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Driving Dynamics CRM 3.0 User Adoption
Gaining user acceptance and adoption of Dynamics CRM can, of course, be greatly increased with proper instruction and training.
I have begun to notice a pattern in acceptance should you be installing CRM into an organization that does not currently utilize Outlook, or uses it minimally.
If the user isn't familiar and comfortable with Outlook, installing the CRM Outlook client can confuse the heck out of them. This is caused by the fact that once the Outlook client is installed, the user now has at least two different methods to do many things. And, if they don't know where Outlook ends, and where the CRM client begins, it can lead to more than a little bit of frustration as they attempt to determine the correct way to do something.
But doesn't everyone use Outlook?
Not as much as you think, especially in smaller organizations, and especially if they don't have Exchange installed. Either they use Outlook Express for email or use Outlook and then, only for email. That means that things many of us take for granted, like: Contacts, Scheduling, and Shared or Group Calendars are totally new and different. New and different many times is translated into "scary" and scary is bad.
Working through the issues
Here is one approach that I think will work in many organizations who make little or no use of Outlook.
1) Take time to know and understand the product knowledge-level of user community.
2) Perform a phased implementation and get the user working and productive with Outlook before CRM is implemented.
3) Have you or your staff be physically present during this initial phase so that people can ask stupid and embarrassing questions.
Note: There are no such things as stupid and embarrassing questions, but people still think they exist.
4) Perform a simple, quarter or half-day group training session so people can get an exposure to the product.
5) Engage with the users one-on-one, to provide personalized responses to questions and issues.
People will generally react much better to personal coaching than group training and will tend to ask better and more questions when outside of the group setting.
6) By this point you have probably finished your CRM installation, configuration, and customization activities and it is now time to roll-out the CRM Outlook client.
7) Repeat steps 3 through 5 and outline the differences between Outlook and CRM and discuss in detail how the two products work together.
8) Have users keep a notepad to document questions and concerns as they use the system.
9) Perform frequent visits to each user's office to review and address any questions and concerns they may have document in their notepad.
While these steps may not handle everything you encounter, I think it covers most of the issues that I've seen in the past couple CRM implementations.
If you have experiences of your own that you would like to share, please leave a comment.
Dynamics CRM, Installation, Outlook Client
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)2,379 views
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Creating a Team in Dynamics CRM 3.0
One of the things that I recently started adding to my CRM installation process was to create a team called Everyone.
And why, do you ask, do we need a team called Everyone? Well, it's rather simple. It is less maintenance in the long run to assign shared records within CRM to a Team, than it is to assign them to individual users.
Here is how the Team creation process works:
Creating the Everyone Team:
1) From the CRM Web Client, select Settings, Business Unit Settings, Teams.
2) Specify the Team Name as Everyone and give it a Description, as shown below:
3) Click the Save button.
4) Under Details, Click Members.
5) Click the Add Members button.
6) Enter any search criteria you wish, or leave the Look for: box blank.
7) Click the Find button to display CRM users that match your criteria.
8) Select the users you would like to add to the group ( generally all of them ) and click the >> button.
9) Click OK.
10) When you are returned to the Member List, click the Save and Close button.
That is how you create a Team in Dynamics CRM 3.0. In the next article we'll discuss how to utilize our newly created team.
Customization, Dynamics CRM, Installation
(No Ratings Yet)1,898 views Loading ... -
Dynamics CRM 3.0: Reinstalling the CRM Server
A couple of months ago I was working on a CRM installation when I noticed an Event Log message that was similar to the following:
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: SQLSERVERAGENT
Event Category: Job Engine
Event ID: 208
Date: 8/18/2006
Time: 7:00:01 AM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
SQL Server Scheduled Job 'Start_Incremental on Company_Name_Inc__MSCRM.ftcat_documentindex.[7.5]' (0×00000000000000000000000000000000) – Status: Failed – Invoked on: 2006-08-18 07:00:01 – Message: The job failed. The Job was invoked by Schedule 41 (Indexed Document Title Schedule). The last step to run was step 1 (Full-Text Indexing).We had come into the customer after another partner had installed and removed CRM. It turns out that the above message was caused by an artifact left over from the previous installation.During installation, the installation program will replace any invalid characters in the Organization Name with an underscore, and used that modified name for creating the databases and other items within SQL.The initial installation was created with the Organization Name of "Company Name Inc." which was converted to "Company_Name_Inc_" when the SQL objects were created.My installation was created with "Company Name Inc" which translated into "Company_Name_Inc".
Somewhere along the line, one of the CRM maintenance tasks was left running from the previous installation. Since the database it worked against no longer existed, it generated a warning each time it attempted to start.
The solution was to locate the improper task and delete it, using the following steps:
( Assuming SQL 2000 )
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Open SQL Server Enterprise Manager
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Expand Management
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Expand SQL Server Agent
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Click on Jobs
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The Job that contains an Organizational Name that doesn't match the Organization Name in the other Jobs needs to be deleted
Dynamics CRM, Installation (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)1,927 views Loading ... -
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Popups, Popups, Popups
I got burned ( or actually slightly toasted ) by popup blockers that were keeping CRM from functioning properly.
I encountered it on one of my test boxes after installing the Google toolbar and at a new customer after installing Trend Micro's solution.
At last count the following vendors and technologies had some form of pop-up blocker:
- Internet Explorer ( SP2 )
- MSN Toolbar
- Google Toolbar
- Yahoo Toolbar
- Trend Micro anti-everything
- Symantec anti-everything
- [ and I am sure McAfee falls into that as well ]
So the lesson learned here is to always keep in mind that pop-up blockers can come from anywhere and you need to keep on top of it. Especially if you are in a situation where you may not be in control of the systems or systems software.
Dynamics CRM, Installation (No Ratings Yet)1,737 views Loading ... -
Dynamics CRM 3.0: Adding a user-friendly CRM URL
As you probably know by now, if you instructed the CRM installation application to create a new web site on which to host CRM, it will assign it the port 5555, which requires the users to type in a fairly complicated URL to access CRM: http://myserver:5555.
This exercise will solve that problem by creating a standard URL called CRM.
On the CRM Server, perform the following steps:
1) Open Internet Information Services Manager.
2) Double-click on the Web Server's name.
3) Double-click on Web Sites.
4) Right click on Microsoft CRM v3.0 ( which should be your CRM web site ).
5) Select Properties to display the web site properties dialog:
6) Click the Advanced button to display the Advanced Web Site Identification dialog:
7) Click the Add button to display Add/Edit Web Site Identification dialog.
8) In the TCP Port edit box, enter 80.
9) In the Host Header value edit box, enter crm. The dialog should look like:
10) Click OK, three times, then exit IIS Manager.
11) Launch the DNS Management console.
12) Double-click your main DNS server.
13) Double-click Forward Lookup Zones
14) Right-click your domain's internal address name.
15) Select New Alias (CNAME).
16) In the Alias name edit box, enter crm.
17) In the Fully qualified domain name edit box, enter the full path to your CRM Server, like this:
18) Click Ok.
19) Right-click on your main DNS Server name.
20) Select Clear Cache.
21) Close the DNS Manager.
That is pretty much it.
Final Note: You need to add http://crm to the Local Intranet zone for all CRM workstations. This can be done manually, or though an Active Directory Group policy.
Dynamics CRM, Installation (No Ratings Yet)3,676 views Loading ... -
Dynamics CRM 3.0: Exchange Server Setup
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM team had a good article on the proper setup of Outgoing CRM email.
One additional step that needs to be performed if your Exchange Server is not on the same physical computer as CRM is to instruct the Exchange SMTP service to allow the CRM server to Relay outbound email through it.
Note: These steps mostly apply to CRM Professional installations where you are have decided to use a different server other than the CRM server to send outbound email.
A CRM SBE will have everything on one server so for normal SBE installations, this will not be an issue.
Background:As a security measure, Exchange 2003 does not allow other servers to relay SMTP email though its SMTP server unless specifically instructed to do so. This prevents unauthorized email traffic that can turn your Exchange server into a SPAM host.
The Procedure:
From the Exchange Sever, start the Exchange System Manager application and follow these steps:
1) Double-click on Servers
2) Double-click on the Exchange Server
3) Double-click Protocols
4) Double-click SMTP
5) Right-click on Default SMTP Virtual Server
6) Select Properties
7) Click the Access Tab
8) Click the Relay button
9) The Only the list below radio button should be checked, as shown below:
10) Add your CRM server's TCP/IP address to the list of Computers that are Granted Access.
11) Click OK.
12) Test by sending an email from the CRM web client to one of your test contacts.If you don't follow this procedure, the Exchange Server will simply ignore any outbound SMTP email from the CRM Server and no one will be notified.
Final Note:
If email is still not flowing, make sure your Exchange Server ( the computer account, itself ) is part of the PrivUserGroup that CRM created within Active Directory.
Dynamics CRM, Installation (No Ratings Yet)6,151 views Loading ... -
Dynamics CRM 3.0 Installation Notes
When you install CRM 3.0, the installation logs are written to a directory under the installation user's Documents and Settings directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Microsoft\MSCRM\Logs
You should make a backup of these files because they contain a ton of information related to the choices made during the setup process.
Basically, every question you answered during Setup, including the product key, is written to those logs and should you ever need to recover or recreate an installation, that information will come in handy.
Dynamics CRM, Installation (1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)1,865 views Loading ...
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