5.                  Workplace

Microsoft has done wonders with creating a desktop style user interface within a browser environment (although it is Internet Explorer only).

The top right of the page indicates the currently logged on user details with the left hand navigation pane allowing navigation to the different areas of the application:

·        Workplace accesses individual activities and calendar as well as the companies (accounts) and contacts accessible by the currently logged on user.

·        Sales shows the leads and the full sales cycle including the quotations and orders against an opportunity.

·        Marketing allows the planning, creation and monitoring of marketing campaigns and associated campaign response information.

·        Service allows for the creation of service contracts and the monitoring of the progress of customer service cases.

·        Settings allows access to the customisation features of CRM.

·        Resources links to the CRM internet community moderated by Microsoft.

Selecting the Workplace-Contacts area provides an example of a view onto a CRM entity. The view shows all contacts accessible by the currently logged on user.

 

We use this chapter to introduce many of the usability aspects of CRM:

·        The application toolbar buttons access general functions for the CRM application such as adding new activities and records.

·        The navigation pane on the left hand side access the different work areas available to the user.

·        The view toolbar for the related entity provides accesses to the features available for the current entity including reports, assigning ownership, and actions specific to the entity.

5.1.              Views

Searching for a contact involves selecting the appropriate View from the combo box at the top right of the window or searching for a value by typing the search text and pressing the magnifying glass icon at the top left of the View.

The columns represented in a view can be sorted by clicking on the arrow just to the right of the field name and resized by dragging the column divider. Just above the column headings is the view toolbar which provides access to many of the functions common to all entities:

·        New. Create a new entity occurrence.

·        Print. Print a default listing.

·        Export to Excel. Export to a standalone Excel spreadsheet or dynamic pivot table or spreadsheet (dynamic spreadsheets will update with the latest data). This option also allows data to be exported, modified, and the changes re-imported.

·        Mail Merge. Mail merge to Word 2007.

·        Reports. Run the appropriate reports.

·        Assign. Assign to another user (you can share from the more actions menu).

·        Delete. Delete the currently selected records.

·        Send Direct Email.

·        Merge. Merge allows you to combine two records if one is a duplicate of the other. The master record inherits all the activities of the subordinate record which is deactivated.

·        Create Quick Campaign. Create a campaign from the selected records (only available on accounts, leads, and companies).

·        More Actions. See below.

The More Actions button accesses general actions that apply to all entities as well as ones specific to the entity being viewed. Some of the general actions include:

·        Edit. Also available by double clicking on the record in the View.

·        Activate. Some entities can be activated and deactivated rather than deleted.

·        Deactivate.

·        Copy Shortcut. Copies a URL of the current form to the clipboard.

·        Send Shortcut. Email the URL of the current form to a colleague.

·        Add to Marketing List. Add record(s) to a marketing list (only for selected entities).

·        Add Relationship. Declare a relationship with another record.

The form for the View entity can then be selected by double-clicking on the appropriate item in the View. Fields from related records (in this case the parent customer) are shown as hyperlinks and can be opened by double clicking on the relevant entity navigation link. The see more triangle can be toggled to view more information before selecting the record and the letters at the bottom of the window provide an alphabet bar to select records according to the sort column. Note also the page navigation button at the bottom right of the window.

Note:    The * character can be used as a wildcard to allow search for text contained within a field instead of searching on the start of the field.

5.2.              Forms

Each entity has a single form which pops up in a standalone web page (you need to disable the popup blocker in your browser). The form has a selection of buttons along the top to save and close the window along with additional buttons which may be specific to the entity or your CRM installation.

Some of the more common buttons include:

·        Save to save the current record but keep the window open so you can then select one of the related entities.

·        Save and Close.

·        Save and New to save the current record and create a new blank record.

·        Delete.

·        Follow Up to quickly create a related activity.

·        Send Email.

·        Reports.

·        Assign to change the owner of the record to another user (or queue) or assign it to yourself.

·        Actions to add a new activity or perform workflow or access functionality specific to the entity.

Note the Form Assistant button to the right of the data entry area which you can expand to show a helper area. The available options are shown in a combo box at the top of the form assistant and are selected as you enter the corresponding field in the data entry area. You can then use the selections available to make a quick selection of the required data.

Notice the lookup window that appears when clicking on the lookup button to the right of a field that points to a related entity. CRM now has an intelligent way of entering related fields. As well as the form assistant and clicking on the related button to pop up a search window, you can simply enter the required text directly in the field and tab out of the field leaving CRM to search for the best match for you.

The tabs across the top of the form allow additional fields to be viewed and the arrangement of fields over these tabs is easily customised. The Notes tab is interesting as this allows date-stamped notes to be recorded and also for documents to be loaded against the entity.

Activities and History are covered in the next chapter and form the core of the workflow tracking in Microsoft CRM.

5.3.              Accounts

Accounts in CRM refer to Companies and not just Sales Accounts. Many installations rename this entity to avoid this confusion.

Some notes about Accounts:

·        The primary contact can be used to specify the default contact.

·        Select the contacts view from the left hand pane and add a new contact to automatically copy the address and other fields across to the new contact (according to the mappings setup in the customisation).

·        The relationship type is a convenient field to categorise companies as suppliers, competitors, customers and so forth.

·        Accounts have a base currency which is automatically applied to new contacts.

·        Two addresses can be stored in the entity with additional addresses stored by selecting the addresses view on the left hand pane.

·        The parent account can be used to specify the ownership hierarchy of groups companies.

5.4.              Contacts

Contacts contain the standard information stored for a contact and the parent customer usually specifies the company that the contact works for.

Note:    One feature of CRM is that the Company details for a contact must be specified separately in the associated company record even if there is only one contact recorded against the company.

5.5.              Customers

One important point to note about Accounts and Contacts is that both can be specified as Customers for the purposes of the sales cycle. Thus Opportunities and Quotations, Orders, and Invoices can be specified against either Accounts or Contacts as required (there does not seem to be a way to configure just B2B or B2C commerce).

5.6.              Advanced Find

The Advanced Find option on the View page can be used to configure selection criteria to filter data as required. The following screenshot shows how to set up a View on Accounts for relationship type customers only.

Selection criteria can bring in fields from related entities. The following example, filters Contacts for prospects or customers with incomplete Task activities. The (many to one) relationship to the primary account is used to check the relationship type and the one-to-many relationship to Tasks is used to check for the presence of incomplete tasks.

5.7.              Personalise Workplace

The personalise workplace option allows you to define settings for your user.

Many features are available including:

·        Use of Outlook or CRM forms for Appointments, Emails, Tasks, and Contacts from the Outlook client.

·        Number of records to be shown in a View.

·        Default Currency.

·        Synchronisation settings for Appointments, Emails, Tasks, and Contacts data coming from CRM into Outlook including how often the synchronisation take place.

·        Default workplace area and pane.

·        Time zone and default currency.

·        Work hours.

·        Regional formatting characteristics for date and decimal formatting.

·        Personal Email templates.

·        Email synchronisation settings for Exchange integration.

·        Address books settings for synchronising the address book with Exchange (default every 24 hours) and determining how incoming email addresses are matched and tracked.

·        Preferred user interface language.