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Foreword
CRM continues to see accelerated growth and adoption around the world. As we move into a new phase of business computing, we have seen the retirement of complex, rigid, and inflexible CRM systems in favor of solutions that are simple, agile, and valuable to todays information worker. It is in this area that Microsoft Dynamics CRM continues to shine and leads organizations into a new world of empowerment and enhanced business productivity.
And were only getting started.
Enter Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011a solution designed to amplify user adoption, help organizations discover new business insights, and fuel business productivity across your entire business network. Designed to meet the most comprehensive set of CRM needs across the cloud or in your own IT environment, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers the unparalleled flexibility, security, and scalability needed to manage crucial relationships, guide everyday interactions, optimize business processes, and deliver real-time business intelligence for every system user.
Mike Snyder, Jim Steger, and Kristie Reid yet again deliver the most comprehensive resource for Administrators and Developers of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to understand new concepts and master enhanced system capabilities. It seems that with every customer that I visit around the world, a copy of this resource has been used to enhance deployment success.
Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 continues this tradition of excellence.
No matter where you find yourself in the system development life cyclefrom solution envisioning, planning, developing, and stabilizing, this book provides a comprehensive reference for each project team member:
For users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 , this guide provides comprehensive examples of mastering native functionality and enhanced capabilities.
For system implementers and customizers , this resource serves as a definitive guide to unleashing the full power of the solution framework to deliver tailored business applications.
For information technology administrators , this text provides an outstanding reference guide for planning, implementing, managing, and maintaining Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 across your organization.
Mike, Jim, and Kristie shine at explaining the essential topics, but also help readers see beyond the basics when it comes to customizing and extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for unique system needs. The concepts and examples covered in this text are certain to accelerate your mastery of this innovative new release. Again, every deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011in the cloud or in your own IT environmentwill greatly benefit from this resource guide. It has been a pleasure to work with both Mike and Jim in the development of this text, and I, like the readers who will follow me, keep this resource nearby when approaching each new business challenged to be solved with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.
I look forward to hearing of your success in working with this new release.
Sincerely,
Bill Patterson
Director, Product Management
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Corporation
Introduction
We love Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, and we hope that by the time you finish reading this book, you will love Microsoft Dynamics CRM, too. We understand that you might be skeptical about the possibility of falling for a piece of software, but we want you to know right up front that our goal is to show you all of the wonderful and amazing benefits the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application can provide for your business.
Who Should Read This Book
We wrote this book for the people responsible for implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM at their organization. If youre the person responsible for setting up or configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM software on behalf of other users at your company, this book is for you. You might be an information technology professional or simply a Power User from the sales or marketing departments. You should be comfortable with technical concepts and understand the role of various Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Active Directory, and Microsoft SQL Server. You dont need to be a coding expert to benefit from this book, but we hope that you can edit an XML file and that you understand how relational databases work.
This book can also help prospective customers with their software selection process as they evaluate the customization options that Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers. If you want to learn more about the softwares capabilities before you make a purchase decision, we hope that this book provides some of the technical details youre looking for.
Who is this book not for? Its not for end users interested in learning how they will use Microsoft Dynamics CRM on a day-to-day basis because their company just went live with the software. If you dont have System Administrator rights, you wont be able to perform most of the steps in this book, so it probably wont provide much benefit for you. If youre not sure whether you have System Administrator rights, then this book probably isnt for you either. If youre interested in end-user topics, consider purchasing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Step By Step from Microsoft Press.
This book also does not tell you how to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM software and troubleshoot any installation-related issues. We dont cover upgrading an existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Implementation Guide gives excellent and detailed advice on the installation and upgrade processes, so we dont need to repeat that information here.
Organization of This Book