Robert Heath Development

For several months now I’ve been evaluating Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 as a solution for my office. Initially I setup the software on a development server and started migrating our current business processes and data into CRM. The initial setup went pretty smooth. I created “custom entities”, one of the core concepts of CRM 3.0, to accommodate the custom data types that exist in our current system.

The next step was to migrate the data itself from the old system. This was a little more time consuming and required some additional software. To speed up the data migration, and simplify my life, we purchased c360’s Import Manager which allows you to import custom data types into CRM from any ODBC compliant data source. Microsoft does offer a data migration kit to help migration from legacy systems however I found it to be difficult to use.

With the data types migrated and the data imported, the next step is to recreate your business processes or WorkFlows. Microsoft CRM’s WorkFlow Manager allows you to create rules that spawn activities such as emails or tasks to automate the process of managing customer relationships. In our case, our business processes had not been reviewed in several years. We knew we would soon be reevaluating our existing business processes but that we needed to make a clean break from the legacy system as soon as the data was migrated. To hold us over until the new business processes had been decided, I recreated our existing workflow, which consisted mostly of automated emails, within CRM.

Though we are still planning WorkFlow rules and fine tuning CRM to meet our business requirements it has become apparent the Microsoft CRM is a great tool. Companies who need a customizable solution to manage their customers but don’t have the resources to develop a custom solution from the ground up should consider CRM 3.0.