Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Features include:

• Creating custom screens or fields
• Lookup lists of account or opportunity records
• Out of the box and custom reports
• Complex business processes and workflows
• Dialogs to attain wizard like flows with the business processes

There are some areas where customers who have more complex requirements turn to customization.

• Custom pages
• Developing complex integrations with other applications
• Highly specialized functions for a specific market
• Data migration from other systems into the CRM system

In order to best calculate the level of customization for your Microsoft CRM project, you really need to break down the functionality you want to achieve.

You may want to consider answering the following questions before considering a Microsoft CRM system implementation:

• What sort of data do you want to convert to Microsoft Dynamics CRM system? What fields or screen changes do you need to accommodate this data in your system in order to fulfill your user’s expectations?
• What business processes or workflows do you need to implement within your CRM system? For example, does your business require a process for assigning new prospects to your sales team? Do you require a specific workflow for managing activities and tasks for specific sales processes? What about services workflows (e.g. case assignments & resolution, service-level agreements, approval hierarchies etc.) or marketing processes (lead follow up & qualification, inter-team interactions, knowledge sharing etc.)?
• What business reports do you want to deliver to your business users? Could you leverage the out of the box reports, or will you need to create custom reports?
• What business data as well as other systems do you need to integrate with your CRM system? Do you have integrated data that needs to be cleansed, transformed before reaching the CRM system with readable, editable and/or searchable functionality in your CRM System? Does your data need to be accessible for reports based on accessibility hierarchy?
• What functionality do you need to build a ‘Custom Solution’ with the Dynamics CRM system? Is there a solution by an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that may have already developed a similar solution that you could leverage? What is the cost of the solution? How easy it is to bring that solution into your CRM environment?

The answers to these questions will help guide you to a broader level of difficulty associated with your Dynamics CRM system implementation. If you find that the answers to the questions above raise more questions or identify specific areas you’d like to further explore, you may want to consider working with a skilled Microsoft partner like Xavor, who can help evaluate your business requirements in light of what is provided out of the box, what is available via configuration and/or customization and what could be best provided by a third-party vendor.

Also, to budget the overall cost of a Dynamics CRM system implementation, you will need to know the license cost and maintenance fees as well.