Hi

we are just at the point of committing to CRM 3.0 but we have a few
questions which some of you may be able to answer.

1] We have various other in house sales systems. Ideally we would like
visibility of this data within CRM. How easy is it to do this.? Can CRM
view external SQL database data.? Biztalk has been mentioned and also the
'build in' CRM web services. If this is possible, can 'matching' (i.e. John
Smith at Microsoft in CRM / J Smith at Microsoft in another system) be done
to group these records.?

2] We'd also like to report on this external data. We will be using SRS.
How possible / easy is this.

3] Deduplication.! Can the data in CRM be deduped both at runtime
(record entry) or in batch. Is manipulating data directly in the tables
possible / supported by Microsoft.

4] We need to transfer data into CRM from our existing SQL based system.
Are there utilities within CRM to do this. If not, how is it done?


many thanks

Chubbly

Re: Can CRM do this.? by John

John
Thu Aug 24 07:34:25 CDT 2006

Hi Chubbly:

Yes MSCRM can do all of that, the implementation details are up to your
architectural team. For 1 and 2 you need to decide if you're going to
maintain those external systems or are they being EOLed and converted to
SQL?

For 3 you can create something yourself or I believe there are some MSCRM
ISVs who have released some kind of duplicate detection utilities.

For 4 you can use MSCRMs data migration framework or look at tools from
Scribe.

Unfortunately your questions are easily answered "Yes that can be done" but
the architectural details will keep you busy...
--
John.
Microsoft Principal Architect
http://www.unislumin.com
Microsoft and Cisco Gold partner

"Chubbly Geezer" <chubbly_geezer@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
news:eC9A3T2xGHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi
>
> we are just at the point of committing to CRM 3.0 but we have a few
> questions which some of you may be able to answer.
>
> 1] We have various other in house sales systems. Ideally we would like
> visibility of this data within CRM. How easy is it to do this.? Can CRM
> view external SQL database data.? Biztalk has been mentioned and also the
> 'build in' CRM web services. If this is possible, can 'matching' (i.e.
> John Smith at Microsoft in CRM / J Smith at Microsoft in another system)
> be done to group these records.?
>
> 2] We'd also like to report on this external data. We will be using
> SRS. How possible / easy is this.
>
> 3] Deduplication.! Can the data in CRM be deduped both at runtime
> (record entry) or in batch. Is manipulating data directly in the tables
> possible / supported by Microsoft.
>
> 4] We need to transfer data into CRM from our existing SQL based
> system. Are there utilities within CRM to do this. If not, how is it
> done?
>
>
> many thanks
>
> Chubbly
>
>
>



Re: Can CRM do this.? by Chubbly

Chubbly
Thu Aug 24 08:43:51 CDT 2006

OK, cheers John

"John" <jstraumann@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:OPi6gm3xGHA.476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Hi Chubbly:
>
> Yes MSCRM can do all of that, the implementation details are up to your
> architectural team. For 1 and 2 you need to decide if you're going to
> maintain those external systems or are they being EOLed and converted to
> SQL?
>
> For 3 you can create something yourself or I believe there are some MSCRM
> ISVs who have released some kind of duplicate detection utilities.
>
> For 4 you can use MSCRMs data migration framework or look at tools from
> Scribe.
>
> Unfortunately your questions are easily answered "Yes that can be done"
> but the architectural details will keep you busy...
> --
> John.
> Microsoft Principal Architect
> http://www.unislumin.com
> Microsoft and Cisco Gold partner
>
> "Chubbly Geezer" <chubbly_geezer@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
> news:eC9A3T2xGHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Hi
>>
>> we are just at the point of committing to CRM 3.0 but we have a few
>> questions which some of you may be able to answer.
>>
>> 1] We have various other in house sales systems. Ideally we would
>> like visibility of this data within CRM. How easy is it to do this.?
>> Can CRM view external SQL database data.? Biztalk has been mentioned and
>> also the 'build in' CRM web services. If this is possible, can
>> 'matching' (i.e. John Smith at Microsoft in CRM / J Smith at Microsoft in
>> another system) be done to group these records.?
>>
>> 2] We'd also like to report on this external data. We will be using
>> SRS. How possible / easy is this.
>>
>> 3] Deduplication.! Can the data in CRM be deduped both at runtime
>> (record entry) or in batch. Is manipulating data directly in the tables
>> possible / supported by Microsoft.
>>
>> 4] We need to transfer data into CRM from our existing SQL based
>> system. Are there utilities within CRM to do this. If not, how is it
>> done?
>>
>>
>> many thanks
>>
>> Chubbly
>>
>>
>>
>
>



Re: Can CRM do this.? by AndrewN23

AndrewN23
Fri Aug 25 01:36:08 CDT 2006

1 isn't quite as simple as John's answer below might have you believe.
You'd either have to import the data into CRM somehow, or write
additional aspx pages to show the data in a datagrid, repeater or
similar, and then integrate those aspx pages into CRM.

2. You should be able to do this with SQL Reporting Services or similar
easily enough.

3. I agree with John.

4. These tools are available, but IMO the DMF is horrible. I imported
my data from a complex inhouse CRM system based on Oracle using a C#
program interfacing with the CRM web services. I think doing it this
way was much easier than the DMF would have been - and it still was far
from trivial. It depends a lot on how closely your existing system's
schema and logical model match that of CRM. I've heard varying opinions
on Scribe - our suppliers at the time couldn't get their act together
with it quick enough to meet our schedules, though they pulled all
stops out to get us to sign and pay up for CRM.

Chubbly Geezer wrote:
> OK, cheers John
>
> "John" <jstraumann@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
> news:OPi6gm3xGHA.476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> > Hi Chubbly:
> >
> > Yes MSCRM can do all of that, the implementation details are up to your
> > architectural team. For 1 and 2 you need to decide if you're going to
> > maintain those external systems or are they being EOLed and converted to
> > SQL?
> >
> > For 3 you can create something yourself or I believe there are some MSCRM
> > ISVs who have released some kind of duplicate detection utilities.
> >
> > For 4 you can use MSCRMs data migration framework or look at tools from
> > Scribe.
> >
> > Unfortunately your questions are easily answered "Yes that can be done"
> > but the architectural details will keep you busy...
> > --
> > John.
> > Microsoft Principal Architect
> > http://www.unislumin.com
> > Microsoft and Cisco Gold partner
> >
> > "Chubbly Geezer" <chubbly_geezer@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
> > news:eC9A3T2xGHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> >> Hi
> >>
> >> we are just at the point of committing to CRM 3.0 but we have a few
> >> questions which some of you may be able to answer.
> >>
> >> 1] We have various other in house sales systems. Ideally we would
> >> like visibility of this data within CRM. How easy is it to do this.?
> >> Can CRM view external SQL database data.? Biztalk has been mentioned and
> >> also the 'build in' CRM web services. If this is possible, can
> >> 'matching' (i.e. John Smith at Microsoft in CRM / J Smith at Microsoft in
> >> another system) be done to group these records.?
> >>
> >> 2] We'd also like to report on this external data. We will be using
> >> SRS. How possible / easy is this.
> >>
> >> 3] Deduplication.! Can the data in CRM be deduped both at runtime
> >> (record entry) or in batch. Is manipulating data directly in the tables
> >> possible / supported by Microsoft.
> >>
> >> 4] We need to transfer data into CRM from our existing SQL based
> >> system. Are there utilities within CRM to do this. If not, how is it
> >> done?
> >>
> >>
> >> many thanks
> >>
> >> Chubbly
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >


Re: Can CRM do this.? by Chubbly

Chubbly
Fri Aug 25 04:04:50 CDT 2006

That's appreciated Andrew.

Gives me a lot to think about.


"AndrewN23" <andrew.nerlich@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1156487768.293456.111460@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>1 isn't quite as simple as John's answer below might have you believe.
> You'd either have to import the data into CRM somehow, or write
> additional aspx pages to show the data in a datagrid, repeater or
> similar, and then integrate those aspx pages into CRM.
>
> 2. You should be able to do this with SQL Reporting Services or similar
> easily enough.
>
> 3. I agree with John.
>
> 4. These tools are available, but IMO the DMF is horrible. I imported
> my data from a complex inhouse CRM system based on Oracle using a C#
> program interfacing with the CRM web services. I think doing it this
> way was much easier than the DMF would have been - and it still was far
> from trivial. It depends a lot on how closely your existing system's
> schema and logical model match that of CRM. I've heard varying opinions
> on Scribe - our suppliers at the time couldn't get their act together
> with it quick enough to meet our schedules, though they pulled all
> stops out to get us to sign and pay up for CRM.
>
> Chubbly Geezer wrote:
>> OK, cheers John
>>
>> "John" <jstraumann@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
>> news:OPi6gm3xGHA.476@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> > Hi Chubbly:
>> >
>> > Yes MSCRM can do all of that, the implementation details are up to your
>> > architectural team. For 1 and 2 you need to decide if you're going to
>> > maintain those external systems or are they being EOLed and converted
>> > to
>> > SQL?
>> >
>> > For 3 you can create something yourself or I believe there are some
>> > MSCRM
>> > ISVs who have released some kind of duplicate detection utilities.
>> >
>> > For 4 you can use MSCRMs data migration framework or look at tools from
>> > Scribe.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately your questions are easily answered "Yes that can be done"
>> > but the architectural details will keep you busy...
>> > --
>> > John.
>> > Microsoft Principal Architect
>> > http://www.unislumin.com
>> > Microsoft and Cisco Gold partner
>> >
>> > "Chubbly Geezer" <chubbly_geezer@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
>> > news:eC9A3T2xGHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> >> Hi
>> >>
>> >> we are just at the point of committing to CRM 3.0 but we have a few
>> >> questions which some of you may be able to answer.
>> >>
>> >> 1] We have various other in house sales systems. Ideally we would
>> >> like visibility of this data within CRM. How easy is it to do this.?
>> >> Can CRM view external SQL database data.? Biztalk has been mentioned
>> >> and
>> >> also the 'build in' CRM web services. If this is possible, can
>> >> 'matching' (i.e. John Smith at Microsoft in CRM / J Smith at Microsoft
>> >> in
>> >> another system) be done to group these records.?
>> >>
>> >> 2] We'd also like to report on this external data. We will be
>> >> using
>> >> SRS. How possible / easy is this.
>> >>
>> >> 3] Deduplication.! Can the data in CRM be deduped both at runtime
>> >> (record entry) or in batch. Is manipulating data directly in the
>> >> tables
>> >> possible / supported by Microsoft.
>> >>
>> >> 4] We need to transfer data into CRM from our existing SQL based
>> >> system. Are there utilities within CRM to do this. If not, how is it
>> >> done?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> many thanks
>> >>
>> >> Chubbly
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>