Solutions in MSCRM 5.0

In this blog we will find what microsoft is going to offer us with it's newly introduced concept called: 'Solutions in MSCRM 5.0'.

In CRM “4” we create entities, forms, reports, etc and then deploy those components into a customer’s implementation.

Solutions can be thought as providing to CRM the same sort of capabilities that Windows has with its capability to add and remove programs and features.

It allows components (entities, forms, reports, etc) to be layered on to the base system but also on top of other solutions (i.e. when there are inter-dependencies). It also provides a way to protect the intellectual property of the components in your solution. Moreover it includes versioning and change management

ISVs that build on the CRM platform will now have the ability to package up their applications same as you would package up windows applications into MSIs.

UI for creating publishers (e.g. ISVs) and solutions is coming up with new stuff in form design like drag and drop and sub-grids. More over the lookup attibute can be created very easily now. This one will save a lot of time and effort.

A new feature is also being introduced called global lookups or option sets. This is certainly going to make ISV solutions much easier to manage. This will allow you to create pick lists that can be reused across many entities. There are many ISVs that have been doing this by creating their own entities but in many cases that leads to an unused number of entities.

Some of the new features are also being introduced in the page model like new way of presenting commands across the top of a form which saves user clicks.

Dashboards on CRM data can be created using SharePoint. End-users will appreciate the new inline charting (including pie, bar, funnel charts, etc).

Connections can be added to entities and it provides a way to sort-of tag entities and build unstructured relationships among entities in the system.

MS CRM 5.0 Features

Now everybody is looking for MS CRM 5.0 Features on internet. Yes! Microsoft is coming up with one more advanced version of its CRM called 5.0. It is going hit the market by the end of 2009 or in the begining of 2010. This time expectation with MSCRM is very high lets see how the Microsoft CRM caters our customers need. Microsoft is coming up with the following features:

* Data auditing - To keep track of your Activities being performed in the Server.
* Excellent BI – Now the Data Visualization has become very easy.
* SharePoint integration for document management - This is really a cool feature to manage your document in the Sharepoint site.
* From technical point of view microsoft has used the Windows Workflow Foundation extensively
* Call centre and unified communications enhancements
* Office integration – The intergration with Outlook and Office 14 is much more better
* Ribbon UI – Microsoft has promised once again to excel in User Interface by adding the ribbons.
* Better personalisation – including views
* Workload management – for users
* Contact/Account management – hierarchy and relationship visualisation
* Team-based collaboration – including team selling
* Improved knowledge management
* Extended outbound marketing – including attachments on email templates
* Recurring activities
* Reusable and dynamic picklists
* Streamlined management of multi-tenanted environments
* Improved virtualisaiton with Server 2008
* Improved data management and BI with SQL 2008
* Updated BizTalk adapter