on documents.

Stay in touch, no matter where they are or what platform they are on.

Why Integrate Microsoft Dynamics?

Integrating Yammer and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online adds a conversation layer to the application that can help colleagues work together better.

Direct integration into work areas: Yammer posts appear directly in the workspace where you work on sales or service cases.

Real-time collaboration: colleagues can ask questions, post comments, and offer congratulations in real-time as forms for leads and cases are edited. Conversation threads can be posted to all of your colleagues or limited to colleagues in a specific group.

Control the flow of information: administrators can control who may post and which types of records create posts automatically. Users can also control the amount of information they see using the follow and unfollow buttons associated with each record and user.

#yammer #msdyncrm #enterprise #social

Post 1: Yammer & Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration

This series of blog posts are intended for IT system administrators who are interested in facilitating collaboration and communication for users by integrating Yammer with Microsoft Dynamics.

Requirements:

Integrating Yammer requires system administrator privileges on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Online* as well as a Yammer Enterprise subscription. You will also need verified system administrator privileges for your organization’s Yammer account, as well as the prvWriteOrganization and prvConfigureYammer privileges.

*Note: Currently, Yammer integration only works with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Online. Integration for on-premises instances is planned for late 2013.

This series of blog posts covers the following topics about Yammer’s Microsoft Dynamics integration technologies:

The benefits and features of Yammer integration into Microsoft Dynamics.

The process of integrating Yammer into Microsoft Dynamics.

After reviewing this blog posts, you should be able to:

Describe the way Yammer integrates with Microsoft Dynamics and the benefits that has.

Articulate the Yammer Microsoft Dynamics integration process for customers.

Visit Reports in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Many organizations use Microsoft Word to register detailed visit reports. Most of these documents contain mostly text and they require a lot of time for the management to review, read and analyze.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM there is a more practical way to manage visit reports. No more free-style documents flying around but a uniform, structured way to enter visit reports straight in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. @work offers our customer’s this capability by customizing the appointment entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

It is important to keep in mind that users already plan and track their appointments in Microsoft Outlook and subsequently in Microsoft Dynamics CRM (or vice versa). It is in fact these appointments (when applicable) that can then be used for recording visit reports.

By changing the appointment entity, which of course is very simple to do in Microsoft Dynamics CRM we can extend its value by using it as a structured visit report. In doing just this we also limit the amount of time management requires to analyze the report and enable comparisons.

Below is an example of a number of the adjustments made to enable this functionality:

Customization of the Appointment Form (example):

Extra tab for the visit report data.

Option set field (Satisfaction of customer)

Two options field (Will they be a customer next year?)

Whole number field (Event Tickets)

Memo field (Report)

Customization of the View:

Extra Graph for analysis: (For example) this focuses on the number of tickets per Account:

This is just another simple example of how flexible Microsoft Dynamics CRM is, allowing experienced partners such as @work to get the maximum value out of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for our customers.

Take a moment to think about the impact of a change from Word documents kept on desktops or shared folders that require a great deal of effort to a structured solution.

One that makes use of an automated process in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. One that is in the midst of all contact moments regarding the related customer or prospect. One that management can look-up quickly and analyze efficiently.

In general, all employees in contact with customers or prospects will have insight into each others contact moments now incl. visit reports allowing them to serve each other and the customers / prospects better.

A step in the right direction towards organizational professionalism and customer satisfaction!

Blog #6 Data import wizard Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 & 2013

That there a various roads that lead to Rome is the understatement of the year if applied to MSCRM data import. When to use what and what is the easiest way? Below some guidelines which I picked up along the way:

Take your time and familiarize yourself with the import data

Invest time in understanding what data you are importing to MSCRM. Invest time in cleaning up the data prior to the import. Be critical; as correct data is useful data. My starting point is MSCRM as this is my target.

MSCRM Layout

Firstly, I need to know which MSCRM fields I have available to fill, so I go to advanced find, select the correct entity, add all available columns and export the results into an Excel file that includes the field names as column headers. I save the file and remove all data. Now I go to my source file and get rid of any redundant columns aka information I don’t want to import. If I run into data that is of value but, I don’t have a field available I create it in MSCRM and make a new target file. When this is completed I have a footprint for my datamap.

Clean up the Source file

I continue my search through the source file, determined to find any redundant/incomplete or inconsistent data. I use standard Excel functionality such as: sort, filter, find and replace, to identify and correct the faulty data. I pay special attention to values that have a look up or an option set reference in MSCRM. The import can only make a match when the value can be recognized by MSCRM. For example, your source file may contain all variations of the word Nederland as one can imagine (NL-nl-Nederland – The Netherlands- Netherlands), but bottom-line is the import will only be successful if the value in the import file matches the value in the option list or look up entity. If this is not the case, the import will fail for these records.

Note: If you have possibility, (this may depend on the number of records to import), copy the data from the source file into the correct columns of the target file (export from MSCRM). This makes data mapping a lot easier and the risk of failed records during import a lot less.

Save your import file

The following formats can be imported .xml, .csv, .txt or .zip. Note; .zip is used when importing for instance Accounts and contacts simultaneously in order to relate the contacts to the accounts. One can include an Accounts.csv and a Contacts.csv into one .zip file and related accounts and contacts upon importing.

Data mapping

The import of data can be started via the ribbon button which is available almost on any entity/view:

MSCRM 2011

MSCRM 2013

You are then prompted to locate the import file on your PC. Select the applicable file, delimiters and check the ‘contains column header’ option if needed. Remember; to import 2 (related) files, create a .csv per record type and store them in 1 zip file. The import wizard will let you select both entities. The import wizard will first import for instance the accounts so that upon importing contacts they can be related.

You will then be prompted to select a datamap, either select an existing built in DataMap which you can change and save for future use. Or select the datamap you already created via , or make a new datamap which you can save after completion and re-use if a (re)import needs to be performed:

After selecting the Data Map, select the applicable record type (entity) you would like to Import the data to. Note; It is possible to create an new entity via the import procedure, same is true for fields during an import:

Now map the Source fields and CRM Fields. Required fields are listed at the top, followed by the remaining standard fields of the MSCRM entity. If an Automatic Mapping was selected the import wizard will select any field that is able to match it to. The fields that will need to be mapped manually as the import wizard cannot automatically map it are clearly indicated. If a field is not available one can create it during the import:

After all the fields are mapped, choose next a few times to start the import process. Note it is possible to save the data map if it needs to be re-used at a later stage. If all according to plan then select next a couple of times to start your import. Review the progress of your import via: SETTINGS- DATAMANAGEMENT-IMPORTS. If any failures listed, open the data import record and check the Failures option. Scroll to the right in the view to see which error occurred. Correct the error and import the source again:

ENJOY!

Blog #5 Quick create in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

In this fifth blog of our “Get to know Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013” campaign we focus on Quick Create in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013.

The Quick Create command in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 makes it faster and easier to enter almost any type of information in the system. The command is on the navigation bar which is great as it is always available whenever you need to enter new info into the system whatever are you are working in.

With Quick Create, you only have to complete a few fields. At a later time, when you have the time or you have more information, you can fill in all the details.

With Quick Create you can quickly create the following:

Contacts

Accounts

Leads

Opportunities

Campaign responses

Competitors

Activities: tasks, phone calls, email, or appointments

This functionality applies to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, CRM for web browsers, CRM for Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013.

See below how to Quick Create, it's simple!

On the nav bar, click or tap the plus sign and then click or tap the item you want.

For an activity:

Click or tap… To create a new…

Task

Phone call

Appointment

Fill in the fields, and then click or tap Save.

To continue adding information, click or tap View Record.

To create another one, click or tap Create Another.

next to the field on the screen means the field is required.

next to the field on the screen means your organization recommends that you fill in the field.

This is ideal functionality for sales persons on the road who receive a call or want to follow up on some activities while waiting for their next appointment. Or for internal sales wanting to get as many activities done during the 'hot' time of the day and filling out the further detail at the end of the day. Etc. Etc.

ENJOY!

Blog #4: A visual of getting started in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Today we share a visual of Micrsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. This video introduces the fast and fluid new user experience, enabling users to access information that is relevant to their jobs, delivering richer contextual information, giving deeper insights into customers and their needs.

Enjoy!

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

@work Management Associates