Within the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook, users can access the mail merge feature to generate mass mailings for records in their databases. The mail merge feature can be accessed on the More Actions menuon the grid toolbar for the Lead, Account, and Contact entities.
When you click mail merge on this menu, Microsoft CRM automatically launches Word with the records you selected in the grid as your mass mailing data source. This feature makes it very easy for users to quickly create mail merges because it simplifies the mail merge data source selection in Word. In Word, the mail merge behaves identically to the standard Word mail merge feature, in which you can select templates, insert mail merge fields, preview your letter, and so on. However, when you complete your mail merge, Microsoft CRM automatically creates a completed Letter activity for each of the records in your mail merge. Some of the constraints related to using this feature include:
You cannot include custom attributes as Mail Merge fields.
You can only create mail merges for Leads, Accounts, and Contacts (no custom entities).
If you're using Word 2002 or 2003, Microsoft CRM automatically creates a completed Letter activity for each recipient.
Word uses the records selected in the grid as the mail merge data source. Therefore, if you have five pages of records that you want to include in your mail merge, you must repeat this process five times, once for each page of records. You can change your user settings to display as many as 250 records at one time on a single page by clicking Options on the Tools menu.
You cannot configure the subject and body of the completed Letter activity that Microsoft CRM creates for each record in the mail merge. The subject will always be "Word Mail Merge," and the body will always be "Mail Merge document created in Microsoft Word."
You can access the Microsoft CRM Mail Merge feature using the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook only; you cannot use the Web client.
microsoft etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
microsoft etiketine sahip kayıtlar gösteriliyor. Tüm kayıtları göster
Earlier in this chapter, we discussed creating and using E-mail templates to send information to multiple records in your Microsoft CRM database. But suppose that you wanted to create printed letters, envelopes, or labels for a large number of records? Clearly, using an E-mail template isn't an appropriate choice for this type of printed (non-e-mail) task. Microsoft CRM offers you several options for mass mailing activities, including the following:
Use the Microsoft CRM mail merge feature in the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook.
Use the mail merge feature in Microsoft Office Word, using Microsoft CRM filtered views as a data source.
Use the mail merge feature in Word, using Microsoft CRM data exported to Microsoft Office Excel as a data source.
Write a Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report.
Use the Microsoft CRM Campaign and Quick Campaign features.
Create a custom mass mailing application.
Although using the mass mailing and mail merge features of Microsoft CRM doesn't necessarily fall under the chapter title "Setting Up Your System," we've received so many questions on the topic that we felt the need to cover it in this book. Therefore, the remainder of the chapter examines the benefits and drawbacks of theseoptions to help you decide which one provides the best fit for you.
Explaining the details of setting up and using the Word mail merge feature is beyond the scope of
this book. We assume you're already familiar with the concepts and techniques related to using Word mail merge.
Use the Microsoft CRM mail merge feature in the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook.
Use the mail merge feature in Microsoft Office Word, using Microsoft CRM filtered views as a data source.
Use the mail merge feature in Word, using Microsoft CRM data exported to Microsoft Office Excel as a data source.
Write a Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report.
Use the Microsoft CRM Campaign and Quick Campaign features.
Create a custom mass mailing application.
Although using the mass mailing and mail merge features of Microsoft CRM doesn't necessarily fall under the chapter title "Setting Up Your System," we've received so many questions on the topic that we felt the need to cover it in this book. Therefore, the remainder of the chapter examines the benefits and drawbacks of theseoptions to help you decide which one provides the best fit for you.
Explaining the details of setting up and using the Word mail merge feature is beyond the scope of
this book. We assume you're already familiar with the concepts and techniques related to using Word mail merge.
Microsoft CRM uses a unique identifier known as a tracking token to link e-mail messages with the appropriate records in Microsoft CRM.
This tracking code uniquely identifies the E-mail activity in the database. If a customer were to reply to this message, the Router would automatically recognize the tracking token in the message and set the Regarding field of the E-mail activity to the correct record. For example, if a user sent an outbound e-mail message regarding a specific Case, when the customer replied, Microsoft CRM would automatically create an E-mail activity and link it to the correct Case! For even more functionality, you can combine the Microsoft CRM Campaign and Quick Campaign features with the tracking token to automatically capture e-mail responses and record them against their originating marketing campaign.
The tracking token in Microsoft CRM allows the Router to automatically link e-mail messages (and entire conversation threads) to a specific record, such as an Opportunity, a Case, a Campaign, a Quote, or an Order. It does this by examining the tracking token and then updating the Regarding field of the E-mail activity to the appropriate record.If you don't care for the default tracking token format, you can specify your own unique tracking token configuration. To change the token configuration, browse to the Settings area and click Organization Settings.Then click System Settings, and click the E-mail Tracking tab.
This tracking code uniquely identifies the E-mail activity in the database. If a customer were to reply to this message, the Router would automatically recognize the tracking token in the message and set the Regarding field of the E-mail activity to the correct record. For example, if a user sent an outbound e-mail message regarding a specific Case, when the customer replied, Microsoft CRM would automatically create an E-mail activity and link it to the correct Case! For even more functionality, you can combine the Microsoft CRM Campaign and Quick Campaign features with the tracking token to automatically capture e-mail responses and record them against their originating marketing campaign.
The tracking token in Microsoft CRM allows the Router to automatically link e-mail messages (and entire conversation threads) to a specific record, such as an Opportunity, a Case, a Campaign, a Quote, or an Order. It does this by examining the tracking token and then updating the Regarding field of the E-mail activity to the appropriate record.If you don't care for the default tracking token format, you can specify your own unique tracking token configuration. To change the token configuration, browse to the Settings area and click Organization Settings.Then click System Settings, and click the E-mail Tracking tab.
If you deploy Microsoft CRM and you use Exchange Server 2000 or 2003 for your corporate e-mail, you have the option of installing the Microsoft CRM-Exchange E-mail Router (also called the Router), which you can configure to provide the following benefits:
Users can create and send e-mail messages by using the Web client interface.
You can automatically create copies of all incoming messages (to Microsoft CRM users) in the Microsoft CRM database.
Microsoft CRM can automatically track e-mail conversations and threads by using a tracking code appended to the message subject line.
You can manually track individual e-mail messages in the Microsoft CRM database on an ad hoc basis in the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook.
You receive the Router software with the purchase of Microsoft CRM, so there's no additional cost. When you install the Router, Microsoft CRM also installs the Rule Deployment Wizard, which you can use to help administer and manage e-mail tracking configuration. If you're using Exchange Server at your organization, you should absolutely plan on using the Router with your Microsoft CRM deployment.
Note You do not need Exchange Server to use Microsoft CRM. If you don't want to use Exchange Server,you can still send e-mail messages through the Web client with any Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP) mail server. However, without Exchange Server and the Router, you won't be able to track inbound and outbound messages automatically.
If you want to use the e-mail tracking features, you must confirm that the e-mail tracking option is activated for your deployment. You can verify this by browsing to the Settings area, clicking Organization Settings, clickingSystem Settings, and then clicking E-mail Tracking.
Users can create and send e-mail messages by using the Web client interface.
You can automatically create copies of all incoming messages (to Microsoft CRM users) in the Microsoft CRM database.
Microsoft CRM can automatically track e-mail conversations and threads by using a tracking code appended to the message subject line.
You can manually track individual e-mail messages in the Microsoft CRM database on an ad hoc basis in the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook.
You receive the Router software with the purchase of Microsoft CRM, so there's no additional cost. When you install the Router, Microsoft CRM also installs the Rule Deployment Wizard, which you can use to help administer and manage e-mail tracking configuration. If you're using Exchange Server at your organization, you should absolutely plan on using the Router with your Microsoft CRM deployment.
Note You do not need Exchange Server to use Microsoft CRM. If you don't want to use Exchange Server,you can still send e-mail messages through the Web client with any Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP) mail server. However, without Exchange Server and the Router, you won't be able to track inbound and outbound messages automatically.
If you want to use the e-mail tracking features, you must confirm that the e-mail tracking option is activated for your deployment. You can verify this by browsing to the Settings area, clicking Organization Settings, clickingSystem Settings, and then clicking E-mail Tracking.
Imagine that a sample organization, Adventure Works Cycle, has created the e-mail address bikesupport@adventure-works.com to handle all incoming customer support requests. The goal of this support alias is to allow the Adventure Works customer service representatives to monitor incoming support requests in a single location to make sure that everything gets resolved in a timely manner. Microsoft CRM uses the Queue feature to track and hold pending work items until they are assigned to a user. Adventure Works Cycle could create a queue called Bicycle Cases; then every e-mail sent to bikesupport@adventure-works.com would create a queue item in the Bicycle Cases queue. In addition to activities such as E-mails and Tasks, you can also assign Cases to a queue. Users can access the queues for your organization by browsing to the Queues subarea of the Workplace area.
Microsoft CRM removes items from a queue when they're assigned to a user, or when a user accepts an item currently in the queue. If you assign a queue item to a user, the item will move to the Assigned folder until the user accepts it. When a user accepts an item, it moves to the user's In Progress folder until he or she completes the item. Microsoft CRM automatically removes Cases and Activities from the In Progress folder when you complete them, except for completed E-mail activities. To remove a completed E-mail item from your In Progress folder, you must delete it. This does not delete the item, it just removes the item from your In Progress folder.
You can set up and manage your queues by browsing to the Settings area, clicking Business Unit Settings, and then clicking Queues. You don't have to use an e-mail address for each queue, but you can configure this functionality by following the detailed instructions included the Microsoft CRM Implementation Guide.
The following are additional important points to consider regarding queues:
You can use queues for any type of business activity that uses activities, including incoming sales requests and marketing tasks. You should not consider queues as strictly a customer service tool.
Queues do not own records, so assigning an item to a queue will not change its ownership (or trigger the workflow assign event), but it will add the item to the queue.
Although assigning an item to a queue will not change ownership, assigning a queue item to a user will change the ownership of the item.
Items listed in the queue respect the Microsoft CRM security settings regarding which records each user can read, write, delete, and so on. However, all users can view all the queues and all the items in the queue (even though Microsoft CRM won't allow them to open a record for which they don't have access).
You can configure multiple queues to suit various business needs.
If you set up an e-mail alias to automatically create queue items, Microsoft CRM will not automatically create Cases for each e-mail message sent to the alias. You must do this manually or with custom programming code.
Microsoft CRM provides the Subjects feature so that you can hierarchically categorize various entities such as Products, Cases, Sales Literature, and Knowledge Base Articles under a common topic
structure. By creating a subject tree such as this one, you could link a product category, such as Road-150, with all its related Products, Cases, Sales Literature, and Knowledge Base Articles. To create your own subject tree,browse to the Settings area and click Subjects. Then use the tools in the Common Tasks pane to structure the subject tree for the different types of areas related to your organization, such as products, services, business operations, and anything else that you need to categorize in Microsoft CRM. After you establish your subject tree, you can assign entity records to one of the subjects.
Categorizing your entity records by their correct subjects offers the following benefits:
Users can browse Knowledge Base Articles by subject.
You can create new views, using subject values as filter criteria. For example, you can create a view that shows only the open cases for the Road-150 subject.
You can create workflow rules that automatically route or assign cases to specific individuals based on the Case subject.
When designing your subject tree, keep the following in mind:
You can easily adjust and modify the subject tree at any time, so don't fret too much over the initial layout.
When you modify subjects, Microsoft CRM applies your changes immediately throughout the system.
You should avoid creating subjects that have only one child subject.
Although there is no fixed limit on how deep you can make your subject tree, we recommend that you keep it between four and five levels deep, with a maximum of seven levels. If you go much deeper, it might become difficult for users to select the correct subject in the user interface, particularly if they use the form assistant.
Microsoft CRM uses the term entities to describe the record types it uses throughout the system. The concept of entities is easily one of the most important concepts to understand before you can
customize Microsoft CRM. Some people use the term objects to describe the concept of entities.
The default installation of Microsoft CRM includes almost 115 different entities for tracking and managing different types of data. We don't have the space to list all of the default entities, but some of the
More frequently used entities include:
Lead A potential customer that users can qualify or disqualify as a sales opportunity. When you qualify (convert) a Lead, Microsoft CRM can automatically create an Account, Contact, and Opportunity
Record for you.
Contact A person who interacts with your organization. Contact records might be customers, but you can also track any type of Contact, such as partners, suppliers, vendors, and so on.
Account A business or organization that interacts with your company. You can link an Account's employees as Contacts related to the Account. In addition, you can create parent and child
Relationships between Accounts to reflect divisions or departments within a single large Account.
Case A customer service problem reported by a customer that your organization wants to track and manage until it's successfully resolved.
Activity An action or follow-up item that your users must complete, such as tasks, phone calls, letters, and e-mail messages. You can link Activities to an entity to specify what the follow-up item is regarding.
Note Short text annotations that you can link to various entities throughout Microsoft CRM.
Opportunity A potential sale for your organization. After a customer decides whether he or she will purchase from your company, you can mark the Opportunity as won or lost.
Microsoft CRM uses a form to display the attributes of a single entity record. Users can view and update entity records by editing the data that appears on its form.
It might appear that certain portions of Microsoft CRM "disappear" from the Web client user interface from time to time. In reality, Microsoft CRM hides certain areas of functionality in the Web client if the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook is open and running on a computer. Some of these areas include:
Settings
Customizations
Service Calendar
Workplace Calendar
To access these areas in the Web client, simply close Outlook and refresh the Internet Explorer window. Voilà! The hidden sections will appear again.
If you really need to access these hidden areas in the Web client with Outlook open, you can trick the software by browsing to the Microsoft CRM server using a different alias than the one you used to install Microsoft CRM client for Outlook. For example, if you used the server NETBIOS name (such as http://crm) when you installed Microsoft CRM client for Outlook, you could use the Web client to browse to the IP address of the Microsoft CRM Web server (such as http://192.168.0.1). Even though both resolve to the same Microsoft CRM installation, the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook will not hide the Settings and Customization links in the Web client.
Microsoft CRM is a Web-based application built using the Microsoft .NET technology platform. Because of its native Web architecture, users can access Microsoft CRM through the Internet Explorer Web browser. In addition to the Web interface (also known as the Web client), users can access Microsoft CRM by installing the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook on a computer running Outlook.
The Microsoft CRM client for Outlook offers two versions:
Microsoft CRM 3.0 desktop client for Microsoft Office Outlook Designed for use with desktop computers that will remain connected to the Microsoft CRM server at all times. Use this client for "online only" scenarios and when multiple users log on to the same computer with different profiles.
Microsoft CRM 3.0 laptop client for Microsoft Office Outlook Designed for users of laptop computers who must disconnect from the Microsoft CRM server but still need to work with CRM data when they're offline.
The software copies data from the Microsoft CRM server to a Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) database installed on the user's computer so that the user can work while disconnected.When the user reconnects to the server, the Microsoft CRM laptop client bidirectionally synchronizes data between the Microsoft CRM server and the user's MSDE database. The laptop client can be used by only one user on a single machine. Microsoft CRM refers to the process of connecting and disconnecting from the server as go online and go offline.
Note
When we reference the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook in this book, we're referring to both the laptop and the desktop versions. They offer nearly identical functionality, except that the laptop version can be used offline.
Users can access the vast majority of Microsoft CRM system functionality from either the Web client or the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook. Therefore, you can decide whether you want to deploy the Web client, the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook, or if you want to offer both options to your users. A few notable differences in functionality exist between the Web client and the Microsoft CRM for Outlook clients:
Users can access the Mail Merge feature in the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook only.
You must use the Web client to access the administration section of the Microsoft CRM software to change settings and access the system customizations.
The Microsoft CRM client for Outlook can synchronize a user's Microsoft CRM contacts, tasks, and appointments between the Microsoft CRM server and a user's Outlook data. You can configure how often this synchronization occurs and you can also filter the data that you want the software to synchronize on each user's behalf.
Users can access the Service Calendar and Workplace Calendar in the Web client only.
When working offline, Microsoft CRM laptop client for Outlook users cannot use some of the Microsoft CRM functionality such as running reports.
More Info In addition to the Web client and the Microsoft CRM client for Outlook, Microsoft CRM includes a mobile edition that supports handheld devices using Pocket PC and Windows Mobile operating systems. The mobile edition of Microsoft CRM 3.0 was not yet released at the time that this book went to press.
Templates allow you a convenient means of standardizing the content and layout of similar documents in
Microsoft CRM. You can use three types of templates:
Contract
Article
E-mail
Because they're all templates, you might expect the setup of these three types to be similar. In reality, their
functionality and usage in the application is quite different.
In this dialog box, you can choose which E-mail template to send. Because E-mail templates are defined with
an entity type, you can select only templates specific to the entity that you're working with or one of the global
templates. In our example, you could not send an Account or Contact template from this page because we
clicked the Direct E-mail button from the Leads grid toolbar. To select an E-mail template, simply click its
name in the selection box.
Tip If you move your mouse cursor over the description text, CRM will display the entire text of the E-mail
template description.
After you select the E-mail template that you want to send, you can specify to which records you want to send
the message. As the dialog box explains, you can send the message to just the selected records, to all the
records on the current page, or to all the records in the selected view.
Regardless of the value that you select here, Microsoft CRM will not send Direct E-mail messages to any
Account or Contact record if the Do Not Allow Bulk E-mails or Do Not E-mail attributes for the record are set to
Do Not Allow.
By default, Microsoft CRM sends the e-mail message as coming from the user who is currently logged on. You
can change this value by clicking the lookup button and selecting a different user or queue.
Caution Be very careful when using the Direct E-mail feature! When you click the Send button, Microsoft
CRM sends the message immediately. There is no "preview" or "cancel" option, so make sure
that your message is ready to send.
When you use the Direct E-mail feature, Microsoft CRM sends messages through Microsoft Exchange Server.
Therefore, use some discretion when sending a very large number of messages at one time. Some factors
that come into play include the hardware specifications on your servers, your network performance, your
Internet bandwidth, and the amount of load on the server. Although no published specifications exist and the
numbers can range widely depending on your infrastructure, if you need to send more than 10,000 to 20,000
e-mail messages in one hour, we recommend that you explore the option of using third-party e-mail engines
instead of Exchange Server.
Inserting Templates into E-Mail Messages
Sometimes you will not want to use the Direct E-mail feature because you can't edit or add content to the e-
mail message before Microsoft CRM sends it. Fortunately, you can insert an E-mail template into an individual
e-mail message that you're composing so that you can modify it before you send it. When you're writing a
message in the Web client, you can click the Insert Template button (shown in Figure 2-8) to open the dialog
box shown in Figure 2-7. You must select at least one e-mail recipient before you can insert a template,
because Microsoft CRM must know which template types apply to the message (based on the entity type ofthe recipients).
After you select an E-mail template, Microsoft CRM automatically populates the template content in the body
of the message and fills out any data fields that the E-mail template might contain. This is a convenient feature
if you want to edit or add additional content to an e-mail before you send it (something you can't do with the
Direct E-mail feature). If your e-mail message includes multiple recipients, you must select one of them as the
E-mail template target when you insert a template into the message.
Warning Each time you insert an E-mail template into the body of an e-mail message, Microsoft CRM
updates the subject line of the e-mail message to match the subject of the E-mail template. So if
you insert multiple templates, the subject will be determined by the last template inserted. This is
very convenient for writing new e-mails, but you should be aware of this behavior if you insert E-
mail templates when you reply to messages.
You cannot insert an E-mail template into an Outlook e-mail message if you are using the Microsoft CRM
client for Outlook.
Creating or Modifying E-Mail Templates
Now that you understand some of the ways in which you can use E-mail templates in Microsoft CRM, let's
discuss how you can create and set up new E-mail templates. Microsoft CRM includes 18 E-mail templates in
the default installation, including:
Lead Reply — Web Site Visit
Lead Reply — Trade Show Visit
Closed Case Acknowledgement
Marketing Event Notification
Order Thank You
You can modify these default templates or create entirely new E-mail templates that meet your needs. To view
the E-mail templates that are currently in your system, browse to the Settings area of Microsoft CRM, click
Templates, and then click E-mail Templates. A grid displays all the E-mail templates and their types. Simplydouble-click any record to view a template, such as the Follow-Up to Our Meeting template.
You can see that a template contains several attributes, such as:
Type Whether the template is global or applies only to an individual entity.
Title Short title of the E-mail template that appears when users select a template.
Description Additional descriptive text that explains the function of the E-mail template. Users can
access the description when they select a template.
Subject The subject line of the e-mail message.
Body The body of the e-mail message. It isn't labeled on the form, but this is the large text box below the
subject.
You can also see in Figure 2-9 that the E-mail template includes a highlighted data field that contains data
such as the following:
{!Contact:Full Name;Potential Customer}
Microsoft CRM automatically converts this data field to the full name of the Contact for this record. The text
before the colon refers to the entity, and the text after the colon specifies the attribute name. If an Opportunity
record does not have a Contact Full Name value, you can include a default value for the data field by entering
text after the semicolon. In this example, Microsoft CRM would insert the following text in the e-mail message
if there were no data in the Opportunity record for the Contact Full Name value:
Potential Customer
To add a new data field to an E-mail template, click the Insert/Update button on the form toolbar.
When you click the Add button, another dialog box prompts you to select the Record Type and Field for the
data field. Depending on the entity you selected for the E-mail template type, you can add fields from different
related entities. For example, on Lead E-mail templates, you can only add fields from the Lead and User
entities. However, for Opportunity E-mail templates, you can add fields from the Account, Contact,
Opportunity, and User entities. After you select the field that you want to add and click OK, the field appears in
the Data Field Values list. Then you can specify the default value text (optional) by entering it in the Default
Text box. When you click OK, Microsoft CRM adds the data field to the E-mail template.
Tip You can add data fields to both the subject and body of an E-mail template.
If you want to add multiple data fields to an E-mail template, you must add them one at a time, as in this
example:
{!Contact : Salutation;} {!Contact : Last Name;}
These data fields would insert the following text into an e-mail message for a sample Contact, Mr. Bill Gates:
Mr. Gates
However, if you added both data fields at the same time by using the Data Field Values dialog box, Microsoft
CRM would create one data field in the template, like this:
{!Contact : Salutation;Contact : Last Name;}
This data field would insert the following text for the same Contact:
Mr.
As you can see, Microsoft CRM allows you to enter a dynamic data field for the default value of a different
data field. In this example, Contact: Last Name is the default value for the Contact: Salutation data field.
However, because the Contact record included a value for the salutation, it didn't need to output the default
value of Contact: Last Name.
Creating a new E-mail template is straightforward enough. Just click the New button on the grid toolbar, select
the entity type for the E-mail template, and then enter the appropriate information in the template fields. After
you set up your new template with the attributes and data fields that you want, simply click Save on the E-mail
template toolbar. Microsoft CRM immediately applies your changes to the E-mail template and users can
access it.
Tip When you enter and edit text in the E-mail template body, pressing Enter on your keyboard adds an
extra line. If you want a single carriage return (instead of a new paragraph), simply press Shift+Enter
instead.
Creating and Sharing Personal E-Mail Templates
The process we just explained will create an E-mail template that the entire organization can view and use.
Users can also create personal templates for their own use. To create a personal E-mail template, follow these
steps:
1. On the application menu bar, click Tools, and then click Options.
2. On the E-mail Templates tab, click New on the grid toolbar, and then follow the steps for creating an
organization E-mail template.
If a user decides that he or she wants to share an E-mail template with the entire organization, he or she can
convert a personal template to an organization template at any time. To do this, open the E-mail template that
you want to convert, and then click Make Template Available To Organization on the Actions menu. Microsoft
CRM immediately updates the E-mail template. If necessary, you can undo this conversion by clicking Revert
To Personal Template on the Actions menu.
Tip E-mail templates follow the security settings and privileges related to the E-mail template entity and its
user ownership (Chapter 3 explains security and privileges in detail). Therefore, you can configure the
user security roles and E-mail template ownership however you choose, such as allowing users to see
only the templates for their specific business units.
Inserting Graphics and HTML into E-Mail Templates
After you create a few E-mail templates, you'll probably notice that the editing tools for the e-mail message
body are somewhat limited. For example, you cannot use the available buttons to add a hyperlink or an image
to the message. If you want to develop a more sophisticated E-mail template with multiple images, links, and
so on, you will probably want to create HTML code with a development tool such as Microsoft Visual Studio
.NET. However, if you try to copy and paste your HTML code into the E-mail template, it is displayed as plain
text; your recipient would receive a bunch of HTML code instead of the nice formatted version of your
message! Fortunately, with just a little trick you can easily copy and paste your custom HTML code into the E-
mail template and still maintain the correct formatting.
First, let's assume that you want to send a simple company newsletter to contacts in your database by using
an E-mail template with the following requirements:
Display the company logo in the message.
Address the customers by their first names.
Add a hyperlink that readers can click to get more information.
We created some sample HTML code in Visual Studio .NET that will meet these requirements.
Next, we want to create a new E-mail template for the Contact entity and insert our sample code into the
template. Browse to the Settings area of Microsoft CRM, click Templates, and then click E-mail templates.
Click the New button on the grid toolbar, select the Contact entity from the drop-down list, and then click OK.
The new E-mail template form appears, and you can use any title, description, and subject that you want.
If you just typed the sample HTML code from Figure 2-11 into the body of the message, it would appear as
plain text. Therefore, we want to copy (Ctrl+C) the sample newsletter and paste (Ctrl+V) it into the e-mail
message body. You can accomplish this in a few ways, such as:
Copy and paste the HTML code from Visual Studio .NET HTML view
Copy and paste the formatted message from Visual Studio .NET Design view
Copy and paste the formatted message from Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Design view
Important You cannot copy and paste HTML code from a text editor program such as Notepad into the
E-mail template. In addition, you cannot copy and paste HTML code from FrontPage 2003
Code view.
After you copy and paste the contents of the message into the E-mail template body, you will see the properly
formatted e-mail message, complete with an image and a hyperlink. After we pasted the code into the
message, we added a data field to display the contact's first name in our newsletter, to satisfy our original requirement.
If you try this copy-and-paste technique but it does not work, confirm that you have the following element at
the top of your HTML code.You can also try using the copy and paste technique with other applications, such as Microsoft Internet
Explorer. The success of this technique varies depending on the format that different applications use to copydata to the clipboard.
Microsoft CRM offers great out-of-the-box functionality, but in our opinion one of its biggest benefits is theease with which you can customize and revise the software to make it fit your business perfectly. MicrosoftCRM includes some of the most powerful, yet flexible, customization options available for any CRM programon the market. Some of the customization highlights include:
Entity customization and creation Customize entities by adding, modifying, or deleting their variousproperties, such as attributes, forms, views, relationships, mappings, and system messages. You can alsocreate entirely new custom entities.
Custom reports Use SQL Server Reporting Services to modify the default reports or create entirely new
reports. Reporting Services includes powerful reporting functionality such as data caching, reportsnapshots, and automated report delivery.
Workflow rules Use the Workflow Manager to create rules that help automate business processes.Workflow rules can reference and incorporate data from your own custom .NET workflow assemblies. Asample workflow might accomplish something like, "Make sure a salesperson calls and introduces himselfto every new account by automatically creating a phone call Activity due one day after an account iscreated."
Client-side customization Tap into client-side events such as onLoad, onSave, and onChange. You canattach your custom scripts to these client events, and Microsoft CRM will trigger them for you. Client-sideevents will help improve your users' experience because you can add advanced data validation andautomatic formatting when they're entering data on forms. Automatically formatting a phone number is anexample of a client-side customization.
Server-side integration Programmatically access and update Microsoft CRM data through Web servicesby creating your own custom code. By adhering to the Microsoft CRM published APIs, your custom codecan upgrade smoothly to future versions of Microsoft CRM. You can create two-way integration betweenMicrosoft CRM and other systems, such as your company Web site or extranet, by leveraging the server-side integration tools.
Pre-and post-callouts Create custom business logic with .NET assemblies that you can link directly tothe Microsoft CRM application logic.
Site map and ISV.config You can revise the user interface and application navigation by adding newareas, links, and buttons to areas throughout the application.
Filtered views Use filtered views in the Microsoft SQL Server database so that you (or your users) canretrieve raw data for additional manipulation, reporting, or analysis. Although users access the databasedirectly with filtered views, the filtered views still respect security and configuration settings so that userscan access only the data they have privileges for.
Microsoft has not tested the change and can't confirm whether it will cause problems.
Microsoft has tested the change and knows that it will cause problems.
The change might not cause problems now, but it might cause problems if you update your softwarewith hot fixes, patches, or new releases of Microsoft CRM.
Unfortunately, you can't really know which of these categories a particular customization might fall into.Therefore, you might make an unsupported change and never experience a problem. However, it's morelikely that unsupported customizations will cause problems sooner or later, potentially even months afterthe change! If you do experience a problem with an unsupported customization and you call Microsoft
technical support, guess what they'll say? "That's unsupported, so we can't assist you." Of course they'requite friendly people and they might give you a tip or two related to your request, but you should notexpect any assistance from Microsoft technical support if you implement unsupported customizations.Some of the most obvious unsupported customizations include:
Manually or programmatically interacting directly with the SQL Server database (other than filteredviews)
Modifying any of the .aspx or .js files
Installing or adding files to the Microsoft CRM folders
Referencing or decompiling any of the Microsoft CRM .dll files
Even though many "unsupported" customizations are technically possible to implement, you shouldcarefully consider the risk/reward tradeoff of doing so. You should anticipate that your unsupportedcustomizations could possibly break with Microsoft CRM 3.0 hot fixes and that they will probably breakwith future versions of Microsoft CRM.
Entity customization and creation Customize entities by adding, modifying, or deleting their variousproperties, such as attributes, forms, views, relationships, mappings, and system messages. You can alsocreate entirely new custom entities.
Custom reports Use SQL Server Reporting Services to modify the default reports or create entirely new
reports. Reporting Services includes powerful reporting functionality such as data caching, reportsnapshots, and automated report delivery.
Workflow rules Use the Workflow Manager to create rules that help automate business processes.Workflow rules can reference and incorporate data from your own custom .NET workflow assemblies. Asample workflow might accomplish something like, "Make sure a salesperson calls and introduces himselfto every new account by automatically creating a phone call Activity due one day after an account iscreated."
Client-side customization Tap into client-side events such as onLoad, onSave, and onChange. You canattach your custom scripts to these client events, and Microsoft CRM will trigger them for you. Client-sideevents will help improve your users' experience because you can add advanced data validation andautomatic formatting when they're entering data on forms. Automatically formatting a phone number is anexample of a client-side customization.
Server-side integration Programmatically access and update Microsoft CRM data through Web servicesby creating your own custom code. By adhering to the Microsoft CRM published APIs, your custom codecan upgrade smoothly to future versions of Microsoft CRM. You can create two-way integration betweenMicrosoft CRM and other systems, such as your company Web site or extranet, by leveraging the server-side integration tools.
Pre-and post-callouts Create custom business logic with .NET assemblies that you can link directly tothe Microsoft CRM application logic.
Site map and ISV.config You can revise the user interface and application navigation by adding newareas, links, and buttons to areas throughout the application.
Filtered views Use filtered views in the Microsoft SQL Server database so that you (or your users) canretrieve raw data for additional manipulation, reporting, or analysis. Although users access the databasedirectly with filtered views, the filtered views still respect security and configuration settings so that userscan access only the data they have privileges for.
Supported vs. Unsupported Customizations
Although Microsoft CRM provides almost limitless customization options, you might encounter scenariosin which you want to customize the software in a manner not described in this book or in the productdocumentation. You might hear that these types of undocumented customizations are "unsupported," butwhat does that really mean? Unsupported customizations could fall into one of three categories:
Microsoft has not tested the change and can't confirm whether it will cause problems.
Microsoft has tested the change and knows that it will cause problems.
The change might not cause problems now, but it might cause problems if you update your softwarewith hot fixes, patches, or new releases of Microsoft CRM.
Unfortunately, you can't really know which of these categories a particular customization might fall into.Therefore, you might make an unsupported change and never experience a problem. However, it's morelikely that unsupported customizations will cause problems sooner or later, potentially even months afterthe change! If you do experience a problem with an unsupported customization and you call Microsoft
technical support, guess what they'll say? "That's unsupported, so we can't assist you." Of course they'requite friendly people and they might give you a tip or two related to your request, but you should notexpect any assistance from Microsoft technical support if you implement unsupported customizations.Some of the most obvious unsupported customizations include:
Manually or programmatically interacting directly with the SQL Server database (other than filteredviews)
Modifying any of the .aspx or .js files
Installing or adding files to the Microsoft CRM folders
Referencing or decompiling any of the Microsoft CRM .dll files
Even though many "unsupported" customizations are technically possible to implement, you shouldcarefully consider the risk/reward tradeoff of doing so. You should anticipate that your unsupportedcustomizations could possibly break with Microsoft CRM 3.0 hot fixes and that they will probably breakwith future versions of Microsoft CRM.
Microsoft CRM uses industry standard technologies such as Windows Server, Active Directory, and SQLServer for its platform. You have great flexibility in designing and configuring your Microsoft CRM environment,and your final system design will depend on several variables such as:
Number of servers available and server hardware specifications
Number of Microsoft CRM users and their expected system usage
Hardware specifications of your servers and your local area network performance
Your network structure and security configurations, including firewalls and virtual private network (VPN)connections
Amount of disaster recovery and failover systems needed in your deployment
The Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide lists some recommended deployment configurations based onthese variables. However, as a general rule of thumb, the Microsoft CRM server environment requires thefollowing components:
Windows Server (2000 or 2003) or Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition
SQL Server (2000 or 2005) with SQL Server Reporting Services
Exchange Server (if you want to integrate e-mail with Microsoft CRM)
Of course, users accessing Microsoft CRM must also meet certain minimum hardware and software requirements on their computers. These requirements range from minimal for Web interface users (Windows98 or later with Internet Explorer 6.0 with Service Pack 1, for example) to more restrictive for Microsoft CRMclient for Outlook users (Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4 and Office 2003 with Service Pack1, for example).
Number of servers available and server hardware specifications
Number of Microsoft CRM users and their expected system usage
Hardware specifications of your servers and your local area network performance
Your network structure and security configurations, including firewalls and virtual private network (VPN)connections
Amount of disaster recovery and failover systems needed in your deployment
The Microsoft CRM 3.0 Implementation Guide lists some recommended deployment configurations based onthese variables. However, as a general rule of thumb, the Microsoft CRM server environment requires thefollowing components:
Windows Server (2000 or 2003) or Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition
SQL Server (2000 or 2005) with SQL Server Reporting Services
Exchange Server (if you want to integrate e-mail with Microsoft CRM)
Of course, users accessing Microsoft CRM must also meet certain minimum hardware and software requirements on their computers. These requirements range from minimal for Web interface users (Windows98 or later with Internet Explorer 6.0 with Service Pack 1, for example) to more restrictive for Microsoft CRMclient for Outlook users (Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4 and Office 2003 with Service Pack1, for example).
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