Todd Hager to present on Panel at Columbia Books Conference, “Beating the Recession: The Non-profit Executive Tool Kit”

Cost-saving Methods Available for Associations to Ride out the Recession

Bethesda, Md. (March 27, 2009) – In the midst of a recession cutting deep into everyone's budgets, associations have been suffering from the same economic symptoms as their corporate peers. Members are holding back money for dues, cutting into association revenues; meetings are being canceled as potential attendees worry about the cost of travel. Some associations are even cutting jobs.

Especially in this economic environment, associations can avoid busting their budgets in the short and long term using many different tools, including: engaging in talks with their banks, using technology to increase efficiency and implementing solutions such as mergers and outsourcing.

Associationexecs.com is hosting an all-day conference specifically designed for senior association executives to learn just those skills. BroadPoint is attending the Beating the Recession: The Non-profit Executive Tool Kit will be held May 28 at the Fulbright Center in Washington, D.C. This conference includes five practical sessions that will cover cost-saving methods in areas ranging from banking and financial management to technology and overhead management. Break-out sessions on association back office management and primary cost centers will focus on more specific cost controls such as overnight shipping, payroll, printing, and meeting costs.

Todd Hager, Vice President of BroadPoint Technologies will be on hand to present a panel on tools and technology that can aid a Non-profit during the recession.

Beating the Recession: The Non-profit Executive Tool Kit sponsors include RAFFA, Expense Reduction Analysts and the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. Early bird registration is available for $497 until May 1, $597 after May 1.

A full agenda of the event is available at http://www.nptools2009.com/agenda.html.

CRM Implementation Success – A Second Opinion

By Beth Scheidt

CRM Practice Manager

BroadPoint Technologies

In the medical world, a second opinion is almost always recommended when the patient is undergoing a major procedure. The second opinion reviews the patient's history, checks assumptions and explores alternatives. While a major medical procedure is not a perfect analogy for a CRM implementation, certainly there might be some valid comparisons made to the pain and agony possible in both.

Typically, a company implementing CRM hires someone like BroadPoint to help them through the process. This collaboration generally has a better outcome than if a company attempts to roll out CRM on their own. (Perform surgery on yourself?) The company gains the years of experience from the implementer and the implementer uses the business process knowledge of the company to help deliver the final results.

For some projects, a second opinion is a life (project) saver. By supplementing the company's staff with a CRM project manager, a project manager who is not employed by the implementer, the project has a high likelihood of finishing with healthy results. Here are two recent experiences with an independent CRM project manager that help illustrate the point.

A large, Not-For-Profit (NFP) group had replaced an old membership system with a highly customized and integrated CRM system. The NFP's day-to-day IT functions were outsourced and the internal project management was delegated to staff members who still had daily responsibilities for managing staff and membership. The NFP executives belatedly realized the project was significantly over budget, way behind schedule and off scope. This was definitely a triage situation!

The NFP's internal project resources did not have the expertise or dedicated time to provide oversight for this implementer. For the NFP's part, they consistently provided incomplete or nebulous descriptions for required work. The implementer rarely returned to the NFP team for clarification on changes, was particularly difficult to communicate with, seemed to always be focused on other customers' work, and did not appear to ever test their delivered work.

As an independent expert, we took the steps to make sure the NFP group thoroughly defined and documented their needs and worked closely with the implementer to ensure they understood the requirements as defined. Because of our experience, we were able to validate the implementer's approach and several times suggested alternative, cost saving solutions. We made sure deliverables were properly tested by both the implementer and the NFP before being released. By providing the NFP with an independent CRM project manager, we were able to bring the project back in line with the original goals and stop the budget hemorrhaging.

In another successful use of a CRM project manager, we worked with a large, international firm to supplement their internal project management staff. Unlike the previous example, both the implementer and the client had strong project management resources. The implementer was remotely located and we were onsite.

Like the previous example, this was a highly customized, integrated CRM implementation. The value the CRM project manager brought to the operation was experience and a fresh perspective. There were several instances where the client was defining customizations based on existing processes. It took a fresh perspective (and experience) to ask, "Why are you recreating this process?" We were able to identify instances where the client was trying to duplicate functionality that the field staff had long since abandoned (no matter what management thought). We were also able to make suggestions of small changes that really impacted the user's experience for the positive.

In both the examples above, the independent CRM project manager role enhanced the implementation by providing cost savings and improving the user experience. If you decide your project could benefit from a second opinion, be sure you choose the right independent CRM project manager. Both the CRM project manager and implementer need to work together on your behalf. Beware of the implementer and independent project manager who considers their own best interest above yours and the project. In that case, you may find the cure is worse than the disease!

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 6

Let SmartList Alerts Warn You

How Many Customers are Over their Credit Limit
1) Setup your Smartlist

2) Pick Favorites and name the Favorite, example ‘Customer Over Credit Limit

3) Click Add and select ‘Add Favorite and Reminder’

4) Select ‘Number of Records’, example ‘ Greater Than 0’

5) You can set reminders based on the number of records or the total of the column

6) Click OK

Specific Customer Balance was Over $1,000
1) Setup your Smartlist

2) Pick Favorites and name the Favorite, example ‘Astor Suite > $1000.00’

3) Click Add and select ‘Add Favorite and Reminder’

4) Select ‘Total of Column’, example ‘ Customer Balance > $1000.00’

5) You can set reminders based on the number of records or the total of the column

6) Click OK

You can setup a reminder for an existing Smartlist
Go To Tools >> Setup >> User Preferences >> Reminders button

Click on New; select the Smartlist Favorite to see all the existing Smartlist options to choose from.

When you delete the Favorite, it deletes the reminder

Reminders appear on the Home Page

Business Intelligence - First Steps

Business Intelligence. Everyone seems to want it in order to make critical business decisions, however, the concept tends to be ethereal with little understanding of the mechanics required to produce meaningful, current, and easily-accessed information. We have created dashboards and ad hoc reporting through SharePoint and other tools - the presentation of information isn't really the hard part. The challenge is rooted in understanding the data that matters, the processes that run the business and how to organize the information in a fashion that has meaning to the team.

Data that Matters

An organization's metrics needs to resonate with the entire team from the person who answers the phone or greets visitors to the person who ultimately determines the direction of the firm. The information must be communicated in a fashion that can be easily understood while focusing on the things that truly matter to the organization. I came across a blog entry that provides guidance on determining and communicating the "metrics that matter" within an organization (8 Tips for Crafting Metrics That Matter - by Jesse Farmer). Metrics need to be actionable with a focus on results.

Understanding Business Process

Our implementation work typically begins with an analysis of business process and requirements. We start with an understanding of the 'As Is' processes and determine 'To Be' taking special care to understand the gaps, especially as they relate to the requirements. Careful consideration should be given to ensuring that value is added at each step of the process. The real nuance comes from understanding the interconnectedness of processes and how success is measured at each step. This notion of interconnectedness struck a chord with me when I spent some time with Ron Dimon of Business Foundation. His organization helps large firms determine, understand and manage their processes. They have created very unique depictions of business processes and their relations showing interconnectedness through the use of a "Periodic Table of Business". Rather than getting submerged in technology, Business Foundation uses a straight-forward, paper-based system to align teams around processes. However the business processes are presented, they need to be an accurate, tested depiction with buy-in from team responsible for implementing and administering them.

Rallying Around the Metrics

If you have the metrics that matter (i.e. the receptionist and CEO are both looking at the same metrics each day) and you feel confident that your processes are clearly defined with the granularity of data you require, presenting the information is a straight-forward process. As I mentioned above, we have had tremendous success using SharePoint as a means of delivery for metrics and reports. However, there are many presentation options to consider including hosted options. Remember the thermometer charts used to show fundraising progress for charity? It does not need to be overly slick to get the point across. Get the information in front of the team, be clear about how the information is accumulated and what the goals are, show trending wherever possible, and post it consistently.

The overall theme here is clarity over chaos, simplicity over complexity and consistency over a flash-in-the-pan approach. This will all translate to better organization alignment and at the end of the day, isn't this what it is all about?

Recent awards from ASI

BroadPoint was recently awarded the Chairman’s Circle and New Sales Leader of the Year at ASI’s Annual iNNOVATIONS Partner Conference.

We work hard to get recognized as an outstanding organization whenver possible. This is a great honor for us and we are very excited to announce. For the whole story click here.

Your CRM does what? (Part 4 of 4 – Extending Orders)

By Todd Fleming

Senior Consultant

BroadPoint Technologies

In Part 4 of a 4 part series on extending your CRM application, we will take a look at functionality we added to the CRM Orders process in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and via integration to Microsoft Dynamics GP for a few of our clients.

Credit Card Verification

A requirement that some customers have is the ability to be able to accept credit card payments in Dynamics CRM at the time of the order. We have accomplished this goal in the past by customizing the Order to include a new tab called "Payment Info" with all of the necessary fields for Credit Card processing. The sales person enters all of the credit card information and clicks on the submit payment button which then sends this information to the client's credit card processor for authorization. Payments are authorized in real time and authorization numbers are written back to Dynamics CRM in the Payment Tab's payment status field. For clients that are integrating Dynamics CRM Orders with Dynamics GP Accounting we integrate both the Order and the Payment so no double keying is required.

Freight Calculation

Most of our clients sell and ship products using various carriers. Additional functionality can be added to the Dynamics CRM Order such that information about the order can be sent to FedEx or UPS to determine the actual shipping costs for the Order so that you do not have to estimate shipping costs. The weight and size for a product can be captured at the product level in Dynamics CRM and can be totaled at the Order level which will provide a more accurate shipping cost. Clients typically add a shipping and handling fee to this amount which can be done as a percentage of the overall freight cost or as a flat fee added to the actual freight cost. This information can then be integrated from Dynamics CRM to Dynamics GP.

Bar-coding

In a retail operation you may not have time to perform the necessary steps to create an order in Dynamics CRM. For one of our retail clients that already had their inventory bar-coded we worked with their existing bar coding hardware in order to add line items to a CRM order by simply scanning the bar code of the items the customer was purchasing.

Integration

Available Credit: One of the standard integration points between Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the mapping of the credit limit field. While this information is useful it does not tell you how much available credit a customer has. In order to determine the available credit in Microsoft Dynamics GP you have to consider open orders, invoiced orders, returns, credits, payments etc. We've created a view for the available credit and integrate this back into Microsoft Dynamics CRM so that you can view a customer's credit limit, current account balance and available credit. If the customer has exceeded their available credit we can hide the Submit Order button preventing the order from being submitted and processed until the customer's available credit is higher than the order total.

Returns: One of our clients had the need to be able to initiate a return within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The order and integration was customized such that an order could be created with negative quantity items and this information could then be integrated to Microsoft Dynamics GP for processing.

Tip of the week from Brenda Hopkins – Week 5

Free Your Data with Excel Reports



The new Excel reports in Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 are really pretty cool and you don't need MOSS 2007 to use them. You can use a network share to let your organization use the Excel reporting features.



To setup the default reports you need to do 2 steps, deploy the connector and deploy the reports.

In GP 10 pick Microsoft Dynamics GP >Tools-Setup > System > Reporting Tools Setup.

Step 1 - Go to the Data Connections Tab

• In the System Level Data connections box enter a shared network location to deploy the connectors to.
• Do the same thing for the User Level Data connections. This can be a local directory.
• Check Enable Data Connection Deployment.
• Check Deploy Data Connections for all existing companies if you want to run Excel reports off all your companies. Otherwise, when you deploy, you'll have to pick a company.

Click Run Deployment and Print to the screen the reports for review

Step 2 - Go to the Reports Library Tab

In the System Level Reports box enter a shared network location to deploy the reports to, this is where users will access the shared excel reports and network security can applied to this folder.

Do the same thing for the User Level Data connections. This can be a local directory.

• Check Enable Excel Report Deployment.
• Check Deploy Excel Report for all existing companies if you want to run Excel reports off all your companies. Otherwise, when you deploy, you'll have to pick a company.

Click the Run Deployment button and Print to the screen the report to view.

How to access the Shared Excel Reports

1. You can navigate to the shared location on the Network and open one of the Excel reports.
   
2. Within Dynamics GP, go to the Navigation Pane on the lower left and pick Administration. Click on Other Reports and wait for them to load.

Pick a report and double click it or Click on VIEW. The report opens nicely (and quickly in Excel).
You may need to enable data connections. If a box pops up, enable data connections and proceed on.

In Excel 2007 the report shades every other row and provides filter handles on each column.

Your CRM does what? (Part 3 of 4)

Todd Fleming

Senior Consultant, Microsoft Business Solutions

BroadPoint Technologies

In Part 3 of a 4 part series on extending your CRM application, we will take a look at how we managed the Contract Administration processes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP for a few of our clients.

Contract Administration

In this case, the client was using Dynamics GP to manage client contracts. The goals were to: (1) integrate current and past Contracts form Dynamics GP into Dynamics CRM in order to give salespeople more visibility into a client's past and current purchases, (2) integrate updates to contracts in Dynamics CRM to ensure that a salesperson is looking at the most current contract details, and (3) create a process whereby a user could systematically create opportunities for contract renewals when a contract was close to expiring. What we created in Dynamics CRM and by using a custom Scribe integration was a solution whereby:

• CRM Users can view current active and inactive contracts and contract line items in Dynamics CRM
  
• CRM Users can view real time changes in Dynamics CRM when contracts are added or updated in Dynamics GP
  
• CRM Users can store documents and record all interactions pertaining to specific contracts in Dynamics CRM
  
• CRM Users can view and search on contract start and end dates, total contract value, term of the contract (monthly, quarterly, or annual), contract line Item detail such as product description, quantity and line item totals all while supporting multi-currency
  
• CRM Users can use Advanced Find query capabilities to easily identify up sell opportunities and contracts that are near expiration. Queries can be saved and shared with other CRM users as needed
  
• CRM Users can initiate a process within Dynamics CRM to select contracts expiring in (x) months and systematically create opportunities in bulk for renewal of those selected contracts
  

 

When combining the capabilities of Dynamics CRM and by creating integrations using Scribe it was possible for us to achieve the client's goals. The solution provides salespeople more visibility into customer purchases and the ability to track all interactions related to those contracts. Salespeople are also able to use the data in Dynamics CRM to more easily identify up-sell opportunities benefiting the organization.

Weather the Storm: FREE Webcast June 3, 2009 at 11:00 AM EST, Register Today

By Nadia Isata

Account Manager

BroadPoint Technologies

In today's environment, you need to make the most of your assets, maximizing productivity of every resource. BroadPoint is helping its customers leverage the advanced capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Ready Licensing to improve cash flow, control costs and monitor results. Join us for the FREE webcast and let us show you how you can make positive changes in your organization with modules you already own but may not be using. Register today!

Topics covered on the webcast include:

• Improve cash flow with faster billing and better collections
  
• Track budgets and variance
  
• Assess the health of your organization and monitor trends
  
• Manage assets with minimal effort
  
• Tighten controls on expenses
  
• Eliminate paper checks and reduce fraud
  
• Guarantee paper checks and reduce fraud
  
• Guarantee payments from customers
  
• Protect against fraud
  

 

To sign up for the webcast scheduled to take place on 6/3/2009 at 11:00 click here!

Favorite Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 Function

By Kyle Kienzle

Account Executive

BroadPoint Technologies

My favorite function in Microsoft Dynamics GP 10 is that each window is now a separate thread. This means you can have multiple GP windows and move them around back-and-forth, interactively, with other programs like Excel.

I have personally found this very valuable when entering GL entries or purchase orders with multiple items. I can have the PDF or Excel file open that is my source while I key into the GP window. That saves me a lot of switching and, therefore, a lot of time!

What is your favorite new feature in Dynamics GP 10?

Copy and Paste from Microsoft Excel®.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked ‘is it possible to copy and paste journal entries from Microsoft Excel® into the General Ledger for Microsoft Dynamics GP?" The answer has been to setup an Integration, but this can be a complicated to process.

NOW there is an ISV solution that will let you easily do just that, copy and paste from Microsoft Excel®. Just select the company, choose a batch, input the date and paste. The journal entries are fully validated before being loaded into Dynamics GP.


Infinia Business Technology - Excel Integrator http://www.excelintegrator.com/




This is what Vicky at Frazier Quarry has to say:

We purchased the Infinia Excel Integrator after seeing it at Convergence 2008. Due to the nature of our business, we post a great portion of our activity thru manual journal entries. Infinia Excel Integrator has increased our productivity and accuracy as well as reduce the month end close time. It was affordable, easy to install and use. A BIG BANG FOR THE BUCK!

Vicky W. Arbogast
Controller
The Frazier Quarry, Inc.

To view a PDF and pricing on this product click here

For more information or to purchase please click here to email: mailto:info@broadpoint.net

How is "Software as a Service" (SaaS) changing the way people approach business software decisions?

By Steve Hammet

Account Executive

BroadPoint Technologies

The technology world has been abuzz over the last year about the impact of SaaS on businesses. Salesforce.com, ADP, NetSuite and others tout the positive aspects of SaaS, and there are good business reasons for going with a SaaS model. I recommend and sell business systems, let me share what I have learned over the last two years in discussing business software and different licensing approaches with clients.

 

For pilot projects, prototyping and small user groups, SaaS can be a huge benefit. Especially when the business processes are not established (a sales force just beginning to develop standards, collective workflow and processes) the group/company can just use the "out of the box" functionality with little or no configuration. If a company has very vanilla processes (a snow cone stand comes to mind), then SaaS can assist with making the company more efficient with little upfront money and get up and running quickly. Make the business rules follow the software functionality.

 

However, most companies today have complex relationships with clients that require their software to mimic their business. For these companies, this is a differentiation that makes their company unique. Of course, these companies can "configure and/or customize" SaaS software, but I have found the implementation costs are as high or higher than traditional purchased software. Once a company needs to include these implementation costs, the landscape changes from "we'll just use out of the box" to "we need the system to work the way we work". At this point, the software purchase vs. lease discussion gets down to an ROI evaluation. I have found around 20 – 28 months to be the equalization ROI factor in lease vs. purchase; most owners and managers find that purchasing is more economical "overall" in the end.

Tip of the Week from Brenda Hopkins - Week 4

Auto Populate Account Descriptions

Microsoft Dynamics GP v9.0 and v10.0 have a new feature to allow you to automatically populate the account description based on the segments.

This is a great feature to give you a consistent chart of accounts.

Once you've setup your account segments and their meanings in Tools >Setup >Financial >Segment you're ready to go.

In my example I have Segment 1 setup for 100 to be Administration and Segment 3 setup to be VA Region.

Now when you create a new account in Cards-Financial-Account, the description will populate based on the segments.

So if your account is 100-5555-09 and the segment meanings are Administration-[my new expense account name]-VA Region, that's what will appear in the description. All I will have to fill out is the new expense account name. Of course you could have the Main account descriptions default as well. It takes a lot of the guess work out of abbreviations.

For those of you with messy charts descriptions like me, Mass Modify (Cards >Financial >Mass Modify) will let you clean up your Segments now as well.

Your CRM does what? Part 2 of 4

In Part 2 of a 4 part series on extending your CRM application, we will take a look at how we managed Event Planning and Speaker Recruitment processes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for one of our clients.

Event Planning

In this case, the client was using a custom legacy solution to manage thousands of events annually. The solution was not flexible and required programming when additional fields and functionality need to be added to the system. In addition it was not very easy for the users to search for and report on data within the system. The three main goals for our solution were to: (1) manage event details including meeting venue and contact info, (2) manage budgetary and actual estimates for events, and (3) provide the ability to search for and recruit speakers for the events. What we created in Dynamics CRM was a solution whereby:

• Upon event creation, a unique alpha-numeric Event ID is assigned based on customer provided logic
  
• Upon event creation, workflows automatically create and assign planning tasks for each type of event
  
• Detailed information is stored regarding the event such as: start/end date and time, location of meeting, contact info, meeting coordinator and type of event. This information can be searched on within CRM and can be reported on using SQL Reporting Service reports.
  
• Budget information can be added and associated with and event including all related vendor actual and estimated costs
  
• Lecture information can be added including related lecture title, lecture date, lecture time and speaker
  
• Upon closing an event, related speaker costs are integrated to Great Plains Accounting system Payables module
  

  
  

Speaker Bureau Management

Speaker Bureau Management is a component of the event planning. In this case, the client maintains a list of speakers for which they recruit for various events. One of the pain points of their legacy system was that it was difficult to determine which speakers were available and when. The three main goals for our solution were to: (1) provide a solution where speaker contact info, ongoing interactions and related documents/attachments can be stored, (2) provide a solution where certifications and training for speakers can be managed, (3) provide a solution whereby speakers could easily be searched based on certifications, travel requirements and availability. What we created in Dynamics CRM was a solution whereby:

• Speaker contact information is stored as well as all interactions (email, phone call, tasks, notes) related to that Speaker
  
• Speaker training and certification information can be appended to the speaker record in a searchable format
  
• Speaker travel restrictions are stored and searchable
  
• Speakers can be associated with events in one of three status levels ("recruiting", "accepted" or "declined")
  
• CRM Users can select a specific event and view all speakers associated with the event and see the speaker's current status as it relates to that event
  
• CRM Users can select a specific speaker and see all events they are associated with including ones they are being recruited for as well as ones where they have accepted or declined to speak
  
• CRM Users can select speaker engagements and see all speakers that have been recruited, accepted or declined for all events. This is a global view and can be sorted on event dates, speaker name or any column included in this filtered list
  
• Multiple CRM Mail Merges have been created for managing the collection of information updates and generation of informational letters to speakers
  

When thinking of your CRM solution don't be afraid to think out of the box and add functionality to support your many business practices. If you can use Dynamics CRM to support more of your business processes you can increase efficiencies and increase accuracy of your data by eliminating the need for dual entry of the same customer data. Your company will also benefit by adding more processes in a central repository like Dynamics CRM by reducing the time it takes to locate and report on disparate pieces of data.

BroadPoint Partner Scribe announces Scribe Web Services Adapter Product Launch Webinar

Webcast: Scribe Web Services Adapter Product Launch: Overview and Demonstrations – Thursday, May 14 @ 11am – 12pm EST
This webcast will cover the newly released Web Services Adapter for Scribe Insight and Scribe Insight Enterprise. The webcast will include a feature overview and several demonstrations of the Web Service Adapter enabling integration to Dynamics AX, Microsoft SharePoint and 3rd party commercial web services. Click to read the Adapter for Web Services data sheet.

Scribe Presenters for the webcast will be:
Bob Sturim - Vice President, ProductsJohn Gravely - Vice President, Marketing and Product MarketingLou Antonucci - Vice President, Sales
Tomas O’Brien - Product Manager

Please register at the following registration URL https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/8001615779/Registration.aspx?pageName=rx9xxrf8tbj9g3rz

Your CRM does what? Part 1 of 4

By Todd Fleming

Senior Consultant, Microsoft Business Solutions

BroadPoint Technologies

I think most of us know what a standard CRM application does out of the box. You have the typical functionality across all of the major CRM vendors to include: Sales Force Automation- Leads, Accounts, Contacts and Opportunity Management, Marketing Automation – Campaigns and Marketing Lists, and Service Automation – Contracts, Cases and a Knowledgebase. While this includes a lot of useful features it rarely ever satisfies all of the needs of a company. This shouldn't be viewed as a negative as long as your CRM solution is also flexible enough to handle your company's specific business needs.

One of the solutions we have incorporated in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for customers in the past includes:

Project Budgeting and Analysis

In this case, the client was using their financial application to track time and materials against projects. The goals were to: (1) give Account Execs more visibility into project details and current budget to actual amounts thereby reducing the burden on the finance team for having to produce weekly status reports, (2) provide a central repository for all project documents and customer interactions and (3) provide an estimate tool within CRM that would assist with creating budgets and client facing quotes. What we created in Dynamics CRM was a solution whereby:

• Account Execs could create a new project with the necessary project description and details needed for budgeting
  
• The project record would be the central location for storing files and recording interactions with customers regarding a project
  
• Several departments would be tasked with creating budgetary estimates for the project
  
• A quote would be generated based on the details and budgetary estimates and sent to the client
  
• As time and expenses are approved against the project in the financial application it systematically integrates this data to the corresponding project in Dynamics CRM
  
• Budgeted time and expenses can be compared to actual time and expenses to monitor a project's status within Dynamics CRM
  

In my next blog postings I will discuss additional features we have added in Dynamics CRM such as Contract Administration, Event Planning, Speaker Bureau Management, Credit Card Verification, Integrated Freight Calculation and Partner Portal for managing Leads and Opportunities by external Partners.

Tip of the Week from Brenda Hopkins - Week 3

Macro Basics

A macro is a function that allows the automation of certain events in a program. In Microsoft Dynamics GP, macros can be used to take out some of the annoying parts.

For example, when we transfer money, we always transfer it one way, from Money Market to operating. Everything is the same but the dollar amount.

So, we can build a macro to fill in everything but the amount. Now we can just run the macro, add an amount and then we are done.

Building a macro in Microsoft Dynamics GP is easy but somewhat tedious. Remember though, you only have to build it once; you get to run it over and over again.

A Microsoft Dynamics GP macro works the same way as if you were sitting there keying in the info. That's important thing to remember as you build macros.

To Create the Macro:
· Select Tools->Macro->Record.

· Name the macro TEST and remember where you saved it.

· Pick Transactions->Financial>Bank Transfers for our example.

· Key in everything but the amount to transfer.

· Click Tools->Macro->Stop Recording.

· You've now recorded all that work as a Macro.

· Push clear and close the window.

To Run the Macro:

· Pick Tools->Macro->Play.

· Find your macro file and click open.

· Close the box telling you how long the macro ran.

· You now have bank transfer waiting for your amount.

· To finish the transfer, enter the amount and click post.

Adding the macro to the shortcut bar is the easiest way to run a macro and it gets rid of the run time message.

You can see your Leads and Opportunities but can your Partners?

By Todd Fleming

Senior Consultant, Microsoft Business Solutions

BroadPoint Technologies

In the past couple of years we have worked with companies that sell their products directly and also through a Partner Channel. There are many challenges to overcome when you are faced with this business model. Some of the complaints I hear often are that when you provide Leads to your Partners you don't hear about them again until they place an order. This makes it difficult or impossible to do any accurate sales forecasting. Another common complaint is that the company has little to no exposure in the interactions of Leads and Opportunities once they are turned over to Partners.

The ability for Partners to update Lead and Opportunity information and associate calls and tasks with Leads and Opportunities in your company's CRM solution provides valuable data to the company which can be mined using common Business Intelligence and Reporting tools. Lead response time is another concern. If your process for getting Leads and Opportunities to your Partners is a manual one then this could take a while from the time a Lead expresses an interest until the time the Lead is followed up on. In most industries the response time is a critical factor in determining the lead conversion rate. If it takes too long to follow-up on a Lead your competitor may beat you to the deal.

Partner Portal for Sales

The solution we developed for a customer using Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided the following features:

• Two security roles for Portal Users - Executive and Portal User
  
  • Executive can see all Leads and Opportunities assigned to a company (Partner). Executive user assigns Leads and Opportunities to Partner employee (Portal Users)
    
  • Portal User can see and manage all Leads and Opportunities Assigned to them (Partner employee)
    
• Security is controlled in Microsoft Dynamics CRM - User Name, Password, Security Level and ability to inactivate a login
  
• Ability within Dynamics CRM to login as a specific Portal User to see exactly what they would see when they login
  
• Allows Leads in Dynamics CRM to be assigned to Partners
  
• Allows Opportunities in Dynamics CRM to be assigned to Partners
  
• Allows Lead contact data to be edited via Partner Portal which is then updated in Dynamics CRM
  
• Allows Opportunity data to be edited via Partner Portal which is then updated in Dynamics CRM
  
• Allows Phone Calls and Tasks to be created via Partner Portal for Leads and Opportunities which is then updated in Dynamics CRM
  
• Allows Leads to be marked as "won" via Partner Portal. A list of Leads marked won is displayed in Dynamics CRM and once internally reviewed and approved they are converted to Opportunities and then displayed in the Partner Portal
  
• Allows Leads to be exported from Portal if proper security is assigned. This can be controlled on a Partner by Partner basis.
  
• Allows for filtered views in Dynamics CRM to display all Leads and Opportunities assigned to Partners
  
• Leads and Opportunities owned by Partners can be exported from Dynamics CRM and sent as an Excel attachment if the Partner decides not to use the Portal
  

Some of the features we have considered adding include

• Adding a last login date to the Portal User record that tracks when the user last logged into the Portal in order to produce a Portal Usage report
  
• Dashboard Reports for Leads and Opportunities
  
• Partner point system. Partner's that close the most Leads get assigned the most Leads.
  

Technology used:

.Net web service (C#), ASP .Net front end templates, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK

Required Licenses
Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM External Connector License