With many proven MS Office features embedded, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 immediately feels familiar which helps to create early user acceptance & quickly increase productivity.

Compared with Dynamics CRM v4 the latest edition provides a flattened structure which makes CRM data more accessible with less user clicks & fewer open windows:

• Familiar menu ribbon - Dynamics CRM 2011 uses the same style of menu ribbon at the top of the pages that's used in applications like Word 2010 & Excel 2010. Its contextual so adapts to each screen & can easily be personalised in line with individual menu command preferences.
• Fewer clicks & open windows - CRM records now combine individual pages in forms as standard to make more relationship detail available in a single screen. As a result there's less click time & fewer open windows, simply expand & collapse form components to access & update CRM data.
  
  

New CRM navigation tools include a recently viewed list and record browsing to help CRM users find the information they want quickly with fewer clicks:

• Recent viewed list - as well as providing a link to recently accessed CRM records, dashboards, views, attachments & other items you can also pin important links for a direct link to your CRM favourites. Read more in our blog 
• Browsing records - from any CRM record including contacts, companies & opportunities simply click to call us a list of similar records & jump to another or use forward / back buttons to browse each one in turn
  
  

At last! Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 includes dashboards that adapt to job roles and individual preferences to give you real-time insight across all business areas from pre-sales to customer care and everything in between.

• Personalise dashboards - create your own CRM dashboards or share them with others
• Real-time performance insight - get on-demand answers to questions like: What does my lead and opportunity pipeline look like? Have we neglected any of our accounts? How many leads did our last campaign create? How long is it taking to resolve customer issues?
• Visible analytics - dashboards can be integrated into any CRM list view, including within Outlook, so performance results are always visible & easy to visualise 
• Drill-down analysis - click individual charts and dashboard graphics to drill-down and understand the metrics behind the performance
• Informed decision making - Dynamics CRM collates data & presents it in one easy to visualise format Dynamics CRM 2011 dashboards to help improve the speed and quality of decision-making.
  
  

New personalisation options enable Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to be adapted to suit individual preferences & roles to further increase productivity and create enthusiastic user acceptance.

• Associated views - apply automatic filters to list views to increase relevance by only showing the data you want to work with. For example, restrict the list of contacts associated with a company to only show decision makers
• Personal views - set how you want CRM lists, contacts, sales, companies and other CRM records to appear by defining your own personalised views which you can pin to Outlook and your recent list
• Role based views - the role based client adapts screen views by removing information that users don't need. As a result users start with layouts and functions that are adapted to their job role and responsibility for increased relevance & data protection.
  
  

Managed CRM hosting direct from Microsoft for only £22.75+VAT per month when you register before 31 December 2011:

• Includes everything for one price - workflows, offline access & mobile access are all included in one low predictable subscription.
• 99.9% uptime Service Level Agreement - an SLA that's financially backed by Microsoft.
• Code in the Cloud - that offers a comparable level of customisation to an on-premise CRM installation.
  
  

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 wizard driven dialog scripts guide users through processes by prompting them to gather information that will help them qualify opportunities, handle complaints, carry out telemarketing, progress support issues and handle many other processes:

• Consistent processing - dialogs apply your own business rules by guiding users to progress routine processes
• Improved insight - information gather from dialog scripts is written back to CRM fields where it can be reporting on & used to improve customer profiling as well as overall data quality
• Minimises training - by enabling call agents to follow on-screen scripting there's less need for training so new starters can quickly get up to speed
  
  

• Create goals from any CRM field - use standard CRM search criteria to define goals across any business area to track performance standards. For example, set goals for campaign responses, lead conversion, support call time, telemarketing calls & sales targets.
• Manage goals over any term - set goals over a daily, weekly, monthly or longer term basis.
• Financial goals - create sales goals including criteria for the treatment of in-progress opportunities
• Sub goals - distribute goals among sales territories, teams and individual by creating sub goals that apportion larger targets & include targets for specific product.
• Real-time goal tracking - assess progress & drill to understand performance using integrated goal dashboards
  
  

CRM 2011 now includes database auditing that you can apply to any database component and process including contacts, cases and opportunities as well as your own customised CRM entities.

With fully automated CRM enabled user accountability is clearly defined and critical CRM entries are protected by tracking:

• Update actions
• Create, modified & deletion dates
• Old field values
• New values
  
  

And we still didn't find room for other Dynamics CRM 2011 improvements like connected records, Sharepoint integration, extended queue functionality, the ability to include attachments in bulk emails, field level security, activity grouping, simplified quick campaign wizards.....