Reporting options for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
I’ve often been asked during the evaluation or analysis phase of a CRM project to describe the reporting capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. So here’s a quick summary of what’s possible:
- Built-in reporting features: system and personal views using Advanced Find, exporting to Excel with static and dynamic worksheets and pivot tables, the Report Wizard feature, charts and dashboards. The CRM Resource Center contains a good introduction to CRM reporting. Additionally, these topics and more are all covered in the CRM 2011 Customization training course and there are lots of learning materials available (books, e-courses, classroom courses, blog articles).
- Custom reports: Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses Microsoft’s reporting technology, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) for business intelligence. Custom SSRS reports can be developed by a SSRS developer who understands the CRM data model using Visual Studio BIDS or by a data analyst using Report Builder and then displayed within the appropriate areas in the CRM interface. Again there are lots of good SSRS training options available.
- Really custom reports: there are various options available for meeting complex Dynamics CRM reporting requirements: Microsoft SharePoint and PerformancePoint, Zap Business Intelligence, QlikView, TARGIT and so on. You may not need to use any of these add-on products, but it’s often good to know that there are plenty of options available.
Data Integration using InaPlex Inaport
The Medical Physics department at a hospital trust in London needed to replace an ageing medical device asset management system. Their application strategy was to implement customised Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint applications when the time came to replace their 700 line of business systems.
So I set about implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 using an agile methodology and working closely with the Medical Physics users to prioritise and implement the features they needed. Towards the end of the development we needed to migrate 125,000 historical engineering jobs (a ‘job’ is a customised version of the ‘case’ system entity in this project). However, you can’t import resolved cases using the CRM 4.0 Data Import Wizard. I was working alongside a talented CRM developer, but he was busy adding new features and upgrading our development environment to CRM 2011, so I didn’t want to distract him with data migration work. I needed to find an alternative data migration solution that didn’t involve custom development. [Sorry dear readers, but this is not the first time I’ve had to admit this is public: I am not a CRM developer!].
I quickly tested the much-improved CRM 2011 Data Import Wizard but this doesn’t allow resolved cases to be imported either. After a quick review of the available options, I started working with Inaport 7.2 from InaPlex*.
Inaport has native connectors for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and 2011 and supports CRM Online, on-premise and partner-hosted deployment models. It also supports a variety of other CRM systems – such as, Goldmine, ACT!, Sage CRM and SalesLogix – as well as generic data sources such as text files, SQL Server, Oracle and Ingres databases. It uses the CRM web services API so all its features use supported methods without requiring the user to understand the CRM SDK.
The Inaport help file offers some good advice for working with Microsoft CRM’s unique data types (owner, relationship lookup ID, status and status reason options, picklists/option sets, date and time) and Notes (annotation) entity for handling attachments. It can be installed on a PC or server and configured with minimal programming skills, which played to my weaknesses. Some SQL skills and previous experience with regular expressions will help if you have more complex requirements.
Inaport’s data transformations are carried out in memory, so you don’t need a local staging database; although you might choose to use one if maximum performance is an important requirement. For my simple import routines I managed to achieve a throughput of approximately 60 records per second in a my development system (a virtual machine on my laptop with 5GB memory running Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 UR2). For my most complex routines, throughput fell to three or four records per second. These commonly involved dozens of queries against the CRM database, which Inaport supports via web services, reassigning records or resolving cases where each operation requires lots of web service API calls.
My data source was a Linux-based pseudo-relational system and the data was given to me as a series of text files. Inaport seemed happy to consume the files as long as I remembered to convert the ANSI text files to Unicode text files so that some non-Roman characters could be resolved (Inaport has full international support; InaPlex tells me they have customers using text import in Japan and China, for example). I configured an Inaport import profile for each file (equivalent to a CRM data map). I started with reference data such as job codes, departments and product categories, followed by products, then assets and finally jobs.
I found that Inaport had several useful features that allowed me to meet requirements that I just couldn’t have met using the CRM 2011 Data Import Wizard:
- Inaport supports SQL queries if connecting to a source database but if your source is a text file it also supports filters so that I could exclude unnecessary records from my source files without having to manually edit the files.
- It has some powerful data manipulation features that I could use to split text strings into separate fields, format dates correctly for import into CRM, and convert source values into CRM option set values.
- I could use the ‘dbselect’ feature to lookup GUID values in CRM which enabled me to associate child records to the correct parent records much more accurately than relying on a name match using the CRM Import Wizard.
- I could daisy-chain import routines together and run the end-to-end import process for all entities as a single batch process. I could also send the results of an import profile run to my email inbox which was great for reviewing the results of a weekend-long import routine without having to sit at my PC all weekend.
- And, most importantly, I was able import records with any Status and Status Reason combination. This enabled me to import and close historic records, especially resolved cases, which I simply couldn’t have done with the CRM Import Wizard.
You could probably configure Inaport to migrate all your data from an on-premise CRM organization to a CRM Online organization, or mirror your CRM Online organization to a local database. However, configuring Inaport profiles for all your entities could be a time-consuming task and InaPlex could do a lot more to help speed up this configuration for customers with this requirement.
Hints and Tips for using Inaport with Microsoft CRM
Connectors
Configuring a source or target connector takes less than a minute. If you want to update records inside your existing CRM database, you’ll need two connectors – one source and one target – both pointed at the same CRM organization. After importing all the job records I used this feature to close or cancel the historic jobs based on text data I had imported into another field.
Using Preview
Inaport provides a preview pane that shows up to 10,000 records from your source data, and most importantly shows what your data transformation expressions have done to the data. This allowed me to check the results of my expressions before importing a byte of information into CRM.
Working with Numbers
I was able to use some of Inaport’s conversion and arithmetical functions in order to import values into integer fields. For example, “sum((s2n(#[repair time hours])* 60),#[repair time mins])” combined the number values from two text fields ready to be loaded into a integer (duration) field in CRM.
Working with Dates
Microsoft CRM accepts dates in the following formats: “yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss” or “yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss +00:00”. As my source data had the dates and times spread across three fields, I had to combine them, which I was able to do using expressions such as “d2s(date(#[start date]),”yyyy-MM-dd”)&”T”&padl(#[start time hours],2,”0″)&”:”&padl(#[start time mins],2,”0″)&”:00″”. Occasionally, I had to use the ‘skip’ function to avoid trying to insert blank date values into CRM (which would cause a 0×80040203 error message).
Working with Lookups (Parent-Child Relationships)
Inaport allows you to import into multiple entities in a single pass, and will automatically populate the parent and foreign key values. However, it also allows you to do run time queries against the target CRM system, and use the results of those queries to build associations if necessary.
I made significant use of Inaport’s ‘dbselect’ feature to associate child records with a parent record. For example, I used the following expression: “dbselect(“T”, “SELECT accountid FROM account WHERE gstt_departmentcode = ‘gstt_parentdepartment”)&”::account”” to associate an asset with the hospital department that owned the asset. (A ‘department’ was a renamed ‘account’ entity in this project).
While dbselect functions are very useful, they are also a performance drag as Inaport has to convert the query into a CRM SDK call, receive a response from the CRM server and then process the response. Some of my import profiles used dozens of dbselects and as a result Inaport could only process three or four records per second.
InaPlex offered some advice for using cross-reference tables to improve the performance of dbselect functions (although a blog article with an expanded explanation would have been better). Unfortunately, I didn’t have database rights to create new tables on my customer’s database server so I couldn’t make use of this technique.
Other Functionality
Inaport supports other functionality that tried out but didn’t need to use, such as:
- A range of matching techniques, including fuzzy matching that allows matching of misspelt company names
- Dynamic record ownership reassignment (very useful for migrations from legacy CRM systems)
- Pre- and post-operation expressions, which get executed before or after a record is modified; the post operation has access to the primary keys of the record and all parent records, which provides enormous flexibility.
- Ability to define custom code using any Microsoft .NET compatibile language, and have the code accessible from any point that an expression can be executed.
Summary
InaPlex Inaport 7.2 enables data analysts, with little or no programming skills, to meet sophisticated data integration requirements involving Microsoft CRM. It offers a rich set of features way beyond the CRM Data Import Wizard and comparable with much more expensive mid-market ETL tools such as Scribe Insight. InaPlex provided fantastic customer service and support throughout my project.
* Full disclosure: InaPlex provided a temporary license for Inaport 7.2 free of charge to my customer in return for me taking a one hour training class and agreeing to blog about my experience using their product.
Preparing for MB2-867 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installation and Deployment
It’s been five years since I sat the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 exams about time that I updated my certifications for CRM 2011. So today I sat the MB2-867 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Installation and Deployment exam and thought I’d share my experience with you in the hope that it will help you pass first time (and get a higher score than me).
Preparing for the Exam
Firstly, if you’re preparing for the exam there are several options available to help you learn the material.
- Classroom training – lots of Microsoft training partners offer classroom-training that uses the official syllabus, virtual machine labs and courseware to provide you with a comprehensive training package. The best bit about classroom training is that you’re likely to work with a very experienced instructor who has lots of hands-on, real-life experience and the opportunity to meet other students. You’ll get to focus on the content and most courses have a very high exam pass rate. Search for 80296A: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Installation and Deployment to find a training provider near you.
- E-learning – Microsoft offers lots of e-learning content. This is similar to the classroom-training but without the instructor. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find out how to access the e-learning course for 80296AE.
- Official courseware – the official courseware is only available to Microsoft partners and customers who have purchased a Microsoft Dynamics service plan through either PartnerSource or CustomerSource. I wish Microsoft would provide it free of charge to anyone who needed it, but I understand Microsoft needs to recoup the investment they make in the training material.
- Other material – some of the published CRM 2011 books are useful and the CRM 2011 Implementation Guide is very relevant to this exam but none of these resources is enough on their own if you want to pass first time.
The Exam Experience
Microsoft exams were previously available through two exam providers, but now only Prometric provides Microsoft exams. Coincidentally, the price went up from £88 to £99 after Prometric was awarded a monopoly.
I booked my exam through the Prometric website for the nearest exam centre with an available slot. Unfortunately, the Prometric website is very basic and doesn’t offer any useful features such as ‘Where is my nearest center?’ or a map so you just have to search through the list of exam centres by city then check availability. It took me just over an hour to book my three exams. You’ll have to go through the entire procedure again and pay a rescheduling fee (£20) if you change your mind later.
My exam was in the exam centre at QA Ltd in King William Street in London at 10am and scheduled to last three hours. The exam room was a cupboard with three computers screened-off from each other. My possessions were safely locked away outside; you’re not allowed to bring any notes or take any notes away.
After accepting lots of disclaimers and policies that I didn’t read reads, I started the exam. I had 170 minutes to answer 74 multiple choice questions. Most questions required one correct answer from four options (radio buttons) but about 10 questions asked me to select all the correct options (check boxes). The questions asked are selected at random from a question pool so your questions might be different from my questions.
Exam Topics
The questions seemed not quite random but grouped together from the following topics:
Planning the Installation
- Some questions on privileges for the installation user.
- Some questions on where each component is installed. Know the difference between the Reporting Extensions and Report Authoring Extension. Learn a little about AD FS for claims-based authentication (e.g. its installation location).
- Lots of questions on software versions – operating system, database server, browser, Office, SharePoint, 32/64-bit compatibility – for CRM server, e-mail router, CRM for Outlook.
- Some questions on SSL and IFD which required more Windows networking knowledge than I had expected (DNS, host headers, ports, etc.) but only one on claims-based authentication.
- A few of questions on licensing – Server/Workgroup and User/Device CALs.
- I don’t recall any questions on hardware requirements, Active Directory modes, or Deployment Manager.
Installing CRM 2011 Server
- Some questions on the web components and Windows services and the accounts used to run them.
- Some questions on the AD security groups. Know how to specify custom security groups.
- One or two questions on Windows role services and features installed by CRM setup but no other components such as Windows components or .NET framework components.
- There were one or two questions on the sequence of steps required when planning and installing CRM software. You don’t need to memorise all the steps in detail, but you’ll need to know the correct sequence and be able to identify procedures that are not required.
- There were no questions about troubleshooting, except for one question about which deployment pattern to consider if there was a performance problem with asynchronous jobs on a single, full-server deployment.
Installing CRM 2011 E-mail Router
- Some questions on which operating systems support the CRM 2011 E-mail Router and about configuring incoming and outgoing profiles but not much else.
Installing and Deploying CRM 2011 for Outlook
- There seemed to be quite a few questions on the supported operating systems and Office versions for CRM for Outlook and Offline Access. Get to know the Offline Access constraints.
- There were one or two questions about alternative deployment methods such as using a configuration file, Group Policy and systems management software.
Configuring CRM 2011
- As I mentioned, there were quite a few questions about IFD one or two about claims-based authentication so at least get to know the theory even if you’ve never deployed CRM 2011 with claims-based authentication.
- There were also one or two questions about high-availability deployments (e.g. using load balanced web servers and clustered database servers).
Upgrading To and Redeploying CRM 2011
- There were quite a few questions about upgrading from CRM 4.0 to CRM 2011 so get to know the sequence of steps and the constraints. And you’ll need to be familiar with the procedures for importing an organisation using the Deployment Manager both for redeploying CRM 2011 orgs as well as the upgrade options (in-place, migrate and connect to existing deployment).
This article was inspired by Richard Knudson’s similar article on preparing for exam MB2-866 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Customization and Configuration. Thanks Richard.
Startup Britain offers free 90 days access to CRM Online
Startup Britain is a new campaign launched by a bunch of successful British small-business owners and backed by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Recognising that most people in the UK don’t work for large enterprises, but in fact that most of us work for small businesses, Startup Britain aims to encourage more of us to start, and of course grow, our own business.
The campaign’s website aims to bring together the best content to help inspire and help budding business owners and offers a host of discounted services from corporate sponsors. While I’m a little skeptical about some of the so-called offers (a £5 book voucher, anyone?), one of the campaign’s biggest and most generous backers is Microsoft.
Microsoft’s Startup Britain offer includes a free 90-day of Microsoft Dynamics CRM if you quote StartupBritain90 when contacted by one of Microsoft’s friendly online success managers.
Would-be entrepreneurs of Britain, you know what to do!
5 Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers to avoid
Complaining about partners is a popular past time for Microsoft customers. Some customers think that partners charge the earth for junior consultants to implement features that should have been part of the standard software package in the first place.
As a Microsoft partner, finding and keeping the right type of customers is critical to the success and profitability of your business. But this is much more difficult than it seems. I’ve got plenty of first-hand experience of working with a few Microsoft customers that cost my business money and gave me nothing but stress.
So, for all you Microsoft partners out there, here are five Microsoft customers you should avoid:
- The Micro Business – small businesses sometimes want all the same features, customisations and integrations as bigger businesses but haven’t realised that the costs of automation outweigh the benefits when there’s only a handful of users. Managed carefully, small businesses can be great customers but it’s a high-stakes game.
- The DIYer - some customers can appear interested in using a partner’s consultants to help implement Dynamics CRM but after several pre-sales meetings, scoping sessions and design workshops it becomes clear that this DIYer is intent on implementing the system himself and trying to avoid paying anyone anything for their expertise. After the first meeting or two, suggest engaging in paid-for scoping and design sessions so that you don’t give away too much of your experience for nothing.
- The Silent Sponsor - implementing a new CRM system requires users to change their behaviour and that requires a supportive sponsor to support and mandate the changes throughout the organisation. If you find that the IT Director is the sponsor of the CRM system implementation project (and none of the users work for him), then you need to find another sponsor. I remember one Sales and Marketing Director who insisted that we implement Dynamics CRM but wanted his sales people continue to complete their sales forecasts in Excel because he didn’t want them to have to change their behaviour (but he somehow expected different results!). Needless to say, that project didn’t go very far. Find your sponsor, look her in the eye, find out her true objectives of the CRM initiative and gain their unwavering sponsorship.
- The IT-less – it’s not just small businesses who lack in-house IT expertise. Sometimes the IT department in mid-sized businesses are either not engaged in the CRM initiative, too stretched to get involved, or just don’t have the expertise required. At the end of the CRM system implementation it’s vital that the customer’s IT team are ready to provide user support and maintain the system. If they’re not, then expect to have to provide a lot of first line support for all sorts of infrastructure, desktop and network issues that might be related to the CRM system, and be prepared to provide remote system administration services to keep the CRM system ticking along. Otherwise the CRM users will revolt and IT will blame you.
- The Crazy – I’ve had customers insist that Microsoft provides them with the source code for Dynamics CRM (‘that’s not going to happen’). I’ve had customers think that 30-day payment terms means that 30 days after they receive our invoices they enter the customer’s 60 day payment process (‘here’s another invoice for the interest on your late payment’). I’ve had customers insist that they own all the intellectual property rights for all the custom code we deliver (‘OK, but it’ll cost twice as long to implement because we’ll have to invent every line of code from scratch’). I’ve had customers insist that all the fields on a form are required fields (‘OK, but every field will get filled with crap data). I’ve had customers insist that we change the entire colour scheme to green to match their corporate branding (OK, but that’s five days of unsupported work for zero business benefit). Most customers are entirely reasonable, rational people, but every now and again I seem to attract the odd crazy customer. If you also meet customers with crazy requests then I’m glad it’s not just me!
OK, so my five nightmare Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers are drawn from a few isolated experiences that I’ve extrapolated into generalisations. I’m sure there are a plenty of exceptions to contradict my encounters. If you’re a Microsoft partner, I’d love to hear your comments on other Microsoft customers types to avoid…
5 Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners to avoid
Complaining about customers is a popular past time for CRM partners. Some partners’ perceptions is that most customers don’t know what they want, aren’t willing to listen to good advice, and aren’t willing to pay for anything!
As a Microsoft customer, finding the right partner and maintaining a working relationship with them is critical to the success of your CRM initiative. But this is much more difficult than it seems. On occasion, I’ve been hired by a Microsoft customer to rescue a failing project or an unused system and — no surprise — discovered that the customer’s relationship with their Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner has broken down.
So, for all you current or prospective Microsoft customers out there, here are five Microsoft partners you should avoid:
- The One-Man Band – freelance consultants and contractors can be a great asset to your implementation — they are less expensive and have some have more specialist or independent experience — but they are generally not available for long-term relationships. If you’re relying on your freelance consultant to help with critical support issues, an important upgrade or the significant expansion of your CRM system then they may not be available when you need them.
- The Sweat Shop – in an increasingly globalised economy some Microsoft partners have developed offshore development centres or partnerships. Sometimes the cost-savings of such an arrangement are passed on to you, the customer, sometimes not. But global development incurs an extra overhead in requirements specification, project management and testing and sometimes it doesn’t deliver the expected benefits. Closer interaction with a local partner can seem more expensive, but tends to lead to better results.
- The Pre-Sales Pizzaz - it’s understandable that partners send their best consultants to impress you during the pre-sales phase of your engagement. But it’s uncommon for those impressive pre-sales consultants to ever be involved in your project. Instead, go and meet their implementation consultants and support analysts in the partner’s offices and you’ll get a better sense of their culture. And if there is someone particularly impressive that you really, really want involved in your project then ask about that consultant’s availability but don’t expect them to still be available if you take longer than expected to start your project.
- The Uncommitted – Microsoft partners come in lots of sizes and its usually a good idea to engage with a partner with a similar size footprint to your own organisation. If you’re a global company, it makes sense to choose a partner with international presence. But the CRM practice within large systems integration companies can often get de-prioritised, sold-off or closed down, so if you can’t tell from the partner’s homepage that they are passionate about and committed to CRM then look somewhere else.
- The Pushy Salesman – we’ve all experienced the end of the month/quarter/year call of desperation from a sales person eager to meet their number. Often they’re offering free services or discounted software as long as you sign on the dotted line today. On the other hand, there are lots of Microsoft partners with high-integrity sales people who can help you through your purchasing decision, help you make choices that will save you money and increase your chances of project success, and are a pleasure to deal with. If you’re ready to work in an honest partnership there are too many great Microsoft partners to spend any of your time with any other kind.
OK, so my five nightmare Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners is drawn from a few isolated experiences that I’ve extrapolated into generalisations. I’m sure there are a few exceptions to contradict my encounters. If you’re a Microsoft customer, I’d love to hear your comments on other Microsoft partner attributes to avoid…
“Learning Snacks” for Dynamics CRM 4.0
In my quest to find out what training materials are available for Dynamics CRM, I have discovered that Microsoft has published a series of “learning snacks”. These are short Silverlight videos covering popular topics such as:
- Basic CRM user configuration options
- Configuring CRM for internet facing deployments
- Configuring CRM e-mail routers
- Configuring CRM for global deployments
- Importing data into CRM
- Configuring the product catalog in CRM
I hope you find them useful: http://bit.ly/ehJMNR
Vote for Microsoft to make Dynamics CRM training materials free for anyone to download!
Microsoft previously provided all the CRM training materials free for anyone to download and study, but now Microsoft partners and customer need to sign up for expensive service plans before they can access training materials.
Having lots of well-trained, certified CRM professionals available would lead to better implementations, lower implementation costs, happier customers, better partners, greater market share and software license revenues for Microsoft.
Please follow the link to Microsoft Connect and vote so that your voice is heard by Microsoft. Join the campaign!
What now for Microsoft’s hosting partners?
Yesterday, Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in 40 countries across the world. Microsoft has expanded the service from North America to 37 new countries and made massive investments in secure mega data centres, their multi-lingual sales and on-boarding teams, billing infrastructure, not to mention an entire new version of Dynamics CRM too.
Spooling up a Microsoft-hosted instance of Dynamics CRM in the UK brought back vivid memories from nearly five years ago. In July 2006, just a few weeks after I had invested my life savings to launch a hosted Dynamics CRM service, Microsoft issued a press release announcing “CRM Live” — a version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM that would be hosted by Microsoft in its own data centres instead of by a Microsoft hosting partner.
I have to tell you, that press release in 2006 made me pretty nervous. For a moment, my stomach filled with dread, and I got more than a couple of alarming calls and emails from “well wishers”. But it also forced me to get to work quickly and build an award-winning Dynamics CRM hosting business as soon as possible. That business, Increase CRM, was the UK’s leading provider of hosted Dynamics CRM in the UK and one of the top five in the world by the time we sold it in March 2009.
Well, here we are nearly five years after that press release and Microsoft has only just released (a now re-branded) Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service in the UK. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have Microsoft offer a hosted CRM service direct to UK customers. It’s been five years in the making, and I know it’s been an incredible effort by Bill Patterson and lots of very smart people in his business unit.
But what does this mean for Microsoft’s hosting partners? Can hosting partners really offer a hosted Dynamics CRM service that’s competitive with Microsoft’s?
Only one or two CRM hosting partners in the US have flourished by selling their own hosted CRM service as an alternative to Microsoft’s. PowerObjects is probably the most successful example. They have focused on niche industries and developed add-ons that aren’t available to CRM Online customers, or indeed most on-premise customers either. Other hosted CRM partners such as CRM OnTarget and Intermedia were either acquired or dropped their hosted CRM service.
For partner-hosted Dynamics CRM to be successful the partner has to offer something that Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online just doesn’t or can’t offer. Private instances will be attractive to some very large customers but I don’t know any UK hosting partners have the resources to handle a more than a few hundreds users in a private deployment; none have the experience. Unique add-ons and industry templates might be attractive to a few prospective customers, but the only provider offering these is considerably more expensive than CRM Online.
What does the future hold for the UK’s mid-size hosted CRM providers, such as Star, Cobweb, 7Global and Outsourcery? Without any vertical expertise, unique add-ons, differentiated service offerings, or any meaningful depth in their implementation teams — I don’t think they can survive. I don’t even think any of them will end up hosting CRM 2011 in their data centres. Current customers are going to migrate to CRM Online and save money as soon as their contracts are up.
Star has dropped hosted Dynamics CRM from its website. Cobweb and 7Global are both still battling on with their hosted CRM 4.0 services that are more expensive than CRM Online. While Outsourcery appears to be promoting and selling CRM Online ahead of their own hosted service, so you have to ask what’s going to fill the Outsourcery data centre now? Hosted Exchange and SharePoint? I think Microsoft Office365 has them licked here too.
I’m not sure what the next twelve holds for these brave hosting providers, but I’m sure glad I’m not an investor in a partner-hosted CRM business any longer. The writing was on the wall five years ago. I got in with Increase CRM and got out with barely the shirt on my back. But I fear that others are just about to start losing theirs.
My CRM 2011 licensing wish list
With CRM 2011′s beta going well and the release-to-manufacturing currently scheduled for Q1 2011, it’s about this time that the wonderful folks in the licensing team at Redmond are probably planning the new licensing plans for CRM 2011. I don’t pretend to have a PhD in Microsoft licensing. I know it’s complicated stuff and lots of people, including me, need some help understand the technicalities of use rights and license agreements. But just in case they’re listening to partner and customer feedback, here’s my wish list for CRM 2011 on-premise licensing:
Workgroup Edition
The CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition was designed to be installed on Windows Small Business Server and like SBS and it was limited to 75 users. This was fine and well understood by both partners and customers. Upgrading from SBS to a full Windows Server infrastructure is a tried and tested procedure with lots of experienced Small Business Community Specialists and CRM partners available to help.
But when CRM 4.0 was released in December 2007, the Small Business Edition replaced by Workgroup Edition. Inexplicably, the 75 user limit was slashed to 5 users. The only available upgrade from CRM 4.0 Workgroup Edition path is to buy and install Professional or Enterprise Edition and then redeploy your CRM database. This is nuts — I don’t know any small business owner with four employees who doesn’t hope to add more employees. I imagine that this decision completely annihilated sales of Workgroup Edition and forced most small businesses to buy Professional Edition. If that was Microsoft’s intention I think they would have been better to cut the cost of the Professional Edition by 10 or 20% and drop Workgroup Edition altogether. Let’s hope they sort this one out for CRM 2011.
External Connector License
Over the last four years I’ve answered dozens of questions on the CRM support forums from customers and partners confused about the CRM 4.0 external connector license. Here’s my understanding: if you want to build a web page that allows non-employee with interactive access to CRM then you need to buy an external connector license. If they are an employee, you need to buy client access licenses and if their use is non-interactive you don’t need to buy anything.
Non-employee means someone who is not an employee, agent, contractor, consultant or temporary worker working on behalf of your organisation. If they are working on behalf of your organisation, you need to buy them a client access license, even if they are using a custom-built user interface. I get that bit. For some novel XRM applications, it can sometimes difficult to decide whether an external party is acting on behalf of the organisation or not, and in these situations check with your Microsoft partner account manager or licensing professor.
As far as I understand it, interactive access means that the user is reading and writing data to CRM. For example, if they can log in to a custom portal and add a support case, review all their support cases and then update a case, then they are interacting with CRM data and you’ll need to buy the external connector license. If they are simply writing data to the CRM system, such as an enquiry form on your website which creates a lead in CRM, then you don’t need to buy anything. Similarly, if you built a read-only page in your supplier portal displaying a list of records from CRM then you wouldn’t need an external connector license. But I’ve heard some folks claim that an external connector license is required in non-interactive scenarios and no one seems to have the definitive answer on this one. I’ve seen Microsoft customers try to bypass the external connector license requirement by using a staging database between the custom webpage and the CRM database, but I don’t think that really upholds the spirit of the licensing agreement.
I understand what Microsoft is trying to do with the external connector license. They are trying to make sure that Microsoft customers can’t build a custom CRM user interface to bypass their obligation to buy client access licenses. But imagine a Microsoft customer that wants to deploy CRM for 10 users in the human resources department for managing the company’s1,000 employees (an XRM scenario example cited by Microsoft). That means if the customer wants to build a simple webpage where the employees can submit and review their holiday requests that they need to buy not just 10 but 1,000 client access licenses! How can any customer justify the total cost of ownership of CRM in this scenario?
Or imagine a small business customer with 10 CRM users wants to build a customer service portal where his customers can log support tickets. The small business will need to spend more on the development and licensing of the portal than they will on development and licensing of the CRM system. Compare that with Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s competitors where a basic portal is often provided at little or no charge. Or compare it even with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online or partner-hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM — neither of which require customers to buy an external connector license. It’s only on-premise customers who get loaded with this one.
And, this is my favourite bit of external licensing craziness, the external connector doesn’t include any software — it’s just a bit of paper that allows you to build your own software — and yet Microsoft asks customers to pay Software Assurance on the external connector license. But there’s no software, no support, no maintenance, nothing to assure. Why would anyone, in their right mind, buy Software Assurance an the external connector license?
CRM 2011 Licensing
So here’s what I’ve heard so far about CRM 2011 licensing for on-premise deployments:
- Server editions — the Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition licenses are being wrapped into a single server edition. This is mentioned in the CRM 2011 beta SDK. I’m not sure yet whether the new server edition will be closer in price to the existing Professional Edition or Enterprise Edition, but I imagine with the hyper-competitive pricing available for CRM Online that Microsoft will find it difficult to increase the on-premise prices. And, despite my rant, I think Microsoft intends to keep a workgroup edition in existence, but goodness knows why.
- Employee connector license — I’ve heard rumours that Microsoft is planning an employee connector license for CRM 2011. A bit like the external connector license, but it will allow customers to build interactive CRM applications for use by their employees without having to buy client access licenses. If priced correctly, this could solve the human resources XRM licensing madness example above.
As I hear more over the coming months, I’ll let you know.
