At the risk of sounding like a fanboy I have just discovered a host of new stuff that is available in the LogMeIn Pro2 version.

It seems that when I upgraded my Mother’s machine I inadvertently chose the 1 month free trial of the Pro version. So when I had to log in to fix her email I was presented by this multitude of dashboards and  capabilities.

A very impressive set of capabilities. I suspect that they are way over my needs, however, one thing I would pay for is a unified dashboard of  family members computers that showed the following:

• Anti-Virus Status
• Windows Update status
• Critical event log instances

As an added bonus a notification engine to email me would add the cherry on the cake!

I spotted this post from Woody Windischman which gives a high level discussion on how the new SharePoint interface differs from the 2007 version.

I must admit that through some technical issues (I was trying to get it running on my CRM TAP machine which had a low priority on the Virtual Server) I have not yet managed to get a working SharePoint 2010 implementation so I have not seen this in action in real life. However, based on Woody’s post I am feeling the the ribbon as shown here seems a bit busy Lots of options and buttons I don’t think users will understand.

Maybe when I get to use it in the flesh, and more importantly when i see it how a non admin user will see it, I will be  converted.

I picked up on this but I am afraid I didn’t keep a reference to where from to give credit.

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1

From the site:

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1 helps organizations maintain virtual machines that are stored offline in a Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager library. While stored, virtual machines do not receive operating system updates. The tool provides a way to keep offline virtual machines up-to-date so that bringing a virtual machine online does not introduce vulnerabilities into the organization’s IT infrastructure.

Nice.

I was interested to read this post from David Jennaway on the capabilities available in SQL Server to trace the performance of queries implemented by Microsoft CRM.

Now when I started writing this post I was all indignant that David’s post was showing examples of queries that were referencing the base tables and not the FilteredViews.

However, when I really read the post I realised that he was showing what MSCRM is doing under the hood and was in fact totally correct.

However, I do have one major question. If you do use the SQL Trace capabilities and find a bottleneck, what can you do about it? As far as I am aware messing with indexes and query execution plans is not something that is supported, though I stand to be corrected.

Clearly this is something I need to get to grips with, especially as it has an impact on a current assignment.

I picked up on a tweet from @expiscornovus which pointed to a codeplex project that shows how to build a custom workflow activity to share any record.

When I re-tweeted this I was asked by @expiscornovus when and how I planned to use it. Well the scenario has moved on a bit since then so I doubt it will be implemented but I can outline the scenario I was faced with.

The organisation in question had 4 distinct sales teams who were working in largely the same sector space. There was a historical “reluctance” to open up between these teams each of which had their own “system” and the new unified management structure wanted the implementation of a unified CRM solution to start to break down these barriers. However, for internal reasons a big bang opening up was, initially,  not acceptable.

It had been negotiated that it was acceptable for all the sales teams to be able to see all the accounts and it was accepted that this was the only practical way forward. Contacts, on the other hand were very personal to those involved and there was considerable reluctance to open them up to all. Restricting these would have had significant implications for data quality as well as effective sales practices.

The scenario I was thinking of using this workflow activity, or one based on it, for, was to allow the contacts to be restricted to the owning team’s business unit until such time as another sales person registered an opportunity against an account that met certain qualification criteria at which point the contacts for that account would be shared with the other sales person through workflow.

As it was the management team collectively realised that micro managing records in this way was counter to their strategic goals and they got out the big stick with the nail in it and, when I moved off the project, decided to open it all up!

Data Applied

For a long time (in tech terms that is) there has been a desire to find a mechanism for leveraging the computational power of “the cloud” with BI.(see NB below)

I have just found Data Applied which was started by some ex-Microsoft gurus including Dominic Pouzin and which, if this video is correct, opens up a whole new world of data visualisation and analysis.

NB The concept of uploading data and having it crunched in the cloud is far from new. However, there have been a number of VERY key roadblocks in the path to success:

• Upload Speeds. Whilst connections, particularly download connections, have been growing in speed upload is still painfully slow. This is particularly true in the smaller end of the business spectrum where ADSL is most common. This means that to upload a data set that is sufficiently large to provide meaningful business analysis and more critically data mining is a long slow and bandwidth hogging process.
• Data location. It is increasingly hard, in the current regulatory environment, to allow data outside of a jurisdiction.  Even if there are no real obstacles there is an overwhelming paranoid perception in the minds of data gate keepers.
• User understanding. The Data Applied target audience seems to be the lower mid enterprise space. This is exactly where the BI for the masses audience that many, including Microsoft, have preached as being the ideal consumers reside. Unfortunately, especially when it come to advanced visualisations and in particular data mining the skills to understand the results and the boundaries of those results and therefore make insightful decisions based on the results is not necessarily in the hand of the users who are given such tools.

So as the winner of the “Charlie Maitland coolest data tool of 2009” award I raise my hat to Data Applied.

Following on from my earlier post on how I believed that Microsoft CRM V5 would force partners down a vertical route I read this piece from Curtis Beebe over on the “Death of Reason” blog.

In the piece Chris argues that there is a conflict between Microsoft wanting their partners to engage in a vertical market and the fact that Microsoft solutions, especially in the Dynamics space are by their nature horizontal.

I particularly agree that partners consider a vertical to be a business process vertical and not a true industry verticals as expected by Microsoft.

So how does this square with my earlier assertion that the modular nature of CRM V5 will drive the partner community into vertical sectors?

Well I think that the key is to define the nature of the term “Vertical”. I was not aware of the SIC code allocations that Chris refers to in his piece and I don’t believe that this level of industry specific focus can be achieved as the number of verticals that can sustain such a model are few and far between.

The “vertical” I was thinking has a wider definition that more closely matches Chris’ process verticals. However, I can see a future where as the horizontal ERP/CRM solutions become more of a framework into which modules are dropped partners will, through competitive pressures, be forced to develop ever more refined modules in order to avoid a “race to the bottom” based on price.

As always, we live in interesting times.

I, as I am sure many people do, support a number of family members on their computers. To save on the interminable calls trying to work off their descriptions of what is going on I install the free LogMeIn client and then remote onto their machine.

The other day I was setting my Mother’s machine up with Windows 7 and some upgraded RAM and adding this new machine to my available computers was on my check list.

In the process of doing this I mistyped my complex password, I got it right on the second attempt and thought nothing of it. I was, however, delighted to get the following email about 30 seconds later from LogMeIn.

Event: Login failed
Source: Website
Account Holder: Redacted
Company: Company
By: The email I had tried
At: Sun Nov 29 18:09:16 UTC 2009
From: My IP Address
Change how these messages are sent by logging in, selecting Account then Security.

I now know that if someone tries to use my account to get access to the computers I manage I will get instant notification.

I also got instant notification of the deletion of the old computer and the creation of the new one.

This attention to detail is what sets an already good service apart.

EDIT

Ok not only was I pleased by the security measures I am also astonished (in a good way) that within about 20 mins Kevin from LogMeIn had posted a comment to this post which outlines a raft of other security measures they take.

• Account Lockout: If there are five failed attempts at accessing your LogMeIn Account, then your account gets locked out, and an email is sent to you informing you of the lockout.
• IP Address lockout: If there are five failed attempts to access your computer, then that user (IP address) is blocked for 30 minutes.

I would recommend reading the white paper they have on how they designed the security model. It goes way beyond the level I use or really need but again reinforces the fact that the the concepts of security and attack vectors are baked into the design.

Now I accept that the need for one time keys and RSA SecureIDs etc are beyond my needs and (zero) budget it is nice to know that the same mentality is behind my use as an enterprise use.  

Disclaimer. I have no affiliation with LogMeIn at all other than using their free client for basic family support.

So what is LinkPoint Vue? (See disclaimer at the end of this post) Well from the view I have got from the web site it is a very nice add in to Outlook that when you click on an email, task or appointment in Outlook it shows you a sidebar with everything pertaining to that contact or account. This gives you a one stop shop view of everything, including custom entities, that are related to that contact.

I would recommend viewing the video demo and the product information as it looks like this tool has significant potential for power users and also for high volume users.

It also has some interesting additional features:

• Add, Edit or View Contacts or Leads directly in Microsoft CRM.
• Add, Edit or View any Opportunity, Case or related data directly in Microsoft CRM.
• Record an Email to a Contact, Lead or any related data in Microsoft CRM.
• Create a Case directly from an Email in Microsoft CRM.
• Call a Contact or Lead using Skype, Vonage or other VoIP applications.
• Get directions to the Contact from Google.
• Create a vCard from a Contact or Lead.
• View Data from Social Networks or external Applications

Now I am not totally sold that, with the exception of possibly email to case, these additional  features are compelling business drivers, but they are nice additions with tangential business benefits.

Purely based on the video and associated information I have some initial questions that I will need to resolve when I install it:

• Performance. Just how hard is this tool hitting the web services every time you view an email?
• Activities. I must confess that I am not a fan of separating different activities into their type. It may work in high volume environments but in every case I have encountered a 360 view of everything is preferable.
• History. In the documentation and video there does not appear to be any History tab. I hope that this is just something I am missing

Overall from the public facing information, this is something I will check out next week. (Client work permitting of course )

Oh one other thing – it comes with a price tag that makes it a very easy offering to include. $60. Not budget busting and justifiable.

Links:

Product Overview (PDF)
www.linkpoint360.com/Vue/Resources/LinkPoint360_Vue_MSCRM.pdf

Product Overview Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w-cgbTGNW0

Product Evaluation

www.LinkPoint360.com/vue/setup/LinkPointVue.exe

A disclosure or 3.

1. I was pointed to this MSCRM Add in by an email from Glenn Lehner of Linkpoint who emailed me that it may be of interest.
2. I believe that my company may have, in the past, proposed or used other Linkpoint products, in particular their LinkPoint Connect tool for using Lotus Notes with MSCRM.
3. I have no other interest or involvement in the company or its products.

Kristen O’Connor has a very good summary of the pro’s and con’s of these two methods for sending emails in Microsoft CRM.

His matrix of functionality is of particular use.