The normal why to create a primary contact in MSCRM is to add the contact to the account and then go back to the account and lookup the contact that you just added. You can simplify this a bit by filtering the lookup on primary contact for only contacts from the account (see: Filter Primary Contact for contact associated to Account in MSCRM.) If you use One Click Activity this process is as simple as clicking ‘Set Primary Contact’.
Set Primary Contact from the contact form(use this for new and existing contacts).
This is simple just create a contact, preferable from the account using One Click Activity create contact related to selected entry button. Make sure the contact has a parent account; save the contact (do not close the form). Then once the contact is saved click the One Click Activity ‘Set Primary Contact’ button and you will be prompted to set this contact as the primary for the account. If there is no parent account nothing happens. Note if the account is open you will need to refresh it (F5) to see the changes.
Set Primary Contact from the contact grid (use this for existing contacts).
This is simple just select a contact in the grid (main, associate or advance find). Click the One Click Activity ‘Set Primary Contact’ button and you will be prompted to set this contact as the primary for the account. If there is no parent account nothing happens. Note if the account is open you will need to refresh it (F5) to see the changes.
Completing Activities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM requires the user to open the activity and click save as complete. If you want to add additional information to the activity this is fine but it you just need to complete it why open the form? Also what if you have a number of activity that you have now finished and need to complete, you would need to open each activity and save as complete. Now you can complete multiple activities including: tasks, phone calls, email, fax, letter and appointments right from the any activity grid (main activity grid or associated grid) with icrm one click activity. The complete activity grid button from icrm one click activity first prompts you to make sure you want to complete the selected activities. This make sure you don’t accidentally complete activities as CRM does not let you un-complete any activity.
Which is the Right CRM Vendor for my Business over the last few years The CRM’s have been innovating and Expanding at very rapid rate and there are more and more companies Successfully Adopting CRM According to Gartner’ in 2008 Microsoft had the highest growth rate 75% followed by Sales Force .com at 42.7% and Oracle at 11.8%
Here is a review of top 5 most innovative CRM’s Vendors for Small to Meduim Sized Business’s
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed for dynamical business environment. Microsoft Dynamics CRM software provides a perfect CRM solution for those working with a Microsoft infrastructure.
The key to Microsoft’s CRM software is sales automation. The Dynamic CRM solution offers individualized sales reports with different set of data that managers and sales reps can access. The managers can view the progress of entire sales force and the sales reps can view the data important to them.
This CRM software simplifies the execution of campaigns and adds mobility to it. It optimizes, manages and tracks the marketing efforts. It offers the marketing analytics highlighting the key performances.
Moreover, the software is backed by efficient customer service that helps to create a distributed knowledge base that allows sharing of staff expertise.
Pros
Microsoft’s CRM solution offers an simple and easy to use interface. It offers extensive flexibility of use. The user can work on it from Microsoft Office Outlook, a Web browser, a Microsoft Office SharePoint portal, a custom portal, or even a mobile device.
Cons
Some of the standard features are missing like power dialing, voice messaging facilities and options for calling back customers.
Salesforce.com offers a web based CRM package. Salesforce CRM solution provides strong supports for tracking contacts, leads, and customer inquiries. It scores high on the reliability quotient and offers a full time, in-house support for businesses. The key modules of the system includes campaigns, leads, accounts and opportunities. The CRM software keeps the pipeline organized and full of qualified leads.
The prime features of salesforce CRM includes automation of marketing, customer service and support, sales force automation, documentation management, content management, contract management, Product catalog management, analytics and competitors.
Pros
What makes salesforce.com an ace CRM solution is its online access. It also provides excellent uptime.
Cons
The downside to salesforce is that for outsourcing it uses the ASPs (application service providers). If there are more customers to handle the ASP has to be used for longer time. This results in the increase of expenditure.
Sugar CRM The latest version of this open source software can run on Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system and SQL Server database.
Key features of Sugar CRM
Automates the sales force, allows tracking of sales opportunities
Assists in managing customer information
Enables sharing of customer information with co-workers
Generates informative reports for prioritizing the sales tasks.
The set up offers an easy to handle interface. It’s allows integration with Microsoft Outlook and Word. The customizable dashboard offers real time information about business performance. Moreover, bulk of customer data can be imported from other CRM tools such as Sales Force and ACT.
Pros
The most appealing feature of Sugar CRM is the affordability, its a perfect CRM solution for the budget conscious businesses. With an open source build-up, Sugar CRM allows the users to customize , integrate and extend the CRM application. The added functionality are always a plus.
Cons
The Sugar CRM is restricted to the small businesses. The CRM solution needs to improve on its pipelines, forecasts and reporting. Above all, the CRM software is yet to be the favorite with business application specialist.
Oracle offers four comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product lines that leverage enterprise data to drive profitable customer interactions. Oracle’s products cover the breadth of CRM functionality—from sales, marketing, and e-commerce, to customer service and analytics.
List of Oracle CRM Solutions
Siebel
PeopleSoft Enterprise
Oracle E-Business Suite
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
Telephony@Work CallCenterAnywhere
Pros
Simple to use; great for small business organizations
Good reporting and analysis
Excellent solution if you also use Oracle Financials or similar Oracle application solutions
Cons
Lacks feature sets and functionality depth of some other on-demand CRM solutions
Marketing and customer service modules are perceived as very weak
Oracle’s SAAS Uncertainty Prior to the Siebel acquisition, CEO Larry Ellison had publicly chastised the SaaS model and discounted its value and potential.
Maximizer CRM adapts to the way organizations work, and grows as a company’s business grows. Maximizer offers four editions, as well as several add-on modules and options for the solution that matches a company’s business needs. The right solution will depend on the number of users, access, and feature requirements.
Key Features
Completely Integrates Sales, Marketing and Customer Service and Support Management Solution
Simple & quick to deploy and use offering the lowest total cost of ownership in its class
Multiple access Options Mobile Devices, Desktop, Web or remote synchronization
Pros
Is simple and quick to deploy, learn, use and maintain
Provides multiple access options for today’s mobile workforce
Offers the best value in its class for full-featured CRM software
Ever need to link to the MSCRM icon? The icons are all stored in the _imgs folder off the main crm directory (note you should not include the organization name in the url). The name for the 16 by 16 icons are ico_16_{0}.gif where {0} is the Entity Type. I have not added custom icon so I am not sure if they follow the same format. Also note there are ico_18_{0}.gif and ico_lrg_{0}.gif
Here is an example of how to create a follwing associated gird on a entity form. The idea here is to put two embedded grids on the form and relate one to the other. An embedded grid is an associated grid embedded in an iFrame. This is great is a great way to see associated records without having to navigate to the associated view. To learn about embedded grids see Customer Effective Blog. The next step is to capture the “onselectionchange” event of the first grid and pass this id and type to the second grid. To learn about “onselectionchange” event see More CRM Grid Goodies: Detecting Click Event by Customer Effective Blog.
Here is how it is done.
First add a parent iFrame and a child iFrame to the form. These will hold the embedded grids, set the src to “about:blank”. Now will start adding code to the On_Load event of the form.
function GetFrameSource(tabSet)
{
if (crmForm.ObjectId != null)
{
var oId = crmForm.ObjectId;
var oType = crmForm.ObjectTypeCode;
var security = crmFormSubmit.crmFormSubmitSecurity.value;
return “areas.aspx?oId=” + oId + “&oType=” + oType + “&security=” + security + “&tabSet=” + tabSet;
}
else
return “about:blank”;
}
}
The GetFrameSource function get the url for the current form for the set tabSet.
function GetFrameSourceID(oId, oType, tabSet)
{
if (crmForm.ObjectId != null)
{
var security = crmFormSubmit.crmFormSubmitSecurity.value;
return “areas.aspx?oId=” + oId + “&oType=” + oType + “&security=” + security + “&tabSet=” + tabSet;
}
else
{
return “about:blank”;
}
}
The GetFrameSourceID get the url for the parent grid row. You need to pass the id of the current entity in the grid as well as the typeid of the entity.
var bFired = false;
GridClick = function()
{
// check to see if this event has been fired already
if(bFired == false)
{
var frameDoc = document.getElementById(”IFRAME_parent”).contentWindow.document;
var crmGrid = frameDoc.all['crmGrid'];
var a = crmGrid.InnerGrid.SelectedRecords;
if (a.length > 0)
{
//Get the url to set for the child grid. Note we are always using the first selected value if more than one is selected.
crmForm.all.IFRAME_child.src = GetFrameSourceID(a[0][0],a[0][1],”new_new_remoteaddressbook_new_maxexchangepack”);
}
bFired = true;
}
else
{
// toggle our fired flag back
bFired = false;
}
}
The GridClick function will be called each time a row is selected.
The AttachGridEvent attaches the GridClick event to the grid onselectionchange event. The challange here is we can not attach to the grid in the iFrame until the grid is loaded (readyState == “complete”). To do this we attach the GridClick event on the change of ready state and only add it if the readyState == “complete”.
and you will be prompted to set this contact as the primary for the account. If there is no parent account nothing happens. Note if the account is open you will need to refresh it (F5) to see the changes.
and you will be prompted to set this contact as the primary for the account. If there is no parent account nothing happens. Note if the account is open you will need to refresh it (F5) to see the changes.
