Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 - New and Enhanced Features

The new and enhanced features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offer new levels of user productivity and collaboration. These features help you meet your specific business needs with a low total cost of ownership. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers familiar, intelligent, and connected experiences to increase the productivity and effectiveness of people inside and outside the organisation. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 unlocks new opportunities and provides a single development environment for cloud-based and on-premise deployments.

Improved Microsoft Office interface
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 introduces a new Office 2010 contextual ribbon for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM browser clients and for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for Microsoft Office Outlook. The new ribbon delivers a consistent, familiar navigation and user experience that helps you better integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online with your Office 2010 environment.

Advanced user personalisation
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 lets you configure a workspace that is personalised to meet your unique role and information needs. Personalising a workspace means that you can set the default pane and tab that display when you open Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. You also have control over what links appear in the workplace view, how many records appear in lists, how numbers and dates display, and the language for your user interface. Combine this personalisation with the new dashboard feature to create a personalised dashboard for your default view.

Role-based forms and views
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 displays forms and views based on user roles. This role-tailored design ensures that the business professionals in your organisation have fast access to the relevant information they need. Role-based forms and views also prevent users from viewing data that they are not authorised to view.

Inline data visualisation
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, you can quickly create and share inline charts with drill-down intelligence. Using these charts, you can visually navigate data and uncover new insights that contribute to your organisation's success. View the charts you create from the main list of records or from the list of associated records for an individual record. Share your charts with other users or teams in the organisation. Import charts created by other users into your records.

Dashboards
Dashboards are a powerful feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Use a dashboard to see at a glance all the important information you need to make key business decisions every day. Assemble and present information from several places in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in a quickly-read format. This means that you do not have to search multiple areas for the information you want. Dashboards are easy to create, and are easy to revise as your changing business needs require.

Better Office Outlook experience
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 improves the integration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online into Microsoft Office Outlook with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for Microsoft Office Outlook. It takes full advantage of native Outlook functionality, such as previews and conditional formatting, and presents Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online areas as sub-folders in Outlook mail folders. With a few exceptions, these Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online areas in Outlook include all of the same functionality as the browser clients. In future blogs, I will be sharing in detailed how this Outlook integration is true outlook integration compare to the one given before in CRM 4.0.

Contextual document management
If your organisation uses Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you can easily manage documents that are related to records within a particular entity. Using Windows SharePoint as your document depository, the seamless interface in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 allows you to quickly add and edit documents that are associated with a particular record. When you set up document management, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online creates the structure on your Windows SharePoint site that works with the entities and records that you want for document management.

Goal management
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 gives you the ability to define key performance and business health indicators. This way you can track and measure results against your organisation's goals or metrics. Easily and quickly define goals for a campaign or fiscal period. Combine smaller goals, such as for specific teams or territories, into the overall goals for your organisation. Create a rollup of all the goals into the actuals that show how you are tracking.

Interactive process dialogs
Microsoft Dynamics CRM expands its workflow capability by adding interactive dialogs. Dialogs present a consistent message to your customers. Also, dialogs collect and process information by using step-by-step scripts to direct users through every process. At one level, you can use dialogs to guide customer interactions and internal processes. At another level, you can increase dialog performance and versatility by incorporating workflow logic. This logic invokes automated tasks by using the responses a customer or user makes during the dialog script.

Cloud development
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is at the leading edge of cloud computing. Developers can take advantage of the Windows Azure platform to develop and deploy custom code for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online by using powerful tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio. Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, developers can also incorporate Microsoft Silverlight, Windows Communication Foundation, and .NET Language Integrated Query (LINQ) into their cloud solutions. Cloud development for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is a powerful tool for customising your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online solution for optimal performance and business results.

Solution management
Solutions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 are a new way to save customisations and share them with other users. You can create a solution or import a solution created by a developer outside your organisation. It is easy to share a solution with other users. A managed solution can be edited only by specific users. An unmanaged solution can be edited by any user with an appropriate user role. A solution can have version numbering, relationships with entities and other components, and security features based on user roles.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace
Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace is your online solutions catalog. These solutions help you accelerate and extend your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online implementation. Quickly discover and apply industry-specific applications and extensions from Microsoft and its partners. Then, Marketplace distributes your solution directly to you. Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace is fully integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

- Haroon