Customer Effective Blog

Office 365 + CRM 2011: All-in-one Integrated Cloud

Last month, Microsoft announced the beta release of Office 365.  This is an all-in-one cloud service that will combine Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and CRM in an always-up-to-date cloud service.  Customers can sign up for a the limited beta test at office365.microsoft.com (currently on a wait list).  The new offering will replace the Business Productivity Online Suite.  The move is consistent with Microsoft's "All In" cloud strategy.  Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President, Information Worker Product Management Group is philosophical about the move:

“Chapter one in Microsoft’s history was about putting a PC on every desktop. Chapter two was dedicated to transforming the enterprise data center. Chapter three is, without a question, devoted to bringing the power of the cloud to our customers and partners. What’s exciting is that we’re writing the story right now – and there’s so much more to come.”

One of the more practical and exciting aspects of the power of the cloud and Office 365 + CRM 2011 Online is the ability to collaborate efficiently with the tools we all know and use every day.

• Lync Online.   Connect with others through Lync contact photos, activity update feed and interactive contact card.  Reply to an email with an IM or an audio call for quicker and more effective resolution.   Conduct on-line presentations using audio, video, screen sharing with just a few mouse clicks.
• SharePoint Online.  Simultaneous editing lets multiple people work on the same Word document or PowerPoint presentation at the same time.  Gone is locked-out checkouts and back and forth emailing. 
• SharePoint My Sites.   Helps users find each other by exposing their activities, interests, skill sets, news feeds, Q&A. SharePoint also includes social tagging functionality, enabling communities to organize information in ways that make sense for them.
• Full CRM2011 integration.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners will be able to offer customers comprehensive, cloud-based solutions that are reliable, scalable and adaptable to meet the unique needs of organizations of all sizes.

More information and release dates can be found here http://office365.microsoft.com/en-US/online-services.aspx.

 

Using SharePoint & CRM for a Connected, Socially Collaborative Experience

In a previous post, we discussed how the Outlook Social Connector (a free add-on from Microsoft; download here) transforms an Outlook Client into your totally connected social media hub.  Today, we're going cut through the chatter and look at new social collaboration features of SharePoint 2010 and how they fit into your Microsoft CRM solution. 

SharePoint 2010 was released this summer and has many impressive social improvements.  Integration between SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft CRM is tighter as it ever has been.  (Read about CRM 2011 integration with SharePoint here in the CRM 2011 SDK - Integration Modules).  Jeff Teper, Corporate Vice President, SharePoint Server, Microsoft said:

With SharePoint 2010, we are introducing a consistent experience for organizing, finding and staying connected to information and people including bookmarks, tagging and ratings. We have taken a holistic approach across search, navigation, profiles, feeds and more. We are bringing together informal social tagging with formal taxonomy described below so you can choose the right approach for a given set of content. We have been using these features internally for a while and I think you will find the not only useful but fun.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of using SharePoint & CRM for your Social Business Collaboration is the Outlook and CRM integration.  You are able to associate documents, people, activities with your native email system; something some collaboration solutions cannot.

 
Profile Pages and Activities:  The My Profile page contains information about employees, including biographies, job titles, location, contact information, interests and skills, and previous projects.

Colleague Suggestions:  Keep your colleague network current with an automated service that suggests colleagues based on your reporting structure, communities membership, e-mail distribution lists, contact lists, and analysis of most common Office Outlook e-mail recipients.
Wikis and Blogs:  Wiki and Blog creation work the way you do; with a familiar Office interface and ribbon authoring.  Create pages that combine the ease of wikis with the functionality of Web Parts.

 

 

A Look at the Outlook Social Connector

The Outlook Social Connector (OSC) provides a communication hub for personal and professional communications.  By selecting a an Outlook item such as an email, you can see in the People Pane the activities, photos, status updates and connections of the person (or people) you are communicating with.  This is a great way to 'put a name with a face' for colleagues  and clients you may have worked extensively with, but never actually met in person.  This could create a real competitive advantage where you can relate better to clients because you keep up with their interests.

 
The picture used in the People Pane is synched with any of the available social networks.  If there is no picture available, then a silhouette based on Bill Gates mug shot is featured.

In addition to the purely social information, OSC scans your Outlook file to present communication history, future and past scheduled meetings, attachments related to that person.  All of those communications with that person are visible in the People Pane.  Even without the social connectivity, this feature makes this a worthy addition to Outlook.

Emerging and Proprietary Social Networks
Currently, popular social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Windows Live are offering providers for the OSC.  However, any emerging or proprietary social network can develop provider for the OSC to synchronize and surface network updates in Outlook.  A public SDK allows anyone to build a connection to business of consumer social networks.  MSDN documentation on getting started with OSC development is here.

Download here (2003, 2007, 2010 available)