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Posts from the ‘Customer Relationship Management CRM’ Category

Apr 10

Time Matters at the Web and I

The Web and I Masters Time Matters

The Web and I is working on a special installation of Time Matters for an esteemed attorney client. Time Matters is a Customer Relationship Management product from Lexis Nexis designed especially for attorneys.

The Software

One of the differences is that there is an entity called the Matter or Case which tracks court cases and legal matters. There are built-in roles for most of the parties a law office will deal with, and there is strong billing capability built right in. Some of the third-party document generating programs attorneys like to use like Hot Docs and others are supported by Time Matters.  There is robust synchronization between Time Matters and Outlook as well. Once installed, maintenance can be done remotely. In fact this client we are installing Time Matters for now is over a thousand miles away! What we can do is install and load the software with all data, customizations, and options, and then all you need to do is plug it in. No technical support needed, other than us, and we can log in remotely and fix problems. Repairs, as you will see under hardware, can be done by anyone in the office.

We are not affiliated with Lexis Nexis except that we install and service their products, so I did not go to their advertising place to say something nice about Time Matters. I really love the synchronization capabilities, the interactivity with document tools my clients already like and use, the wonderful service at Lexis Nexis if there is a problem and one more important feature. Regular Customer Relationship Management software does not include anything to perform or track legal research. So many attorneys are already using Lexis Nexis as their legal research source. Right in the software you can simply hit the Lexis Nexis buttons and do your legal research and have it attached to the case record.  For an attorney, this is a great gift and time saver.

The Hardware

The Dell PowerEdge T620 has a 9 Terabyte SAS Hard Drive Array with a special hardware controller. This means that the RAID services are done through firmware and the drives are set at the BIOS level: that level of machine that is below the operating system and resides on the motherboard itself in chips. That special combination of drives and a RAID Array Controller help provide fault-tolerant, redundant, and speedy disk service. The drives are also hot-swappable. If my client has an outage, an employee needs to simply pull out the bad drive and plug-in a fresh one, all without shutting down the server. The same is true for the power supplies. The twin 750 watt power supplies can also prevent failure. For power failures, there is power backup that will automatically shut everything down safely. For those that want to keep  a small office going and don’t mind a 2000 lb battery system, I can keep your office of ten running for an afternoon. Power failures being rare enough not to cause the loss of significant work in most offices, so a smaller system is fine. Larger companies are best served by a large battery backup and a diesel generator. We can source, deliver, and install these as part of your total disaster management plan. In addition, we recommend off-site backup. This ensures that in a disaster your server and everyone’s work can be up and running in one business day in case of the complete destruction of your facility. We never let our clients lose their data. Memory and CPU power is also important, sporting 24 cores of Xeon processing power, the model we are using has 16 GB of fault-tolerant RAM.

The database

The database is Microsoft SQL Server 2012. This is a wonderfully reliable and robust database, and it stores not only your data but all of the case documents you store in Time Matters. The 2012 Edition is the latest from Microsoft and considered the industry standard by most credible systems engineers.

To find out more, call one of our experts at (646) 853-0573.

Feb 15

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Polaris Update

One of the best things about using Microsoft Online products, besides their unprecedented reliability and functionality, is the fact that they are always innovating. Microsoft has big plans for Microsoft Dynamics CRM this year, and they are going to wow us with a great many new features and functionality. This is not only to enable greater productivity through the features directly, but the idea is to expand the interest for users as well as the number of devices they can use to work with CRM. Consider this the first in a series of many updates of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and new capabilities.

Starting at the end of January and continuing today, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is implementing a new update that will affect all users. Microsoft reporters had stated that users would be given a choice of when and how these updates are applied, but these updates are actually applied behind the scenes, with users experiencing features one way on one day, and then the next day they return to improved features. Microsoft is very smart about how they apply the updates,  because changes and their functionality tend to be intuitive to the end users, requiring no formal explanation.

Part of the rollout that is the most exciting is the addition of support for new browsers. Now users can use Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Chrome, Safari, and Firefox including on the Mac. Before, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was not usable on the Mac, and this update is very major because of the sheer number of choices that are now available for using this application.

As a result of this update, users will be able to run Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online on their I-Pads. This is a major plus because of the strong adoption of the I-Pad.

Another significant feature that was added was support for Skype and Lync. With these applications, enterprises can have click-to-call capability, which I wrote about in my article yesterday.

Other updates for CRM were designed to provided added capability to deal with the new features in Microsoft Office 2013.

Many know that Microsoft purchased the enterprise social network Yammer, and many wonder how that would integrate with other applications on desktops or servers. Microsoft has with this update integrated Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Yammer. This will help larger organizations have internal social networking and collaboration in a manner in which users tend to like to work.

Microsoft is not stopping there either. Microsoft is working on new updates that will be available for mid 2013 that include:

  • A native Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Windows 8 application.
  • A native Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Windows Phone 8 application.

Eventually we will see newer and more exciting features, and some of these are already known to this author. I will write more this week about the exciting things that users can expect in Microsoft Dynamics CRM  Online.

In the meanwhile, if you want to talk about any of these great new features or about anything else Microsoft related, give us a call for an informal conversation at 646-853-0573.

Dec 15

Business Contact Manager or Solutions
1 Comment

Microsoft Outlook Business Contact Manager CRM

A little-known built-in feature of Microsoft Office as it is installed from a disk rather than with Office 365 is that there is a free included light CRM (Customer Relationship Management) feature known as Microsoft Outlook Business Contact Manager CRM. Although we push people to the cloud and recommend Office 365 with Dynamics CRM to our clients, some already have Microsoft Office 2010 installed from a disk. They wish to benefit from CRM and some of the collaborative features to increase productivity. Here is some information about  that little-known product.

Business Contact Manager Training

Starting to use Business Contact Manager 2010 for Outlook / Exchange is not merely installing a new piece of familiar software for users: it is an enterprise product that has the potential to transform business by enriching the data collected on contacts, refining your marketing efforts, and allowing your sales and marketing team members to collaborate as a team on the same shared set of data. Business Contact Manager 2010 is a form of Customer Relationship Management software, or CRM. CRM Software is enterprise grade collaborative software, and proper use requires a brief re-training of staff as well as a re-engineered business process.

Since the early 1990’s, information workers in sales and marketing have become used to working alone, each with their own set of leads. Sometimes the leads even overlapped between salespeople, because of inclusion in multiple lists as duplicates. Sales leaders contact many people, and they collected a great deal of information about the businesses in question. Once the campaign is closed, this business information is lost. Other employees who receive a call from well-documented prospects would not have any information collected nor would they know which persons’ lead they had received a call from. Sales staff would not get proper credit, and information collected was not in place across the organization to impress the client. Clients do not wish to provide their information more than once. If they have to, it tends to make them less confident about your business. Customer Relationship Management software like Business Contact Manager keeps this information shared, allowing you to respond quickly to clients needs and to use your sales efforts to enrich your contact database with the best available information. Some information may be collected by cold calling. Other information may come into inside sales about the same contact through a different employee. Both sets of information get recorded about the same company and person, and everyone in the organization can see the complete results of all information collected as well as their communication record and all sales and marketing activities involved.

Training is the most effective way to get started. Your employees will not just learn the basics of learning a new type of software, rather the business process will be adapted to a new way of thinking and doing business: a collaborative and more efficient way.

Here are some of the important topics I can cover in two days of training for your staff. Much of the content and guidance below has been provided by Microsoft.

Find Business Contact Manager in Outlook

This is how you can get started by opening the program in Outlook:

  • In the Navigation Pane, under Business Contact Manager. (Click the Business Contact Manager folder to display the Business Contact Manager Dashboard.)

Find Business Contact Manager in Outlook

-or-

  • In the Navigation Pane, click the Business Contact Manager or Solutions button.

Business Contact Manager or Solutions

Here, Business Records is visible beneath the Business Contact Manager folder, as well as the Welcome Center, Contact Management, Sales, Marketing, Project Management, and Deleted Items folders.

Additional features and options are found in the Backstage view, on the Business Contact Manager tab.

Business Contact Manager folders

The folders beneath Business Contact Manager provide alternative representations of your data.

If you haven’t already added your own business data, try using the sample business database. Click the File tab.

Click the Business Contact Manager tab. Click Manage Databases, and then click Switch to Sample Business.

Click See
1 Business Contact Manager The Business Contact Manager Dashboard. View up-to-the-minute information about your business in the gadgets. Gadgets graphically display information from the various records of Business Contact Manager for your analysis. For information about the Dashboard, see Track important business details on the Dashboard later in this article.
Welcome Center Welcome Center An overview of Business Contact Manager for Outlook features and introductory videos. For more information about the Welcome Center, see Learn about Business Contact Manager in the Welcome Center later in this article.
Contact Management Contact Management The Contact Management workspace to give you quick access to Account, Business Contact, and Lead records, and gadgets that display the information you want to see.
Sales Sales The Sales workspace which gives you quick access to your Opportunity and Lead records. Use the records to review your potential sales and customers. The gadgets display up-to-the-minute sales information.
Marketing Marketing The Marketing workspace to plan and view the marketing activities that promote your business. The gadgets display information about your marketing activities.
Project Management Project Management The Project Management workspace. Keep up with your Business Projects and their related tasks.
Deleted Items Deleted Items The Deleted Items folder holds records deleted from Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can only be emptied by the owner of the Business Contact Manager database.
Search Folders Search Folders Folders, such as Business Leads, that list the records that match the criteria that you specify. Search Folders are automatically updated.

The Business Records folder

  • To open the Business Records folder, in the Navigation Pane, click the Business Contact Manager or Solutions button, and then click Business Records.

The Business Records folder contains folders that display a list of each type of record: Accounts; Business Contacts; Opportunities; Marketing Activities; Business Projects and Project Tasks; and Communication History items.

 Note   Leads are included in the Business Contacts folder because they are a type of Business Contact.

Click See
Business Records Business Records The Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, Marketing Activities, Business Projects, and Projects Tasks, and Communication History folders that display lists of the records of the selected type. Note   Lead records are included in the Business Contacts folder because they are a type of Business Contact.
Accounts Accounts A list of all Accounts, and any records that are based on the Account record type.View, edit, or add new Accounts and Account record types to this list.
Business Contacts Business Contacts A list of all Business Contacts, Leads, and any records that are based on the Business Contact record type.View, edit, or add new Business Contacts, and Business Contact record types to this list.
Opportunities Opportunities A list of all Opportunities.View, edit, or add new Opportunities to this complete list.
Marketing Activities Marketing Activities A list of all marketing activities such as call lists and mass e-mail campaigns.Create, view, or edit any marketing activity.
Business Projects Business Projects Create, view, or edit a Business Project.Click the Project Tasks folder to view the related tasks.
Project Tasks Project Tasks Create and link Project Tasks to Business Projects, and view or edit Project Tasks.
Communication History Communication History A list of all communication history items, such as Opportunities, Business Projects, e-mail messages, appointments, and meetings.
Deleted Items Deleted Items The Deleted Items folder holds records deleted from Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can only be emptied by the owner of the Business Contact Manager database.

The Welcome Center

Once you complete the Startup Wizard, the Welcome Center opens. Use it to find a wealth of introductory information about Business Contact Manager for Outlook. Click a category on the wheel to see a brief description about that area. Watch a short video for an overview of how you can use Business Contact Manager for Outlook to help you keep track of your business information.

Or, click one of the Getting Started cards in the lower half of the Welcome Center for more details, videos, and links to articles about the features that interest you. Use the arrows to scroll through the cards.

You can return to the Welcome Center any time you like. Just click the Welcome Center folder in the Navigation Pane under Business Contact Manager.

Track important business details on the Dashboard

With just a glance at the gadgets on the Dashboard in Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you can see your business’s earnings potential, the current and future workload on staff, and which marketing activities are producing results for your business. The Dashboard can display up to 20 gadgets charting the sales, marketing activities, projects, and tasks of your business.

Use the Ribbon to add the gadgets that you want to see on the Dashboard. Drag the gadgets to rearrange them, or click the View tab on the Ribbon to add or remove columns from the Dashboard. It’s your view to customize.

Use the Business Contact Manager workspaces

Each Business Contact Manager for Outlook workspace includes a gadgets area and section for tabs. The commands are slightly different for each of the workspaces. Generally, they each include commands that enable you to create new records, edit them, and set up some kind of communication, such as send an e-mail message.

Display a workspace

In the Navigation Pane, under Business Contact Manager, click one of the following folders to display the workspace:

  • Contact Management.
  • Sales.
  • Marketing.
  • Project Management.

Display Workspace

  1. In the gadgets area, display key business metrics in charts and graphs to get a quick view of the state of your business. You can show or hide the gadgets area as well as add or remove gadgets.
  2. In the tabs area, you can manage, review, and analyze your business data. Each tab is comprised of a list of records, and a Reading or Preview Pane. The Reading Pane displays information from sections in a selected record.
  3. The tabs list the records that you want to see, such as the Opportunities or Leads records shown. You can add a tab for any record type to any workspace by clicking the Create New Tab button.
  4. In the Reading or Preview Pane, you can view selected sections from an individual record. To change the sections that are included, click Select Sections.

Change Business Contact Manager settings and options or get help

To change settings for some features, or perform tasks such as sharing or backing up your database, importing or exporting data, or get Help from newsgroups or other users, go to the Backstage view.

  1. Click the File tab.
  1. Click the Business Contact Manager tab.
  2. Do the following:
    • To perform a task. such as sharing the database, that affects all of Business Contact Manager, click one of the buttons.
    • To get help from Microsoft or from the Business Contact Manager community, under Getting Help, click one of the options.

For more information about the options in the Backstage view, see Set options and use features in the Backstage view.

More features

We’ve come a long way from the Rolodex®. Today, your business records contain a rich set of searchable data that can be of immense help in running your business. Plus, the tools in Business Contact Manager for Outlook go even farther because you can use them to visualize your data in gadgets, reports, and charts, and take the data with you to help you be more productive when you’re out of the office.

Search your business records

Searching your business records is a quick way to find a single record or group of records. Your 10 most recent search strings are automatically saved for easy re-use.

Filter your records

Applying a filter to a set of data or records allows you to display only information that meets a specified criteria. Filters make it easy to retrieve a single record or a set of records that have common characteristics. Filtering a list or report is a great way to produce a lists for a marketing activity, sales calls, or other business activity.

Use gadgets

In Business Contact Manager for Outlook, gadgets display key business metrics and information on your Dashboard or the Contact Management, Sales, Marketing, and Project Management workspaces.

Create reports and charts

A report is an excellent tool for gaining insight into your Accounts, Business Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Business Projects, and marketing activities. You can open more than 60 standard reports in Business Contact Manager for Outlook, and can also modify, save, update, and reuse an almost unlimited number of additional reports.

Export your business records

You can export your business records and use them in other programs, such as Microsoft Excel. For example, you may want to export a copy of the data in a single report to Excel for deeper analysis.

Go mobile

You can take your business data with you when you leave the office: on your laptop, or on your phone. You can also access Business Contacts by signing in to Outlook Web Access if you have turned on the Business Contact Synchronization feature. For information about taking your business data with on your laptop, see Work offline using Business Contact Manager.

Oct 5

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
3 Comments

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Office 365: Perfect Together

Microsoft Office 365 is turning into a true business standard software like no other. Microsoft Office has been the business productivity software of choice, and with companies trying to lower information technology costs and increasing capabilities, more businesses large and small are turning to Microsoft Office 365. What is unusual is that businesses are not only turning to the Office 365 cloud for the increased capabilities: business find that the cost of Office 365 is the same as buying Microsoft Office on a disk version and upgrading with each new version. That means that offices are really getting SharePoint Server, Exchanges Server, and Lync Server and the technical management of the services are all included at no cost at all. SharePoint provides document storage and collaboration for offices large and small. Lync offers video and audio teleconferencing as well as enterprise IM, over secure channels. Lync also has presence enabled so you can track your employees and know who is working, who is idle, and who is not there at all. Exchange Server with legally compliant archiving gives your users a professional mailbox of massive size and perfect reliability, while protecting your company with a legally compliant archive, which saves everything that gets deleted. Other sophisticated uses for Exchange and Outlook abound, including mobile use. Microsoft Office desktop software by subscription always ensures that your users have proper licenses and the best and most current version of Microsoft Office at all times. Unlike the disk version of Microsoft Office, which now lets you install to only one device, the Microsoft Office 365 Desktop Version of Microsoft Office allows your users to have Office on up to five devices, leaving them no excuse for not taking home unfinished work!

What most people do not realize about Microsoft Office 365 is that it is designed as core functionality for users, but that all of the other great server programs like Microsoft Dynamic CRM, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Project Server, among others, have been developed in a cloud form with facilities to interface to the capabilities of Office 365. This provides the benefits of a single sign-on with the actual integration of server applications. The first enterprise server software to be integrated with Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers services that dovetail with the capabilities of all of the Office 365 software. Dynamics CRM shows you who in your business is signed in and working at the time by showing a green light next to their name, a yellow light if they are idle for some minutes, and a red light if they are gone. This capability of presence comes from Lync. It is even available in reports that can be seen and printed from CRM. Enterprises and small companies can see what is happening in real-time. Dynamics CRM also integrates with Exchange server and Desktop Outlook. CRM uses Outlook and Exchange to send and receive messages, which are then recorded into the CRM records of the appropriate contacts and accounts. CRM helps clean and maintain a single standardized list of contacts and companies, which is then shared in Outlook and in CRM with all employees. Dynamics CRM uses SharePoint server as a document and data repository, and has integrations to utilize and maintain connection transparently. Users can even upload and download documents from within CRM as if it was the native application. The flexibility for how the linkage of CRM entities to SharePoint is great, allowing for companies that want to use their own folder structures or even different sub-sites for clients and projects.

The video included in this article shows you more visually how smoothly Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office 365 work together. For a free trial or for any questions please call us at any time at 646-853-053.

Sep 22

Cloud Computing
1 Comment

Factors that Contribute to a Successful Software Implementation

Today offices everywhere are engaging in implementations of software such as E-Mail such as Microsoft Exchange / Outlook, Office Productivity software such as Microsoft Office, Accounting, Enterprise IM, and Customer Relationship Management. Each software product companies choose starts out with so much promise and optimism. Companies are not choosing vendors and implementation staff lightly, and they enter a project with high expectations for both. When you understand a software implementation from a proper viewpoint, it makes more sense and works better. First of all, the solution to problems are not just about technology, the technology is only a tool. The implementation is  about the successful training of staff and adoption of the full feature set planned. Understanding that the implementation is about the people more than it is about the technology also changes the role of project leadership to the company management and not to Information Technology departments or consultants. Your staff has to feel comfortable about the software in advance of the installation, understand how they will do work with the new system, and be optimistic that the system will reduce unnecessary repetitive effort they put in now and empower them with a better handle on their own data. Pitfalls  at this point abound, but with good planning, they can be avoided and your company can have a successful implementation.

The promise of good enterprise systems is powerful: keeping all of the data and documents in one secure place and managing all aspects of customer care.  Reduced IT costs and new capabilities are also part of the promise of a cloud implementation.

What should managing officers in a company do to succeed? First, they have to make sure to win over their employees, the final users, and keep them enthusiastic, engaged, and involved every step of the way. When the employees feel empowered and included, they are a powerful force for technology adoption. They have to be convinced that not only policy, but actual advantages in the way they do work, will keep them adopting and using the new systems for all work going forward. Legacy systems should be given a turn-off date, so that users expect to clearly be aware that they will not be able to use the old system beyond a specific date and time.

Another thing that managing officers and owners should consider is controlling the expectations, both theirs and their employees’. Everyone needs to see that the successful implementation is about people and not just technology. Also employees and officers need to understand that data migration, programming customizations, and writing custom help files is a considerable effort, and time will vary based on criteria that is sometimes more predictable than others. Sometimes a good implementation will require some dates to be changed from earlier to later, but it is better to change the plans a company has made than to rush an implementation to be complete before its’ time.

At the Web and I we have a lot of experience with implementations large and small. We have seen and surpassed all of the common pitfalls, and we know what your organization needs for its’ implementation to succeed. For help with implementation, and with choosing software to implement, please call us at 646-853-0573.

Sep 20

Salesforce CRM
1 Comment

Salesforce CRM Now Offered by the Web and I

We have just signed up as developers of the well-known Salesforce CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Salesforce is a global software company based in San Francisco, and it is best known for its Salesforce CRM application, which is one of the top three CRM software systems available. Like Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Salesforce CRM is an application that is on the cloud.

Salesforce is now a very mature application, and the makers have taken great pains to work with users for years to develop a very usable and smooth interface. Unlike Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM, or Siebel CRM, Salesforce separates the Customer Relationship Software into several different modules:

  • Sales Cloud
    • The Sales Cloud allows sales personnel to interact on their own social network to discuss prospects, notes about prospects are shared, as well as contact history. With the Sales Cloud, all information about prospects is only collected one time. Avoiding duplication of effort in the collection of prospect information makes the process more accurate, involves less employee work effort in the data collection process and also reduces prospect annoyance from being asked the same question on multiple occasions by companies not using CRM software.
  • Service Cloud
    • The Service Cloud works like a call center and calendaring system allowing employees to plan tasks and summary tasks and interact on the execution of plans without needing to be at the same location or even speak on the telephone. There is also a way for employees to interact on their own social network as well as stay informed about clients contractual entitlements and billing information.
  • Data Cloud
    • The Data Cloud is the data storage behind the scenes yet in the cloud and also includes a giant collaborative list of over 29 million contacts in four million businesses.
  • Marketing Cloud
    • The Marketing Cloud is a place where your employees can gain critical insights into your prospects, and they can turn into actionable plans, and then collaborate on the execution of those plans with fellow employees in a secure environment.

the Web and I is ready to offer this platform to customers seeking implementation as well as the integration with existing systems. At the Web and I, services we provide for clients seeking to implement a new system are:

  • Data Migration
    • We will move your existing data from any number of applications. Sometimes the import is once, and for other systems that you will keep using we can set up a one or two-way data feed that will allow your applications to share information.
  • Customizations
    • The Web and I creates many objects you need for your enterprise software including workflows, mail-merge documents and alternative naming conventions that suit your business processes and preferences.
  • Training
    • Training at your place of businesses is quick yet essential when it comes time to activating new solution and getting your workforce up to speed in as little as a single day.

To get started with Salesforce CRM, you can get a free trial through us for 30 days. Then you can try the software, and we can start the process of implementing Salesforce for you. Call us at 646-853-0573 right away and get started!

Sep 14

3 Comments

Users of Quickbooks Can Interface their Accounting Software with Microsoft

The Web and I, a New York Microsoft Business Software Consultancy, has been working with developers at Intuit / Quickbooks, in the testing and refinement of their new app Quickbooks Dashboard for CRM. This product is designed to interface Quickbooks with Microsoft Dynamics CRM in both directions. This means that the Quickbooks Accounting Software can share data with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and that Microsoft Dynamics CRM can share data with Quickbooks.

The kinds of data that can be exchanged include customers, invoices, vendors, and receivables aging.

There are a number of reasons for a business to use this. Quickbooks can be hosted on a server, but it typically resides on a single computer. On a single computer, only one person in the office has a computer that can issue invoices, pay vendors, track customers, or see receivables and use them for collections. Typically this results in billing which is behind schedule and slower, and other staff who could participate and assist in the billing process are stuck on the sidelines, waiting for the invoices to get issued from that one single computer and user. Another thing that happens is the data gap. If an address is updated in either Quickbooks or CRM, nobody ever finds out about it in the other system, because the two systems are not able to talk to each other. In these cases, incorrect work and / or correspondence will occur, and there will be a need to duplicate work, entering the new information in both systems. That is what the Quickbooks Dashboard for CRM. Businesses employing such systems can save labor, sometimes even eliminating extra positions and more than paying for any software and implementation expenses.

Right now it is already possible to use Quickbooks to synchronize the customers and products and services successfully, and you can also see the balance due and receivables in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In a few more weeks, the synchronization of the actual invoices in both directions will be a reality.

The Web and I already has a client using this cutting-edge technology, and we have successfully been synchronizing the records. The effect for this firm is great, for they have Quickbooks on a single computer, and they can now issue invoices in the more-convenient Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We are not going to give up on the capabilities of Quickbooks either, rather we will extend them with the use of online banking, vendor management, reports, and the full range of Quickbooks functionality.

When you’re ready to link your accounting to your customer systems, or if you need brand new systems to replace mostly manual office procedures, the Web and I are Microsoft Partners with references of businesses like yours who have been helped. Call us at 646-853-0573 for a no-obligation consultation today.

Aug 2

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
4 Comments

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Temporary Outage of Customization Publication Functionality

According to a representative at Microsoft today, new entities, fields, and workflows designed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online can be saved, but their publication to the production environments will be delayed for up to 24 hours. When asked, the representative, who prefers to remain unnamed, said it was due to system software updates. The representative also stated that the delays are expected to be resolved by tomorrow, Friday, August 3, 2012.

When interpreting this information, it is important to note that the production environments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM are still fully functioning  at full capacity with no service outages or disruptions. Users will notice no difference in functionality, this outage only affects Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customizers, programmers, and developers. Some users may see their categories as folders with the menus out-of-order in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. In the Web application, the functionality as well as the look remain the same. The CRM Sitemap Editor Solution from Microsoft Labs is used for the wording in these menus as well as menu order, and we will investigate together with Microsoft whether that tool is still completely functional after their updates, and we will test and re-submit to Microsoft until the operations of this Solution are within enterprise-grade specifications.

Some of our clients are in the middle of customization now, and they can get updates from us or by navigating to the Settings Tab in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and clicking Customizations -> Customizations in order to see the newly added functionality not yet visible in their production platforms. We can also provide guided tours through online meetings and in-person demonstrations.

Any users or developers having difficulty can be quickly assisted by calling the Certified Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developers at the Web and I at 646-853-0573, certified partners of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics Server Edition since its initial release in 2003.

 

May 5

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
4 Comments

Dynamics CRM and the Law: From the Small Firm to the A.G.’s Office

We would like to paint for our readers a picture of how solutions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Office 365 can reduce repetitive effort in the office, increase the speed and accuracy of your efforts, and provide you with critical data for making accurate and decisive decisions. To illustrate this, we want to show you that Microsoft Dynamics CRM is proven as a flexible solution that is perfect for developing the custom solution to suit the needs of your practice. There are no anecdotal examples of Microsoft Dynamics CRM being used by very small law firms yet because Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a server product which also requires other servers. The licensing is expensive to have Dynamics CRM on your servers, and there is much technical work. Now, however, Microsoft offers Dynamics CRM online which works with Office 365. For a low monthly cost smaller practices can now have access to this enterprise software.

Larger law firms with on site Dynamics CRM have been using custom systems like CRM4Legal to manage their practices. The video below shows you some of the capabilities of Dynamics CRM in practice management. We at the Web and I are able to provide the same functionality as customized for your business in just the way you need it. We can implement this for you on Microsoft Dynamics CRM online, making this technology affordable for any size practice.

The Attorney General’s office of Pennsylvania uses Dynamics CRM to manage their caseload along with complex workflows, forms generation and processing, and a heavy load of transactions. The video below shows you how Dynamics CRM handles this complex and demanding environment.

Your firm takes in a lot of data that is lost or disorganized on arrival. Microsoft Dynamics captures it and makes it available for future use. This helps in two ways, entering information only once and re-using it many times saves time, and single event data entry reduces opportunities for errors to be introduced. Right now you have a wonderfully document based business, which is almost paperless, and Dynamics CRM is the fast path to a paperless office.

Your practice has business processes that are time honored. Take for instance a Home Care Application Checklist with Pooled Income Trust. When needed, the current business process requires first finding the checklist on the server. Then, you have to locate the form templates associated with the checklist. After that, you have to locate the contact mechanisms to deliver messages and submit forms as required. You may also in some cases have ancillary case law sources that you may need to check in order to fine-tune your approach to suit the clients’ individual needs. With Dynamics CRM (and also possible on Office 365) this checklist can become an automated workflow. Multiple people can be engaged in a workflow, so you can perform the parts of the work which you do, then a seamless handoff will occur to your assistant(s), and then their completed assignments will be added to the work and returned to you in an approval pipeline for you to review, approve, and release to the next stage. Every form associated with the process is built in to the workflow, and after the data is collected the form is available for immediate print, e-mail, fax, or Adobe *.pdf Acrobat document.

You have mailing lists and mail merges that you will need to do from time to time. Keeping multiple lists involves added complexity when one party is on multiple lists. When that party updates their contact information, you would traditionally need to find them on each and every list you have and update their contact information. With an enterprise system like CRM and Office 365, you can update a contact in one place and have the record propagate to each list. When those mailing lists are related to sales, Dynamics CRM has the campaign management features to help you track the success of each campaign. With two years of data that you can collect, we are able to provide you with predictive modeling for future campaigns with +/- 5% variance for a professional practice of one. This means that eventually your data collection efforts will provide you with enough decision-making data that you can maximize the impact of your marketing budgets.

Sales leads, follow-up, and issuing quotes become something new in CRM: a sales pipeline with graphical views can show you how much money is at stake in each sales stage, and it is dynamically updated automatically based on the quotes you issue. This is what that looks like.

Some firms use answering services and assistants to help answer phones and process some correspondence. With CRM, all communications with your accounts and with individual people will be available in one place, a list called activities, which are associated with mail letters, telephone calls, faxes, e-mails, expenses, subpoenas and process service. More activities can be added easily if they suit your business needs. Since you can send and receive E-Mail and faxes right from CRM, you can automatically track those types of correspondence automatically. With rich communications history that results from proper documentation, you will always know the complete history of any account. With the expense records being recorded in these activities, a perfect dataset exists for auditing of your invoices to make sure that every expense has been billed for, and that each expense is associated with the correct account in a format suitable for your tax accountant and for your own internal analyses. In addition, the work you do is tracked when you record the services of work performed in your office or in the court. That means that you have documentation for everything invoiced, and it is a natural result of the use of your schedule.

One axiomatic truth about law practices worldwide is that the management of common forms that will be used many times is necessary. Some of these forms have version updates, and tracking these versions to make sure that the latest version is used is an additional burden. CRM collects enough information about your clients that you can then automatically create every form your client will need at the touch of a button. When we know the data needs of each type of client you have, we can make sure you have an easy way to collect everything you need from your client once, and then be able to issue any forms instantly. If a new version of a form comes out, we only need to put that form up in one place to update it system-wide for all future uses of that form.

Case Status Organizer templates are a great way to have a document-based tracking system to help you organize the workflow of your practice, giving you the insight you need to prioritize your efforts and turn an overview into easy-to-execute details. Dynamics CRM takes that same philosophy and takes it to the next level with a dynamic system of statuses that come with built-in charts and graphs.

The Web and I is a Microsoft Developer authorized to develop accounting modules for Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics CRM. We can provide you with as simple or extensive a system as you need. Smaller practices who hire accountants for taxes will still need the following core accounting features:

• Chart of Accounts
• General Ledger
• Budgeting
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Collections
• Banking
• Credit Cards
• Assets

We are ready and able and now in the process of working with Microsoft in the creation of accounting modules and complete accounting solutions for Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Mar 26

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2 Comments

Getting Used to CRM in Your Office

Employees in any office, especially many senior staff who have developed business processes which they are very proud of react with fear of change when they are told that they have to start doing their work on a CRM Program. Most of these employees worry that their performance will suffer because they cannot do the work in the manner they are used to. This is a common misconception about CRM and enterprise software that makes people feel that they will lose control of the process. What employees should be told is that the way they work, their data collection needs and the forms and reports they need will become a part of the new system. One-on-one and group training will be offered, and needs of different employees can be discovered. If your company is installing a CRM system with excellent customization capabilities like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, your consultant will be able to take the most important customizations requested by your employees will be easily added. Reports should resemble the original reports so that they can work with the same data. Most of the invoices, faxes, letters, memos and e-mails in any office can be categorized by business purpose and are almost identical in language and intent. One characteristic common to successful implementations of CRM is that there are as many templates as possible to handle at least 90% of your employees’ daily correspondence if you are in a service industry. Your employees already produce these documents using programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Publisher. Each time your employees make one of these standardized documents the way they do now, they are creating each one from scratch and spending additional time filing the information in cabinets. In a collaborative CRM environment, the entire organization shares all the necessary data for each of you customers. Because of this, most of the documents they used to make from scratch can be immediately issued at the touch of a button. This is not only an incredible time saver, allowing your customer service staff to spend more time on the phone with your customers now that they do not need to create documents repeatedly from scratch. Your staff will notice the different too. Repeated clerical work not only slows down your staff but it is also distracting and demotivating to many employees. They may not even realize it until they have had some months with the new system and find their jobs more exciting and fulfilling. Another benefit is that having your employees work in one system means that they do not need to spend time trying to get information from other employees and departments about the customer they are speaking to. Every interaction with the customer by any employee is documented: now any good customer service agent can solve any issue your customers have immediately. In an office without CRM, different employees doing different kinds of work related to the same customers, a great deal of information is repeatedly gathered by many people. In a CRM system the information is shared, so the first person to collect information saves the data for everyone to use. Others can correct mistakes or amend records due to change, but the collection of information is not duplicated. Reducing duplication of information collection has been important to sophisticated managers long before there was CRM software. It has been shown in a number of studies (citations to follow soon) that duplication of information collection not only is inefficient because work should be performed only once but also the statistical likelihood of introducing errors. During the process of collecting information by even the best staff, the statistical likelihood of data entry errors can be predicted for tasks of different complexities and amount of data entry the staff performed. Staffs that do more data entry are apparently more accurate. In addition to reading in my field that I do, I noticed an aggregation of statistics from existing studies that I looked at to make these statements came from Professor Raymond Panko of the University of Hawaii. Seeing more than one study come up with error rates that are similar for data entry related jobs and also present studies with error rates in other kinds of work helped me to appreciate that there is always some error. When you duplicate effort repeatedly, the errors that are introduced will be exponential compared to organizations with enterprise CRM systems. Another benefit is that errors in the original data in CRM systems gets corrected because everyone is repeatedly exposed to the same data and can point out errors or correct them on their own and for the benefit of all concerned.

As soon as your employees see that they can work with all of the features and functionalities they are used to and now improved by CRM. Companies that learn about the way their best employees perform business processes best when key employees all can work with an engineer to help them learn to get the most out of the software and to also create the reports and correspondence as system templates. These employees feel more confident because their needs are taken into consideration. It is at this point that, organizations adopting CRM start to enjoy the many benefits of implementation. There is less repetitive work and less repetitive requests to other employees for information. Your employees are happier because they feel empowered to work better and faster. Your managers tell you that the business can now grow without increasing staff. Executive staff are able to see and measure and report on all work being done and immediately spot issues. Customers experiencing growing respect for your company because every representative they speak to delivers a consistent message and accesses the same information. In the short-term there will be some uncertainty and resistance by your employees.

Your resisting employees are not resisting because they are bad employees in any way. Resistance is a sign of pride in workmanship. This is why a good consultant will embrace resistance. Those who resist the change tend to bring up objections that can tell your systems engineer how to make sure that these issues are all addressed either with education, a custom report or form or field, or a security consideration involving allowing different access to different data for different people. The more information your systems engineer has about your needs and the way you do business, the more he or she can tailor the software in the best way for your company.

For very large companies, there is a very lengthy and expensive implementation process for new enterprise software. With small businesses this can be very streamlined and much less expensive. Most of the consulting is done with all employees individually, not only through training but through careful customization so that all employees are saving time. Our advice is that implementing CRM software is like when one first learns to hit a baseball and comes to the realization that one must commit to action wholeheartedly to get the best benefits.

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