Posted by Bill Goulette on Tue, Mar 09, 2010
Scribe Insight DTS packages, which are the integration mappings and instructions component of a Scribe integration, may be scheduled and managed through a tool called the Scribe Console.
The tool presents categories of information in a tree on the left side and list views on the right. The list views within the Collaborations - Integrations area of that tool provides an overview and general status of the scheduled integrations. Occassionally, the status might give you something other than the designed Paused or Active status. When the status is Failed, the desciption column will give you some information on the reason.
I recently encoutered an error I hadn't seen before that I couldn't readily find the answer for:
"The Job was terminated because the message processor is unresponsive."
After some research it was discovered that there is a 60 second timeout built into Scribe that is applied to the time the source query is initially executed and the time that the first row is processed into the target. There are a variety of reasons for why this might happen (server latency, network latency, etc...). While you are trying to determine the cause for the latency, there is a registry entry you can create that will allow for a manual override of the standard timeout.
The key named ProcHangTimeOut needs to be created in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Scribe\EventManager\Settings key. This represents the timeout in seconds. Set this to what makes sense for you.
Remember that messing around in the registry is inherently dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, so be careful not to disturb anything else when working in the registry.
Posted by Bill Goulette on Mon, Mar 01, 2010
As part of our integration practice, we end up creating integrations that are well outside the functionality of templates offered by the integration software provider. In particular, there are times where the tables involved in the integration need special inclusion in the security model that informs the integration module.
Each integration software has different methods for providing object access to the integration tool. In Scirbe Insight's case, when it comes to Dynamics GP, the list of SQL objects that can be accessed by their tool is contained in a table called KSYNCTABLEBASE located in the company database (not to be confused with the DYNAMICS database).
It is likely that part of your design document includes identification of the objects that are being integrated between the systems. You can check to see if the tables included in your integration design are accessible by reviewing the results of the following query against the company database:
select * from KSYNCTABLESBASE
Note - of course, you must have Scribe Insight and the Scribe GP Adapter installed for this table to exist there.
If the table you are looking for is not found there, you may add it using the following query and substituting the 'PA00401' value with whatever table you need to access with the Scribe Workbench:
INSERT INTO KSYNCTABLESBASE
( TABLENAME, OWNER, SUBJECT_AREA, LABEL, TYPE, UPDATABLE, HIDDEN, DRS_OBJECT, BASE_TABLES, REMARKS, FIELD_INFO )
VALUES
( 'PA00401', 'dbo', 'Additional Integration Objects', null, 'U', 'Y', 'N', null, null, 'Table used for additional information', null)
Happy integrating.
Posted by Jay Rivard on Thu, Feb 25, 2010
As you may know salesforce.com upgrades their application at least three times a year. While they are not always major upgrades, it is an impressive feat compared to the traditional on-premise applications which may get upgraded once every 2 to 3 years.
Salesforce.com goes to great lengths to minimize the impact of these upgrades and does a tremendous job in notifying their install base of things that may need some client preparation. For example, in the Spring 2010 edition they are discontinuing support for Microsoft Internet Explorer V6. Salesforce.com has made many attempts to get everybody prepared for this eventuality.
Salesforce system administrators should take a little time to address these issues well in advance of the scheduled upgrade. We also recommend that you test out the upgrade in the salesforce.com sandbox. This is especially true if you are planning to enable new features that may impact some existing functionality.
If you do not have this level of technical expertise within your organization you may want to consider contacting us.
Posted by Bill Goulette on Tue, Feb 23, 2010
Microsoft has released Update Rollup 9 which has many updates and fixes. The build number of the update rollup packages for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 server, for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Microsoft Office Outlook, and for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 E-mail Router is 4.0.7333.2644. Update Rollup 9 is a cumulative fix that includes all the fixes for the issues that are documented in Update Rollups 1 through 8.
Please note: There is always risk in applying updates to existing production systems. It is important to review the improvements and repairs offered in each update rollup and evaluate for yourself whether there is benefit for your organization and weigh it against the risk.
For more information including installation instructions and a complete list of issues that are fixed in Update Rollup 9 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 977650: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=977650.
Need more information on the Update Rollup 9? Post a comment here and we'll get back to you.
Posted by Jay Rivard on Thu, Feb 18, 2010
Salesforce Content is a useful feature of Salesforce CRM and often over-looked. Content is an on-demand content management system that is handy for both Sales and Marketing folks.
- FOR SALES
How many times have you spent looking for a presentation, fact sheet or other sales document and then found out it was an old version? Or have you ever wished that you could see what presentations other sales reps at your company are using successfully?
With Salesforce Content, you can search for a relevant sales document much like doing a Google search. It will pull up matching documents, show you how people within your company rated the document, any comments that were made and how often it was downloaded. And outdated documents? You can subscribe to the document and be notified when a newer version is uploaded.
- FOR MARKETING
What's more annoying than spending weeks developing what you think is terrific content only to find out that the content doesn't exactly hit on what the marketplace is demanding.
With Content, marketers can see the comments that reps make on a sales document it and how they rate it and make the appropriate changes in a timely fashion rather than weeks or worse -- never.
Recently, we started using Salesforce.com Content which quickly turned into a question of how we will use it. In addition to the traditional use of Content, what value will it lend to our organization and will users adopt it? Like most organizations we create a lot of documents and send them out the typical way -- attached to an e-mail. Proposals in particular fly out of here on a daily basis. We decided to try content for proposal delivery which has worked quite well. It is solved two issues for us: (1) it circumvents file size limitations on mail servers and (2) it tells us if they've read the proposal and downloaded it.
Although setup of the product is fairly straightforward, we do recommend that you read the documentation or take the pre-recorded training sessions. There are settings in several areas within the application of which you should be aware.
We continue to look for new ways to take advantage of Content and would welcome any feedback you might have and how you use it.
Posted by Sid Lejfer on Wed, Feb 17, 2010
A dropped fly ball in baseball, a fumble or interception in football, or a turnover in basketball, all can be momentum killers. It is difficult to regain your momentum when a negative change happens in a positive pattern.
The same is true with implementing and maintaining a CRM System. You can take all of text book steps for selecting, implementing, and maintaining a CRM system, but something unexpected happens. Let me give you a few examples and suggested remedies in regaining your CRM momentum:
1. Change in the executive management team. One of the important steps in getting approval of a CRM system within an organization is executive sponsorship. As an organization, you want to make sure you have broad based support for a CRM system so if any one executive leaves, your have organizational commitment to move forward with your CRM system.
2. The CRM advocate who initiated and drove the project leaves the company. As noted above, the key is to get broad based support for your CRM initiative throughout your organization. If one person leaves, other people within the organization will step up and drive the process.
3. Major shift in the way your business goes to market. With the pace of technology and changes in the economy, business needs change all of the time. You can protect yourself by selecting a CRM system that is flexible and can be modified very easily.
4. You are acquired or merge with another organization. Again, if you have selected a CRM system that is flexible and modified easily, you will be able to make rapid changes to adjust to requirements of your consolidated entity.
5. You company has financial issues. This is a difficult one to address. Depending on your contract arrangement with your SaaS solution, you will be able to decrease the licenses you have on a yearly basis. This will allow you to control the cost. In addition, the maintenance cost of a SaaS solution is less expensive than an on-premise solution and upgrades are included. SaaS solutions definitely give you more flexibility if your company goes through a financial issue.
6. Technical issues with your system. Solutions like Salesforce CRM provide a company with a solid technical solution with great up-time. The key is to take a phased approach to your implementation, have a pilot program and address any technical issues that come up, and properly train your staff. This approach will avoid any momentum killers.
7. Poor data quality. You can have the very best CRM system in the world, train all your people properly, and have an initiative that fails because of poor data quality. People get frustrated when they are working on a system that does not provide them with accurate information. To avoid this momentum killer, you need to address data quality issues before the data is imported into the new system. There are a variety of data cleansing solutions and approaches to addressing this issue.
8. Poor end user adoption. One of the biggest momentum killers is the final step - poor end user adoption. This can occur for many reasons. You need to make sure that end users are involved in this process from the beginning, the system addresses their day to day needs, and easy to use. If you address these three steps, you will have good end user adoption.
By being aware and limiting your momentum killers, you will have a useful and productive CRM System.
Posted by Sid Lejfer on Mon, Feb 15, 2010
Choosing a CRM solution for an organization is a very big decision. Over the years, we have seen our prospects and clients go about this process in many different ways. If you see your organization using CRM for sales, marketing, and customer service, we suggest using a selection committee to review and select a CRM system for your organization.
This committee should be made up of end-users, management, and executives. Each user is going to have different requirements and you want to make sure the solution you select is able to accomodate your requirements. The involvement of all groups within your organization in the selection process will pay dividends in the future and you will have a better chance at end-user adoption.
You also want to make sure you have a firm committment from the executive team that the CRM solution selected by the committee will be funded and implemented. From past experience, you don't want to engage people within your organization in a process that takes time away from their day to day responsibilities that does not results in a CRM system being selected and implemented.
Human nature plays a role in selecting and implementing a CRM solution. People want to feel part of the process. We have found that end-users and managers can be resentful on having to use a system that they had no input and does not meet their specific requirements.
Each group of users are going to use the CRM differently. End-users are going to want an easy to use and easy to navigate system. They want to be able to work efficiently and input and retrieve information as easily as possible.
Managers want to be able to get reports on the productivity and results of their sales, marketing, and customer services departments. Executives want to be able to get key indicators in real time if possible.
We have seen less involvement from IT in the selection process with the popularity of Software as a Service (SaaS). You still want IT involved to make sure you have the appropriate bandwidth and security. If you are considering an on-premise solution, IT needs to have more involvement because of infrastructure requirements.
The selection committee should determine, document, and prioritize the requirements of each group of users. This document should help you narrow your selection of potential software solutions and implementors. By doing a thorough screening, you will be able to narrow your search. You want to be respectful of your committee member's time and avoid over analysis of solutions that just don't fit.
If possible, you should narrow the potential vendors to three. Each product should be evaulated to make sure that your requirements are met. Many CRM software products provide a free trial version that can be very helpful. Some software vendors are willing to create a customize demo if the size and complexity of the opportunity warrants it.
You also want to maintain a tight timeline. As time passes, you won't have the recall to compare all of the CRM solutions. In addition, you will lose momentum. If possible, I would suggest that you begin your implementation as quickly as possible after the selection has been made.
Involving end-users, managers, and executives in the CRM selection process, priortizing requirements, narrowing potential solutions as quickly as possible, and having a tight timeframe, will increase the probability of a successful CRM system.
Posted by Cathy Boudreau on Mon, Feb 15, 2010
There are quite a few manual adjustments necessary to properly accomplish the installation of Update rollups for CRM. Each update article really must be read in its entirety before applying the rollup.
The following link is an example of a manual adjustment that must be performed in order to apply the fix to a not-so-well-known issue. This issue deals with performance issues and the AsyncOperationBase and WorkflowLogBase tables: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968755/
Questions or comments on the Microsoft CRM Update Rollups? Post it below!
Posted by Jay Rivard on Thu, Feb 11, 2010
One advantage to working with an application hosted in the cloud is that there are few limitations imposed on it by hardware and software. However, there is one area in particular that you DO need to pay attention -- your browser.
Salesforce works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari but not all editions are supported. For example, Internet Explorer V5 is not supported by Salesforce. In fact Google Docs will not support IE V6 shortly. In lieu of this, here are some best practices:
- Standardize on one browser. Support will be much easier especially if you have a large number of users.
- Inventory all the applications that are browser dependent. For example, in our organization, our time and billing application only runs on Internet Explorer.
- Benchmark the browser for performance. We have found that Firefox 3.5 runs significantly faster than IE 7 or 8. This may be in part due to our antivirus application.
- If you standardize on a new browser make sure you train the users on the new browser. Its functions may perform very differently than the previous product. For example, downloading using Internet Exlplorer is significantly different than in Firefox.
For additional information please download the browser cheat sheet@salesforce.com. He can be located at:
http://www.salesforce.com/community/crm-best-practices/administrators/implementation-resources/browser-settings.jsp
Posted by Cathy Boudreau on Mon, Feb 08, 2010
What the heck is closed-loop marketing and why should I be concerned with it?
Let's start off with what closed-loop marketing is really all about. It's basically knowing which marketing channels and tactics are most effective.
Now let's head on over to why Marketers should be implementing a close-loop marketing system. Three words: performance, measurement and tracking. If the President of your company asked you, "What are the most successful marketing campaigns? What's the return on investment?" Would you be able to answer him or her? Sure, you might have a gut feeling, but can you back it up with actual data?
Now you may be thinking, "OK, this all makes sense, but I have no idea on how to even get started!" We were in the same place not too long ago. As a Salesforce.com certified partner, we knew we wanted something that could integrate with Salesforce so we could track the lead to opportunity cycle. We also wanted to be able to see how a lead was finding our website - direct traffic? A Google search? And if so, on what terms? An email campaign? We sat through a demo of HubSpot and signed up and implemented it weeks later. Now we can see exactly how our leads are finding us. We can see how our keywords are performing and how they are performing for our COMPETITORS; see who is linking to us and our COMPETITORS; and see what pages on our website are most visited and place appropriate offers on them. We also have a place to manage blogging and our social media efforts.
Want to learn more? Join us on Wednesday, February 10th for a FREE webinar at 1:00 pm (EST) where we will discuss in more detail closed-loop marketing, using HubSpot and how it can help and converting more leads to opportunities!