Found this video on Channel 9 which also contained lots of links to things like the resource centre and community site

Lots and lots of other good CRM videos on Channel 9 can be found here.

This post points to a whole host of useful information on the Business Data catalogue for Microsoft CRM.

The BDC is the mechanism that allows SharePoint to surface data from other applications, in this case Microsoft CRM.

I have not had a chance to work with this version, only the earlier demonstration version which had some limitations. When I get into it later in the month I will post more.

This is one of the most bizarre coincidences I have seen.

Today there was a major email discussion and debate within our team about the performance of the Outlook CRM add-in. Some users were reporting problems whilst others had no problems at all. It seemed to be one of those intermittent bugs  that is so hard to track down and which seemed to defy reproduction.

Dont we just love them!

When I got home I saw a post from the Dynamics Team blog that listed a range of hot-fixes that are publicly available! What timing.

I dont know if any will be relevant to our team but they are well worth checking out if nothing else than to give some focus to testing unusual scenarios.

As part of my work to get deeper under the skin of what Microsoft Dynamics CRM can do I have been working through the videos and screen casts that are on Channel9.

This has in turn lead me to  Girish Raja’s Blog. If you are interested in how to take CRM into new directions then this is the place to go.

What I also wondered about was how these examples may be impacting on how the planning for Dynamics CRM 5 is going? Could we be seeing a WPF/Silverlight interface coming? No idea, but it would be a big WOW if they could get it working. Just look at what SalesCentric are doing.

Within the Microsoft Dynamics world there is a methodology for implementing projects that is widely used, not just in the CRM sphere but across the board.

Now this methodology has recently raised some discussions in the Dynamics NAV world as it is being re-visited.

A good overview of why it is used is given by Rebecka Isaksson here

A quote that sums it up well is:

it is important to remember that an ERP or CRM implementation is quite different from other software development and implementation projects. In particular the ERP implementation that very often impacts pretty much everyone and everything in the organization where it is introduced. Someone said once that “ERP implementations are 30% about technology and 70% about organizational development”

Ad additional case for Sure Step was posted here by Vjekoslav Babić. This outlines the reasons why employing a methodology like Sure Step significantly increases the chances of the project succeeding.

However, a counter point has been put up in this essay “Read my lips: No New Models” (PDF)

So Vjekoslav has posted a repost here which deals with the points raised.

Whilst these discussions are largely NAV/ERP based the same points relate to CRM deployments. I would even go so far as to say they are even more relevant as CRM projects probably go deeper and lower into an organization than many ERM systems so getting user buy in and adoption is even more critical.

My personal opinion on Sure Step is that is is a very good foundation on which to build a methodology but in its entirety can be cumbersome for use in smaller projects. It also has the same issues as any other methodology in that it requires buy-in and discipline by the client and the client’s users and frequently this is plunging them into a totally alien environment.