It’s been said that anything worth doing in life won’t come easy. Without a doubt, this applies to upgrading your business management systems.
In today’s global economy, upgrading business management systems is more important than ever before. But CRM projects will only be successful if your team understands and adopts the new system quickly.
How can you get your employees to embrace the change?
We’ve consulted twenty industry experts to learn what they’ve found to be successful in streamlining user adoption. These key tips, important warnings, and advice from our members here at the CRM Software Blog can help your employees embrace change and take your organization to the next level.
It may not be easy, but working toward solid user adoption is well worth the effort. Here are a few tips from various Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partners who focus on helping companies like yours.
Plan Thoroughly
To have successful user adoption, it is essential that your team has planned thoroughly before implementing your new business management system. Anticipate challenges ahead of time, such as identifying what obstacles may come up and the reasons why your team may be resistant.
“Create an iterative project plan that clearly defines success through metrics and establishes the strategic priority of the project so users understand it’s something that requires their attention and adherence.” – BroadPoint
Preparing for challenges ahead of time by building the right software team, establishing a clear plan for post-go-live support and training, and knowing exactly what areas you want your new system to improve on can have a big impact on whether your user adoption is successful or not.
Lead Proactively
If you want your employees to be on board with the switch, there must be strong leadership. The leadership team, from CEO to department managers, should be able to clearly explain the reason why the project was initiated.
Successful companies know this. Notice their insights in this area:
“Even if the new CRM or ERP has a lot more to offer, the end-user will be reluctant to adopt it if they find a pre-existing software integration missing. A missing integration often means a break in an existing data flow.” —Connecting Software
“Without the ‘WHY,’ a new system implementation just becomes another task. It’s critical to identify the reason WHY. WHY are we spending the money? WHY are we spending time and effort. What’s the business case? What’s the justification? What’s the ROI? Make a strong case to drive user adoption.” —JourneyTEAM
“Make sure management is on board and leads by example. Users will not be motivated to use the new system if management is still using the same old tools as before to manage the organization.” —JOVACO Solutions
Train Effectively
Without proper training, it’s very likely that your employees will be resistant to the changes your new CRM system will bring. They may be worried the new system will automate them out of a job, or they might simply not understand why the change is happening and how they fit into the switch. No matter what the reason for the resistance, training will help.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 experts offer these tips on training effectively:
“Many working adults are also homeschooling or caring for others while trying to juggle their professional schedules. Create a schedule that allows for multiple breaks throughout the day. We also recommend recording sessions in case anyone misses any topics or wants to simply review again in the future.” —Beringer Technology Group
“Requiring too many fields early on in the sales cycle just decreases the likelihood that a salesperson will fill out any fields—and thus destroys your user adoption. Only require the data that you need, and encourage your sales team members to understand the value of inputting data in “recommended” fields—with understanding comes compliance and user adoption!” —emfluence Marketing Platform
There are a variety of effective training options a company can use when upgrading business management systems. Whether it’s in-person, hands-on training, or using video sessions, if your team is aware of what specific areas your employees need to be trained in you are one step closer to reaching your goal of successful user adoption.
Helping your employees embrace change when implementing a new business management system can be a challenge. But by closely following the tips offered by our contributing partners, you will soon find out that following their advice was well worth the effort.
What a year this has been. Organizations are figuring out how to keep going and thrive despite difficult circumstances. Many businesses are using this time to map their path for the future. Now is a good time to position your organization for the days and years ahead.
Organizations of all types and sizes realize how valuable a comprehensive CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution is to the growth and success of their business.
If you are increasing your client base, opening new offices, or expanding into new markets nearby or around the globe, you need a powerful, integrated system such as Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM
Undoubtedly, you have read numerous articles or talked with consultants about the many features of Dynamics 365 and what it can do for your business. But one piece of information you’d like to have before you commit to buying is the price.
There is a difference between the sticker price of the software and the actual cost of the software plus installation plus ongoing costs. When budgeting for a new or upgraded solution, you need to know the total cost of ownership. That’s not always easy to determine.
The CRM Software Blog’s Quick Quote Wizard is here to help. This tool will provide a working estimate of the total costs involved in implementing and operating Microsoft Dynamics 365. Here’s how the Quick Quote Wizard works:
Look for the orange ‘Request Instant Quote Dynamics 365/CRM’ bar at the top right of each page of the CRM Software Blog. Click the bar, and you’ll be taken to a screen with a short form to fill out. You’ll be asked basic questions about your type of business, the number of employees who will be using the system, the level of support you’ll require (don’t worry, the questionnaire will help you answer these questions) and any concerns you have unique to your business. Include your contact information, and you’re done.
The Quick Quote Wizard will use your information to customize a quote which you’ll receive instantly as a PDF sent to your email. After you’ve received your non-binding quote, your contact information will be forwarded to just one of our expert CRM Software Blog members in your area who will be happy to answer any questions you may have. You can choose to work with that partner or not; it’s up to you. The estimate and the referral are a free service we provide for our readers.
The CRM Software Blog Quick Quote Tool can get you started in determining just how much your Microsoft Dynamics 365 system will cost you from the first licensing to long-term support. Simply fill out the quote request form and be well on your way to a deeper understanding of the total cost of owning a Dynamics 365 solution from Microsoft.
The world of business is dynamic in nature. Everything keeps on changing. In this fast-paced world, where decisions need to be made quickly, it becomes necessary to minimize the time spent on reading reports or sitting in meetings for status updates. The human brain captures visual information faster than text. Visualization makes it quicker and easier to understand any given data. With visual representation, information can be quickly grasped and communicated.
And to help you achieve this feat, Inogic has brought to you two amazing visualization apps for Dynamics 365 CRM/PowerApps – Kanban Board & Map My Relationships.
A Preferred App on Microsoft AppSource, Kanban Board is a productivity app that enables organized card-based view of PowerApps/Dynamics 365 CRM Entity records in the home grid. It is a visual tool that will help you organize data as per your business requirement. It helps to organize and rearrange records in multiple lanes and rows thereby enabling easy identification of the current status of the records. This visual display enhances the searchability and filtering of records with less time and effort.
Some of the interesting features of Kanban Board are as follows:
Visualize Views: You can easily visualize any Dynamics 365 CRM View as lanes in a Kanban View with the ability to configure the fields for defining the categories.
Drag & Drop: You will be able to drag and drop the cards across lanes and rows to quickly update the values of the underlying category field.
Quick Actions: You can configure cards to support up to 3 quick activity actions, using which activity records like Email, Phone Call, Task, etc. can be created.
Context aware: It works in context of the native Dynamics 365 CRM environment & responds to all native ribbon actions as well as the quick search available for traditional views.
Search: You can easily search for records through native quick search option available for views in Dynamics 365 CRM
Sort & Filter Lane: You can sort the records in ascending or descending order and also filter the data in the view by ‘CreatedOn’ date.
Configuration: You can configure this control for Unified, Mobile and Tablet experience.
Another app to bag the Preferred App on Microsoft AppSource badge, Map My Relationships is a productivity control that offers an easy way to visualize key information related to the record much like a mind map view for Dynamics 365 CRM records. With a quick glance, you will be able to gain all the important information related to the respective record without having to navigate around to get the various pieces of information. This control will further enable you to easily navigate to these related records and create activity records like Email, Task or Appointment. In this way, you can make swift decisions, take quick actions and be on top of the game.
Some of the interesting features of Map My Relationships are as follows:
Relationships: With support for 1:N, N:1 as well as N:N information, you can easily view all relationships between records.
360 degrees view: You will be able to see a summary of all the necessary information related to the record in a single view.
Quick Actions: You will be easily able to quickly record any activity like phone calls or appointments for the related records.
Easy Navigation: You can quickly and easily navigate to any of the records in the relationship.
Grouping & Aggregation: You can easily view aggregate values like Sum, Average, etc. without the need for creating rollup fields.
Configuration: You can configure this control for Unified, Mobile and Tablet experience
Seems intriguing, doesn’t it?
So, go and explore these amazing visualization apps from our website or Microsoft AppSource for a trial period of 15 days.
And feel free to contact us at crm@inogic.com for a personal demo how these apps have been helping businesses with quick informed decisions.
CRM pricing shouldn’t be a mystery. There is plenty of information online about the features of various CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software solutions. But, it’s not always easy to nail down a price.
CRM resellers would like to get a salesperson into your office for a demonstration and consultation before they tell you the cost of their product. But that doesn’t make sense. Why should you waste your time investigating solutions that are not within your budget range? We’ve discovered a better way.
We believe that Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM pricing should be accessible to anyone who is evaluating CRM systems for their company.
The Quick Quote tool is fast, easy, automatic, and free.
Here’s how the Quick Quote tool works:
On the top right-hand side of each page of the CRM Software Blog, look for the orange button labeled “Request Instant Quote Dynamics 365/CRM.”
Clicking on that button will take you to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Quick Quote Request Form. From there, you are only moments away from a free, fully automated budgetary estimate for the full cost of Dynamics 365 software, implementation, and training.
On the Quick Quote form, indicate whether you’re interested in 365 Business Edition or Enterprise Edition. Next, let us know if you want Basic CRM, Basic CRM Plus, or Advanced CRM (you’ll see what each of those provides.)
Then, enter your contact information so we can email you an instant quote.
We’ve made it easy because we know that’s what you want. After all, the Internet was designed to provide useful information for people like you who are trying to make their best decisions.
Get a Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM Quick Quote today and see how this powerful solution will fit into your budget.
Dynamics 365 CRM being a multifaced platform provides users data-driven solutions. And businesses look for solutions that can increase the productivity of Dynamics 365 CRM multi-folds. One such solution required is an application that can enhance the viewing of records and their relationships like account details, lead details, perform quick actions on records, and further analyze the data without hopping through different entities pages repeatedly.
And Inogic has the right solution for them – Map My Relationships – A productivity application that can provide Mind Map view of all the Dynamics 365 CRM data on a form. Map My Relationships visualizes Dynamics 365 Entity records into Relationship Maps so that users can easily traverse through them and make informed decision quickly. It offers support for one-to-many, many-to-one as well as many-to-many relationships. And it supports both OOB and Custom Entities.
Let’s answer a few of the questions related to Map My Relationships that you may have regarding how it can benefit your business:
What unique feature does Map My Relationships offer to Dynamics 365 CRM users?
Among all the features that Map My Relationships offer, the most loved and unique feature is the Mind Map view of Dynamics 365 CRM records. It provides a complete 360-degree view of all the important data of a record in a single view. This feature helps in understanding the hierarchical structure of the relationship between records in a single glance thereby making decision making simpler.
Is there an option to create activity records related to entities from the map itself?
Along with the mind map view, Map My Relationships also enable you to create activities like Phone Calls, Appointments, Add Tasks, etc. right from the map itself. You do not have to go to the individual record to perform all these actions.
Can important details related to the record be viewed on the map?
Map My Relationships is here to provide a visualization of all the records and their relationships in a single glance. To make it easier for the users, it also allows you to view the details of a record just by hovering on the record. There is no need to open a record and view its data in record form.
Is this all? What other features does Map My Relationships offer?
Apart from providing a 360-degree view, providing a quick view of details of records, and allowing you to perform quick actions on the records, it provides an option to assign images to records and also provide a view of the aggregate value of records. Let us find out more about these features:
Display Images:
To provide a quick visualization, Map My Relationships provide an option of assigning images to the data so that they can be quickly identified. This will help in distinguishing the records and you will be able to make quick decisions and save time.
Aggregation and Grouping:
With Map My Relationships, users can view the aggregate value of record and see the performance of the record. You won’t have to create a roll-up field for this.
All these features in just one application! Now you will be able to handle multiple projects without worrying about remembering relationships between multiple entities. And this is not limited to only one or two entities, you can visualize the relationship associated with any record by adding Map My Relationships as a control on the required form.
Visualize, analyze, and enhance the productivity of your Dynamics 365 CRM with the help of this solution.
Visualizing Dynamics 365 data on map is one of the core elements for easy implementation of a business process in any organization. By viewing where the prospects come from, and which regions need to be focused on for improving businesses, the sales can be seamlessly improved. To improve the overall performance of Dynamics 365 CRM, wouldn’t it be optimum to visualize data without switching screens. This is why we have introduced PCF control in Maplytics (Preferred Maps integration app on Microsoft AppSource) to view the geographical location of Dynamics 365 CRM data right in record form or entity grid or sub-grid.
PowerApps Component Framework enables users to visualize data quickly and apply actions on them to improve the entire business speed. Currently, with Maplytics, we have created four types of PCF Controls viz.:
These controls prominently manage the visualization of data and ease the process of taking actions on them right from form’s ribbon. Let’s dive deep and understand these controls in-depth:
Map View Control for Record
Users can add these control on any field with Data Type as ‘Single Line of Text’ of the record. After adding this control, users can view the record’s geo-coordinates and address on the hover of pushpin. It enables visualizing the geographical location of record on map without switching screen.
Map Edit Control for Record
This control is almost similar to Map View Control for Record apart from the fact that it is editable. In Map Edit Control for Record, users can edit the address and location of the record. They can either drag and drop the pushpin to another location and update the address or, they can enter the address and update the location of the pushpin. It also enables viewing the geo-location of the pushpin without switching screen.
Map View Control for Dataset
This control can be added to any entity to visualize all the records of a View or sub-grid on map. Users can view all the details of a pushpin by hovering over it. The fields to be displayed on hover of a pushpin are customizable. Apart from this, multiple pushpins can be selected and highlighted at a time. After highlighting these pushpins, actions from the ribbon can be applied to them. Also, any pushpin record can be opened with right-click.
Detail Map Control for Dataset
This is the most recent addition to the list of PCF Controls we have added. It can be added to any entity or dashboard to visualize the records of all views, sub-grids or dashboard. Like Map View Control for Dataset, in this control also multiple pushpins can be selected and actions from the ribbon can be applied to them without switching screens. Besides, multiple features can be applied to the records from the page viz. Plot Entity Records, Plot Categorized Data, Proximity Search, POI Locations, Routing, Map Mode and Labels.
It is a substantial method to derive maximum out of the visualization of data without having to switch screen and plotting data separately. By data visualization from the page, ample time is saved which can be used for other tasks.
To discuss your mapping requirements drop us a mail at crm@inogic.com.
CRM pricing shouldn’t be a mystery. There is plenty of information online about the features of various CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software solutions. But, for whatever reason, it’s really hard to find CRM pricing on the Internet.
Usually, and understandably, CRM resellers want to get a salesperson into your office for a demonstration and consultation before they give you an idea of the cost of their product. But that doesn’t make sense. Why should you waste your time investigating solutions that are not within your budget range? We’ve discovered a better way.
Why do we provide a quoting tool? Because, contrary to the mainstream view that it’s not a good idea to make pricing readily available, we have nothing to hide. We believe that Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM pricing should be accessible to anyone who is evaluating CRM systems for their company.
The Quick Quote tool is fast and easy. Here’s how it works:
Look for the orange button labeled “Request Instant Quote Dynamics 365/CRM.” It appears at the top right-hand side of each page of the CRM Software Blog.
Click on that button and you’ll be taken to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Quick Quote Request Form. And from there you are only moments away from a free, fully automated budgetary estimate for the full cost of Dynamics 365 software, implementation, and training.
On the Quick Quote form, you’ll indicate whether you’re interested in 365 Business Edition or Enterprise Edition. Next, you’ll let us know if you want Basic CRM, Basic CRM Plus or Advanced CRM (you’ll see what each of those provides.)
Then, provide your contact information so we can email you an instant quote.
We’ve made it easy because we know that’s what you want. After all, the Internet was designed to provide useful information for people like you who are trying to make their best decisions.
Get a Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM Quick Quote today and see how this powerful solution will fit into your budget.
Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM is the full function, cloud-based CRM/ERP system that runs on Microsoft’s Azure platform. Moving your CRM to Microsoft Dynamics 365 means that all of your sales, customer service, field service, marketing, project service automation, operations, and even financials can be done from one convenient, integrated cloud platform.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 combines the key elements of previous ERP and CRM systems into a robust and customer-centric platform. It includes built-in business intelligence and integrates with Office 365 to create an all-encompassing business application suite.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 has two licensing models available:
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Edition – Optimized for 10-260 employees, includes Financials, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service functionality.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Enterprise Edition – Optimized for 250 or more employees, includes the capabilities of Dynamics CRM Online and Dynamics AX, such as Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and Operations (ERP).
So, how much does it cost?
The CRM Software Blog has a Quick Quote Wizard designed to provide you with a budgetary estimate of the costs involved with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The Quick Quote tool will help you calculate the total cost, which includes the license subscription, annual software assurance maintenance plan, and approximate implementation and training costs from a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner.
Dataflows help organizations unify data from disparate sources and prepare it for reusability. You can use dataflows to ingest data from a large and growing set of supported sources including Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Azure SQL Database, Excel, SharePoint, and more. You can then map data to standard entities in the Common Data Model, in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2. Ingesting data can sometimes be tedious and time consuming, especially when the schema between the source and destination is different.
A dataflow template can expedite this process by providing a predefined set of entities and field mappings to enable flow of data from your source to the destination, in the Common Data Model. A dataflow template commoditizes the movement of data which in turn reduces overall burden and cost for a business user. It provides you a head start to ingest data wherein you don’t need to worry about knowing and mapping the source and destination entities and fields – We do it for you, through dataflow templates.
This month, we are releasing a set of dataflow templates that help you unify data from popular CRM apps such as Dynamics 365 for Sales and Salesforce.
Dataflows template
Description
Leads and opportunities
(Dynamics 365 for Sales)
Use this template to build your sales leaderboard and get visibility over your sales pipeline. Sales managers can use the data to monitor their sales team performance including lead conversion and opportunity closure rates. Salespersons can get visibility over their top opportunities and leads.
Quotes, orders, invoices
(Dynamics 365 for Sales)
Connect to quotes, order and invoice data in Dynamics 365 for Sales to analyze quote closure rates and product line performance.
Lead to cash
(Dynamics 365 for Sales)
Get actionable insights by analyzing data from Dynamics 365 for Sales. Whether you are a sales executive who is looking for visibility over the sales leaderboard or your top opportunities or a sales manager who wants to review your team performance or a VP of sales looking for revenue from deals, this template helps connect to the sales data you need.
Accounts, leads, opportunities
(Salesforce)
You store your accounts, leads and opportunities in Salesforce – No problem! Gain insights by analyzing lead conversion and opportunity closures from Salesforce.
Note: Salesforce trial accounts are not supported at this time
Creating a dataflow using the Dynamics 365 for Sales Lead to cash template
Start by creating a new dataflow and choose the Lead to cash template from the “Choose data source” screen in Power Query Online
Provide your Dynamics 365 for Sales instance that you want to connect to
Provide credentials to your Dynamics 365 for Sales instance
The ‘Edit Queries’ screen shows you the predefined entities for the Lead to cash template with your source data
By clicking on ‘Map to standard’ in top menu, you can note that the source data fields have already been mapped to the Common Data Model
Save and close your new dataflow to start the query validation process to ensure that data can be loaded
That’s it – Provide a name and save your dataflow. You just successfully created your dataflow using a dataflow template
Once you’ve created a dataflow, you can use Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service to create datasets, reports, dashboards, and apps that leverage the power of the Common Data Model to drive deep insights into your business activities.