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Yes, we are updating the Microsoft CRM book for Titan

Posted by Mike Snyder on July 27, 2007  |  commentsComments (12)

We received a great email last week, and I wanted to share it:

"Mike – I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that out of every CRM book out there, yours is by far the best. I’ve recommended it countless times to numerous clients. Are you planning on revising it for CRM 4.0?"

vote First, thank you so much for the compliments about the book! And yes, Jim and I are updating the Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 book for Titan. We probably should have started the writing process sooner, but unfortunately we are just now getting into the process of updating the table of contents and deciding what material to include. When we finished the CRM 3.0 book back in early 2006, it required lots of long nights, weekend work, grumpy wives and screaming kids to get it done on time. I vowed that next time I would start writing earlier to avoid all that non-sense but...I am afraid I'll be in the same boat again this November trying to get this sucker out the door on schedule!

In regards to the updated book contents, we have some tough decisions to make over the next few weeks. Titan will have tons of great new functionality but we're not allowed to make the book any longer (due to page count limits). Consequently, we will have to trim some of the existing material in order to cover the new Titan features. At this point, we're pretty confident we will drop all of the old Chapter #11 titled "Integrating with Additional Applications (custom Web site and SharePoint)" and then increase the lengths of the other chapters. We're also considering dropping some of the material we covered in Chapter #2 titled "Setting Up Your System" in order to make room for new features.

Since we're still finalizing the outline, we're open to suggestions on what people who would like to see. Please vote with blog comments and let us know what you're thinking. For example, we're curious to get feedback on the following topics:

  • We didn't have any room to cover Marketing or Service Scheduling in the 3.0 book, and we're planning on cuttings these modules out of Titan book too. Any strong objections?
  • How much time should we spend on multi-lingual and multi-currency? My gut is that it these features are very important to some customers, but not at all important to most companies in the USA. With that in mind, we're wondering how valuable it would be to cover these topics in exhaustive detail.
  • Are there any specific code examples you want to see included? We're trying to decide if we should update the 3.0 examples (the easiest option of course) or if people want to see new examples (more effort but more benefit for our readers). If you want to see new code samples, please give us specific examples of what you want.
  • How much time (or pages) should we invest to review Microsoft CRM Live specific functionality and its related issues?
  • Is there any need and/or desire for more business level discussion about how to plan and setup the system?

 Thanks in advance for all your help.

Comments

  1. You should certianly talk more about service scheduling. I can't believe how many clients brush past this powerful module, considering some have been in the service industry. I feel it's under utilized because there's not a lot of strong dccumentation on it.

    Posted by: Michael  |  Jul 29, 2007 11:55:52 PM

  2. Dear Mike, I liked and still like the book you and Jim Steger wrote, but I really would like to read more business level discussion about how to plan and setup the system?

    Also as being Dutch it is very important (near Belgium, Germany,..) to cover the multi-lingual feature. So please yes.

    Also I would love to read the draft version. But I also realize that I am number 1000000 that is asking this.

    Anyway I am looking forward to the new book.

    Kind regards,
    Marcel.

    Posted by: marcel  |  Jul 30, 2007 3:10:40 PM

  3. I consider your 3.0 the CRM Bible. I too recommend it to all of my clients. It was the number one resource I used to teach myself MS CRM 3.0 earlier this year. Given that here's my two cents:

    • I really want to see heavy coverage of the marketing functionality as I'm asked much more frequently about that module than service scheduling. Including your analysis of which online marketing resource best integrate with MS CRM.

    • I wouldn't like to see a lot of space used on multi-lingual and multi-currency topics. However something should be included. Weight it more healiy on Multi-currency (as this is an issue for us in the US more so than multi-lingual functionality)

    • Would rather see new code samples for things you've done recently since we can always use the 3.0 Bible as a resource for the samples you provided there.

    • I'd like to see a brief analysis of the differences between the On-Premise and CRM Live deployment options. Definintely want to know about any issues related to CRM Live.

    • In terms of business level discussion around planning and setting up the system - I'd like to see your tips and tricks/best practices. I think additional subject matter around this would be really helpful.

    Can't wait for November!

    Posted by: Dana  |  Jul 31, 2007 10:09:20 AM

  4. Would be great to have detailed explanations and examples of how the marketing campaigns work. I find this the most confusing yet probably most useful feature of CRM.

    Posted by: alex  |  Jul 31, 2007 7:12:01 PM

  5. Hi,

    Please incorporate more code examples f.i. about how to create a letter activity with a webservice from Office

    Posted by: Peter  |  Aug 5, 2007 2:03:11 AM

  6. Ditto to what others have said, your book has been widely recognized as the authority on MS CRM 3.0 for over a year. Great job!

    I have found that the *lack* of multi-currency in the current version has actually been a topic of concern in many client projects. Whether it's because they are already international or have plans to become so, the fact that CRM 3.0 does not have multi-currency raises executives' eybrows in almost every implementation.

    So it would be very helpful if you could cover this as well as multi-lingual in the next version. I think Microsoft missed the boat the first time around by not offering this, and I am looking forward to pointing out this new feature aggressively as soon as it's available!

    Posted by: Natasha  |  Aug 7, 2007 5:06:43 PM

  7. I'd like to see more detailed information on how to create custom assemblies and
    then specifically the step-by-step procedure. This, at least for me, was the greatest hurdle to
    take and still I'm not feeling comfortable with this subject. Further all the explanation
    of buttons and pulldowns could be trimmed down i.m.o. because this more or less speaks
    for itself while one gets to work with CRM along the way. Thumbs up!

    Posted by: Mujo  |  Aug 16, 2007 6:49:12 AM

  8. I don't think I could survive without Working With Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. For me, the key is the code ... I can get instruction on Marketing and Service Scheduling and general information from the training manuals, but your code samples have been godsends. My clients aren't generally concerned about multi-currency or multi-language issues, but calculations and all forms of if/else statements (currently highest on my list are bit field samples) are key to all of my implementations. Would love to see an auto-numbering example for opportunities similar to what is built in for cases, invoices, quotes, etc. Having experienced the gotchas of SageCRM.com vs SageCRM, I am also very interested in a detailed comparison of CRM vs CRM Live, specifically related to customization limitations.

    Thanks for all of your efforts!

    Posted by: Susan  |  Aug 19, 2007 4:17:44 PM

  9. Hi,

    The book is extremely helpful, but please include more indepth Service Scheduling. This is underused but many clients and misunderstood by some of my peers. We'd really like a better resource for this type of functionality.

    Also, just a though, but you might cut down on pages by offering the actual code samples on a companion CD, instead of in the book itself. It's fun to read sometimes, but useless to implement (as it's impossible to copy/paste from a book!) Some of your more lengthy code samples can take up multiple pages, and these could be used to provide more info on new features (or the Service Scheduling features ;-)

    Posted by: MDodd  |  Aug 29, 2007 9:45:03 AM

  10. I am totally agreed that this is the best and only book for all CRM administrators and developers today. Thanks again.
    I would like to request only one point that is very important in praxis and should be have his own section.
    The overall setup requirements if you use https-ISA-CRM via web client and via outlook.
    A lot of installation out there would be based on that configuration and a lot of problems are exists during setup.

    Good luck for the 4.0 update.

    Best Regards

    Fred

    Posted by: Fred  |  Sep 10, 2007 10:57:50 AM

  11. Whilst your book is great and the best out there, how about a section with advanced customizations or writing a book itself on it much like the Stefan Goßner's books on MCMS 2002?

    It seems these days that the supported methods of configuration and customization are way too limited in terms of what the client needs. I have been involved with projects in which CRM is literally 'butchered' beyond the realms of a supported implemention.

    That's my 2 cents

    Posted by: Nathan  |  Sep 14, 2007 3:20:18 AM

  12. Any news on the 2011 version book?

    Posted by: San Diego IT Support  |  Jun 18, 2011 7:04:40 AM

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