CRM Consultants need a deep and broad skill set

I am SO TIRED of getting pinged by headhunters with NO IDEA of what it takes to be a good CRM consultant trying to put people on projects for junior rates. This morning I got pinged by someone looking for a SENIOR lead for a CRM v4->2011 upgrade project, and they wanted to pay $50/hr! I made that on my first job right out of school!

To be a successful CRM consultant a person must have skills in:
Windows Server
Active Directory
SQL Server
Exchange (and other mail servers)
IIS
Web and Network protocols
Firewalls and Security
Microsoft .NET and software development
Client side products such as IE, Office, etc.

As well as soft skills in business analysis and design, application architecture, project management, communication, project documentation, etc.

Further, with the current trend of the “consumerization of IT”, you also need to know a lot about the competing platforms such as Apple, Linux, etc., and of course the entire range of mobile devices that people might want to connect to their IT network and CRM.

If you a CRM consultant and have expertise and actual project experience in all these subject areas, as I do, then PLEASE DO NOT work for $50/hr! If you do you might think you’re being competitive by cutting your rate, but really all you’re doing is diluting the rates for all of us and marginalizing your skills and experience. If you cannot sell your services for a decent rate, then please go find a job in another industry. I have worked far too long and hard on my skills and experiences to not be fairly compensated. In thinking of a fair rate for yourself, note that a Microsoft Partner will likely charge between $150-$200/hr for a senior CRM consultant.
Oh and by-the-way, passing certification exams DOES NOT make you a CRM consultant. The exams are sets of questions that can be easily studied for, and in no way prepare a consultant for complex real-world project implementations. The only way to prepare for projects is to actually work on several projects and face the myriad variables that will be inevitable in different businesses and IT environments.

If you’re a customer implementing CRM or considering an implementation, or a head hunter looking to staff a CRM project, PLEASE take the time to educate yourself as to the skill set a good CRM consultant needs to have (send me a note and I’ll be happy to help you). Ask meaningful interview questions, a question like “When working with plugins how does parent pipeline mode differ from child pipeline mode” is meaningless and can be looked up in the SDK in a second. A better question is to ask “Tell me about a challenge you faced on one of your projects where you were forced to use plugins, and how did you implement the plugins to successfully meet the project deliverable?”

The key here, fellow CRM consultants, is not cutting your rates, but providing real VALUE for the rates you do charge. I have seen many projects fail when a customer brings in the cheapest rate they can find, and they end up spending far more money in the long run to bring in a truly experience consultant to fix the project.

Remember:
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur!! - Red Adair

Windows 8 Metro CRM Contacts App

Hi all:

Just playing around with the Windows 8 Developer Preview and decided to try to create a Metro App to display CRM Contacts. I know Metro Apps are meant more for consumers rather than LOB, but as Social Networks and Business Networks continue to converge Apps like this will become more relevant. The GUI needs some work but here is a screen of the App in action (Contact info hidden):

A new challenge!

No, not CRM 2011, I decided to take on a physical challenge! After years of doing the same routines for weights and cardio, I wanted to make some major changes. So I cancelled my membership at my Gym, bought a Hoist V-Core home gym, and embarked on the P90X journey.
I am now at Day 20, going into recovery week, and after that I start with doubles! So far I have found the program to be very well designed and some of the workouts, like YogaX, are things I have never done and are kicking my butt. Here are some pictures of my new setup

http://thestraumanns.mine.nu/home/p90x.html

and yes that is Windows 7 Media Center being used to play the videos. I am also updating my progress on Twitter, follow me at @johnstraumann. Who knows there might even be a CRM post in there sometime!

My skills

Hi all:

I haven't posted anything in a while so I thought "Why not a bit of self-promotion!" :)

Here is a list of some of my skills and experiences, as well as some products and add-ons for Dynamics CRM I have available:

- Experience with Cocoa, Mac OSX, iPod/iPhone application development
- Experience with Computer Asscoiates ITCM
- Experience with InstallShield 2010
- 7 years experience with Microsoft CRM
- Skilled in all areas of Dynamics CRM including: practice building/management, pre-sales architecture presentations, strategic business process analysis, Dynamics CRM implmentations including any required customizations.
- 7 years experience with Java/Notes/Linux
- 8 years experience with Microsoft technologies
- 10 years experience pre-sales engineering
- excellent communications skills
- excellent presentation skills

CRM ISV Solutions available for sale
Modules
- Financial Services Accelerator
-Professional Services Accelerator
- Staffing Accelerator
- Municipal Accelerator
- RFP Management Accelerator

Web Portals, Add-Ons and Plugins
- Outlook group mailing list addon
- Outlook “auto contact” addon
- contract auto-renewal plugin
- Auto-numbering plugin
- Web lead
- Service portal
- extended views
- extended views Excel Export
- SharePoint integrations
- Custom Dashboards

.NET/General Programming Experience
•Experience with Agile Scrum software development
•Extensive experience with Dynamics CRM since v1
•Experience in all facets of CRM projects including pre-salessolutions architecture, business process design, andconfigurations and customizations.
•Custom Outlook plugins
•Integration to Microsoft platform products such as SharePoint
•Integration to 3rd party applications
•Portal development
•Utility development
•Workflow/plugins development
•Integration with Java/J2EE applications
•Custom Dashboards

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.

I am a PC

To MAC lovers everywhere I have asked "If they wanted to do a commerical to show Mac users are cool, then why did they not pick a cool guy to be in the commerical??" IMO the MAC guy is a geek and doesn't make me think of Macs as cool machines.

My wife has a MAC G5 and a PowerBook, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that her machines are also no more reliable, no faster, no more resistant to crashes, etc., than an average PC.

Now the Windows team is calling on you to join the "I am a PC" campaign...

http://imapc.lifewithoutwalls.com/

IAMAPC...

Setting up a “mirror” of a production environment for dev/testing

I recently needed to set up a “mirror” of a production system for use in development and testing. I had worked with the Redeployment tool in CRM v3 and I was interested to see how v4 worked. I was very happy when the v4 tool was *very* easy to use, and here are the steps I followed.

1. Used SQL 2005 to do a backup of the CRM v4 production databases
2. Using the VPC image distributed by Microsoft, I copied the .bak file to the VPC. I then did a restore of the database files to the VPC SQL instance. For some reason the SQL GUI did not work, so I used the following command (Names changed):
restore database OrgName_MSCRM from disk='C:\Temp\OrgName_MSCRM.bak' WITH MOVE 'OrgName_MSCRM' TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ OrgName _MSCRM.mdf', MOVE ' OrgName _MSCRM_log' TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ OrgName _MSCRM_log.LDF'

3. Once the DB was successfully restored on the VPC image, I fired up the CRM Deployment Manager, right-clicked on the “Organizations” item, and selected “Import Organization”
4. The next step asked me to specify the SQL server, and as soon as I did that the deployment manager found the organization I wanted to import
5. The next screen asked me for a name and a display name
6. Next input was the report server URL
7. The next steps involved the mapping of users. There are several options for this tep, I chose to simply “Manually Map Users”, and the only user I mapped was the Administrator which was mapped to the Litwareinc Administrator on the VPC. I got a warning that “All users are not mapped. Do you wish to continue?” and just clicked “Yes”
8. The next screen was simply the tasks verification screen, so I clicked “Next” and then on the next screen “Import”
9. And that was it! It took a bit of time and at the end I am able to access the org via http://moss:5555/orgname/loader.aspx

You can see the screens here but please note names are hidden:

http://www.mscrmguy.com/redeploy/redeploy.html

GM OnStar

Continuing the OnStar story, my wife got set up with GM and received this report via email. Click here for a full size shot!

This service rocks.