SSW Microsoft CRM Suggestions

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1. User Experience - Help me have a consistent User Experience with SharePoint, CRM and TFSWA Web UI

   Make Dynamics (start with CRM) and SharePoint and TFS (Web Access) consistent to end users. Please.

   Remember the early days of office when an end user got used to Excel, and we could show them that the switch from WordPerfect to Word would be fine.

   e.g. "See Mary, it has the same File Menu and look at the toolbar, and the Tools | Options is the same place."

   Well today I have bosses who love SharePoint, but I get no loyalty from them or their end users, when evaluating CRM4 vs Salesforce for their CRM. There is no loyalty because knowing SharePoint, does not help you know CRM.

   The first thing they want to do is change a few things... add a few fields.... so start with making the customizing consistent...

   e.g.
   1. Modifying a list in SharePoint
   2. Modifying an entity in MS CRM
   3. Modifying a work item in TFS

   should all be the same experience.

2. Web Client - Help me have CRM work on Firefox

   UNBELIEVABLE - Not Fixed In CRM 5.

   Does Microsoft know that means all MAC clients in an organization are screwed?

   I should not have to deal with this error message
   

   Unsupported Browser Version
   Microsoft Dynamics CRM requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1 or later, running on a computer with Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000, 
   or Microsoft Windows Server 2003. 
   
   Upgrade your browser and try again.
   

   

   Figure: I want to use CRM 5 with my favorite browser

3. General UI - Help me see how many items in each list

   Show me count in left hand navigation like Outlook

   

   Figure: Bad Example - Left hand navigation

   

   Figure: Good Example - Count in Outlook

   We have a rule about this - Data Layout - Do you have nodes count like Outlook?

   Tips: Use AJX for better performance

4. Server - Help me edit CSS file for each organization

   In CRM4, users should be able to edit CSS on their CRM Website and this CSS should be per organization instead of CRM web application.

   In addition you should provide 4 out of the box templates for Dev, Test, Staging and Production.

5. User Experience - Help me make the URL friendly

   Please compile CRM 5 in .NET 4 - then I can use System.Web.Routing and do it myself.

   URL in CRM is hard to understand, for example:

   http://CRMServer/SSW/sfa/conts/edit.aspx?id={1F914A6F-C320-DD11-926D-00155D012229}

   Figure: Bad URL - it's not clear and easy to remember

   It looks much better if the URL changes to:

   http://CRMServer/SSW/Contacts/edit.aspx?id={1F914A6F-C320-DD11-926D-00155D012229}

   Figure: Good URL - this looks simple clear

   See our SharePoint suggestion: Give me nice URLs

6. User Experience - Help me have a rich client application (using ClickOnce)

   The web application is not responsive enough when your whole job is to use it all day long and also it gives a much better offline client than the current Outlook client.

   Remember OWA is great, but most people choose to use Outlook all day long.

   CRM 4 and Sales Force do the same job, however sales people tell me that Sales Force is nicer. I believe this is because it uses more AJAX... similar to how I like Facebook more than Linked In.... just feels a nicer UI.

   

   Figure: I don't ever want to see a blank screen like this - Either add some more AJAX or create a click once application (using SQL Compact for Offline)... Now this would make it more responsive than Sales Force!!!

7. User Experience - Help me find the current version (rollup name)

   

   Figure: The version number is not enough... e.g. I want to see Rollup 5 has been installed on this PC.

   

   Figure: When I install a Rollup - this version number does not change.

   

   Figure: I should not have to click "View Installed Updates" to find that Rollup 5 has been installed (Does anyone like that updates are hidden under here).

   

   Figure: I much prefer being able to see SP1 here like this.

8. User Experience - Help me have a follow up flag the same as outlook

   CRM should have a consistent process of creating follow up for an email between CRM and Outlook.

   The process in CRM:

   

   Figure: Create follow up from an email in CRM

   1. Draft email
   2. Save email activity
   3. Create follow up
   4. Save follow up activity
   5. Send email

   The process in Outlook:

   

   Figure: Create follow up from an email in Outlook

   1. Draft email
   2. Hit "Follow up" flag
   3. Choose "next week"
   4. Send email

9. User Experience - Help me know when to click or double-click intuitively

   The reason they have done this - I assume - is to allow the user to select a record, and choose a different option from the menu. A better way would be to hyperlink the report name, and include a hover effect on the rest of the record like used on this training page.

   There are very few web pages if any, where you *have* to double click to open

   • Either change the report to a hyperlink
   • or add to the tooltip "(double click to preview)"

   

   Figure: Single click to expand, double click to open record is confusing

10. Outlook Client - Help me get latest version (including rollups)

    

    Figure: The "Check For Updates" button should give me an option to also check for Rollups.

    Today I have learnt about changing Registry Entry to enable CRM Client AutoUpdate.

    Check For Updates on:
    
        (o) Microsoft Servers
    
            [x]Check for Rollups (not recommended)
    
        (o) Your CRM Server
    
                    

    Figure: The "Check For Updates" should invoke a form with these steps

11. Outlook Client - Help me know the current organization

    Add a form that can show the current organization ... with a button "Change".

    

    Figure: How can I know the current organization I am using? Change this option to pop a form

    

    Figure: A similar "Change" option is here in Outlook

    PS: I should not have to close Outlook to see this.

12. Outlook Client - Help me send emails without them getting stuck in outbox - * Fixed in Microsoft in CRM 4.0 *

    After the CRM Outlook Client is installed, you will find that emails will sit in your Outbox without a send date (they change from italics to non-italics). This happens whenever you navigate to the outbox folder in Outlook and an item is selected.

    

    BUG - Email is stuck without a sent date

    Note: There is a work-around to send the un-sent emails - You open the item, switch back to Outlook and change folders out of the outbox. Then click send on the mail item and do not navigate back to the outbox until you've send/received.

13. Outlook Client - Help me have a UI to change CRM Server - * Fixed in Microsoft in CRM 4.0 *

    When the CRM Outlook Client is installed, you cannot change the CRM server that you specified when you first installed it. We need a UI to change the server, like Exchange:
    

    

    Figure: UI to change the Exchange Server

    At the moment, the only way to change the server url is through the registry at: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\ServerUrl".

14. Outlook Client - Help me have a stable Outlook COM add in

    The quality of the add in is not good enough - the CRM team should install the Outlook add in from www.plaxo.com and aspire to that quality and integration.

    The worst thing is it is buggy and causes outlook to crash.

    I thought I was dreaming first time - but now I know it's a persistent little bugger - this should NOT happen.

    

    Figure: When you turn off the outlook COM add-in it should not come back magically some time later.

15. Help me not get a BIG surprise by my contacts syncing automatically

    I Install CRM Outlook Client and I open up Outlook and it syncs 10,000+ contacts from CRM to my outlook contacts.

    Is CRM crazy? Why would it not tell me this?

    Suggestion:

    • Before doing that action, please give me a warning with how many you will sync.
    • Show me some of the sample data, in a grid.
    • Better still have a wizard that include the settings on below image.
    • Also educate me - my current contacts will not end up in CRM.

    

    Figure: These options should not be checked by default. And they should include the Count, so I can know how many will sync.

    Bottom line is you can't sync my stuff without asking me (and tell me the number).

16. Outlook Client - Help me avoid the 'Unable to connect' balloon every 2 minutes

    Losing an internet connection should be a seamless experience. Testing 'Work Offline' is important.

    

    Figure: I should not have to see this message every 2 minutes when I lose internet connection

    

    Figure: Add a 'Work Offline' option and automatically enable it when...

    

    Figure: When I click 'Work Offline' I expect CRM to take advantage of it.

    Note: By the way Firefox doesn't even ask me to 'Work Offline'

17. Web UI - Help me improve Message Box - * Fixed in Microsoft in CRM 4.0 *

    Remove the non standard separating dashes and improve the Message Box.

    

    Figure: Non standard separating dashes

18. General UI - Help me have a better UI for CRM Environment Diagnostics Wizard - * Fixed in by adding Diagnostics menu in CRM 4.0 Outlook Client*

    Allow this form to be expanded so you can see all in one - or send a screen capture to someone else:

    

    Figure: CRM Environment Diagnostics Wizard Form

    Call this "CRM Configuration Manager" to be consistent with "Reporting Services Configuration Manager":

    

    Figure: Reporting Services Configuration Manager

19. Web UI - Help me know which related records will be deleted

    If the deletion will also delete some related records, it would be better to look up and show them in this "Deletion Confirm Dialog":

    

    Figure: Needs more deletion information in the Confirm Dialog

20. General UI - Help me have some Bing Maps integration and reports

    Add some Bing Maps integration and reports.

    

    Figure: Have some out of the box Bing Maps (was Virtual Earth) Integration

    For more details about our Bing Maps technology, please check out our Virtual Earth Solutions.

21. Web UI - Help me have more info on "Record Is Unavailable" error

    This is a general one. The errors in CRM seem to generic, too often.

    If user has just installed it and gets the following error message:

    

    Figure: Error message of "Record Is Unavailable"

    It would be better if user can get more info than this. E.g. If there are no databases on the server, the following info should be included:
    "There are no databases on this SQL Server. Please use the 'Deployment Manager' and create an organization."

22. Form Design - Help me have disabled fields indicate how to modify them

    * TODO: Adam to clarify the reason. I believe the reason is because you need to be aware that if it was created from lead... you need to go back to the lead to change it. *

    Note: if they added an opportunity directly... there is no source lead... so you can update it.

    "Originating Lead" - is disabled - fields should always indicate what you need to do to un-disable them.

    In this case once an opportunity is saved then the lead is locked into read-only mode.

    A tooltip indicating that the lead cannot be changed or how to change should be provided on the readonly field.

    

    Figure: Originating Lead is disabled after saving the opportunity - this means poor users can't change it after saving - as a minimum give a tooltip how to unlock it

23. General UI - Help me have a sorted view by more than one field

    * TODO: Adam to establish if there is a workaround by exporting the data to Excel *

    * TODO: Adam to establish if the same issue exists in SharePoint *

    In CRM4 it only allows a user to sort by one field like below, but we need sort by more than one field:

    

    Figure: CRM4 Customizations only allows you to sort by one field

24. General UI - Help me have the sorted field visible from this UI

    In CRM4 there should be some sort ability in below UI:

    

    Figure: There should be some sort ability in this UI

    Note: Actually if you can click on 'Edit columns' to do this... Not very obvious.

    * TODO: Adam to compare how it is done in SharePoint *

25. General UI - Help me learn what all the possible URLs are by adding a "All URLs" option into the "Tools" menu

    Where you link to a help page about: How to link to different views on the various entities? like Entity Type Codes

    

    Figure: The "All links" link would be helpful, on creation of Shortcuts on the Windows desktop

26. Start Menu - Help me find the CRM programs

    

    Figure: These 3 options should start with 'CRM' because you use the Vista and Windows 7 search box

27. Options - Help me know what's going on in the Workplace tab

    

    Figure: Horrible UI - I don't know where to start

28. Options - Help me by having a nice UI on the "General" tab

    

    Figure: CRM 4.0 The "General" tab, needs many things fixed on the UI

    This is just poor design:

    • "Records per page" field should follow the rule Do you follow the control size and spacing standards?
    • "Advanced Find Mode" field should follow the rule Do you make Option Groups and Check Boxes simple to understand?
    • "Advanced Find Mode" field should include images so you understand what this feature does

29. User - Help me have a "Check Names" button

    Microsoft CRM needs a "Check Names" button to work the same as Outlook - so you can add a user by only knowing a few characters of their name.

    

    Figure: Need a "Check Names" button

30. User - Help me delete user Active Directory account

    I should not have to keep all my old employees' and contractors' accounts in Active Directory and I should be able to edit their information.

31. Contact - Help me know Primary Contact on the Contact form

    Currently you need to go to the Account (Client) to change the primary contact.

    To Repro:

    1. Go to a Account with contacts
    2. You can observer who is the primary contact in the XX field
    3. Double click on the primary contact
    4. Observer there is no way to know this is the primary contact

    Suggestion:

    1. Underneath the "Parent Customer"
    2. If Stephen is the primary contact
    3. Add a checkbox "Primary Contact" [x]
    4. If this guy is not the primary contact and you want to make him that. Check the checkbox and get a message to confirm.

    

    Figure: Contact information without exposing primary contact

32. Contact - Help me have a consistency with CRM and Outlook with regards to Addresses

    Currently, CRM only allows making address single line which is not appropriate, because address might contain much information that one line is not enough. It's much better to support both single line and multi-line for users to input their addresses.

    

    Figure: Street Address in CRM

    

    Figure: Street Address in Outlook

    CRM should be the same as Outlook? Or as a minimum, give us an option in Customization to have "have all addresses on 1 multiple line field".
    Tips:

    1. You can change this easily - by making Address 2 and Address 3 invisible and make Address 1 multi-line.
    2. If you hate how CRM deals with addresses, then fill all addresses in Outlook - it does synchronize back to CRM.

    This issue hasn't been changed in CRM4. We have a rule about this at Do you have consistent way to store a same field?

33. Add Microsoft Live Maps integration for contact and account addresses

    Add a new tab to contact and account entities called location. This tab should have an HTML iframe to Microsoft Live maps showing the address of the contact/account highlighted:

    

    Figure: a CRM Account record with the address highlighted

    Note #1 : This one is the right idea, but is missing the steps to follow.
    http://community.dynamics.com/blogs/crminogic/archive/2009/04/27/maps-integration-for-dynamics-crm-4.aspx

    Note #2: Richard has blogged a solution that shows the map on SharePoint (not CRM like we suggest).
    http://www.dynamicscrmtrickbag.com/2009/04/14/search_accelerator_part2/

34. Developer - Help me have a Month/Year Date control

    Currently the only option a user has when inputting a date are:

    1. Date only
    2. Date/Time only

    There is a need for a Month/Year control. For example this is needed when trying to report on a projected income on a monthly basis.

    

    Figure: CRM should include a date control

35. Developer - Help me have config files to store settings instead of the windows registry

    The connection string for CRM is actually stored in the windows registry under HKEY_LM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRM.

    This makes it very difficult to find and it would be more intuitive to store it in a config file in the CRM folder.

    

    Figure: CRM config setting save in registry

36. Developer - Help me see original email message and support a plugin message of promoting outlook email to CRM.

    Ideally, in order to properly integrate email with CRM, the developer should be able to see the original email message and hook in the process of promoting an email to CRM.

    For example, an invoice tracking email might need its custom attributes to track it's type/category etc. We can store this value in the email custom header, but we cannot pass this value to a custom attribute in CRM.

    N.B. This is not an issue if using the CRM web form to send the email, only if using CRM Outlook client, which is not customizable.

37. Form Design - Help me resize fields on form without using JavaScript

    Form Designer - field widths

    Field widths indicate to a user, what data will go in it. E.g. State will be able to accept say 6 characters - not 100 characters.

    You will be able to change the width of fields in the form designer (without needing JavaScript).

    

    Figure: Bad - The form designer only gives you this by default

    

    Figure: Good - The form designer should allow you to resize the width of fields

38. Workflow - Help me have a better "Status Reason" Message

    * TODO: Zune to add repro steps with Adam *

    See the 6th and 7th record (yellow parts) below, it would be better to change the "Status Reason" message from "Waiting For Resources" to "Waiting For Resources - Check the service 'Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service' is running". Because it took too long to work out:

    

    Figure: The message "Waiting For Resources" took too long to work out

39. CRM Laptop Client Installer - Help me have an option to use local SQL Server (if already installed)

    PCs already run slow enough. And installing SQL Server Express 2005 is a heavy thing and if it can be avoided, it should. The installer should have an option to point it at your current SQL Server (if installed), rather than installing a new instance.

40. Campaign - Help me have campaign estimated revenue in default view

    In default view for Campaigns you cannot easily see all the estimate revenue for all campaigns.

    Estimated revenue is available after expanding the campaign but on a section by section basis.

    It would be better to show this as an extra column as well as showing all campaigns estimated revenue, you can then sort from highest to lowest.

    

    Figure: Estimated revenue not shown in default view

    

    Figure: Estimated revenue hidden in expansion (but you can't sort on it down here)

41. Campaign - Help me have sales stage to be displayed on the form and have a predefined probability value

    It's understood that different organizations have different sales stage regarding their opportunities. However the sales stage field should be shown on the form by default make users aware of this attribute and avoid them creating a custom attribute. Each sales stage should have a predefined probability value that is configurable via CRM UI not by hard-coding these values in JavaScript.

    

    Figure: Custom opportunity in CRM

42. Report - Help me select a template to choose my companies colors

    There is a workaround for this problem, where you can:

    1. Export the .rdl to desk top from CRM, then
    2. Open In VS.NET
    3. Add header, footer and logo
    4. Come back to CRM and re-upload it

    However this is not enough. It should be like the email template and mail merge template. Then it is used for everything ...

    Any report which is created by the CRM Report Designer has a standard CRM look and feel. It would be better if there was a template that we could choose from while designing the report.

    

    Figure: CRM report layout from Report Designer

43. Report - Help me add text at the top of a report

    The CRM Report Designer should allow a user to add text at the top of a report.

    

    Figure: We have to download the report and edit it using Report Builder 2.0 to add some text on top of the report.

44. Web Service - Help me remove an attribute on the form

    * TODO: Adam to record a demo *

    The CRM Web Service does not have a method which removes the attribute from the form. You have to do it manually through CRM Web UI:

    1. If attribute is not a required field then go to step 3.
    2. Set attribute to be not required field
    3. Save and publish the changes
    4. Remove attribute from the form
    5. Save and publish the changes
    6. Remove attribute from the entity
    7. Save and publish the changes

45. Scheduler - Help me create recurring appointments

    Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 allows you to create an appointment:

    • Via the Web UI (New Activity | Appointment)
    • Via the Web UI (Service Calendar | New Service Activity)
    • Via Outlook (New Appointment | Track In CRM)

    To reproduce the problem, create a recurring appointment by:

    1. Create an appointment in Outlook
    2. Click "Recurrence"
    3. Enter recurring time and pattern
    4. Click "Track in CRM"
    5. Click "Send"

    You will get the following error message from CRM 4.0 outlook add in:

    

    Figure: Please remove this error message in Outlook and support recurring appointments

    Recurring appointments are not supported in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. If you continue, then the item will not be linked to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Do you want to continue?

    Figure: Adding the above message box as text for Google to see

46. Help me read Customization file

    In the customizations file:

    • Format the XML correctly.
    • List the customizations that were done in comments at the top. E.g.
          There are 2 Customizations:
              - Custom Entity 'Timesheet'
              - Custom Entity 'Work Item'

    

    Figure: Customizations file is unreadable

47. Help me have Cardspace and WCF support

    Cardspace will only start being implemented by sites when customers are demanding it. The more products and services that support Cardspace the greater the potential it has to become mainstream/popular.
    

    Currently CRM 4.0:

    • Use standard 2.0 Web Services
    • Support Live ID

    The CRM team will issue 4.1 with support for:

    • WCF
    • Cardspace

48. Help me change option group to checkbox

    It is better to use checkboxes for contact methods instead of option group.

    

    Figure: Bad Example - By default CRM uses option group for contact methods which is bad design.

    

    Figure: Good Example - Using checkboxes provides a clear and simple interface.

    See our rule Do you change contact method options from default option group to checkboxes? for instructions on how to change from option group to checkboxes.

49. Help me have an option for specifying a path to a .html file for an email template

    CRM 4's email template needs to give an option to use a HTML file. This .html file would be used for the email body, because for professional newsletters you need to tweak the actual HTML.

    For example, you need to check that your newsletter will be rendered nicely in Gmail - this means tweaking HTML manually

    

    Figure: Bad Example - The CRM 4.0 template does not allow you to specify a path to a HTML file

    

    Figure: Good Example - You can specify a path to a HTML file in Email Merge PRO

50. Help me edit a completed task

    

    Figure: Need another option Action | Edit Task

51. Add a custom Search Results page as part of the CRM Search Accelerator

    Either add a new custom Search Results page for use within SharePoint, or provide instructions as to how to customize an exist page with the following functionality:

    1. Change icon for a CRM search result to a CRM icon
    2. The link provided to the search result item should open the CRM page itself
    3. There should be a link next to the CRM link that says Cached Result (like Google) and opens a page with the cached results hosted within SharePoint

    

    Figure: Bad Example - There isn't a CRM icon and a link which links to the CRM page itself.

    • Contact shows an IE icon
    • Search item links to the SharePoint hosted cached results only

Acknowledgements

Adam Cogan

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