CRM 4.0 Plug-In

I posted a blog article about CRM 4.0 Plug-In on our company blog, hope to give CRM developers some ideas on what CRM plug-in is, etc...

click the link below to view the article.

http://crowechizek.typepad.com/crm/2007/10/microsoft-dyn-2.html

CRM 4.0 VPC

CRM 4.0 is available for partners to download, you can download the image from the link below:

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/products/mscrm/

The CRM application expire 11/20/2007 and the VPC image itself expire 11/30/2008.

CRM Titan - Data Import/Migration Tool

The new CRM Titan data import tool has been improved from the previous version and it's also easier to import data into CRM. The data migration tool contains the following new features:

• Ability to import most record types, including custom types, not just the four types (accounts, contacts, leads and campaign responses) that may be imported before.
• Automatic mapping of imported records. (e.g. if you have a pick list contain Value A, B, C and D. It will automatically does the lookup and the mapping of the pick list value, if it can't find the value, it will automatically add the value to the pick list field)
• Ability to re-use data maps. (If you have a import process that imports data in a file that contains the the same file format (same columns and data type), you don't have to recreate the mappings every time when doing the import. You can create the mapping once and reuse it the next time when you import the file with the same data format)
• Email notification when import jobs are done. During the import process, there's an option that you can set to have CRM notify you that the import jobs are done.
• Duplicate detection enhancement. Works with the dup check system in CRM. If a duplicate is detected, it will not import the record.
• Improve error handling. If a import job failed, you will able to see why the job fails.

The migration tool for Titan  can do more than the Data import tool of course. You can :

• Related records from multiple record types
• Create custom entities and attributes automatically during the data migration process.
• Migrate Notes and attached files (I have not try this myself, still need to verify)
• Records can assign to multiple Microsoft CRM 4.0 users.

CRM Data Migration tool is a separate install and it didn't install by the default CRM installation. Both Data Migration and Import tool will first go through creating/updating the metadata first, then import the data to CRM.

There's a lot more you can do with the data import and migration tool now, I am still digging the tool to see what it can do. :)

CRM Titan - Cross Entity View

When you trying to create a view or do an advance find in CRM, you are restricted in CRM version 3.0 to only display the fields of the entity you are currently working with. The ability to show related entity data, although often requested, was not possible. With Titan (CRM 4.0), you can now display the fields from the primary entity and related entities. For example, you may want to return opportunity records with columns related to the estimated opportunity amounts and close dates but also see the account name and state in the view (or resulting Excel export), with Titan, this is now possible.

I will provide a more detailed example later this week, but for the moment I wanted to show off a new feature in the next CRM release that I think will make many users (and implementers) very happy. Take a look at the screen shot for a quick preview (click on image thumbnail to get a full size image).