If you are using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) in the cloud, then read on...

Microsoft announced that the legacy web client for Dynamics 365 CE won't be available after December 1, 2020. It is recommended that subscribers begin to transition now with the intent to start using the Unified Interface by October 1, 2020. This ensures that any wrinkles are ironed out ahead of time.

To ease a major concern you may have, this transition will not impact the data in your system. Think of it more as a major update.

To prepare our clients we have developed transition documentation to take you through the end to end process.

Click here to check out the transition plan!

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It's a big misunderstanding that if you just buy and implement a CRM system, it will immediately boost your revenue. Getting a CRM system on board, is just the tip of an iceberg. Below are three tips on how to get the most benefits from your CRM system:

Accurate Data is a Key

You may have the fanciest features in your CRM system, but they won't get you any useful insights, once your data isn't accurate. Make sure that the process of data input is easy, quick and clear, so your employees will be motivated to provide your CRM system with accurate information.  

Customize it

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With Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales and the implementation of marketing automation, managing and nurturing leads has never been easier. With automation software, potential leads can be tracked and nurtured accordingly based on their level of interaction they have with your company’s content. However, establishing a lead nurturing workflow is not a one size fits all process, and requires some initial setup and customization before you can begin to start bringing in new clients. Consider the following three steps before you decide on implementing any CRM software:

1. Understand Your Customers

Before you can begin setting up any sort of automation, you need to understand how your customers interact with your content. Who is your ideal target segment? Is the information and content relevant to their needs? Knowing how consumers are engaging with your company (i.e. social media, blog posts, etc.) will influence the type of content you post and how you choose to interact with them based on where they are at in their customer journey.

2. Plan Out The Steps To Your Workflow

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Continuing from our previous blog post, we’ll further discuss the process of capturing leads and how to develop them into potential customers. Now that you’ve established your workflow and have found some promising leads, the next step towards gaining new customers is to build on your relationship with your leads and to nurture them.

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing refers to the development of a series of planned actions and communication strategies for the purposes of eliciting certain behaviours from potential clients. The idea of lead nurturing is to guide consumers down their purchasing journey, sending them specific and relevant content which can help convince clients that you both understand their needs and assuring them that you have the solution to their problems.

How does lead nurturing work?

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No doubt, CRM plays a significant role in today's business world – it provides useful insights, improves customer service and automates everyday tasks. But what about one of the fastest developing industries in the world – the IT industry? How can a $200 billion worth industry benefit from a CRM system? Here are three ways how CRM helps software companies to increase their sales:

1. Determine the best marketing channels for quality lead generation

Does your marketing team know which leads bring you the most value – the ones that were acquired from LinkedIn or the ones that saw your ad on Google? Assessing it without a CRM system is tough.  A CRM system can also determine the most effective messages, which influence a sale, and the best time to deliver them. This makes a CRM system an irreplaceable tool for software sales.

2. Develop a well-established customer journey

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According to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, there are 1.1 million small companies (1-99 employees) in the country. However, 60% of small businesses fail within the first five years, so there's a big concern for entrepreneurs on how to stay competitive. Here are three ways you can stay ahead of your competitors if you run a small business.

1. Be passionate

Usually, small business owners started their business because of passion. Passion drives motivation, which makes small business owners the busiest people in the world. They don't finish their work when it's 5 o clock and rarely think about vacation. This drive and passion are factors that make them successful.

Convert your passion into hard work, and you’ll be one step ahead of the pack.

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In December 2016, the world got to know that Microsoft acquired LinkedIn. Now we can see the first results of this deal – Microsoft has announced that Dynamics 365 for Sales is integrated with the LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

The new LinkedIn solution is a widget, which integrates into your dashboard and consists of 2 parts – a member profile and a company profile.

A LinkedIn member profile allows you to get general information and some insights about your prospect. It also helps you to find the best ways to get introduced to your prospect as well as proposes a list of related leads based on your target audience.

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While creating emails, people usually make two significant mistakes: in their emails, they sell too much without any useful content, or they put too much content without enough selling. So, how can you find "the golden mean" and make your emails more effective? Here's a handy guide:

1. Be Yourself

Let’s be honest – people are tired of emails that contain similar messages and don’t have anything personal. The vast majority of them is based on the traditional techniques, which make them look just like one another. To combat this, try to contribute a little bit of your personality into an email – tell a joke, share your opinion, be honest about the product that you sell. Soon enough, your personality can come through the emails and become a unique identifier that’ll make your company stand out.

2. Use Trends

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, also known as Dynamics CRM, has become a powerful tool that, when successfully implemented, can greatly increase sales revenue and improve customer retention by as much as 27%. Successful implementation can be difficult however, partially due to reluctance by sales representatives who are unwilling to overcome the initial learning curve that comes with the software. To help smooth over the initial transition process, here are three ways in which you can encourage your sales representatives to begin using CRM to assist them in sales:

1. Communicate Financial Benefits

The ability to improve lead management should be communicated to sales representatives, as well as the potential financial benefits that stems from it. D365 for Sales helps sales representatives better track and follow up with potential sales leads. This has resulted in businesses reporting upwards of 30% increase in sales revenue per sales rep.

2. Emphasize Personal Accessibility

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Retrieving data and metadata for reports In Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be done using SQL views. In Dynamics CRM, users can run queries on SQL views that are automatically created. As the image below shows, names within the SQL views are easy to identify. A Microsoft tip sheet notes that SQL-based reports in Dynamics CRM use the filtered views provided for each entity to retrieve data for the reports. 

To obtain the query, users can download the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) online. 

Apart from being automatically created, Filtered Views offer the benefit of being updated for custom entities, having security embedded in the view, and being supported after patches, service releases and upgrades.

To learn more about how WebSan Solutions can support your Dynamics CRM projects and implementation, visit our Solutions page or contact us. 

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Being part of the help desk support team affords me the opportunity to learn about little idiosyncrasies in Dynamics CRM. And I like to pass along these sweet nuggets to our loyal blog readers in case you find yourself in a similar pinch.

Have you ever wanted to add ‘Company’ to an existing Lead view, and the field is nowhere to be found?

In order to see the field, you need to perform a bit of trickery…

ü  Choose any other entity from the ‘Record Type’ dropdown,

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On July 28^th, 2016, at 2:00 PM, WebSan Solutions will present a webinar showcasing the highlights and capabilities of one of the newest additions to Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Field Service. The module, known for being highly configurable and scalable, makes for a robust solution that can be of value to different types of users, particularly those who want to create and manage standard and customized reports.

The free 30-minute webinar aims to provide an introduction to Field Service and discuss what the solution is, who it’s a good fit for, and its components. The webinar will also feature a demo of Field Service highlighting the module’s key features.

Register today to reserve your spot for the Microsoft Field Service webinar!

Click here to register for Microsoft Field Service webinar on July 28 at 2:00 PM EST

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The main navigation in the CRM 2016 ribbon not only altered its look, it also made functional changes, vastly improving the end user experience. The Main Menu Button now replaces the CRM logo. Clicking this button enables the user to switch between each of the functional areas without waiting for the page to reload. 

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The newest mobile app released by Microsoft for Dynamics CRM takes the user experience to a whole new level. The newest release is compatible with Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1 and above. Below are some notable tips and tricks for navigating the mobile app.

Choose your app carefully.When you search in your mobile device’s app store, the familiar, Dynamics CRM for phone express, and the newbie Dynamics CRM for Phones, will be available to select from. The simplest identifier is their distinct logos.

You want to choose Dynamics CRM for Phones.

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Running a well-oiled support desk is not for the faint of heart. There are so many moving parts…Does the customer have a support agreement? Does the contacting party have authority to open a support ticket against the agreement? What is the issue? Is the issue covered under the support agreement? What is the expected turn-around time? How does this relate to its priority in the queue? Which support resource should be assigned the ticket? Is the support resource staying on top of the ticket? 

Did you know there is a whole area inside your Dynamics CRM environment that is fitted with tools to manage your support operations? It is neatly tucked away in Settings under Service Management and contains a slew of menu items to manage the many facets of the support process. 

Through the combined forces of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Entitlements you are armed with a pairing which allows for a flexible support model. SLAs offer variable levels of support, with varied turnaround times and price points, while Entitlements allow you to define the variable by which support is measured (time vs count), who can open support tickets against the agreement, the products/services covered under the agreement, and the channels by which a support ticket can be submitted.

Depending on how support tickets are received, Automatic Case Creation & Update Rules may prove to be a mighty ally. This feature automates the process of creating/updating records based upon predefined settings and conditions. One such condition is whether an Entitlement exists for the submitting customer. Take your automatically created cases, and make use of Routing Rule Sets, which read the properties of the Case and route the records to your various Support Queues to be picked up by your Support Resources to be worked on. It is worth noting that Routing Rule Sets can also be applied manually if your support tickets reside in a “bucket” for assignment.

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With Dynamics CRM 2016’s release, Microsoft aims to improve on supplying intelligent customer engagement solutions that are personalized, proactive and predictive. The release will focus on creating a single, unified user experience that promises to eliminate distractions people face by bouncing from application to application. To supplement this new release, WebSan will offer the “Top 5 Notable Features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016” webinar on Thursday, January 21, 2016 at 11:00 AM EST.

The free 30-minute webinar will offer attendees a glimpse of the benefits of upgrading to CRM 2016, the system’s new features that promote an improved end-user experience, as well as key new features for administrators or customizers of the system.

Attendees will gain more information about CRM 2016’s new interactive service hub, changes to the Excel export feature, new functions for Fields, Business Rules and Advanced Find and improvements to the system’s navigation.

Register today to reserve your spot for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 webinar!

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You can now brand your CRM! Themes allow you to apply your distinct logo and color scheme to your Dynamics CRM environment. Three simple clicks and you are well on your way to a CRM environment with a look of your own.

1. From the Main Menu button, select Settings

2. Select Customizations

3. Select Themes

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WebSan and the leading global independent authority in covering the world of Microsoft Dynamics, MS Dynamics World have joined together to offer a new Microsoft Dynamics CRM webinar. The free webinar will be held on Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 12 PM EST.

The session will look at the different features of Dynamics CRM 2015 and explore how one can mold, manipulate and build upon the software to meet the requirements of your organization. The webinar will explore how to use Dashboards, data export from Dynamics CRM to Microsoft Excel, implementation of business rules and processes to promote data integrity and the use of Workflows.

This collaboration with MS Dynamics World promises to bring an insightful glimpse of Dynamics CRM’s capabilities. Participants will also get the opportunity to ask questions to the speaker. Register today and don’t miss out on your chance to attend this webinar. 

Click here to register for “Maximize Dynamics CRM Right Out of the Box” webinar

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No programming knowledge? No problem!

Business Rules, which are delivered right out-of-the-box with Dynamics CRM, tackle client side logic in a user friendly way, allowing virtually anyone that is responsible for managing their company’s CRM to get off and running with this fantastic tool in no time. 

In a nutshell, this little gem allows you to create and add form design functions to the system and custom entities without a lick of development. Through “If…Then…Else” conditional statements, you too can create rules which monitor the behaviour of fields and subsequently define an action or actions to be taken upon the conditions being met.

Gone are the days of reaching out to developers for JavaScript and plug-ins each and every time a requirement rears its head. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not some sort of magic potion that will make all your wishes come true. But, you are bound to dazzle your users (and your boss), with fields that seamlessly appear just when they need them; field values which auto-complete right before their very eyes; field requirements changing on the fly, ensuring the most relevant data is always captured; and error messages, or what I prefer to call ‘reminder messages’ which prompt users to conform to best business practices. With a little creativity and some business logic in tow, Business Rules can do all that and so much more!

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I was recently speaking with some likeminded CRMers in the community and we were discussing what we find to be at the top of the list for help desk inquiries. The overwhelming consensus was CRM for Outlook.

Do you ever find yourself faced with CRM for Outlook just not cooperating? Whether it be that you are having undesirable or unresponsive behaviors, the CRM tab is greyed out, or the CRM tab has vanished. Have no fear, you are not alone, and with a few checks and few clicks, more often than not, one of the following suggestions will be your golden nugget for resolution.

Check the following machine related roadblocks for starters...