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Top Ten New Features of Dynamics CRM 2011

At InfoStrat, we have been eagerly awaiting the newest version of Dynamics CRM and are excited to see it available now to the public. Now is a good time to learn more about the new version.

If you have an hour for a demonstration, check out this video:

http://digitalwpc.com/Videos/AllVideos/Permalink/f9625bd7-7009-4bed-ab7a-c3fbb548d6ac

If you want a shorter summary, here are my top ten enhancements to Dynamics CRM 2011:
  1. Cloud. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will have fewer constraints on customization, making it easier to use Microsoft as your hosting provider. To show its commitment to the cloud, Microsoft will make Dynamics CRM 2011 available on the cloud before it distributed for on premise deployment.
  2. Integration with SharePoint. You can use SharePoint for document management along with Dynamics CRM. We have done this ourselves for our solutions but now Microsoft is doing it for us.
  3. Slickness. The user interface has been updated, replacing tabs with the familiar Office ribbon and generally looking more modern.
  4. Multi-form capability. This allows you to design a form that changes based on data entered by user or based on user roles. It could be done in the past but required serious coding.
  5. Field level security. Combined with multi-form, this offers a great deal of flexibility that was not practical with prior versions of the product.
  6. Dashboards. You can build the same flashy dashboards you are used to in SharePoint with Dynamics CRM. Maps, graphs, the works.
  7. Custom activities. Extend the standard activities in Dynamics CRM such as phone and email by adding your own.
  8. Workflow dialogs. Make workflow interactions more sophisticated by creating custom dialogs.
  9. Outlook integration. Dynamics CRM 2011 improves the integration, especially for creating emails in Outlook.
  10. Data auditing. This is another feature that we have needed for a long time. We developed our own plug-in for earlier versions but are grateful that Microsoft is including in the product.
I hope these hints of the new features will tempt you to take a look for yourself. InfoStrat will be making its GovServer solutions available in Dynamics CRM 2011 on the heels of the release.

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