Buying,

Implementing

and Integrating

Dynamics CRM

This guide is meant to help business considering

implementing new CRM software, specifically

Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Regardless of whether you’re a small business

implementing a CRM for the first time, or a business

who has been using CRM already and is migrating to

Dynamics CRM – this guide is meant to review the

strengths and weaknesses of Dynamics CRM, which is

a leading CRM system on the market today.

The Guide is brought to you by Bedrock Data, Inc.

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Here is a rundown of the topics that we’ll be covering in the guide:

1. Ease of Use and System Design: How easy is the system to use for your

company’s users? What are the best features of this system, how do they

work and what can they do for your team? This section includes a review of

the data model.

2. Customization: Mainly we will look at custom fields and custom objects in

a particular system, as well as layouts. Everyone needs the almighty lead

object, but after you’ve successfully implemented the standard system objects,

what else can you create to represent your business?

3. Integration and APIs: Does the system have an API and how easy is it to

use? Are there available integrations for the system and will it be easy to

incorporate existing product and business data into the system?

4. Automation: Automation refers specifically to lead assignment and

workflow rules. We’ll review these capabilities in each system and focus on

ease of use of these features.

5. Pricing and Scalability: We’ll review the pricing and editions that the

system offers, including the flexibility you get and the pros and cons of certain

editions the system offers.

6. Mobile: Short review of available mobile applications that exist for the

system, developed by the company themselves or by a third party. Focused

on iOS and Android apps only.

7. Overall: Bottom line: how good of a system is this for your business and

should you go through with the purchase of this CRM system?

In This Guide

Want to skip ahead?

No problem! Here are the systems that we’re going to cover:

6 … Ease of Use and System Design

8 … Customization

9 … Automation

10 … Integrations and APIs

11 … Pricing and Scalability

12 … Mobile App Review

13 … Overall Takeaways

T.O.C.

Microsoft’s foray into the CRM space started back in 2003

with release 1.0 and has iterated from there to the excellent cloud

system that we see today with their latest release: version 2013.

Dynamics CRM uses a traditional CRM data model, where leads are

created first in the system, then assigned, qualified and converted

into contacts, which are associated with accounts and opportunities.

With the release of CRM 2011, many companies hosted the CRM on-

premise, and users could only access the system on their internal

network or over a VPN. One question that will arise quickly as you

consider Dynamics CRM, is your hosting options. You have 2

options for this: the cloud version, which will require you to use

Microsoft 365 users for authentication, or you can host CRM on-

premise on your own servers and network.

The cloud version of the product is by far the easiest implementation

of the CRM, but if you have IT policies or security concerns, then you

may want to consult your IT or Ops team about hosting Dynamics

On-Premise.

If you’re using Dynamics CRM On-Premise, then the

recommendation is that you install and configure IFD (Internet Facing

Deployment) using your ActiveDirectory Federated Services (ADFS)

server.

Introduction

Dynamics 2013 has adopted the new Microsoft design pattern that

we first saw with Windows 8 and their Surface tablet. I’m not really a

fan of the pure aesthetic of the “boxes” design, but it does make

things easy to find and navigate to. The settings and administration

areas of the system still have the 2011 look and feel, but I imagine

that a new UI is in the works for that piece as well.

I’ll give it to you straight: Dynamics CRM is increasingly easy to use

and navigate. We gave it high marks for its usability, especially from

the perspective of a sales rep. A couple of drawbacks to the system

in terms of ease of use are around creating custom/personal views

and running advanced finds, which we felt were a little clunky

(dropdowns with hundreds of fields, hard to manage and edit).

Overall though, it’s a pretty easy system to get around. There is a

main menu, which you can access by hovering over the “Dynamics

CRM” logo at the top left. This will bring you into the top level areas

of the product. You can then drill down from there into the different

entities that have been setup under those parent sections of the

product.

Here is what the sales section looks like. You can see Leads,

Contacts and Accounts in this view:

Ease of Use and

System Design

The Data Model

(Talk Nerdy to Me!)

Leads (People)

If we’re talking sales, then records start as

leads in Dynamics CRM. Leads are people

and are sales leads, typically generated by

your marketing team.

Contacts (People)

Once generated, Leads are assigned to sales reps, worked

and “qualified”. If qualified, then the lead will be converted

into a Contact and associated with an Account.

Accounts (Companies)

Opportunities (Deals)

Contacts are associated with Accounts,

which are companies. Opportunities, which

represent “deals,” or pieces of business are

also associated with Accounts, and therefore

have contacts linked to them as well. A

“closed/won” deal is used to mark a

customer. Activities

Notes

Other “child” entities such

as Accounts, Notes and

Tasks can be added to

parent objects and tracked

over the lifetime of a

record in the system.

Fields and Forms: Dynamics CRM gives you the capability to create

custom fields in the system, as well as add them to “layouts,” which in

Dynamics CRM are called “forms.” You can customize your forms as

much as you needs to, and the form builder app in Dynamics is

intuitive and quite easy to use.

Objects: Dynamics CRM uses standard data objects, which are called

“entities” in Dynamics CRM: Leads, Contacts, Accounts and

Opportunities, as well as Tasks, Activities and Preferences on each of

these objects. You can also create custom entities in CRM, and

create custom fields and forms for each of these entities as well.

Other Customizations:

• Web Resources: This lets you define a custom webpage that you

can display within Dynamics CRM on any entity. You can also

execute JavaScript within a web resource, for you developers out

there.

Customization

Workflows: Dynamics CRM workflows are setup as “processes,”

(found here: Settings > Customizations > Customize the System >

Processes) and they are quite similar to other workflow rules that

you may have seen in other systems. If you’re unaware of

workflows, there are 2 parts to grasp in any workflow rule: Triggers,

which define when the workflow should fire, and Actions, which

define what the workflow should actually do once it runs.

Dynamics CRM Processes can have different types, including

workflows for data manipulation, and “Business Process Flows,”

which let you define sales stages for a single entity or across

multiple entities in the CRM system.

Lead Assignment: Dynamics CRM lead assignment is handled

through the processes module. One of the actions of a workflow is

to assign a record to a user in Dynamics. Here’s a screenshot of a

Dynamics CRM workflow process that is assigning a lead to a user

based on their geographic location:

Automation

Dynamics CRM has a SOAP API that are somewhat difficult to use

and seemingly haven’t been updated in a seemingly long time. Part of

the headache is the authentication which you must do against the

APIs, depending on whether you’re using cloud or hosted Dynamics

CRM.

Luckily, there is software out there that will easily integrate your

Dynamics CRM data with your other business systems. Here are a

few of those systems for you to consider:

1. Bedrock Data – All main objects integrated - From $99/month, self

signup and administration.

2. Scribe – All main objects integrated - From $3,000, must use a re-

seller for setup and administration.

3. Boomi – All main object integrated - From $2,000/month, self-

signup, but SaaS admin knowledge recommended.

Here’s an example of Dynamics CRM integrated with marketing

data:

Integrations and APIs

Another really nice thing about Dynamics CRM is the cost point that it

provides, which is comparatively affordable, and simple:

$65/user/month.

As a comparison, this price point is the same as Salesforce.com

professional edition, which allows for most of the CRM and sales

automation capabilities in Salesforce.com, but not Enterprise features

like workflows and API integration.

Much of what Microsoft advertises on their feature comparison on

their website, is around other Microsoft products, which are included

and integrated with Dynamics CRM, including:

• SharePoint Integration

• Office Fluent User Interface

• Order and Invoice Tracking

Check out the Dynamics CRM pricing comparison web app here.

Pricing and Scalability

The Dynamics CRM mobile app (for Android and iPhone) aren’t

awesome. You can cull through a list of the different object types

(leads, accounts, opportunities, etc…), edit “top level” records, but

that’s about it.

You can create new records on top level entities (objects) like leads,

cases and accounts, but you can’t create new records on any of the

child objects, such as tasks, appointments or notes. You also can’t

convert leads into contacts/accounts/opportunities through the

mobile app, so really it’s just viewing records, editing and creating

them. Mobile is not a strength of Dynamics CRM, to say the least.

App Store Ratings:

iPhone: 1/5 Stars

Android: 2.2/5 Stars

Mobile App

We were also somewhat disappointed

by the lack of some UI features in the

mobile app, like the map integration that

you get in the desktop app, as well as

the ability to see a log of activity on a

record through the mobile app.

We tested the app on iPhone only, as

the Android app didn’t support the latest

Android version Perhaps their

Windows Mobile app is better, but good

luck finding a sales team who is using

that platform on their phones.

Dynamics CRM, specifically the 2013 version, is an adequate,

modern, easy to use CRM that can scale to a large team and not

break the bank.

Dynamics CRM’s automation and customization features are some

of the strongest parts of the system, and those features stand up

well against main competitors such as Salesforce.com and

SugarCRM.

Cons include the mobile app and APIs, which are not awesome to

work with. The mobile piece really must improve, as more of a sales

rep’s actions start to happen on mobile devices.

We’d rate Dynamics CRM highly overall and would recommend it for

businesses of up to 100 sales reps.

Overall Takeaways

Easy-to-use

Business Data

Management and

Integration

Software (It’s like Dropbox for your business data)

What is Bedrock Data?

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