New Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 features

This version as announced, would be an On-Premise as well as Online release. The On-Premise customers would get the much awaited features released as part of the Update 1 for CRM Online. The drop-down navigation the most sought after update that the On-Premise customers have been waiting for.

Microsoft have designed Dynamics CRM 2016 to allow customer-facing employees to manage their daily activities in a single experience, removing the nuisance of having to switch between applications and getting distracted.

Marketing
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing enables your marketing team to seamlessly go from planning, to execution, leveraging the power of Office 365 and Power BI to measure your marketing performance across channels from start to finish so you can bring your marketing vision to life.

SMS Marketing
In this release, Dynamics Marketing will support both outbound and inbound SMS marketing in select markets. This means ability to:
• configure inbound SMS campaigns with SMS keywords to get SMS opt-ins
• maintain a database of opt-in and opt-out preferences of your marketing contacts
• send outgoing promotional SMSs to opted in contacts for SMS
• tracking performance of your SMS campaigns
The capability to integrate SMS marketing in multichannel campaigns truly stands out Dynamics Marketing in mobile marketing space and enhances its positioning as one of the best multichannel integrated marketing management clouds for the modern marketer.

Email Marketing
The advanced editing experience has been improved in various ways. For instance it will be possible to use the media library directly from the HTML code. Microsoft also continues to make service enhancements to scale service in the backend. This will improve the service’s ability to handle high email volume, improved email deliverability, fault tolerance, and logging/auditing capability.

Sales
Microsoft’s Sales solution helps sales professionals transform into top performers who are highly connected and collaborative by surfacing the right information at the right time no matter where they are so they can engage their customers in meaningful ways to deepen relationships while growing the business.

CRM App for Outlook
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM App for Outlook makes it easy to track emails, add contacts from within an email or even create new records to track emails against the browser on PC or Mac or mobile browser on phone. The CRM App for Outlook will expand support to include Firefox, Safari for Mac and Outlook for Mac in addition to the currently supported IE and Chrome.

Excel Integration
To help increase productivity, Microsoft is providing the ability for salespeople to conduct analysis in Excel, directly within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This eliminates the time and effort required to switch between applications in the middle of completing a business process. Salespeople can now view sales data in familiar Excel templates, perform what-if analysis, and upload the changes, all while maintaining the work context. Export and analyze data in Excel from your mobile device with added support for the CRM for Tablets and Phones apps.

Document Generation
With one click users can easily generate a document from CRM using pre-defined Word and Excel templates. Authors can manage the pre-defined templates and using a wizard like flow build custom templates in Word or Excel. Document templates are role based by entity to ensure users have the proper content to meet their needs. Word and Excel documents generated from CRM will open as a downloaded document with the exception of CRM Online where Excel documents will be rendered in the Immersive Excel Online capability.

Multi-stream Dashboard
The streams can show data from Views or Queues (e.g: My Activities, My Cases, Cases from Queues I’m a member of etc). Interactive charts provide a visual snapshot of key metrics related to the work items, and also double up as visual filters which allow agents to slice and dice the data. An additional level of filtering is available with Global Filters to bring focus to the relevant items. Customizers/Administrators can choose from four layouts to build these dashboards.

Single-stream Dashboard
The stream can show data from Views or Queues (e.g: All Active Cases). Like the multi-stream dashboards, single-stream dashboards also come with interactive charts that can be used to filter data. The Tiles on the right side (shown in blue) show a count of records from a Queue or a View. Users can get a peek of the records by selecting the tile. Customizers/Administrators can choose from four layouts to build these dashboards.

Modern and intuitive design
The case form design allows agents to find and act on data with reduced clicks and navigation. It unifies customer interactions and pulls together all related information, enabling agents to be productive and view what’s most relevant at all times. The Guided Business Process is further enhanced to show process stage information as a fly out. The timeline (Interaction Wall) allows for rich time and record based filtering capabilities. Quick actions on search result, allow you to perform every day functions with ease, such as marking a task as complete or responding to a customer’s email. The Reference Panel is geared towards a highly configurable experience that allows you to always show relevant related data. Agents have full access to the customer record and can see recent cases, eligible entitlement, and any other relevant information. With integrated Knowledge agents can deliver solutions to customers across channels. This design pattern extends to other entities such as Account and Contact, as well as Activities.

External Party Access
External Party Access is the foundation that allows external parties such as Employees, Customers and Partners to access CRM data with the right level of permissions. External Party Access is an enhancement to the CRM API and SDK that allows integration, access and actions by contacts, partners or other 3rd parties you have modeled in CRM.

Social
With Microsoft Social Engagement, you can listen, analyze, and drive engagement all within Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, or standalone. Jump in and engage with your customers, reaching them in ways never before possible.

Mobile
Microsoft is delivering a seamless user experience across mobile devices, including tablets and phones, in a ‘configure once, deploy everywhere’ model.

Mobile offline support
Dynamics CRM Online users will be able to get full offline experience with mobile apps. This provides the ability to get your work done even when there is interruption in connectivity. Users will be able to create, change and delete records while offline. Automatic playback of offline actions helps synchronize local changes with CRM Online. The mobile apps provide a seamless user experience when switching between online (connected) and offline modes.

Document Management
This release brings the ability to view documents in context of opportunity, case or any other entity, right within the CRM mobile apps. Users can seamlessly open various Office documents stored in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business from within the CRM mobile apps (tablets and phones).

App-to-app deep linking
Enables other mobile apps (such as email or your custom mashup apps) to link and directly navigate to a record, view or dashboard within the CRM mobile app.

Modern mobile friendly experience
With this release, we are adding a variety of modern UI controls you can use in the mobile apps. Business Analysts have the ability to bind a data field to a new UI control, representing the data in a visual and interactive way.

Task Based Experiences
New task based experiences are immersive experiences that allow users to focus on the tasks they need to perform, not the records they need to interact with. With task based experiences, data from multiple entities are brought together into a single user experience.
I think we can all agree that this is an massive time for Dynamics CRM – nice to see Microsoft doing such great work with the product to reinvent the way our customers are serviced, as an avid follower within the community quite excited to see how partners/organizations adapt and prepare for the changes ahead.

For a full summary please download the official Microsoft Preview for MSCRM 2016 below:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/5/D/D5D38A09-6A5C-4DC0-8649-3A4F39A8F8F3/Microsoft_Dynamics_CRM_2016_Release_Preview_Guide.pdf

For all interested in seeing this visually, here is a sneak peek!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCyIKZ6wEm0

Analytics adoption to support business processes

ico-engPorini Insight in cooperation with Microsoft Italy has planned some workshops presenting the latest solutions  to support CFO and HR managers.

2015, December 15th.Economical planning processes and Financial Planning simulation

During this workshop it will be shown the solution framework realised by Porini Insight based on Microsoft BI platform (Microsoft Excel Power Pivot, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Sharepoint) enabling the support of the economical and financial processes’  planning adopting multi-dimensional logics and scenarios.

2015, December 17th. Performance measurement and management of Human Resources

During this workshop it will be shown the solution framework realised by Porini Insight based on Microsoft platform in order to support HR managers in human resources structured information management and the approach to key indicators & performance measurement analysis.

Event partecipation is free but registration is required. Limited seats available.

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Gli Analytics a supporto dei processi di business

ico-itaPorini Insight in collaborazione con Microsoft organizza una serie di iniziative per presentare le soluzioni a supporto delle funzioni Finance e Human Resources.

15 dicembre La Gestione dei processi di Pianificazione Economica e Simulazione Finanziaria

Durante il workshop verrà presentato il “solution framework ideato e realizzato da Porini Insight su piattaforma Microsoft BI (Microsoft Excel Power Pivot, Microsoft SQL Server e Microsoft Sharepoint) a supporto dei processi di simulazione economica-patrimoniale e finanziaria in logica multidimensionale per scenari.

17 dicembre Gestione e Performance Measurement delle Risorse Umane

Durante il Workshop verranno illustrate le soluzioni progettate e realizzate da Porini Insight su piattaforma Microsoft per supportare gli HR Manager nella gestione strutturata delle informazioni relative alle risorse umane e per effettuare Analisi & Performance Measurement degli indicatori chiave della funzione HR.

Microsoft House – Corso Vercelli, 24 Milano

Evento gratuito posti limitati.

Info: marketing@porini.it

 

Convergence 2015 EMEA, news and curiosities from Barcelona

ico-engConfidence in data processing, security, ability to invent business processes: these are the three focus of Convergence 2015 EMEA, the annual Microsoft’s most important event in Europe.

The Redmond company has announced the vision of 2016 “cloud, or rather, the Intelligent Cloud is the tool of fundamental change to arrive from the digital economy which by definition integrates digital tools, in a sort of ideal fusion “.

At the center of the presentation of the keynote there were the tools to reinvent the productivity (Office 365 and Skype) and business processes (including the interesting PowerApp).In the days after, the real protagonist was the cloud with the potential of Machine Learning and Analytics. In short, the vision is to rethink the processes and to improve the level of services offered, with an approach in which differentiation and agility are the key factors on which channel the business. Microsoft’s proposal guides the process at the top of the pyramid with Dynamics CRM 2016, Office 365, the PowerApps and Power BI platform, with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite. Already in Azure, and then natively in the cloud, we find the analytics with Cortana, Active Directory, Iot suites and App Services. At the base there is the Azure cloud infrastructure stack.

Once again the model highlights how strong is the availability of infrastructure of the Microsoft business solutions. The purpose of the integration between Cortana and PowerBI is to be able to analyze data (interesting is the proposal PowerBI Quick Insight) to create new business models based on predictive readings, on-demand, including mobile, using the processes of machine learning with Cortana that provides real-time views on queries.

Surely it is more interesting the approach that thanks to Dynamics CRM 2016, and integration with Office shall be brought to a higher level of available evidence on the data that may be of interest to the business. The changes pertaining Dynamics Marketing are due to native support for deploying campaigns through SMS, in a product that makes the designer’s workflow automation one of its strengths.

The chapter on culture remains open: it is indispensable to approach differently the new business mode. Between the lines in the keynote resurfaces as, given the technological tools available today, it is still to “build and enhance human capital.”

 

 

Convergence 2015 EMEA, novità e curiosità da Barcellona

ico-itaFiducia nel trattamento dei dati, sicurezza, capacità di reinventare i processi di business: questi i tre focus di Convergence 2015 EMEA, l’evento annuale Microsoft più importante in Europa, attraverso il quale la casa di Redmond ha affermato la vision 2016 secondo cui “il cloud, o meglio, l’Intelligent Cloud è lo strumento di cambiamento fondamentale per approdare dalla digital economy all’economia che per definizione integra gli strumenti digitali, in una sorta di fusione ideale”.

Se al keynote al centro della presentazione ci sono stati gli strumenti per reinventare la produttività (Office 365 e Skype) e i processi di business (comprese le interessantissime PowerApp), è stato il cloud nei giorni successivi il vero protagonista, con le potenzialità di Machine Learning e Analytics. In sintesi la visione è quella di ripensare ai processi e innalzare il livello dei servizi offerti, con un approccio in cui differenziazione e agilità sono i fattori chiave su cui incanalare il business. La proposta di Microsoft guida il processo al top della piramide con Dynamics CRM 2016, Office 365, le PowerApps e la piattaforma Power BI, con Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite. Già in Azure, e quindi nativamente in cloud, troviamo gli analytics con Cortana, Active Directory, Iot suite e gli App Services. Alla base l’infrastruttura cloud Azure Stack.

Il modello evidenzia ancora una volta come punto di forza la disponibilità sia infrastrutturale sia delle soluzioni di business in casa Microsoft. L’obiettivo dell’integrazione di Cortana con PowerBI è quello di riuscire ad analizzare i dati (interessante la proposta PowerBI Quick Insight) per creare nuovi modelli di business sulla base di letture predittive, on demand, anche mobile, sfruttando i processi di machine learning con Cortana che fornisce visualizzazioni in tempo reale sulle interrogazioni.

Sicuramente è più interessante l’approccio per cui grazie a Dynamics CRM 2016 e all’integrazione con Office, sono portate a un livello di disponibilità superiore le evidenze sui dati che possono interessare al business. Le novità in tema Dynamics Marketing sono da ricondursi al supporto nativo per la distribuzione di campagne tramite SMS, all’interno di un prodotto che fa del designer di workflow automation uno dei suoi punti di forza. Resta ancora aperto il capitolo sulla cultura, indispensabile per approcciare in modo diverso la nuove modalità di business. Tra le righe nei keynote riaffiora come, dati gli strumenti tecnologici disponibili oggi, sia ancora da “costruire e valorizzare il capitale umano”.

References and videos of the sessions: