An: What is Dynamics CRM Dashboard for MS Lync?
Voicu: In short, where Dynamics CRM focuses on managing the contacts and sales leads of your organization and Lync is used for communicating with those contacts, Dynamics CRM Dashboard for Lync is an add-on that makes both applications seamlessly communicate between one another.
Both products are already integrated to a certain extent. Dynamics CRM allows you to see if the contacts that are also in your Outlook agenda are online or not and and then gives you the possibility to call or email them (=integration of Lync client side functionality in CRM). However, the other way around (= integration of CRM functionality in Lync) is a different matter. That's where our add-on makes a difference!
An: So this solution you've developed is unique?
Voicu: Yes, there are a few add-ons on the market but this is the first solution that seamlessly integrates MS CRM and MS Lync in both directions.
An: Can you give me an example of a situation in which this solution is really practical?
Voicu: The add-on is really useful because it can show contextual information about the person that is calling, right inside the conversation window.
For instance let's take the case of a citizen that calls the comune regarding the status of a dossiers that he opened for renovations in his house. When the city hall employee picks up the phone, she already knows not only who the person is but also why that person is calling. This is achieved by displaying all kinds of custom information fields from CRM about the caller directly in the CRM dashboard. This saves a lot of time. The citizen will also be happy that his request is served more effectively and he did not have to listen to a "happy song" until his questions are answered.
Another scenario where the add-on is useful: let’s take the example of a large company. The number of contacts of the company including clients and suppliers is somewhere around 20.000. And this number is growing fast.
The company uses Dynamics CRM for contact management, Outlook for email and calendar management and Lync as a telephony and conferencing system. The client service desk is contacted by a great number of people every day. They must answer telephone calls and try to solve the problems of the people who call. They use Microsoft Lync to do so.
The most frequent contacts of the company are in the central Outlook agenda. The number of contacts in Outlook is around 1.000. There is always the possibility to synchronize all the contacts from CRM to the Outlook agenda, but this would produce a huge agenda of 20.000 records affecting the performance of Outlook. It is normally not good practice to do that. Moreover, the autocomplete feature used by the Outlook search is limited to much less than 20.000 entries!
An: Hmm- that makes sense. So what are some of the features ofDynamics CRM Dashboard for MS Lync?
Voicu: When an operator picks up a call, the system will search in Dynamics CRM for a contact, lead or account having the phone number of the incoming caller. If there is one match, the system will show the contact card of that matching entity in the extension window:
The fields that are shown on the contact card of the person are manageable in a CRM 2011 solution.
The person taking the call has several possibilities:
- Log the conversation in CRM as a phone call activity.
- Add a note to the contact in CRM
- Add a task to the contact in CRM
- Edit the contact in CRM: this will open a full blown CRM popup-window in an external browser.
If the incoming caller’s phone number matches multiple entities in CRM, a list of matching entities will be displayed. There might be multiple matches in the following cases:
- The main contact of an account has the same business phone as the account itself
- Double entries in CRM
This is the overview that the operator gets in case of multiple matches. The fields shown for each match in the multiple match preview screen are manageable in a CRM 2011 solution.
If the person who calls is not in CRM, the operator will have the possibility of creating a new account, contact or lead by pressing one of the buttons in the toolbar:
Pressing any of the buttons will pop-up an actual CRM browser window. The phone number of the caller will be pre-populated and the operator will be able to fill in any extra fields for the entity and save it in CRM.
An: How have you packaged Dynamics CRM Dashboard for MS Lync?
Voicu: The solution we developed comes as a CRM 2011 solution and a small installer package.
The CRM Dashboard for Lync is deployed server side (on the CRM server) and client side on each machine running the Lync client. The cliend side installation is a one-time installation that can also be pushed through Windows group policies in your organization.
Possible updates and changes in the dashboard solution package only need to be published on the Dynamics CRM server and they become immediately effective without being necessary for the Lync client application to be restarted.
An: What if a client wants extra options?
Voicu: As a client you can customize the fields that appear as well as the columns yourself. If you really want to support custom CRM entities as well, you'll need extra development. Here the team at OrbitOne can help you out.
An: And the 64 dollar question: how much does it cost and where can I buy it?
Voicu: In the following weeks you will be able to download the CRM Dashboard for MS Lync in CRM Marketplace . Pricing will be announced soon.
Posted by An De Jonghe
Solution Sales@OrbitOne
T +32 (9) 330.15.26 - M +32 (496) 436.693
(*) Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a multi-lingual Customer Relationship Management software package developed by Microsoft. Out of the box, the product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, and Service (help desk) sectors, but Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform and has been encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it to meet many different demands.
Microsoft Lync (formerly Microsoft Office Communicator) and Microsoft Lync for Mac are instant messaging clients used with Microsoft Lync Server or Lync Online available with Microsoft Office 365 and Live@Edu. They are replacements for Windows Messenger which was used with Microsoft Exchange Server.