This book will teach readers how to manage the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 application, including marketing automation, sales, service management, and services scheduling.
This book will also assist individuals in passing the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications (MB2-868) Certification Exam by reviewing in depth each topic covered by the exam, providing questions to test your knowledge at the end of each chapter, and finally by providing a 75-question practice exam including answers.
Chapter 1, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Overview, teaches you about the applications available and how they can address your organization's requirements. You will also learn about the value of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications Certification Exam (MB2-868) and the role of this exam in certification for Microsoft IT professionals and developers.
Chapter 2, Activities and Notes, introduces you to the sales process and activities.
Chapter 3, Managing Marketing Automation Applications – Marketing Lists and Campaigns, teaches you how to create and manage marketing lists, campaigns, and campaign responses. You will also learn how to analyze marketing data to provide your organization with effective reporting.
Chapter 4, Managing Sales Applications, teaches you how to create and maintain lead, customer, opportunity, and competitor records. You'll also learn how go through an entire sales process, starting with leads, converting a lead to an account, contact and/or opportunity.
Chapter 5, Managing the Product Catalog and Order Processing, walks you through working the opportunity to close, creating a quote, and then converting the quote to an order and finally to an invoice. You will then analyze sales metrics and use goals, dashboards, personal views, and reports.
Chapter 6, Managing CRM 2011 Outlook Client, teaches you about the Outlook client and how it integrates with CRM. You'll be able to track e-mails, convert e-mails to leads or opportunities, and learn how to configure the views in the Dynamics CRM Outlook client.
Chapter 7, Managing Service Management Applications, teaches you how to create and manage cases, subject trees, knowledge base articles, queues, and contracts. You will then learn how to analyze cases by using service metrics, goals, and dashboards.
Chapter 8, Managing Service Scheduling Applications, teaches you about service scheduling scenarios, users, facilities/equipment, and service activities. You'll also learn how to report and analyze service activities.
Appendix A, Sample Certification Exam Questions, assesses your understanding of applications within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and your readiness for the certification exam by providing 75 questions similar to those found in the MB2-868 exam.
Appendix B, Answers to Sample Certification Exam Questions, contains answers and explanations to the sample certification exam questions found in Appendix A, Sample Certification Exam Questions.
Appendix C, Answers to Self-test Questions, contains answers to the self-test questions found in chapters 2 to 8.
For this book, it's recommended that you have a grasp of the overall customer relationship management concept, and understand how to solve business problems through the use of technology.
You can use a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 30-day trial to follow along with this book. The trial can be obtained from http://crm.dynamics.com.
Another option is to set up a Microsoft Dynamics CRM on-premise deployment. For this, the following software is required:
64-bit Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or higher version
64-bit Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or higher version
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or higher version
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook client
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher version
In addition to software, it's a good idea to have working knowledge of the Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Office.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications (MB2-868) Certification Guide is for individuals who will implement and support Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. These individuals can include, but are not limited to, IT consultants, professionals, business users, and even key business stakeholders.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "This is a free text field where you can enter text such as PTO or Sick."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Start CRM, click on the Workplace module, and then click on Activities."
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