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Microsoft CRM 4 - Implementation Management
This is the first article in my implementation management series for CRM consultants, developers, enthusiasts, and basically anyone else that will take the time to read it. I am not too choosy and i hope that they will provide help.
As many have seen that the biggest issue with a CRM deployment of any size simply comes down to user acceptance. In some cases user acceptance is really an easy task to accomplish, although rare it is still possible. Visits and meetings at a clients location and getting face time is great if the client can spare it. This is a great way to outline issues that stand in the way of deployment or user acceptance and help develop a strong internal team onsite to report issues.
Alot of the time issues come up when you are back in your office or away from the client site. Communication is always vital to understanding what the client needs. Clients also need the feeling that you are accomplishing the work at hand that you have discussed and like to see progress being made as their issues are resolved.
Here is one easy way that i have found to provide quick development management at a clients location. This is normally implemented after the initial deployment phase is over. Tie in a bug tracking system into your clients Microsoft CRM deployment. Any one will do and trust me there are plenty out there.
After you have chosen your bug tracking system of choice implement it on a webserver and then make sure it is available for use outside your general network. Secure it of course with an SSL Cert of choice, and you have created an easy bug tracking portal.
Next modify the sitemap at the clients location for Microsoft CRM and add a button that says “Report a Bug”, etc and create a page with an iframe back to your bugtracking system inhouse. This way onsite you can have your users have the ability to log issues that they have within Microsoft CRM itself.
There is also case management that you could do within Microsoft CRM itself and create workflows that facilitate tracking the support requests and cases and any contracts that a client may have, etc.
The biggest thing is that you have a system in place. You can use the built in customer service module in CRM as well to track these cases and to not only create new requests.
I chose a bugrtracking option because i wanted the customer to not only be able to do the above, but so that they would be able to login at anytime to my bugtracking system and view the outstanding requests that exist on their location, be able to upgrade priorities, and also remove issues if they have been resolved as well.
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