VPC CRM 4.0

Just like Microsoft has developed a VPC for CRM 3.0, they have created one for CRM 4.0 as well. Here's the link to the VPC: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dd939ed9-87a5-4c13-b212-a922cc02b469&DisplayLang=en

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Test Data

The test data to be used in demo's etcetera is available on the Microsoft download site. Here you can find the exe and details: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D5F77EE7-3D01-4944-B5DC-C8CDC8123DF4&displaylang=en

Failure at Microsoft.crm.setup.common.registerasyncserviceAction

Some people are experiencing troubles while installing CRM 4.0. Right now I’m having the same problems as some others. In the end of the installation, the setup throws the error message "Failure at Microsoft.crm.setup.common.registerasyncserviceAction".

The reason why I got this error message was because I had just uninstalled CRM and tried to install it again. I did not think about a wise lesson I had once learned from a German guy. He said "Ein reboot macht immer gut". So after a restart of the server I have tried to install again and now it works like a charm.

Another thing to try, is to manually start the Async service for CRM and then retry the action.

If this doesn't work for you, make sure to check the log file regarding this service. You can find it on this location:
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Microsoft\MSCRM\Logs\CrmAsyncService.log

Good luck installing CRM!

English version of Column on Channelweb

An article that I wrote some weeks ago for Channelweb was published in Dutch. I have translated the article because of the many requests that I got. Read here the English version of the column 'The power of choice'.

The power of choice

Microsoft will release the newest version of its much discussed product Microsoft Dynamics CRM in 2007. There are big changes to come which will make it possible to use this application in even more organizations.

The market of Customer Relationship Management was entered by Microsoft in the end of 2003. The first version was primarily aimed at small and medium businesses, but also enterprise organizations implemented this application. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 was released in December 2005 to serve all target groups at best. Better scalability as well as a service oriented architecture (soa) was added for the large organizations and a partner hosted solution has been made available for the smaller organizations.

The successor of Dynamics CRM 3.0, which is still known under the codename Titan, will offer the clients even more choices. This Titan-release will be able to run multiple installations on the same server (multi-tenancy). The hosting partners are not depending on virtual servers anymore because of this multi-tenancy. Therefore they can lower the prices even more. Also Microsoft will offer CRM as a service themselves under the name CRM Live. This offer will be available in North America in the first place. International releases will follow as soon as possible.

International employees of a multinational will be able to work with Dynamics CRM when working with this Titan-release. This release will enable the users to choose their own language (multi-lingual) and own currency (multi-currency) within one installation. This means that large-scale, international operating companies with multiple establishments and business units can use Dynamics CRM even better. And they can do that from one centralized maintainable organization or from a decentralized maintenance organization on a hosted environment. Another large change is the extension of workflow possibilities. Dynamics CRM does now use its own workflow engine, but this will be replaced by Windows Workflow Foundation in Titan. This will further improve the integration with other Microsoft applications.

The new possibilities mentioned above do give the clients many advantages. Not only the SMB but also the enterprise organizations can optimize the use of CRM with these advantages. Microsoft does let the client choose between different offerings of CRM, but the final choice stays with you. What will you choose for?

Ronald Lemmen
Senior Associate Consultant at Avanade Netherlands

Column on Channelweb

The power of choice. It's one of the powerful marketing slogans Microsoft uses for promoting Microsoft CRM. And it is the title of a column that I wrote for Channelweb. If you go to the website at http://www.channelweb.nl and browse to 'business software', then you'll find my article. Ofcourse you can also go to this link directly: http://www.channelweb.nl/artikel.jsp?id=1906469

The article takes a glimpse in what will be offered as soon as Microsoft released Titan. Warning, it is in Dutch though :)

Update: Here's the English version:
http://ronaldlemmen.blogspot.com/2007/04/english-version-of-column-on-channelweb.html

CRM Titan Release Date

No I don't have the release date yet, though I'd like to share the update from the Convergence with you. The release date has been set to the end of the year. Altough an exact date is not set, Brad made us believe that the target RTM date will be November, similar to the release of v3.0. I think that they will work as hard as they can to achieve this goal. That could ofcourse mean that features will be removed from scope prior to RTM.

CRM Live screenshots!

Hi all of you,


Just before going to sleep I'd like to share some images with you. They are images I made of the presentation of CRM Live during Steve Ballmers keynote. The presentation was given by Brad Wilson, General Manger for Microsoft CRM. The presentation actually was live from the internet, so these bits are online right at this time in the Microsoft data center! I'll give you some of the pictures that are best and some information around what is on the screen. You can click the images for a detailed image. Unfortunately I didn't had the best place to sit, but these are the best shots I could get off the screen.

After logging in via the Live Passport, Brad got this screen. He was able to select an organisation because he is assigned multiple accounts to multiple organisations. If you only have one organisation to choose from, then this screen will ofcourse be skipped.



This image shows the activity overview screen on the workplace window. The differences with CRM 3.0 as we see on the screen is the button "imports" on the left side of the screen between Calendar and Queues. Another change is the new module "resource center". This is a button under Settings. This resource center allows users to directly access the community and search for answers to their questions.

We can see on the title that the name here is "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Community Technology Preview 1". There has not been any statement on the name yet, but it might be CRM 4. It also could become CRM 2008 because it will be released before the end of the year.

This is the last picture which is quite ok. On this shot you can see Steve Ballmer and Brad Wilson looking to the "Service Calendar" in the Service module.

During his presentation Brad mentioned something about Duplicate Detection as well. On the screens of the contacts and accounts, there has been shown a button which stated "Detect Duplicates". Thats all that has been said about this subject for now, but I think it will be great if the same functionality would be in the system as what is in the addon of c360.

Brad also shown the Outlook client for CRM Live. This worked just as fine as the webclient. Also modifications made to the sitemap are immediately replicated to the Outlook client.

Thats about all I have seen on the presentation, so thats all I was allowed to say. I have been said that I'll get access to these bits, if I do so then I'll post some clearer shots of the same screens that were shown today.

Now we just have to wait until the next releases in the TAP program and for some of you even end of the year... But it will be worth the wait!

Good night,

Ronald