External Team Emails in Outlook

A customer of mine is using the Events Management Accelerator, and wanted an easy way to create an Outlook email to the External team Members for a Campaign. So we developed a little utility in Outlook to enable this functionality:

We added a toolbar in Outlook:

and clicking the button shows a form which displays the current Campaigns

and then clicking a campaign loads all the External Team Members for that campaign

Clicking a name in the Team Members list adds it to the Email list, or clicking the "Add all" button adds all the team members to the email lsit

Clicking the Email button creates a new Outlook email with the To field populated with the Team Members.

Accounts Gadget for Windows 7

Hi all:

Here is a link to my CRM Accounts gadget for Windows 7....

http://thestraumanns.mine.nu/win7_accounts_gadget.zip




Please note if you download the gadget, in the files Accountsv4 and Contactsv4 the references to my server and CRM org must be changed to yours...

Here is a link to the CodeProject article

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/gadgets/DynamicsCRMGadget.aspx

XRM Accelerator 2 - Financials

Hi all:

Here is a screen for another XRM accelerator, this one is for financial services. This XRM package can aid your deployment of CRM if your business is in the financial services market.



A click-through PPT demo can be found on my SkyDrive:

http://cid-c986ac6b4918eaed.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/XRM

If you would like more information please contact us at john@straumanngroup.com. Cheers.


Cheers,


John.

HUH?!?!?

In trying to find a solution to a particularly irksome programming issue, I decided to download and check out the Silverlight SDK to see what might be. As part of the process I was asked to install the “Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0”…sure why not. However imagine my surprise when in the menu of applications I can install through this gizmo, appeared Sugar CRM!!

I realize Microsoft is a huge company and it is not always possible for everyone to know everything everyone else is doing, but should a Microsoft install program REALLY give users the option to install a competitor to one of its fastest growing products?!?! What’s next, an option to install Linux???

XRM Solution 1 - Staffing

Hello all:

I have been developing vertical solution accelerators on top of Dynamics CRM for years, and now this has an actual name in “XRM”. In the next series of articles I will be posting about Vertical Accelerators I have developed either alone or jointly. These accelerators can greatly aid a CRM deployment as they give us a head-start on deployment and can cut down on the overall configurations/customizations required for the project. Please contact us at john@straumanngroup.com if you would like more information on one of our accelerators.

In the next few weeks I will be posting articles on XRM for:

Staffing
Call Center
Financial Services
Insurance
Manufacturing
Municipals
Professional Services

This first post is for the Staffing/ Human Resources vertical, allowing a user to track candidates, job orders, resumes, etc.

I posted a “click-through” demo on my LiveDrive which shows some of the solution,

http://cid-c986ac6b4918eaed.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/XRM

and if you would like more information please contact us at john@straumanngroup.com.

Cheers.

John.

XRM: Sports Team Management

I help coach an Under-18 rugby team, and one of our challenges is compiling lists of players who are available for games. So I have started developing an XRM solution to help with this process. Eventually this is something that could be used by any amateur sports team to manage players, communications, etc. Here is a screen of the portal WIP…

CRM News Headlines

Hi all:

A customer recently asked about having a scrolling news headline display in CRM, so I mocked this up...

Dynamics CRM Record Locking

Hi all:

Another little project I have been hacking at, the ability to have a record "lock" when it is opened to avoid save collisions. So...

User A opens a record

User B opens the same record, it is "locked"...fields are read-only, buttons and action menu removed. Note that we could still create activities and all the functions on the Nav Bar, but hey this is a POC! :)

User A closes the record

User B can now edit

As long as user A has the record open, it will stay locked.

Outlook Utilities

Hi all:

I've also been working on some utilities for Outlook and CRM to enable enhanced usability of CRM functions from within Outlook.

The first screen shows a panel displaying CRM contacts when creating a new Outlook message, and mail recipients can be added to the "To" box by simply clicking a name.



The next screen shows the user receiving an email, and they can right-click and choose "Show CRM Contact" and the contact screen from CRM will load. This saves leaving the email, going to Sales, Clicking contacts, etc.

Dynamics CRM Dashboards

Hi all:

I've been working on creating some easily deployable dashbaords for Dynamics CRM, and here are some of the early WIPs...

Please feel free to contact me if you would like information on including my dashboards in your CRM deployment. john@straumanngroup.com

Dynamics CRM on the MAC

Since my wife INSISTS on using Macintosh computers, I have been developing an interface to Dynamics CRM that works on OS X.

It has been coming along so if you need to access Dynamics CRM from Apple machines please feel free to contact me! mailto:john@straumanngroup.%3Cremove%3E.com Please ntoe I am getting a lot of responses so I will get back to you ASAP.

Also note that I am also in progress for a version that works on the iPhone.

CRM on Windows 7

Hi all:


Of course I *had* to install Windows 7 Beta, and then I *had* to try to install CRM on it:

The install was very smooth...

***DISCLAIMER*** This post does NOT mean that CRM on Windows 7 is supported by Microsoft!!! Windows 7 is in Beta! Test this at your own risk.

Live Earth Views = a Forest of Billboards

Hi all:
The other day I was playing with Live Earth and it occurred to me that all those building tops are potential billboards. I thought it would be cool to start a company offering services to create rooftop advertising displays, but the logistics could be quite challenging.

So then I thought what about just using code to insert advertising images on the building tops in the images.

For example, this view shows the Microsoft Canada Head Office in Mississauga.



The next View shows the building, but with the Microsoft logo superimposed on the rooftop…

Hmmmm.