John W.
Process, Project and Change Management - helping make your organisation work, better.
Interested in views on MS Dynamics as a framework for a CRM solution. Particularly interested in the Not for Profit sector (MS have released a US version due in UK 'sometime' in 2011), and reasons to and not to use this as a base to build our system.
Answers (7)
I do not have in-depth knowledge of Microsoft CRM, but I would commend Sage CRM as a reasonable contender, as Sage provide NFP preferential pricing and have a general awareness of UK legislation in the NFP sector. Down sides: Both products were originally american and both have a relatively high per-seat cost.
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Sharon S. suggests this expert on this topic:
John, you may also want to consider Pivotal CRM. The P6 release has better integration with Outlook than Dynamics and the product is more versatile.
Hello John
I work for a business that provides hosted and on premise versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, currently version 4. MS are due to release v5 at the back end of this year, although it is likely to be early 2011 before this happens.
Our specific expertise is in the customisation and configuration of Dynamics CRM for individual businesses, ensuring that they are able to use Dynamics CRM in a way that fits their business.
In many cases this does not require a huge amount of input from our company, and a days training with a suitable member of our customers staff would allow our clients to customise and configure their own system.
The fact that Dynamics CRM is so readily customisable means that it can be configured to allow many existing business processes to be mapped on and automated. We have already developed versions for recruitment, accountants, coaching and training, payroll services, property letting as well as demonstrating Dynamics abilities to a number of other business types.
Let me know if you would like to discuss further.
Salik R.
Salik Rafiq, Solutions Provider in MS Access, SQL & Web Designer : salikmrafiq@gmail.com
Best Answers in: Customer Service (1), Purchasing (1), Accounting (1), Customer Relationship Management (1), Computers and Software (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
You could consider CiviCRM which will run within Drupal or Joomla easily enough.
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Hi John
Our IT gurus and the CRM Manager at City of Bristol College were very keen on MS Dynamics as a platform. I'm sure they'd be happy to share their views if you wanted me to make an introduction.
Best wishes
Caron
Karl G.
Head of ICT at City of Bristol College - MBA (Warwick); Prince2 and MSP practitioner
Hi John,
I would say it depends on the direction of travel for the ICT within the NFPO. If the organisation is already heavily using MS products (outlook, exchange et cetera) then it would make sense to use Dynamics. The product is feature rich and can provide an out of the box (although pretty poor solution). The next step is then to customise this and bring along additional functionality and workflows. I've seen other answers that provide company details for people to do this for the organisation. Linkages to standard MS products mean that it will be an easier deployment as some users will just continue to use existing tools linked to Dynamics to complete workflows et cetera. In my opinion a good solution with regards to CRM for any MS based organisation. Sage CRM is also worth a look. Finally it is worthwhile checking other systems already in place to see if you can extend their reach to cover the functionality you require. Start with a comprehensive functionality specification and evaluate strictly against this.
I hope this helps.
