What’s new in Dynamics CRM 4.0?

Overview

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Version 4.0 launched end January 2008 goes even further than its predecessor (Version 3.0 launched November 2005) to address the setbacks of early generation CRM systems. These include low user adoption, incomplete use of a CRM system (only basic functions used), long periods of training, low penetration across the organisation and difficulty of integrating with other systems.

In fact, an AMR Research report in September 2007 claimed that user adoption still remains a challenge for CRM implementations with 33% to 47% of applications encountering serious adoption issues.

Extending Use

It extends system deployment and user adoption across a wider base:

• Multi-tenancy permits hosting of multiple organisations in a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment (Enterprise Edition only), which is a great benefit for Microsoft partner hosted solutions or for organisations that operate different business units or require a separation of data within the organisation. This lowers the cost of ownership of a CRM application for a larger organisation.
• MUI to enable a user to personalise their CRM experience by choosing a language of preference for the user interface and Help which co-exists alongside the base language.
• Multi-currency to broaden adoption by global businesses dealing with multiple currencies. Currencies and exchange rates can be added manually or imported via a CSV file.
• New graphical “Ribbon” user interface when combined with Microsoft Office 2007 to help users find commands more quickly.
• Customisable navigation pane giving users fast access to information relevant to their specific work role.
• New licensing options to enable both smaller and larger organisations to buy into the system, including Enterprise, Professional and Workgroup Server options; choice of CAL: device or user, full use or read-only with option to upscale to read/write CAL; and also the choice between on-premise or hosted deployment. Flexibility to upgrade and migrate across servers as well as downgrade rights.
• Add Users Wizard – this replaces the User Manager tool found in Version 3.0 and is now accessible from the User area of the application.

Increase Productivity

It extends the productivity of the user by reducing the time spent on onerous data entry, processing and retrieval:

• More powerful data import tools - ability to import more record types, ability to re-use data maps, e-mail alerts and data links when import jobs are completed, duplicate detection and data enriching capability (export and re-import with additional data).
• Duplicate Detection Wizard enables a list of records to be quickly checked for duplication. This procedure can be set to run on a regular schedule with e-mail notification to alert when the job is complete.
• Enhanced Data Migration Manager – easier to migrate data, including notes and attachments, and to create new entities and attributes or map to existing ones.
• Auto-resolution for lookups – user can type in a lookup field and the system will automatically match or present a list of potential values to choose from.
• Improved activity conversion – choose to convert an activity to a lead, opportunity or case; for example, convert an activity, e.g. e-mail, directly into a lead without the need to open a new lead form.
• Task activity synchronisation - qualify, synchronise and re-assign a task to an activity.
• “Advanced Find” – display columns of data from more than one entity in a single view.
• Dynamic Export to Excel extended – data from related entities can now be exported.
• Self-Help – online portal (CustomerSource) for Microsoft customers which contains a searchable knowledge base, newsgroup and unlimited, online learning and training.

Improve Targeting

It extends the ability to gain clearer insight into stakeholder relationships and provides better targeting tools with:

• Entity Relationship flexibility – ability to create a relationship between two system entities that are not related out-of-the-box; many-to-many and self-referential relationships can also be created – latter useful for establishing parenting hierarchies. To illustrate, you could have a master Case that has child Cases related to it or you could have a parent Opportunity that is the source of additional sales Opportunities.
• Improved mail-merge facility – mail-merge templates now available with Word to create letters, faxes, e-mail messages or quotes. Templates can be re-used and data can be pulled into templates from multiple entities.

Flexible Reporting

It extends the ability to provide for more flexible reporting, performance measurement and accountability:

• Report Wizard – users can now create their own custom ad-hoc reports without IT support intervention. The Report Wizard enables data analysis by creating and editing new reports in Dynamics CRM. Report Wizard allows data to be grouped, summarised (e.g. total revenue) and presented in different formats: tables, graphs and charts.
• Out-of-the-box Activity Report – This is particularly useful for the sales and service management teams. It can provide information for example on number of customer contacts in a given period of time, or it can give a view of total number of interactions required to resolve a case.
• Workflow Access and Visibility – workflow in CRM 4.0 has a new Web-based user interface. Users no longer need to access the Microsoft Dynamics server to create, modify and monitor workflows. Users can now easily perform these actions on their own computers and utilise workflow life cycle which is based on the Windows Workflow Foundation - the same engine used in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
• Workflow Enhancements – you can now add many more record types within workflows. You can also write workflows that are triggered by update and delete events, and not just by assign, create and change status events. CRM 4.0 supports the use of multiple events to trigger a single workflow, rather than just one event. Also dynamic values in a workflow have been enhanced in 4.0 by the availability of a Form Assistant. Enhanced Conditionals include the addition of “else” statements to “if” and “then” and it’s now possible to include specific times and due dates within conditions.