And, as you may also know, I think it’s the little touches, one’s attention to detail, that can make a user’s life sweeter. There are simple configuration choices that, when made, can increase the efficiency of a tool and thus its usage and positive contribution to the company.

Thus, when I was training a Microsoft Dynamics GP client on SmartList Builder yesterday, I emphasized the benefit of eliminating fields that folks would not search on when running a query. By unmarking the box in the Display column for fields that users of this SmartList will probably not want to search on, the process of choosing a field for the search is simplified. For instance, will your users ever search for Customers by Phone 3 or Fax? No? Then unmark the Display box in the SmartList Builder for those fields so that there aren’t so many options to scroll through when users Search Customers and select a Column Name using All Columns.

Similarly in Dynamic CRM’s Advanced Find, after selecting the type of record you want to query, you select the criteria for the search, which entails choosing a field from this record or a field from a related record. The long list of fields in the drop down menu may be overwhelming and take a few extra moments to scroll through.  You can make your employees’ lives easier by trimming that menu down to only those fields that people will actually utilize for a search. If you haven’t already, I recommend eliminating unwanted field choices from the Advanced Find drop down by changing Searchable from Yes to No for that attribute.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, you can easily do this by choosing Settings > Customization > Customize Entities , select an entity, click Attributes , select an attribute, change Searchable to No, and click Save and Close. Select another attribute if desired and change Searchable to No. When you have changed each attribute’s Searchable to No as desired, then click Actions > Publish > Save and Close. Then choose Advanced Find > Look for (select that entity) > Select. You’ll see those Fields are no longer in the drop down list.

In the recently released beta of CRM 2011, you can change Searchable to Yes or No for multiple attributes at the same time. When you are in a particular type of record, select the Customize tab at the top, click the Customize Entity button in the ribbon, click on Fields from the list on the left hand side, select as many fields as you would like (marking the boxes on the left), click Edit, mark Searchable as No, Save, Publish All Customizations, and voila. You quickly limited the fields in the Advanced Find to those you really use.

To see a video demonstrating how to change Searchable for multiple fields in CRM 2011, check out this You Tube video by one of my favorite CRM trainers, Richard Knudson. Want to see more of CRM 2011? Go to the CRM 2011 beta site for videos on the Microsoft Office fluent UI, client side extensibility, goal management, and other fabulous features of CRM 2011. Interested in Dynamics CRM? Take advantage of Microsoft’s free 30-day trial now!

The recently updated Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation report by Gartner does include both Dynamics CRM and SugarCRM in its evaluation. While Dynamics CRM qualifies to be in the “Magic Quadrant” and SugarCRM does not, I realize that not all of the inclusion criteria may be important to all companies. For instance, to qualify for the “Magic Quadrant” like Dynamics CRM, a solution has to have proved that it can be deployed in sales organizations of more than 100 users. For most medium sized companies, this is quite relevant, but perhaps for some very small companies, this may not be as critical.

The challenge of finding comparison details is exacerbated when both software options are not included in top solution reports. For example, while Microsoft Dynamics CRM is included in Business-Software.com’s Top 10 Sales Force Automation, Top 10 Marketing Automation, Top 10 On-Premise CRM Vedors, and Top 10 Small Business CRM Vendors reports, SugarCRM is not in any of those top 10 lists and consequently is not included in the comparisons. However, SugarCRM did make it in the Top 40 list. This illustrates how the number of reports that include both CRM options in order to compare the two can sometimes be limited. 

Furthermore, it’s often hard to go by what analysts say are the best CRM solutions, since every business has unique goals and business models that might best fit different CRM solutions. Have you documented your business goals and objectives for a CRM solution? Are there specific sales issues or marketing challenges that you want your CRM software to solve? To achieve the maximum return on investment, it’s usually best for an organization to develop a CRM strategy first, and then use a solution like Microsoft Dynamics CRM to execute the specific tactics that will achieve the business goals.  Whether we do this discovery and analysis with you or review the CRM strategy you have already developed, a trusted advisor like Systematica could then evaluate how Dynamics CRM accomplishes your goals, or doesn’t.  I believe this focused evaluation serves companies better than generic product comparisons.

Along those lines, Choosing CRM Software For Your Company from 2020Software.com has a number of insightful suggestions and links to more resources.

The days of targeting small business QuickBooks replacements are behind us.  You agree?

Overview

In this first video is a chat with Andy Bybee, Humberto Lezama Guadarrama and Allen Hafezipour all program managers on the CRM platform team thinking about programmability and the developer experience. They discuss some of the thinking that’s going into the next release of CRM.

• Have a look at the video here.

Solution Management

One area that the platform team is spending a lot of time thinking about is solution management.  Think of solutions as providing to CRM the same sort of capabilities that Windows has with its capability to add and remove programs and features.  This should give the ISV community a platform to more easily provide their add-on software to CRM customers.

• Have a look at the video here.

Secure Code on the Server

Another area that the team is working hard to make even better is the deployment of secure code on the server.  The current version of CRM allows code on the server (for plug-ins or workflows) and that code runs in full trust.  That’s the primary reason why server code is not allowed on Dynamics CRM Online where you’re sharing the server with many other tenants.

• Have a look at the video here.

Dynamics CRM: The Appealing Business Application

Humberto Lezama Guadarrama presented this session.  He walked through an introduction to building line-of-business applications on the CRM platform.

• Have a look at the video here.

Rapid Business Application Development with Dynamics CRM

Andrew Bybee and Nirav Shah presented this 400-level session.  In it they show how Dynamics CRM can be used for rapid development of business applications.  In it they show some of the new capabilities for extending business logic in Dynamics CRM.  They focus primarily on the platform so not so much on the sales, service, and marketing applications but more on the underlying platform or what we often call xRM. 

• Have a look at the video here.

OT for anything over 8 hours in one day
OT for anything over 40 hours of regular-time for that week
(note that if they work 12 hours on day 1, they only have 8 hours of regular-time for the week)
DT for daily hours over 12 hours
DT for over 8 hours on Sunday if they worked 7 days that week

Keep in mind you have to have a number in each cell monday through sunday (the cells on row 2)- DO NOT LEAVE THESE CELLS BLANK, put a 0.

Here was my solution. If you have any questions or come up with any corrections, please let me know!

In order to get this into a spreadsheet, copy and paste this into excel, cell A1. You may see HTML below or you may see a table in your browser; either way, just copy and paste the content (into cell A1) and excel should do the rest!

<table>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Mon</td>
<td>Tues</td>
<td>Wed</td>
<td>Thurs</td>
<td>Fri</td>
<td>Sat</td>
<td>Sun</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>hours worked</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>REG</td>
<td>=MIN(8,B2)</td>
<td>=IF(SUM(B3:B3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:B3)),C2),0)</td>
<td>=IF(SUM(B3:C3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:C3)),D2),0)</td>
<td>=IF(SUM(B3:D3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:D3)),E2),0)</td>
<td>=IF(SUM(B3:E3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:E3)),F2),0)</td>
<td>=IF(SUM(B3:F3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:F3)),G2),0)</td>
<td>=IF(AND(B2>0,C2>0,D2>0,E2>0,F2>0,G2>0,H2>0),0,IF(SUM(B3:G3)<40,MIN(MIN(8,40-SUM(B3:G3)),H2),0))</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>OT</td>
<td>=IF(AND(B3=0,B2>0),MIN(B2,MIN(12,B2)),IF(B2>8,MIN(B2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(C3=0,C2>0),MIN(C2,MIN(12,C2)),IF(C2>8,MIN(C2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(D3=0,D2>0),MIN(D2,MIN(12,D2)),IF(D2>8,MIN(D2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(E3=0,E2>0),MIN(E2,MIN(12,E2)),IF(E2>8,MIN(E2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(F3=0,F2>0),MIN(F2,MIN(12,F2)),IF(F2>8,MIN(F2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(G3=0,G2>0),MIN(G2,MIN(12,G2)),IF(G2>8,MIN(G2-8,4),0))</td>
<td>=IF(AND(B2>0,C2>0,D2>0,E2>0,F2>0,G2>0,H2>0),MIN(8,H2),IF(AND(H3=0,H2>0),MIN(H2,MIN(12,H2)),IF(H2>8,MIN(H2-8,4),0)))</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>DT</td>
<td>=IF(B2>12,B2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(C2>12,C2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(D2>12,D2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(E2>12,E2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(F2>12,F2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(G2>12,G2-12,0)</td>
<td>=IF(AND(B2>0,C2>0,D2>0,E2>0,F2>0,G2>0,H2>0),IF(H2>8,H2-8,0),IF(H2>12,H2-12,0))</td>
</tr>
</table>

Here are your best options for developing reporting for CRM Online:

Default Reports:

• To view the list of default reports that come with Microsoft CRM Online -
  from the CRM Client >> Workplace >> Reports
• Blog: Advanced Find / Export to Excel
• Video: Using Advanced Find – Time: 10:02 minutes
  This video will show you how to use the Advanced Find feature to find and take action on targeted sets of data. It will also show how to create Saved Views (My Views).

Mail Merge:

• Blog: MSCRM 4.0 Mail Merge Basics
• Blog: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mail Merge Templates
• Blog: Printing Quote for customer
• Video: Mail Merge – Time: 08:03 minutes
  This video will show how to create mail merge templates and create emails and Word labels with mail merge.

Report Wizard: 

• Blog: Report on Opportunities Lost to Competitors
• Video: Reporting Overview – Time: 15:29 minutes
  This video will show the reporting capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Export and Integrate CRM Data to a Local Data Source:

There are two approaches for this.  Please note that the two approaches are not supported by Microsoft CRM Support – use at your own risk/support.

1. Setup a Microsoft CRM Online Outlook Client with Offiline Data Synchronization and ensure that all the needed CRM Online data are continuously updated to the local database.  Then use the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Service (SRS) report development tool or other reporting, Business Intelligence (BI) tools to build the custom report against the local SQL Server Express CRM database used by the Microsoft CRM Online Professional Plus edition.  Note: 4 GB database limit for SQL Server Express
2. Utilize an integration tool to extract CRM data to a local data source and then use a corresponding reporting tool.  For example, you can purchase and setup the Scribe Software Insight to integrate between Microsoft CRM Online and the local SQL Server database.  The local SQL Server database will mimic the needed CRM Online tables so  you can use the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Service (SRS) report development tool or other reporting, Business Intelligence (BI) tools tools to build the custom report against the local data

The solution in our case was to back-up the following files:

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config

administration.config , applicationHost.config and redireciton.config 

We then copied clean versions of those from another server with an untouched IIS. If you have access to another server, add the IIS role and go grab these files. Replace your ’bad’ ones on the server that’s been damaged. In addition we removed any files from C:\Inetpub that were related to RDWeb.

WARNING: in our case this worked since we only had an RDWeb site. If you have many sites on your server, this probably won’t work. You could attempt to find the settings related to each site in your ‘bad’ configs and bring them to the new one, but this seems risky. Remember, before trying any of this, back up the old files so at worst, you can replace everything anb be right back where you started.

http://blogs.msdn.com/gp/archive/tags/Feature+of+the+Day/default.aspx

First I have a parameter on the report for what company the report is for. In this case the parameter is called companyInits and it’s a 3 character string.
Then on each textbox that needs to be colored I have this expression:
=Code.CompanyColor(Parameters!CompanyInits.Value)
This calls the embedded VB code below.

In the report menu, under report properties, in the code tab I added this (this is just a sample, the real code has five separate colors, one for each company):

Public Shared Function CompanyColor (CompanyInits As String) As String
 Select Case CompanyInits
  Case “NWD”  
     CompanyColor = “#64B6B9″
  Case “XXX”
   CompanyColor = “#FF0000″
  Case Else
   CompanyColor = “#000000″
 End Select 
End Function

Basically on any text in the report that needs to be colored based on the company, I change the color property to call this custom code. Be careful, because if the custom code won’t compile, it will just give you a generic reportservice error when you try to run a preview of the report.
I have an additional function that hides controls that I need to show based on which company the report is being run for. For example, the company logo. I have five images added to the report with the following expression in the Visibility, Hidden property:
=Code.HideImage(“imgLogoXXX”,Parameters!CompanyInits.Value)

For me “XXX” would be the initials of the company that the logo is for.
Then in the code window I have this code:

Public Shared Function HideImage (ControlName As String,CompanyInits As String) As boolean
 If Right(ControlName,3) = CompanyInits Then
  HideImage = False
 Else
  HideImage = True
 End IF 
End Function
I know that this isn’t as good as a CSS that could be applied based on a parameter, but it works for me! Also, you can easily imagine how this can be used for font-type, style, etc. Also, by going directly into the code of the rdl it probably wouldn’t be that hard to apply this to many fields pretty quickly. For a lot of different functions it may be best to avoid embedded code and instead do a .net assembly (this may depend on client preferences).

Thanks
Dwight Brown
Systematica Inc.

- The GP Year End tax update required/included the service pack 4 installation
- GP 10.0 only supports preprinted W-4 forms
- Allot time to align the preprinted W-4 forms
- It’s good practice to reconcile the federal wages to the state wages. This will ensure the state and federal wages match on the W-4.
- When we ran the quarter end filing, we had to change the system date to 12/31/2009. If we left the date as current, GP thinks we are filing for current quarter in 2010!

Typically When state taxes do not match federal wages, this is caused by a new employee who recently started and their state tax card is not setup correctly. After troubleshooting, we found that the data entry for tax withhelding required tweaking. The payroll admin would input the tax information for the federal tax withholding. She would simply input the state code in the Transaction Tax Defaults field. She did not create a state tax card for the new employee. It was assumed that inputting this field on the federal tax card would default accordingly to the state tax card. This does not. This caused a discrepancy between federal and state wages for a given employee.

Has anyone experienced other types of discrepancies with trying to balance/reconcile payroll?