Dynamics CRM 2015 is the current version of the popular customer relationship management platform offered by Microsoft. This platform offers users the ability to integrate and connect data across their sales, marketing, and customer service activities and to give their staff an overall view of all the interactions and activities as they relate to a specific customer.
Along with the standard platform functionality provided, we have a wide range of customization options, which allow us to extend and further customize solutions to solve almost any other business need. In addition, we can integrate this platform with other applications and create a seamless solution, such as a centralized repository.
While Microsoft Dynamics CRM is by no means the only available CRM platform on the market today, it is one of the fastest growing platforms, gaining large acceptance at all levels, from small- to mid-size and enterprise-level organizations. This is due to a multitude of reasons, some of which include the variety in deployment options, the scalability, the extensibility, the ability to integrate with other systems, and the ease of use. Let's take a look at them in detail.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be deployed with a variety of options. Starting with the basic offering from Microsoft, you can get CRM Online. Once we have the 30-day trial active, this can be easily turned into a full production environment by providing payment information and keeping the environment active. The data will live in the cloud, in one of the data center provided by Microsoft at multiple locations worldwide.
Alternatively, you can obtain hosting with a third-party provider. The whole environment can be hosted by a third party, and the service can be offered either as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution or as a fully hosted environment. Usually, there is a difference in the way payment is processed, with a SaaS solution, in most cases, being offered in a monthly subscription.
The last option is to have the environment hosted in-house, in an on-premise scenario. This option carries the highest upfront cost, but it gives you the ability to extensively customize the system. In addition to the higher upfront cost, the cost to maintain the environment and hardware and the requirement of skilled people to constantly administer the environment can easily add new costs.
Dynamics CRM can scale over a wide range of deployment options. From a single box deployment used mostly for development, all the way up to a cloud offering that can span over a large number of servers and host a large number of environments, the same base solution can handle all the scenarios in between with ease.
Dynamics CRM is a platform. While the base offering comes with prepackaged functionality for sales, services, and marketing, a large variety of solutions can be built on top of Dynamics CRM. The extensibility model is powered by a very robust set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
There are a large variety of integration options available when working with Dynamics CRM. The base solution comes with the ability to configure the integration with SharePoint for document management and with Yammer for social features.
In addition, you can use specific connectors provided by either Microsoft or other third-party providers for integration with specific solutions. Some of the most common ones are (in no particular order) Microsoft Dynamics CRM connector (for AX, NAV, and GP), Scribe connectors, and so on.
When the previously mentioned options are not available, you can still integrate with other solutions using a third-party integration tool. This allows real-time integration into legacy systems. Some of the most popular tools used for integration include SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Scribe, and BizTalk.
Dynamics CRM offers a variety of options to interact with the system. You can access Dynamics CRM either through a browser, which now comes with support for all the recent versions of the major browsers. In addition, a user can interact with the system directly from the very familiar interface of Outlook. The Dynamics CRM connector for Outlook allows users to get access to all the system data and features from within Outlook. In addition, a set of functions built specifically for Outlook allow users to track and interact with e-mails, tasks, and events from within Outlook.
In addition to the features provided through Outlook integration, the users of CRM for Outlook have the ability to work offline. Data can be taken offline, work can be done even when you are disconnected, and data can be synchronized back into the system when connectivity is available again.
For mobile users, Dynamics CRM can be accessed from mobile devices and tablets. Dynamics CRM provides a standard web-based interface for most mobile devices as well as specific applications for Windows-based mobile devices, iPad, and Android devices.
Third-party providers have also built mobile solutions for Dynamics CRM. A quick search in the application markets for each platform will reveal several options for each platform.