Richard Knudson

IMG

Richard Knudson is a Dynamics CRM consultant and instructor, and has a special interest in cloud computing and helping organizations realize the potential of social CRM. His company, IMG, specializes in helping businesses implement and customize the Dynamics CRM platform.

The Importance of Analytics

0 comments 769 reads

Posted on 2012-03-24

When I first started doing marketing automation integrated within Dynamics CRM, the only thing I cared about was email tracking. That is, after sending a marketing email, knowing which emails were delivered or bounced, which ones were opened or clicked through, and so forth. But the more marketing I do, the more I appreciate the importance of other features as a complement to email tracking, and one of those – analytics – is the topic of this article.

I use (and highly recommend) the ClickDimensions marketing automation solution, which lives inside Dynamics CRM and provides visualizations like the following one:

That figure illustrates the form of the Email Send entity (or in non-PC terms, the Email Blast), and the fact that all of those...

Read More »
Convergence 2012: It’s a Wrap

1 comments 815 reads

Posted on 2012-03-21

This year I planned ahead, so even as Convergence 2012 goes down the home stretch, I wrote up my CRM-centric summary of the proceedings before I forgot everything. And just in case you really wanted to be there but couldn’t, you can attend my Convergence 2012 Highlights webinar on Wednesday April 4 and I’ll do my best to summarize it for you in a free (yet exceedingly valuable!) 90-minute session.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM General Manager Dennis Michalis delivered the keynote for the CRM track on Monday. He identified four Big Trends for CRM, and talked about how they’re reflected in his team’s development efforts. I can’t think of a better organizational theme for an email like this one, so with thanks to Dennis, let’s dive in:

Read More »
Advanced Processes in CRM 2011

0 comments 879 reads

Posted on 2012-02-09

February 7, 2012 – Today I had the pleasure of presenting a session at the February meeting of the XRM Virtual User Group, on Advanced Processes in CRM 2011. Irrepressible XRM impressaria Julie Yack kicked off the session with an overview of upcoming CRM/XRM events, a summary of what we can look forward to in the CRM Anywhere (Q2 2012) Service Update, and one of the more gracious introductions I’ve had in a while, and then it was mostly me the rest of the way. I enjoyed myself, but then again I always enjoy my own presentations, so if you get a chance to review the recording, I’d be interested in your feedback. Click here for the recording.

Here’s a guide to my presentation.

Session Overview

There’s only so much you can cover in a sixty minute session, so here’s what I decided to focus on:

...

Read More »
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Anywhere Coming in Q2 2012

0 comments 688 reads

Posted on 2012-02-06

February 6, 2012 – Microsoft announced today the Q2 2012 Service Update for Dynamics CRM, and the fact that it’s branded as the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Anywhere release should give you a good idea of what to look forward to. Here are some of the highlights, starting with two things I get asked about all the time: iPad and multiple browser support.

Native iPad support

Including a feature-rich client (dashboards, dial or text from record, mapping, two out of three of which you can see in the following figures)

...

Read More »
Use Microsoft Connect to Drive Product Improvement

0 comments 660 reads

Posted on 2011-12-07

A long time ago I wrote an article, My Dynamics CRM 5 Wish-List, on some of the features I most wanted to see in the next release of Dynamics CRM. I received plenty of comments and emails about that post, but these days if I really feel strongly about a feature I use the Microsoft Connect site: https://connect.microsoft.com.

This site is a great resource and I recommend you use it. You can sign in with your Windows Live ID, and once in you can go directly to pages like this one: https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions/Feedback

My personal favorite of the top ten most requested new features is currently at the number two spot:

...

Read More »
Marketing Automation in Dynamics CRM

0 comments 920 reads

Posted on 2011-12-03

I’m not happy with the title of this article. But I’m less unhappy with it than any of the alternatives I could come up with, such as E-mail Marketing, Web Analytics, Nurture Marketing, Lead Scoring, Social Discovery and Demand Generation in Dynamics CRM.

So I’ll go with the short version and emphasize the IN Dynamics CRM part. For a good overview discussion of marketing automation, visit the Wikipedia page for marketing automation.

Anyway, however you refer to it, in my view it’s the single most important category of Dynamics CRM add-on solutions.

In this article I’ll provide a mini-case study of my early experiences with ClickDimensions, which is one of the leading providers in the space and which I recently began using. If you’re new to the topic or new to Dynamics CRM, you might wonder why you’d need something like this at...

Read More »
What’s New in Dynamics CRM 2011 R7? What’s New’s What’s New!

0 comments 1,421 reads

Posted on 2011-10-23

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: gotta love the cloud, where important new features just kind of … show up, from time to time. Today, for example, I just got that pleasant surprise tip-of-the-iceberg feeling after provisioning a brand new 30-day free trial of Dynamics CRM. After my ritual changing of the default time zone from Reykjavik to US Central Time, the first thing I noticed was the What’s New link at the top of the Workplace:

So of course I clicked it, and here’s what I saw:

...

Read More »
Building Business Processes in Dynamics CRM 2011: Installment 11

0 comments 961 reads

Posted on 2011-08-27
I often encounter a situation where I’ve got a workflow or dialog process and want to create another one similar to it. There are a couple ways to accomplish this, and I’ll describe here the way I usually do it.

Suppose I’ve got a simple sales process workflow, written for the opportunity record type, called Solution Selling Process, Simple:

I’ll follow these steps to make a copy of it:
1. It’s in Draft status, so I can double-click it to open it in the workflow designer.
2. In the Process Properties section, select the Process template option for Activate As field:
Read More »
Building Business Processes in Dynamics CRM 2011: Installment 10

0 comments 1,078 reads

Posted on 2011-08-23
Custom Dialog Process to Resolve Cases

Previously, I characterized three broad scenarios for which dialog processes can be particularly useful:
- Creating records
- Converting records
- Closing records
Earlier we saw an example of using a dialog process to substitute for the standard lead conversion process. In this example and the next one we will examine using dialogs to replace the standard Case Resolution and Opportunity Close processes.

Once again, why do we need dialog processes for these scenarios? Why not workflows? Because case resolutions and opportunity closes often require additional information from the user, and since workflows don’t support this, dialogs are the way to go.

Here is the standard Resolve Case dialog box:

...
Read More »
Targeting Custom Forms to Business Units in Dynamics CRM 2011

0 comments 970 reads

Posted on 2011-08-23

I recently received this question from a reader:

I’m working with an on premise 2011 client. I’ve created one parent and three child BU’s. I have created three different forms for 4 entities and want the forms to be shown based on the security roles from the child BU’s, but whenever I go to assign them through the form I cannot see any roles but those of the parent. I feel I’m missing a step, but don’t know where I’ve gone wrong. Can you point me in the right direction?

Good question – I wondered about that myself the first time I noticed it!

The problem is, when you assign security roles for a custom form, the only available security roles are those from the root business unit! Since you cannot target forms directly to security roles for a child business unit, the best solution I’ve found so far is to create custom security roles in the root business unit, target the forms of interest to those security roles only, and then...

Read More »