MSCRM Mobile Applications

Microsoft does offer 2 different applications for the mobile devices. These are the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Mobile client (in short the CRM Mobile client) and the CRM Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 (Mobile Express client). Next to these two applications there is the CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM client (CWR Mobile client). Now which application to use?

Lets look at the descriptions for each client:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Mobile application
Microsoft CRM Mobile provides salespeople with up-to-date information about their accounts and contacts, and helps them manage sales opportunities and track sales-related activities.

Salespeople select the data to take with them on the road. While disconnected, they can enter data related to their sales activities. Salespeople can synchronize data with the Microsoft CRM server when the network is available, either when the user is on the office network, or when wireless access is available through CDMA or GPRS/Edge. The data entry forms and views can be customized for your business.

CRM Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0
CRM Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is a shared-source initiative sponsored by Microsoft that offers a lightweight, mobile browser client for viewing and editing data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Now you can manage important Sales, Service and Marketing information from your Windows Mobile, Smartphone and HTML 4.0 compatible devices! CRM Mobile Express for Microsoft CRM also includes a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Administration Console that can be used to customize your mobile data objects - such as adding custom CRM entities to CRM Mobile Express, set data object read and write permissions, and configure mobile forms according to your CRM system's design. This community project comes complete with three documents - an Installation guide, a User guide and a Developer guide, as well as the application source code for both the CRM Mobile Express Client and Administration Console applications. Developers can use Visual Studio.net 2005 to extend and modify both applications as they see fit.

CWR Mobile CRM by CWR Mobility
CWR Mobile CRM delivers:
- Access to Dynamics CRM 3.0 while out of the office – allowing for up-to-the-minute data changes (from the field and the office) and instant access to current data.
- A user-friendly interface on the Windows Mobile devices for intuitive CRM data access and entry by the mobile professional. Both while the device is connected online to a wireless service provider and offline, such as in an airplane, or deep inside a customer’s warehouse

Using CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM, sales and service teams have instant access to important customer information when and where they need it.

Differences
There are some factors which would influence the result on which application to use. These factors include:
- Out of the box functionality
- Extensibility
- Offline support
- Client Requirements
- Language support
- Price

Out of the box functionality
When comparing the functionality out of the box, then the CWR Mobile client gets the highest score. It supports all (custom) entities, (custom) attributes, a very efficient synchronisation mechanism, field level security via configuration and a lot of minor, but useful features like: direct calling the phonenumber on the screen and TomTom integration.

The Mobile Express client misses the paging functionality out of the box.

Extensibility
Both the Mobile Express client as well as the CWR Mobile client have good possibilities for extensions. The Mobile Express client is a shared source initiative which offers all the code which can be extended. The CWR application supports the addition of custom build controls and client side business logic. Of course these extensions should be developed by professional developers.

Offline support
The CWR Mobile client support Online as well as Offline modes (network aware). The CRM Mobile client supports only Offline mode with a manual sync. The Mobile Express client only supports Online mode.

Client requirements
The Mobile Express client only requires a HTML 4.0 compatible device. If Blackbarry support is required, then this is the only supported application.

The CRM Mobile client as well as the CWR Mobile client requires Windows Mobile or PocketPC. The CWR Mobile client requires a screen resolution of 240x240 and 48mb ram. The CRM Mobile client requires a screen resolution of 240x320 and 64mb ram.

Language support
The CWR Mobile application supports all supported Microsoft CRM languages. They also allow more languages to be added if required. The Mobile Express client supports all CRM languages and the CRM Mobile Client supports only the languages English, German, French and Spanisch.

Price
The price depends on the cost of the product and the additional costs for customization by a partner. Here are listed the prices of the product. Prices of customization are variable.

The CRM Mobile client as well as the Mobile Express client are available for free. The current list price of the CWR Mobile client is €299 per mobile user.

Overall conclusion
By using a mobile application for MS CRM, you will be able to increase your sales. You are able to react very quickly to questions you get from customers and you can check the latest information just before you enter the clients room.

In the part above I have shown my experiences with these applications. In my point of view, the CWR Mobile application deliveres the best functionality. It supports everything that I expect a mobile application should support: network aware data access (online and offline), all languages, entities, custom entities and integration with many other applications on the client device. The price of the product is very reasonable and the quality you'll get for it is very good.

More Information
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Mobile:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ea5a3566-7ec8-4afe-bbfa-91e7210c55c4&DisplayLang=en

CRM Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=8e65fc13-4073-406c-879c-442faf78f2c8

CWR Mobility's Mobile CRM: http://www.cwrmobility.com/Products/CWRMobilitysCRM30Mobile/tabid/73/Default.aspx