SharePoint list WebPart not working? We might know why...

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 27, 2007  |  Comments (4)

Last week we posted about the new Microsoft CRM list web part for SharePoint, and one of the commenters on the post asked:

We are having an issue with the CRM List Webpart. The webpart works for system entities, but when we configure it to show the grid for any custom entities, it only shows one line, regardless of how we have sized the webpart. Did you run into this problem at all?

Since our list web part worked fine for custom entities, I assumed that the commenter had misconfigured something and I didn't spend a ton of time researching this issue. However, Jim recently encountered this same type of failure (where the list only displays one row) on one of our other records.

Looking very carefully at the screenshot, you can see that there is some text in the "Estimated Dev" column. Carefully highlighting and copying/pasting this text reveals the following:

An error has occurred. This Web part could not be displayed.

Specified cast is not valid.

It turns out that ANY list web part with a float column displayed will generate this same error! So if you toggle between views (on the same entity) you may or may not see this error depending on the view columns you selected. We're pretty confident that the float column is causing the error because in a weird twist of fate, we reported this exact same error back in March 2006 when Microsoft released a different version of the list web part. So circling back to the commenter who asked the question about our post, I would bet that his custom entity is displaying a float column in the view.

So the next question is...how do I fix this? Well, I am not aware of any workaround if you NEED to display a float column but we'll submit this to the Microsoft people we know and maybe they can release a fix and/or updated version of the web part. In the meantime, you can modify your views so that they don't display the columns that will cause problems.

The Forrester Wave: Midmarket CRM Suites, Q1 2007

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 24, 2007 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (4)

Ok, I know this is old news (from way back in February 2007) but we just posted the Forrester CRM Study file to SonomaPartners.com, and I thought it was worth sharing this chart that shows how Forrester viewed the various CRM applications. As you can see, Microsoft Dynamics CRM received the best rating on "Current Offering" and the best rating on "Strategy" as well. Can't argue with that!

ExactTarget - Microsoft CRM integration webinar recording posted

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 23, 2007 in   |  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0  |  Comments (0)

We conducted our webinar titled "Advanced E-mail Marketing within Microsoft Dynamics CRM Using ExactTarget's E-mail Platform" this morning and it was a success. If you're interested in watching the recording of the event, we posted it here.

In addition, we updated the www.SonomaPartners.com website with an Events page so that customers can easily view all of our upcoming and prior webinars in one spot. For the upcoming webinars, we posted the DRAFT topics, and we'll be working the agenda and details over the next few weeks. Please let us know if there is something specific you want to see!

Reporting, Analysis and Dashboards in Microsoft CRM
More details to be announced
Thursday September 27, 2007
10:00am Central Time
Check beck for details and registration information

Empower Your Sales Team with Remote and Mobile CRM solutions
More details to be announced
Thursday October 25, 2007
10:00am Central Time
Check beck for details and registration information

At the same time, we posted the new Events page we also included a link with all of the news references to Sonoma Partners over the past few years. Check out Sonoma Partners in the news here.

Reaction to Salesforce.com's quarterly earnings

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 18, 2007  |  Comments (3)

Salesforce.com released their Q2 FY08 earnings last Wednesday, and I spent some time reading up on people's reactions to the news. Overall, it seems like there was both good and bad news and I'll try my best to summarize:

Good News

• Earnings of $0.03 per share beat estimates of $0.02 per share
• Salesforce.com reported some impressive enterprise customers, including one customer with more than 30,000 subscribers.
• They increased their earnings forecast to $0.08 to $0.10 per share for the rest of FY08.
• Salesforce.com reported a total of 35,300 customers and over 800,000 subscribers.

Bad News

• Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Mark Verbeck, said that Salesforce.com's profit in the quarter was goosed by "a lower than expected tax rate."
• Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brendan Barnicle said in a note that Salesforce.com's cash flow in the quarter was disappointing, and fell below his expectations for the third quarter in a row.
• Revenue growth is slowing from 84% in Q1 2006 to 55% in Q1 2008.
• The company is still barely profitable at $0.03 earnings per share.
• Principal Accounting Officer William Dewes recently resigned, despite the fact he was promoted from his previous post as "Chief Accounting Officer" just 3 months ago (back in May 2007)
• Insiders are busy selling off 91.4% of their salesforce.com shares (over the last six months).

I am not a professional investor but I did kick around some additional numbers that I found interesting. Page 4 of Salesforce.com detailed financials lists their customer and subscriber growth by quarter. You'll notice that they didn't report subscriber numbers last quarter and it just said 800,000+ subscribers for this quarter. Out of curiosity, I did some quick math in Excel to try and determine two things:

1. What is their average deal size?
2. How many subscribers did they add each quarter?

Since Salesforce.com withheld subscriber details in Q1 FY08, I had to make some assumptions (red italic numbers in the table) around their performance. Again, the numbers in black are from their financial reports so they are accurate. I also just assumed 800,000 total subscribers for Q2 FY08 even though their report actually says ">800,000"...we're just ballparking anyway.

	Customers	Subscribers	Average # of Subscribers	# of Subscribers Added
Q1 FY07	22,700	438,000	19.3
Q2 FY07	24,800	495,000	20.0	57,000
Q3 FY07	27,100	556,000	20.5	61,000
Q4 FY07	29,800	646,000	21.7	90,000
Q1 FY08	32,300	717,000	22.2	71,000
Q2 FY08	35,300	800,000	22.7	83,000

Looking at this chart, two things jumped out at me:

1. It appears that Salesforce.com probably had a significant dip of subscriber adds in Q1 FY08 since by my guess they only added approximately 71,000 subscribers.  I wonder if this apparent decrease had anything to do with the fact they decided to not report the number of subscribers that quarter. :) As a reminder, Microsoft reported that they added more than 85,000 Microsoft CRM users last quarter so we're running stride for stride with Salesforce.com in subscriber adds.
2. They did a good job of increasing their average deal size to 22.7 subscribers per customer, which is an 18% increase compared to their 19.3 subscribers per customer in Q1 FY07.

Impressed with this increase in average number of subscribers, I started thinking about those large enterprise deals that they reported this quarter. They mentioned the following customers:

• Two customers have more than 30,000 subscribers each
• Four customers have 20,000 subscribers each
• Five have more than 10,000 subscribers each
• 68 customers have more than 1,000 subscribers each

Doing some calculations on these numbers, 79 customers are responsible for at least 258,000 subscribers. That means just 0.2% of Salesforce.com's 35,300 customers account for 32% of their 800,000 subscribers! Even worse, just 0.03% of their customers (the largest 11 customers) represent almost 25% of their entire subscriber base! Holy cow. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. I don't know if this is typical or not but those numbers seem shocking to me. If we exclude those 79 largest customers and re-calculate the average number of subscribers per quarter we get just 15.4...significantly less than their 22.7 overall average. Considering that Microsoft announced that their CRM Live pricing will be about 50% of the Salesforce.com pricing and the product functionality is nearly identical, I guess that Salesforce.com is sweating bullets about the possibility of losing those top 11 accounts. By my math, I figure those top 11 Salesforce.com customers would probably save millions of dollars in subscriber fees EVERY year by switching to Microsoft CRM Live from Salesforce.com.

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't provide quarter by quarter updates on user counts so we can't run a similar analysis on Microsoft CRM...but I had fun digging into these Salesforce.com numbers. Don't get me wrong though, Salesforce.com is a very serious competitor but I still like Microsoft's chances of a runaway success with CRM Live.

Microsoft CRM Web Part for SharePoint/MOSS 2007 Configuration

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 15, 2007  |  Comments (11)

We recently installed the Microsoft CRM web part for Sharepoint/MOSS 2007, and we're excited to share our findings with everyone. First, let's show the finished product (screenshot below). By installing this web part, you can display Microsoft CRM grids/views directly within Sharepoint! As the screenshot shows, you can even access all of your views and the "quick find" features from CRM. This particular web part is displaying our custom entity "Item" that we use to track work assignments related to each customer project.

So the good news is that this integration provides tons of great functionality for your users. The bad news is that it can be a bear to setup! Consequently, we asked our guru system administrator Neil to tackle this ball of wax to get it working. He documented everything he did so that I could share it on the blog, so I want to make sure that we give him credit for all of his hard work!

Installation

1. Go to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 List Web Part page on the Microsoft Download Center
2. On the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 List Web Part download page, double-click Download
3. Save the contents to the Windows SharePoint Services server in C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\Web Parts\
4. In the Web Parts folder, extract the files to your SharePoint Products and Technologies server
5. Double-click CRMListWebPart.MSI. The List Web Part will install

Our Network Topology

 

Configuration

1. Verify Internet Explorer Configuration

By default, Internet Explorer is set up to use Integrated Windows Authentication, which in turn uses Kerberos authentication. However, if you upgraded any of your client computers to Internet Explorer 6 or Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), the upgrade might have changed the security settings so that Integrated Windows Authentication is not used. To verify that Internet Explorer is set up correctly, follow these steps.

For each client computer, verify that Enable Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled

A. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Advanced tab.

B. Scroll down to the Security section, and verify that Enable Integrated Windows Authentication (requires restart) is selected.

C. If it is not, select it, and then restart Internet Explorer.

2. Configure SharePoint site to use integrated Windows authentication

A. On the SharePoint Products and Technologies server, open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

B. Expand the computer name, expand Web Sites, right-click the SharePoint Products and Technologies site on which the List Web Part is being used, and then click Properties.

C. On the Directory Security tab, look in the Authentication and access control section, and click the Edit button.

D. In the Authenticated access section, check Integrated Windows authentication, verify that Enable anonymous access is not checked, and then click OK.

E. Click OK to close the site properties dialog.

F. Stop and restart IIS.

3. Configure SharePoint to use Kerberos authentication

A. Open SharePoint Central Administration.

B. Click Application Management, and then Authentication Providers (listed under Application Security)

C. Choose the Web Application that will be using the CRM Web Part

D. For each of that zones that will be using the CRM Web Part click on the zone and verify that IIS Authentication Settings are configured to use Kerberos

4. Configure Service Principal Names (SPNs)

5. Use the Setspn.exe tool (available from the Windows 2003 Operating System CD) to add an SPN for the SharePoint Server’s HTTP service. To do so, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

Setspn –A HTTP/<servername> <servername>

Setspn –A HTTP/< server_FQDN> <servername>

6. Set up trust for delegation for the SharePoint Computer

A. On your domain controller, open Active Directory Users and Computers.

Note: If constrained delegation is available, use a computer running Windows Server 2003 to open Active Directory Users and Computers. Otherwise, you will not see the options for setting constrained delegation.

B. In Computers, right-click the server name for the SharePoint Products and Technologies server, and then click Properties.

Using constrained delegation:

1. Click the Delegation tab.
2. Select Trust this computer for delegation to specified services only.
3. Select Use Kerberos only.
4. Click Add.
5. Click Users or Computers, click Advanced, click Find Now, select the computer running Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and then click OK two times.
6. Select the http service, and then click OK.
7. Click Add.
8. Click Users or Computers, click Advanced, click Find Now, select the computer running Microsoft SQL Server, and then click OK two times.
9. Select the MSSQLSVC service, and then click OK.

7. Stop and restart the Sharepoint IIS Server

 

Add the List Web Part to an existing Windows SharePoint Services Web Part page

The following instructions are specific to MOSS2007. Configuration instructions for SharePoint 2003 can be found from the Microsoft website at the end of the document.

After installing the List Web Part, it will appear in the list of available Web Parts on the Modify Shared Web page. To start the example of how you can use the List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, add the List Web Part to a Web Parts page.

1. Open the Web Part page to which you want to add the List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
2. Click Site Actions, then Edit Page.
3. In the portion of the page where you would like to place the Web Part click Add a Web Part.
4. Under All Web Parts > Miscellaneous select Microsoft CRM List Web Part and click Add.
5. On the Microsoft CRM List Web Part pane, click the down arrow and click Modify Shared Web Part
1. Under the Microsoft CRM Node enter the URL of the CRM Server.
2. Select the Record Type and View, and then click OK.

Most of the information above came directly from http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/deploy/crmwebpart.mspx and the documentation (crm list web part.doc) which is included with the installation files.

"Fake" Steve Jobs gives Salesforce.com the business

Posted by Mike Snyder on August 5, 2007  |  Comments (0)

I don't usually quote other blogs, but I couldn't resist this posting from Fake Steve Jobs who was ripping on Salesforce.com:

I know everyone's worried about Apple but folks if you're looking to short something, how about a stock that's trading at nearly 4,000 times earnings? Yep. You heard that right. Or, okay, say you want to look at a forward P/E instead of trailing. This thing is still outrageous. Especially when you consider that Larry is pushing Oracle into their space and NetSuite into their space (and yes, okay, full disclosure, Larry slid me a nice chunk of NetSuite as a late birthday present, so yes, I'll do well on their IPO, but that's not why I'm touting them. Not at all. Just like that's not why all the VCs out here are pimping Facebook. Ahem.)

The other problem for Salesforce is, of course, the Borg. See here and here. Beastmaster Bill is coming into the space and undercutting Salesforce on price, ie disrupting the disrupter. What else? Um, well, Salesforce has a blowhard CEO who learned all about business ethics during his time at Oracle and who brags about manipulating the press. What else? Oh yeah. Their chief accounting officer just resigned, which is always a good sign, especially in a company that has a subscription model and the tricky revenue recognition policies that go along with that. Nuff said.

If you're not familiar with Fake Steve Jobs, the blog is a very funny read. Up until TODAY, the blog was written by a secret person pretending to be Steve Jobs. And while you obviously have to take everything he says with a grain a salt, I think he's right on the money with his critique of Salesforce.com! Check out the MSFT and CRM stock quotes side by side. 3,300 times earnings? Almost no profit? Any company of any size should carefully consider if they are willing to bet one of the most valuable assets (their customer database) on this operation...and don't forget that their CEO is still selling off his Salesforce.com shares like crazy.