Month: April 2016

The Two Power Players – Power BI and CRM



At the 11th Annual KTL User Conference, I will be presenting a session on Power BI and Dynamics CRM data.  The main goal is to give users an easy way to present information in a timely and simple-to-understand format.  In the session, using Power BI, we will cover the process of building and accessing refreshable dashboards with information from Dynamics CRM and Dynamics GP.  In the session we will discuss/demo the following:

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Save a Tree: Tools to Go Paperless

It is almost that time of year again for KTL Solutions to host its annual Mid-Atlantic Technology User Conference, “Empower the User”.  This will be our eleventh annual user conference and it will be held on May 19, 2016, at the Microsoft Center in Reston, Virginia.  In past user conferences, we have found many users have benefited greatly from the topics presented and have been able to immediately apply some of the information obtained when they returned to their offices.

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Management Reporter – Understanding How It Works

Management Reporter (MR) is the financial reporting tool that comes with Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (GP).  This is the replacement for FRx, and when companies go to Dynamics GP 2015 they have to use Management Reporter or a third party product for reporting.  We get many questions concerning this change:  Why is FRx going away and why do I have to use Management Reporter?  What are the differences between the two?  Is everything that was available in FRx available in Management Reporter?  What is new in Management Reporter that was not available in FRx?  Let’s answer these questions, thereby helping with the decision on moving to Management Reporter or looking for a third party product for financial reporting.

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Dear Diary, Why Don’t My Customers Want to Talk to Me?

In today’s tech driven world, human interaction is dwindling more and more. You see it everywhere! People sitting at dinner, staring at their phones; kids walking with headphones on while they look at the ground; professionals sitting in coffee shops with their phone, tablet, and laptop all at their fingertips. One thing is becoming very clear, we want to be empowered by technology and not have to rely on human interaction to get our information. 

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Training – No Ifs, Ands, or Buts About It!

Training. It’s essential to any person who strives to be successful. Why? Because training allows you to expand your knowledge and skillset in one or multiple areas so that you can better excel at that particular subject. Many people have different views on training: negative and positive. Whichever they may be, there is always a reason for training. Here, I will list three of the most important reasons you should attend KTL’s User Conference Training on May 18th.

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The Agile Calendar

The Agile Calendar was built based on the Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html), and like the manifesto, contains 12 themes, or principals. Here I am going to go over some of the highlights. For a full view of the manifesto, and other questions you may have, I will be delivering a session called “What You Want to Know About Agile, But Are Afraid to Ask,” at our KTL User Conference 2016 in May at the Microsoft Center in Reston, Virginia, (tickets for the free event can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/11th-annual-user-conference-tickets-19015933168).

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Prelude to KTL UC 2016 – Benefits of Moving to CRM Online

In the upcoming KTL User Conference 2016, we will have a session on the benefits of moving to CRM Online. You will get all the details on the ease of the move, plus details on the additional features you will get just by choosing CRM Online. As I type this blog, Microsoft has already released the preview guide for what’s coming as an update to CRM in Spring 2016.

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Getting Hyper about Hyperlinks

You can increase productivity and efficiency by using hyperlinks in your Excel documents. Hyperlinks are incredibly easy to setup and even easier to use. 

 The easiest method for inserting a hyperlink is to create a link to a website. Excel recognizes the syntax of ‘www.something.’ When you type a website into a cell, Excel will automatically create the link for you. Try typing a familiar website into a cell in Excel.
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CRM Online Reporting Using FetchXML

Reports are a way of presenting useful data to the users in an organized format. CRM reporting needs are often solved by using out-of-box CRM reports, Advanced Find, Dashboards and Charts, or the Report Wizard. But when a business demands a complex report involving calculations, grouping, detailed layouts, etc., then custom reports are needed. There are two types of reports in Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

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Best Practice for Building CRM Queries in an SSRS Custom Report

When writing a custom SSRS report for CRM, one of the greatest features is the ability to include pre-filtering in your reports.  By adding the CRMAF_ prefix to the alias assigned to the table you are querying, it will pass your selected CRM records as the context for your report. E.g.:

SELECT * FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_Account

When writing a custom SSRS report for CRM, one of the greatest features is the ability to include pre-filtering in your reports.  By adding the CRMAF_ prefix to the alias assigned to the table you are querying, it will pass your selected CRM records as the context for your report. E.g.:

SELECT * FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_Account

When writing a custom SSRS report for CRM, one of the greatest features is the ability to include pre-filtering in your reports.  By adding the CRMAF_ prefix to the alias assigned to the table you are querying, it will pass your selected CRM records as the context for your report. E.g.:

SELECT * FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_Account

When writing a custom SSRS report for CRM, one of the greatest features is the ability to include pre-filtering in your reports.  By adding the CRMAF_ prefix to the alias assigned to the table you are querying, it will pass your selected CRM records as the context for your report. E.g.:

SELECT * FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_Account

When writing a custom SSRS report for CRM, one of the greatest features is the ability to include pre-filtering in your reports.  By adding the CRMAF_ prefix to the alias assigned to the table you are querying, it will pass your selected CRM records as the context for your report. E.g.:

SELECT * FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_Account

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