The 2016 fall preview will be a major release for Online and on premise customers which will emphasis on providing end-to-end Customer Engagement solutions from Microsoft Dynamics. This blog article will put light on capabilities of the Dynamics 2016 release. Marketing SMS Marketing SMS Marketing is focused on both – Inbound and Outbound SMS marketing in selected markets. Inbound SMS campaigns can be configured with SMS keywords to receive opt-ins from target marketing lists. Maintain opted-in and opted-users in different lists Outbound SMS campaigns to be used to actually send out marketing SMS messages to opted-in marketing lists. Tracking performance of campaigns.   Email Marketing Email editor to be enhanced with the ability to see generated HTML. Improved editing experience.   Sales CRM For Outlook App Key sales capabilities are delivered within Outlook. Users can create data in the Outlook application itself like Contacts, Opportunities etc. based on the Email in their Inbox. The CRM For Outlook App. will expand support to include Firefox, Safari for Mac & Outlook for Mac.   Excel Integration Leveraging the capabilities of Excel Online from right within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Data can be saved back to CRM while maintaining work context.   Information Discovery Trending documents from Office Delve will now be available within CRM.   OneDrive For Business OneDrive for Business has been added to give consolidated view of documents across SharePoint, OneDrive For Business and Office 365 groups within the context of a CRM record.   Document Generation Documents can be built out of CRM data. Data can be extracted by a single click by using pre-generated Word and Excel templates. Authors should be able to manage the predefined templates and use wizard-like flow to design custom templates in Word or Excel. Documents generated from CRM will open as a downloaded document. Exception here is, for CRM Online, Excel documents will open in Excel Online.   Cortana Integration Sales activities, accounts and Opportunities now embedded into Cortana. This will be a preview feature in Dynamics CRM Online 2016 customers.   Customer Service Companies these days look to engagement and experiences that proves to be a differentiating factor for competition.   Voice of the customer A new designer to design questionnaires and send the same to customer to get feedback. Customers can take survey on a computer, tablet or a phone. Once a customer completes a survey, Dynamics CRM triggers follow-up actions. Survey records are stored in customer records in CRM so that salespeople can use the same during a service case.   Interactive Service Hub The new online user experience (UX) design provides intuitive end user experience for customer service roles.   Multi-Stream Dashboard These are dashboards targeted at Tier One agents. Users can view and act on their data from My Activities, My Cases etc. Interactive charts are available to give a visuals of key metrics related to work.   Single Stream Dashboard These dashboards are meant for Tier Two agents. This will consist of a single data stream on the left hand side of the view to show an aggregated view of the workload. Additionally, tiles on the right hand side of the dashboard are available to show data in numbers.   Modern and Intuitive Design Data will be found with reduced clicks and navigation. The guided business process flow is further enhance to show process stage information as a fly out. The timeline provides rich time and record based filtering capabilities. Quick Actions on search results.   External Party Access A foundation that allows external parties such as Employees, Customers and Partners to access CRM data with proper permissions.   Knowledge Management Enables organization to create a single source of knowledge. The new editor provides team to keep knowledge articles approved and updated.   Unified Service Desk Provides service organizations the unique ability to deliver a single agent desktop with access to back-end systems. This release improves the install experience by providing upgrades though Windows Updates.   Service Intelligence A PowerBI dashboard provides Customer Service Managers (CSMs) with an aggregate view of customer service performance.   Social Social Listening & Social Analytics You will now also be able to search board/forums and RSS feeds. In addition to existing sentiment and localization languages, Social Listening will be adding 14 more languages.   Intelligent Social Role-based views to help sales people find leads Potential to automatically detect potential leads vs cases.   Group Collaborations & Custom Roles Introduction of processes and workflows centered around groups.   Social CRM Create CRM actions like cases and opportunities from social posts. These records can be created either from Post View or Social Center.   Social Center Ability to publish tweets and Facebook posts from within the Social Center. Author lookup provides details about the post publisher.   Mobile Mobile Offline Support Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will get full offline experience with mobile. Ability to create, change and delete records while being offline. This will be automatically synchronized once the device goes back online.   Document Management Ability to view documents in the context of CRM records within the mobile apps.   App-to-app Deep Linking Let’s other mobile apps to directly navigate to CRM records using the link.   Modern Mobile Friendly Experience Addition of variety of modern UI controls. Business Analysts have the ability to bind a data field to a new control. For instance, slider and calendar controls among set of 15 controls.   Task Based Experiences Allows users to focus on the Tasks than Data from multiple entities brought together in a single user experience. This will be a preview feature in phones and tablets.   Mobile Client form preview ‘Configure Once, Deploy everywhere’ paradigm makes it easy for business analysts to visualize configuration changes.   Web Resources and IFRAME In the previous release, support for IFRAME and Web Resources was introduced in CRM for tablets and phones as preview feature. This release will provide support for Windows tablets (Windows 10) as well.   Mobile Management Customers will be able to … Continue reading Dynamics CRM 2016 Fall Preview Features →

Purpose of this blog is to set up Chat Channel for Microsoft Parature. Prerequisite: Parature Enterprise license. Purpose of the set up: Setting up Chat channel for Microsoft Parature will help clients have direct live interaction with Customer Service Representatives (CSR’s) addressing their issues. Steps to set up Chat channel for Parature: Ensure Chat Supervisor Role is being assigned to the CSR. If not assigned, enable the Chat Role and assign Role level as ‘Chat Supervisor’. Go to Setup -> CSR Management -> (CSR) -> Chat Role: Assign the Role and click Save. Enable Pre-Chat questions: Go to Setup -> Chat. Click on Edit. Under Pre-Chat Questions section, enable the Pre-Chat Questions. Under Email Transcript section, enter the ‘From Address’. Click on Update. Create Pre-Chat Questions: Got to Setup -> Chat -> Pre-Chat Questions. Click ‘New Field’. Enter ‘Field Name’ and ‘Field Type’. Field Types available are: Checkbox field. Multiple Check Box field. Dropdown field. Multiple dropdown field. Radio Field. TextArea field. Text field. Email field. US Phone Field. URL field. US Date field. Integer field. International Phone field. See the below figure for reference: Suppose we want to get Additional Note from the end user before the chat begins, we will use text field for getting the note from the user: As you can see in the above image, after selecting the Field Type as Text Field, we get to select the Field Size. Also additionally we can select whether the field should be Required, Shown in Search, Shown in List and Internal by choosing options available on the right side. Click Save. Set up Post Chat Survey: Go to Setup -> Feedback -> Chat Feedback. Enable the feedback. Click on Create new Question. Enter details as shown in below figure: Click Save. By Default the Feedback question will be in Draft state. In order to Activate it, click on activate button as shown in below figure: Go to Setup -> Feedback -> General Settings. Select ‘Show on Chats’. Select your question as Primary Chat Question. Click on Save. Setup Routing Rules for Chat: Go to Setup -> Chat -> Routing Rules -> New Chat Rules Click on ‘New Rule’. Setup your Routing Criteria. For example, we want to setup routing rule based on Account creation date i.e. If Account was created before 1st Jan 2015, Assign it to CSR named ‘Vivek Shah’, we can do it using Routing Rules as below: Click Save. Manage Chat Deployment settings: Go to Setup -> Chat -> Deployments. For Reactive Chat deployment settings, click on ‘Chat Buttons/Links’. For Proactive Chat deployment settings, click on ‘Proactive Chat’. To setup Reactive Chat deployment Click on ‘Chat Buttons/Links’. Enter Deployment name. Select Deployment setting image by clicking in Edit button under ‘Deployment Settings’. Click on ‘Save Images’. Click on ‘Generate Deployment Code’. Check ‘Include Pre-Chat Questions’. Click on Save. To setup Proactive Chat deployment click on ‘Proactive Chat’: Enter name for deployment. Setup Idle time before Proactive Chat Pop-up to 1 minute. Click ‘Generate Deployment Code’. Check ‘Include Pre-Chat Questions’. Click on Save.  

We often have need to send recurring reminders to our users, customers from CRM. We can do it using below solution wherein we will create a task for the reminder. Deletion of which will send out a Reminder Email. For deletion of task we will create a Bulk Delete task, which will run in recurrence. So basically for setting it up we need to do 3 steps: Create a task for Reminder. Create a workflow to send Reminder email. Create Bulk delete task to delete the Reminder task. Create a task for Reminder. Add a new field to Task entity, ‘Reminder’ which will be Two Options. Add new Task activity with name ‘Daily Reminder Task’ and set Reminder field for the same as ‘Yes’ as in below image: Create a workflow to send Reminder Email. Create a new workflow on deletion of Task record. Set the properties for the workflow: Check if the Reminder flag for the Task is set to ‘Yes’. Check subject of the Task to match your reminder task. In our case ‘Daily Reminder Task’. Send Mail to intended public. Re-Create the Task activity with the same name as your reminder task. In our case ‘Daily Reminder Task’. Refer below image: Create Bulk delete task to delete the Reminder task. Create Bulk delete task to delete your Reminder Task. In our case ‘Daily Reminder Task’. Set deletion criteria for the entity. Set scheduling and notification options. Submit the job.

Global Address Book allows Customer/Vendor information mainly addresses and contact details to share across multiple legal entities. For example: Customer/Vendor of one legal entity may be Customer/Vendor in other legal entity or Customer in one legal entity may be vendor in same legal entity etc. In below scenarios explain on how we can share Customers, Vendors and their addresses and contact details across multiple legal entities. Scenario 1 Utcon Engineers Pvt. Ltd is Customer as well as Vendor in USMF Legal entity Scenario 2 Toyo Engineering Pvt. Ltd is Customer in USMF legal entity and also customer in USSI legal entity Scenario 3 Globus Engineering  is Vendor in USMF legal entity and also Vendor in USSI legal entity Scenario 1: Utcon Engineers Pvt. Ltd is Customer as well as Vendor in USMF Legal entity Select USMF legal entity. Click Home > Common > Global Address Book In Global address book form, in new field click on Party to create new party (Party: A person or organization. A party can be internal or external to an organization. Party may be customer or vendor for organization) In party ID for, specify Record type Organization, in name field enter organization name Utcon engineers Pvt. Ltd. Specify addresses and contact details of Party and close the form. Close the form   Now you can see created Party record on Global address form. Now edit Party record (Utcon engineers Pvt. Ltd.) and in Party tab, click on customer to create customer in USMF legal entity. In Customer form, you can see name, address and contact information automatically came from Party record. Enter other information which is required for customer and close the form. You can see created Customer in Accounts receivable or in Sales and marketing module. Navigation: Accounts receivable/Sales and marketing > Common > Customers > All            customers Now go back to Global address book form edit party record (Utcon engineers Pvt. Ltd.) and in Party tab, click on Vendor to create vendor in USMF legal entity. In Vendor form, you can see name, addresses and contact information automatically came from Party record. Enter other information which is required for vendor and close the form. You can see created vendor in Accounts payable or in Procurement and sourcing module. Navigation: Accounts payable/Procurement and sourcing > Common > Vendors > All            vendors   Scenario 2: Toyo Engineering Pvt. Ltd is Customer in USMF legal entity and also customer in USSI legal entity Select USMF legal entity. Click Home > Common > Global Address Book In Global address book form, in new field click on Party to create new party In Party ID form, specify Record type Organization, in name field enter organization name Toyo Engineering Pvt. Ltd. Specify addresses and contact details of Party and close the form. Close the form Now you can see created party record on Global address form. Now edit Party record (Toyo Engineering Pvt. Ltd.) and in Party tab, click on Customer to create Customer in USMF legal entity. In Customer form, you can see name, addresses and contact information automatically came from Party record. Enter other information which is required for customer and close the form. You can see created Customer in Accounts receivable or in Sales and marketing module for USMF legal entity. Navigation: Accounts receivable/Sales and marketing > Common > Customers > All            Customers Now select USSI legal entity. Click Home > Common > Global Address Book Select Party (Toyo Engineering Pvt. Ltd.) and click on edit. Click on customer to create customer in USSI legal entity. In Customer form, you can see name, address and contact information automatically came from party id record. Enter other information which is required for customer and close the form. You can see created customer in Accounts receivable or in Sales and marketing module for USSI legal entity. Navigation: Accounts receivable/Sales and marketing > Common > Customers > All            customers   Scenario 3: Globus Engineering Pvt. Ltd is Vendor in USMF legal entity and also vendor in USSI legal entity Select USMF legal entity. Click Home > Common > Global Address Book In Global address book form, in new field click on Party to create new party In party ID form, specify Record type (Organization or Person), in name field enter organization name Globus Engineering Pvt. Ltd. Specify addresses and contact details of Party and close the form. Now you can see created party record on Global address form. Now edit Party record (Globus Engineering Pvt. Ltd.) and in Party tab, click on Vendor to create Vendor in USMF legal entity. In Vendor form, you can see name, address and contact information automatically came from Party record. Enter other information which is required for Vendor and close the form. You can see created vendor in Accounts payable or in Procurement and sourcing module for USMF legal entity. Navigation: Accounts payable/Procurement and sourcing > Common > Vendors > All            Vendors Now select USSI legal entity. Click Home > Common > Global Address Book Select Party (Globus Engineering Pvt. Ltd.) and click on edit. Click on Vendor to create Vendor in USSI legal entity. In Vendor form, you can see name, addresses and contact information automatically came from Party record. Enter other information which is required for Vendor and close the form. You can see created Vendor in Accounts payable or in Procurement and sourcing module for USSI legal entity. Navigation: Accounts payable/Procurement and sourcing > Common > Vendors > All            Vendors.   Relationship of Party with Customer and Vendor You can check relation between customers or vendors between different legal entities on Party form. In Global Address Book, select party and click on edit and open Relationship fast tab to check relationship between customers or vendors between different legal entities   Summary: By using Global Address Book you can create a business party, define various information like addresses, contact details etc. and by using Party you can create and share customers and vendors across multiple legal entities.  

Email Router is a service that runs continuously to synchronize only emails between CRM and specified Email system. Tasks, Appointments and Contacts are not synchronized using Email Router. Email Router is a separate component available for download and needs to be installed. Note: Only one instance of Email Router should be setup for an Organization. Settings in Dynamics CRM Online In Dynamics CRM Online, make sure the following settings are in place: The Process Email using in the Email Configuration Settings under Settings > Email Configuration should be: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Email Router. Also make sure, Incoming and Outgoing Email are set to Email Router as shown below.   Additionally, set the user’s mailbox and the Incoming and Outgoing Emails should be Server-Side Synchronization or Email Router marked as Success when a mailbox is approved for Email and is Test & Enabled as well. Download & Install Email Router You’ll need to download the Email Router so that you can install it on your server. Here’s where you can get to download the Email Router: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45017 Run the setup and let the wizard install Microsoft Dynamics CRM Email Router Service. Configuration Profiles Configuration Profiles hold information about the server and authentication methods to the same to which the Email Router will connect to. You’ll need to create one or more Incoming configuration profiles and one or more Outgoing configuration profiles. First, I’ll create a configuration profile for Outgoing email. Enter a suitable Profile Name for the configuration profile you are creating. Chose the direction between Incoming and Outgoing. For this configuration, I’ll choose Outgoing. Since I’m configuring for Exchange Online server, I’ll choose Email Server Type as ExchangeOnline. The Authentication Type will remain Clear Text since this is the only Authentication Type for ExchangeOnline. Check mark the Use Autodiscover as it is a way to obtain the Exchange Web Services URL. This option is available when you select ExchangeOnline. In Access Credentials, I’ll select Other Specified since I want Email Router to authenticate by using the credentials of a specified user. Note: The specified user must have full access to mailboxes. Ideally, an Administrator should be selected. For User Type – When ExchangeOnline server type is selected and Other Specified as the Access Credentials is chosen, options available are Administrator or User. I’ll chose Administrator since I want to enter only 1 credential to authenticate mailboxes. Enter Username and Password in username@fulldomain For Access Type – Use either Delegate Access or Send As access. I chose Delegate Access in this case where I want email to be sent as ‘Send on behalf of’. Similarly, I’d configure the following for Incoming configuration for CRM Admin user, which is as follows: Deployments At least 1 deployment needs to be configured. Deployments hold the information to connect to your Dynamics CRM environment. Create a New deployment in the Deployments I’ll chose the Deployment as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online since I’m connecting to an Online deployment of my Dynamics CRM. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server: You’ll need to use ; where, Organization Name can be found in Settings > Customizations > Developer Resources. Note: I’ll be using disco.crm5.dynamics.com/ since my organization is in Microsoft Office 365. Provide Access Credentials of the Administrator mailbox which you want the Email Router to connect to Dynamics CRM Online deployment. Select the default Configuration Profiles that the current deployment will use. Chose from the Incoming and Outgoing profiles created in the Configuration Profiles in the Email Router. Users, Queues and Forward Mailboxes Users, Queues and Forward Mailboxes of a CRM deployment can be managed under this tab in the Email Router application. Select the Deployment created in the Email Router and click Load Data. This will show a list of all the mailboxes for that organization. You can chose any once / all mailboxes and click on Test Access to verify the connection was successful or not. Once you get a success as shown below, your mailbox is now functional. Forward Mailbox A Forward Mailbox is a centralized mailbox which reduced administrative efforts for a mailbox and diverts messages to respective users. Here, your Email Router is set to send and receive Email from and to CRM using the Email Router.  

Product Configuration is generic Product structure with distinct variants that allow user to use product easily in sales process as per customer requirement. You can use product configuration on Sales Order line as well as on Sales Quotation line. Example of Bicycle configuration: Bicycle is configured by using five attributes such as Bicycle Type, Bicycle Colour, Saddle Type, Suspension and Wheels. Each attribute type has set of value which is mentioned in below table. Attribute Type Attribute Value Bicycle Type Racing Bicycle, Touring Bicycle, Cruiser bicycles Bicycle Colour Red, White, Blue, Black Saddle Type Racing Saddle, Comfort Saddle, Cruiser Saddle Suspension Yes, No Wheels Number of Wheels Below are steps to create Product Configuration Model for Bicycle Create Product Configuration Model Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models to open the list page. Click Product configuration model in the New group of the Action Pane to open the New product configuration model Add name Bicycle for Product Configuration Model, enter description, select New component and enter name Bicycle Configuration for component (Component: Component is generic element that can be assigned to product configuration model. This can include information about user requirements, attributes, constraints, sub component, BOM lines, and route operations) Click OK Create Attribute Type: Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models list page. Click Attribute types in the Setup group of the Action Pane. Create new attribute types Bicycle colour, Bicycle Type, Saddle Type, Bicycle Suspension and Wheels Add values for which is mentioned in below table Attribute Type Base Type Attribute Value Bicycle Type Text Racing Bicycle, Touring Bicycle, Cruiser bicycles Bicycle Colour Text Red, White, Blue, Black Saddle Type Text Racing Saddle, Comfort Saddle, Cruiser Saddle Suspension Boolean Yes, No Wheels Integer Number of Wheels  (Attribute types – Attribute types specify the set of data types or domains for attributes that are used in a product configuration model. The following data types can be used in a product configuration model: text, boolean, integer, and decimal.) Create Attributes Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models. Select the product configuration model and then click Edit in the Maintain group of the Action Pane to open the Constraint-based product configuration model details Click the Attributes FastTab. Add attribute name, solver name and description Select attribute type for each. (Attributes: Attributes describe the properties of the components. You can use attributes to specify the features that can be selected when a distinct product variant is configured.) Create Constraints: Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models. Select the product configuration model and then click Edit in the Maintain group of the Action Pane to open the Constraint-based product configuration model details Click the Constraints FastTab Below are the Rules and its expression constraints which is used to create condition for Bicycle Configuration. Configuration Rules Rule 1: IF Bicycle Type = Racing Bicycle THEN Bicycle Colour = Blue Or Black Expression constraints:  Implies[ BicycleType == “RacingBicycle” , SaddleType == “RacingSaddle” ] Rule 2: IF Bicycle Type = Touring Bicycle THEN Bicycle Colour = Red Or White Expression constraints: Implies[ BicycleType == “TouringBicycle” , BicycleColour == “Red” | BicycleColour == “White” ] Rule 3: IF Bicycle Type = Cruiser Bicycle THEN Bicycle Colour = White Or Black Expression constraints:  Implies[ BicycleType == “CruiserBicycles” , BicycleColour == “White” | BicycleColour == “Black” ] Rule 4: IF Bicycle Type = Racing Bicycle THEN Saddle Type = Racing Saddle Expression constraints:  Implies[ BicycleType == “RacingBicycle” , SaddleType == “RacingSaddle” ] Rule 5: IF Bicycle Type = Touring Bicycle THEN Saddle Type = Comfort Saddle Expression constraints:  Implies[ BicycleType == “TouringBicycle” , SaddleType == “ComfortSaddle” ] Rule 6: IF Bicycle Type = Cruiser Bicycle THEN Saddle Type = Cruiser Saddle Expression constraints: Implies[ BicycleType == “CruiserBicycles” , SaddleType == “CruiserSaddle” ] Rule 7: IF Saddle Type = Comfort Saddle or Cruise Saddle THEN Suspension = True Expression constraints:  Implies[ SaddleType == “ComfortSaddle” | SaddleType == “CruiserSaddle” , BicycleSuspension == True ] (Constraints: Constraints describe the restrictions of the product configuration model, and they are used to make sure that only valid values are selected when the product configuration model is configured. There are two type of constraints Expression constraints which is used in above example and Table constraints. Expression constraints: express relations between attributes to make sure that compatible values are selected when you configure a product. Table constraints: A constraint type that specifies allowed attribute combinations. Each row in the table displays a legal combination of values.) Create Calculation, Sub component and User requirement: Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models. Select the product configuration model and then click Edit in the Maintain group of the Action Pane to open the Constraint-based product configuration model details Click the Calculation, Sub Component, Use requirement Fast Tabs You can use calculation, sub component and user requirement if require otherwise it is optional Create BOM Lines (for Bicycle Wheels) Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models. Select the product configuration model and then click Edit in the Maintain group of the Action Pane to open the Constraint-based product configuration model details Click the Constraints FastTab Enter name, description, condition (optional) of BOM line. Click the BOM line details button to open the BOM line details form In BOM line detail form select Item Y20I (Wheel) Open detail fast tab and select Set and Calculation check box In Setup tab, in consumption calculation field, select set and attribute check box and in Quantity field select attribute Wheels. In Per series field select set check box specify one. (BOM Lines: BOM lines are included in the product configuration model to identify the manufacturing BOM for each component. A BOM line can reference an item or a service, and all item properties can be set to a fixed value or mapped to an attribute.) Create Route Operation: Navigation: Product information management > Common > Product configuration models. Select the product configuration model and then … Continue reading Product Configuration Model in AX 2012 R3 →

Accounts Receivable is process of matching customer account balances with the general ledger balance. The reconciliation should be done at least monthly as part of the month-end closing procedures so any adjustments needed can be included in the correct period. Below are steps to process accounts receivable reconciliation. 1. The Ledger accounts to be checked in the ‘Customer Posting profile’ accounts. Navigation: Accounts Receivable→ Setup→ Customer Posting Profile   2. Summary accounts for Accounts Receivable should not be allowed for manual entry.   3. Run the report for ‘Balance List’ for the above ledger accounts. Navigation General Ledger→ Reports→ Transactions→ Balance List   Enter the Start & End Date for the closing month. Click ‘Select’ Select all the ledger accounts required. Click ‘Ok’. Run the report with the selected ledger accounts. 4. Now run the Report for Customer Balance List. Navigation Accounts Receivable→ Reports→ Status→ Customer Balance List Select From date, Report period start date and To date Click OK The Total Ledger Balance for ‘Accounts Receivable’ should match with the total ‘Customer Balance’. If they do not match, we need to find the transactions with discrepancies. To find the transactions with discrepancies, Run the report for ‘Customer-Ledger Reconciliation’. 5. Run Customer-Ledger Reconciliation report Navigation General Ledger→ Reports→ Reconciliations→ Customer→ Customer Select the Dates, Posting Profiles. Select the check boxes for Include Details Differences only. Click OK to get the transactions with discrepancies. 6. All the transactions with differences should be analysed to find the transactions. The reasons for the discrepancies can be as follows. The posting profile changes (Change of ledger accounts in the posting profile during that period) Manual entries to the Ledgers     1. The posting profile changes Posting profile is a setup where the ledger accounts defined for the customer balances. A ledger account can be defined for all customers or for a group of customers or even for an individual customer. During a fiscal period, if the ledger account is changed for a customer in the posting profile; there arises a discrepancy in the customer account balances & their ledger balances.     2. Manual Journal Another reason for a discrepancies is a manual entry to the ledger account for the customer.   7. Steps to correct discrepancies A journal voucher can posted to transfer the balance from one ledger account For example: Suppose the ledger account defined for all customers is defined as ‘130100’ & after that for a specific customer group, a new ledger account is mapped; which is ‘130110’. When the ledger account is changed, all the transactions for the customer group before the change would show discrepancies. Solution: A journal voucher can be posted to transfer the balances between the two ledgers. The transactions with incorrect posting should be reversed & then they should be posted again. Solution: A manual journal is required to be posted to transfer balances between the two ledger accounts. Summary: You can use Account Reconciliation Process to check discrepancies before month end closing. Run Balance list report, Customer balance list and Customer reconciliation report to find discrepancies. Use journal to correct discrepancies or if possible then reverse posted transaction to correct discrepancies.  

Why CRM For Outlook? We use Outlook as a one-stop solution for our day-to-day communication. Your Dynamics CRM can be integrated with your Outlook using CRM For Outlook. CRM For Outlook is a lightweight client that gets set up on a client’s computer and is connected to your organization’s CRM by authenticating your Dynamics CRM credentials. Once setup, you can straight way carry out basic Dynamics CRM operations right from your Outlook itself! Create Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities etc. You can even track emails to an Account or a Contact, even an Opportunity. Get CRM For Outlook You can get CRM for Outlook from the below link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45015 Also, in your CRM, you can also see a yellow strip on top of the window saying Get CRM For Outlook as shown below. Setting Up CRM For Outlook Once setup, you can access the Configuration Wizard application from your Windows’ Start Menu.   To connect to your CRM Online organization, simply select CRM Online in the drop-down option as shown below and click Connect: Alternatively, this can even be setup from the Outlook itself once the CRM For Outlook client is installed. Simply navigate to the CRM tab on the extreme right     And click Configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. Next, you can select CRM Online from the drop-down as shown in the above dialog box. Next, the CRM Online will ask you your CRM credentials.   On Signing In, the progress will be shown and your CRM Organization will be integrated with your Outlook.     Once setup, the Configuration Wizard will show the details of the added organization and will show the current selected one as the Synchronizing Organization. Note: The Synchronization method used can also be Server-Side Synchronization. That’s it! Your organization has been added to your Outlook. You may now open your Outlook and see your Organization appear in the left pane as shown below. Access Organizational Data in Outlook You can now see that your Organization has been added on the left pane of Outlook where you can navigate between different CRM Folders. You can simply navigate across your CRM folders and select different records (1). The View (2) as seen in the sample screenshot below is the one available in CRM for your records. Selecting a particular record will show it’s details in the reading pane below the view (3). Track an Item in CRM You can track Emails, Appointments, Contact or even Tasks from your Outlook to your CRM. To track in Email in CRM, simply select an Email and click on Track Button   You can also Set Regarding to this Email in CRM. It will then appear in Activities of the Set Regarding’s record. Same as Tracking an item, you can choose to Set Regarding for an Email as shown below.   On clicking Set Regarding, Outlook will pull up records from CRM and let you choose which type or record and which record would you like to Set Regarding against for the selected item. Once the Set Regarding is set, this information will appear in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM section below the email as shown below. As shown in the above picture, I chose City Power & Light (sample) account to Set Regarding for this Email. This email will then appear under the said Account under Activities.   With CRM For Outlook, you can Create CRM records from within Outlook. Track Emails, Appointments, Tasks and Contacts (People) in CRM directly Set Regarding / Set Parent for Contacts. Once a record is tracked in CRM from Outlook, synchronization can happen between CRM and Outlook for that particular record. Set personal options for how the data should be synchronized between Outlook and CRM   Hope this was helpful! I’ll keep you posted on deeper technical features that CRM For Outlook offers.

Change tracking is a new feature available in CRM update 1 that can help in keeping the data synchronized in source and target systems by detecting the data changes since the data was initially created or last synchronized. Change tracking is used for incremental load STEPS: Before we begin to implement change tracking, we need to enable it on the entity for which we need to track changes Customizations → Entity → Enable change tracking We need to maintain a table in Sql so that the output tokens can be saved for future purpose which will help to maintain a version for the records in the form of tokens [Note: The tokens can be maintained in a file also] Let’s start by creating the SSIS package using SSIS integration toolkit for Dynamics CRM-Kingswaysoft Flow of package will be: Drag and drop the Execute Sql task which will be used to fetch the tokens from Sql [Note: In case of initial migration, the token will be NULL] Since initially the table will be empty we need to handle the NULL scenario Create a variable for maintaining the count of rows for the table(we need to store the result set in this variable created) If the count=0 (1st time migration), it goes to a sequence container passing the input token as NULL If the count !=0 , it goes to a sequence container passing the input token as the last inserted token in the table Let’s consider we migrating the data for the 1st time The sequence container will contain a data flow task (having the source and target CRM components) and Execute Sql task (storing the new token to Sql) Data Flow task: Drag the CRM source component Set up the connection, select source type as ‘Entity changes’, mention the entity and define the input and output token variables [Note: In this scenario the Input token will be NULL as it is 1st time migration] Now we drag two CRM destination components CRM Primary Input (Tracking the Updates and Inserts) CRM Secondary Input (Tracking the Deletes) For CRM Primary Input destination component, set up the connection, action as ‘UPSERT’, mention the destination entity and upsert matching criteria For CRM Secondary Input destination component, set up the connection, action as ‘DELETE’ and mention the destination entity Execute Sql task: We need to store the output tokens in Sql, using Execute Sql task In parameter mapping, we mention the input and output tokens variables that we get from the Data flow task Let’s consider the scenario where we already have the data set up The sequence container will contain a Execute Sql task (for fetching the last output token from Sql), data flow task (having the source and target CRM components) and Execute Sql task (storing the new token to Sql) Execute Sql task: We need to fetch the output token from Sql The result set can be stored in the Input token variable which we pass to the CRM source component The steps for data flow task and the execute Sql task are the same as mentioned earlier The final package will look like this: The package can be scheduled on a daily basis thus keeping the data in sync in the source and target systems.  

Purpose of this blog is to setup social media (Facebook) for Microsoft Parature. Prerequisite: Parature Enterprise license. Facebook Page on which Parature Support has to be setup. Purpose of the setup: Setting up Social media for Parature will help clients raise tickets from the social media platforms. Tickets can directly be created from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn. Steps to setup social media (Facebook) for Parature: To begin with setup, first ensure social media role for the user is ON. We can set social media role for the user by going to Setup -> CSR Management -> Social Media Role. Set the role level to Social Media Administrator. Next is setup of Social Channel. To setup Facebook channel: Go to Setup -> Social -> Social Monitor Settings In Social Channels section, click “+” symbol, and click Facebook Channel. It will take you to Facebook’s login page. Insert the Facebook credentials and log-in. On successful login, a pop-up will come to select the Facebook page on which the Parature Support has to be enabled. Select the Facebook page on which you want to enable the Parature Support. Set All Default Actions to “Monitor”. Add “Tags”, “Influencers” and “Reply As Accounts” as needed. “Tags” allow you to have glimpse of what’s happening on your social channels. “Reply As Accounts” allow the customer service representative to create tickets from customer posts and also reply them via same social media site. In this way unnecessary rerouting through multiple channels can be avoided. Enable the Social media: Select the newly created social channel, select Action and click Enable. To ensure your Facebook page is enabled, Select the Social channel, click on Actions – > Enable FB Portal. From here we can set access to knowledgebase for the customer, Allow the customer to raise tickets and also chat with the service representative. To allow customer to raise ticket from the social media: Under Basic Options, select Enable. Enter Tab Display Name. Make sure Summary and Details field under Primary Fields section is selected to “Summary”. Using Custom fields, you can further modify Customer Social media experience. Miscellaneous options allow you to select how tickets are to be handled. Enabling Knowledge Base for the portal: Knowledge Base allows customer to searching content on their own if they don’t want to submit a ticket. To Enable the Knowledge Base: Under Knowledge Base section, select Enable. Enter Tab Display Name for the Knowledge Base. Enter the number of recently modified articles and number of most popular articles you which to show on the Facebook page. Save your changes.