CRM 3.0

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that provides the tools and capabilities needed to create and easily maintain a clear picture of customers, from first contact through to purchase and post-sales. With modules for sales, marketing, and customer service, Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivers a fast, flexible, and affordable solution that drives consistent, measurable improvement in every business process, enabling closer relationships with customers and helping to achieve new levels of profitability."

Three mantras of CRM

1. Works the way you do : It has almost the same interface as Outlook, making it user-friendly.
2. Works the way your business does : It has workflow management, for instance. Currently CRM 3.0 has an independent workflow management but with the coming of CRM 4.0 (codenamed Titan to be released by end of this year or early next year), it will be using Windows workflow then.
3. Works the way technology should : Security, integration and extensibility

.:Add-Ons:.

C360 is a leading provider of CRM add-ons for mobile CRM, application integrations, security, etc.

An example of these is field-level security, which is very useful for hiding sensitive data. For instance, a specific field (i.e. revenue) can be displayed for the user with a role of Salesperson but not visible for other users.

.:Customization:.

You could also customize not only the placement of controls in the application, but even their events like the OnClick event. However the editor only supports JavaScript to render in the browser.

.:Database Structure:.

For example, AdventureWorks installed CRM 3.0 in their server. There will be two databases created in the SQL Server as follows:

1. AdventureWorks_MetaBase : contains data on the data
2. AdventureWorks_MSCRM : contains the data used in the application. You will notice that there is an AccountBase table and an AccountExtensionBase table among others. Entities have their basic table then have a table for all fields that may be added when customizing, which makes it more extensible.

Friendly reminder: DO NOT alter any object in both databases for CRM. This policy is stated in the end-user license agreement and if violated, Microsoft will not support your application anymore.

Poor you if something gets affected and the application goes all wrong. Someone said to "Backup first." Hehehe.

.:Downloads:.

You can download a Virtual PC Demonstration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and Microsoft CRM 3.0 90-day trial versions among other CRM goodies in Microsoft Downloads.