I just found the download for the Office 2007 Save as PDF Add-In. I really enjoyed this feature in the early Office builds and was devastated when it was pulled out (after some colourful conversations with Adobe). My favourite use is to email PowerPoint presentations as PDFs.

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Tags: microsoft

While attending a cross product planning meeting earlier in the week an offline scenario was mentioned. I didn’t mention it at the time but I was pretty sure that the CRM could already handle it.

When CRM offline client syncs with the server it ‘plays back’ the transactions which occurred during the offline state. It only updates attributes which have been changed – ie. It doesn’t overwrite the entire entity. There are some cases where you want data to be forced onto the server even if it wasn’t changed offline. One example of this is address updates.

Nancy (our sales rep) goes offline. At 9:52 AM while she is offline she updates Contoso’s postal code (in this case she adds the US post code suffix). At 10:15 AM Susan (our order processor) changes Contoso’s entire address. At 3:15 PM Nancy comes back online and her sync overwrites the postal code only (since it is the only field she changed). Now we have Contoso’s address data containing a hybrid of Nancy and Susan’s input. Ideally we would want the address to stay consistent – so that the entire address which Nancy had in her system after her 9:52 AM update is written back to the system at 3:15 PM.

Achieving this ‘group update’ is very easy in CRM. We simply add an onChange event to each address field. This event tells CRM to submit all the data from the other address fields if the field is changed. We use the onChange event (not the onLoad event) as only want to submit these fields if one changes. Simply add this code to every address field’s onChange event:

crmForm.all.address1_line1.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_line2.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_line3.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_city.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_stateorprovince.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_postalcode.ForceSubmit = true;
crmForm.all.address1_country.ForceSubmit = true;

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Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Speaks for itself.

A partner stopped by my office today and during our discussion he asked about the big 'Customer Model' poster I have on my office wall. The CRM team uses personas heavily during our design focus - especially for assessing feature complexity. You can download the persona model we use from here. The aforementioned site has a whitepaper, the customer model and the work stream model. For partners it can be a valuable tool during requirements gathering.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

Recently I bought an MP3 player for my wife on Compuplus. At the end of the purchase I was offered a $10 voucher on my next purchase. Unfortunately I fell prey to an unethical internet marketing technique: my credit card details & info were enrolled in a 3rd party 'rewards scheme' (which charges $10/month). Others have also fallen prey and taken more serious action in the form of lawsuits (see this article). I was a loyal Compuplus customer before this incident but now because of their association with such an unethical (the courts will decide on it's legality) business I will never buy from them again.

I've been playing around with Vista off and on for the last year or so. To date my 'casual experiments' with the OS have been with the 32 bit version. Last week I took my relatively ordinary 64 bit box (a HP tc7600) and threw Vista RC1 Build 5600 Ultimate 64 bit on it. Wow ... this thing fast (and I mean faster than XP or 2K3). My experience rating is actually still relatively crappy. This gives great hope to the future market success of Vista (afterall I am a shareholder).

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Tags: microsoft

I was reading this CNN article (via Adam Barr) which mentioned that Microsoft is helping design a High School. OK that's cool ... nothing wrong with that. One item which stood out was this: The high school will use an "education competency wheel," patterned after a set of desirable traits Microsoft encourages among its employees. OK now that is just ridiculous. I wonder if they are also teach classes on Marketecture?

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft

Dare has a great post regarding Social Software griefing. It links through to a story (read the caveats on Dare's links) about a guy who exposed the personal info a bunch of idiots who responded to a fake Craigslist personal. I've no problem with this idiots being exposed (no worse than that show where they entrap pedophiles or that one were there following spouse cheaters). It's a pity that the 'exposer' didn't do it in a safer way (ie. anon or with the backing of a more traditional media outlet). I'd love to see the Chaser do something like this in Australia...

If you do any sort of web programming you need a decent HTTP sniffer. One of the best out there for Windows is Fiddler. Worth checking out.

The download for our new web based (and connected) mobile client is up: here. Even if you don't have a need for a mobile client it's worth checking out as an alternative 'lightweight' CRM client.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm

I just returned from the new Wholefoods in Redmond. It describes itself as ‘an aesthetically pleasing design combined with electronic and audio visual features designed with the customer in mind’. In actuality it is a beautiful store filled with aspirational suburbanites filling their shopping carts with conscience abating organic morsels. However I cannot escape the observation that this is perhaps the current peak of our civilization. It is perhaps the very essence of modern western bourgeois. Our generation does not explore new continents, fly to the moon or build great edifices to our gods. The harmless selfishness of suburbia congregates here: drinking at the trough of affluence.

I am suburban. I aspire to wealth. My tastes feign sophistication with a sophistry which betrays their middle class origins. I shopped there. I will return: drawn by it's ability to grant my dreams of luxury in it's wide isles.

Knowing One's Curse Never Abates It.

Alex Barnett has moved his blog from msdn.com to AlexBarnett.net. Alex was named by Mary Jo Foley as one of her ten favourite Microsoft Bloggers in this article. As a side note: Mary Jo spends 100% of her time watching Microsoft. One would think she would actually read the 'top ten' blogs on her list. If she did she would know that Alex changed jobs months ago and his job description in her article is nine months of date.

Having your own space on the web (if you are tech professional) is highly recommended. Sure msdn.com is nice for the artificial traffic boost - but the reality is: one day you will leave your employer. When that day comes you might want to keep your content and your googlejuice.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft

This week I spent some time maintaining my contacts in CRM and Windows Live Mail (Hotmail). BTW have you noticed that our 'live' products change names more often than Prince in the early 90's.

My experience in CRM was the clear winner. I was able to scan in all my new business cards with my excellent CardScan device and then I merged & updated my records appropriately. With work contacts I typically start them off as Leads (since 80% of 'card collection interactions' go nowhere). At least if they are lead in the CRM the data is backed up and my colleagues can be aware of the interaction (as opposed to a pile of cards gathering dust). If there is a simple 'one off' action required I create an Activity associated to the Lead. If a set of long running interactions is predicted I'll convert the Lead to a Contact and create/update the parent Account as appropriate.

My experience in Windows Live Mail was far from productive. Half the time copy/paste doesn't work. I can't merge Contacts. I'm a reasonably serious user of Live Mail and Live Messenger (through my @philiprichardson.org account) - so keeping my contacts well organized is worthwhile. However the integration between Windows Live Mail contacts and Messenger can only be described as byzantine. Fortunately this stuff is in beta so much of this will be ironed out in the near future.

I'd love to see LinkedIn offer some web services. Here is my dream scenario:
1) Collect business card.
2) Scan business card with CardScan.
3) Upload into CRM as a Lead.
4) Convert Lead to a Contact. At this point I can also choose to add the person to my Windows Live Mail and/or LinkedIn.

When people leave an organization you don't want them to 'take the whole database with them'. However it's naive to think that people don't grow personal networks while they are at work. By combining the growth of the personal network and work contact base into the same set of actions then people may feel less of a 'right' to take the database when the leave. They will already have all the contacts they are feel they are entitled to.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tags: microsoft crm dynamics crm microsoft crm