Hello everyone,
I would like to ask if i can work with the latest version of USD that works with CRM 365 with Dynamics CRM 2016 ?

Thnaks for help.

This post is part of a series I’m creating connected with Project Service Automation (PSA) for Microsoft Dynamics 365. This time I will consider resource utilization.

For most professional services situations monitoring resource utilization is a key metric. (Often the most important one!) If the team isn’t billed out a certain percentage of the time, they simply aren’t profitable. It is actually quite common for staff bonus schemes to relate to utilization statistics. So being able to easily see them is very important.

Each resource has a target utilisation percentage. We see the target utilization percentage in the “Project Service” tab on the resource. Below you can see that mine is 75%.

In Project Service, there is a useful resource utilization option.

Within resource utilization we can see a graphical representation of the utilization for all resources. Red means the target hasn’t been reach, green means its been reached (or exceeded). Amber suggests the resource has almost achieved their target.

If you hover the mouse over a resource additional details will be shown. Below you can see that we can see the resources skills but additionally some utilization stats are included. Including the percentage of time on billable and non-billable work. These percentages will reflect the entire date range displayed whilst the individual boxes above will reflect just that single portion of time.

If required we can use the “OPTIONS” option alter how the details are reported. Useful for reporting by hours rather than percentages.

Additionally, you can use the “FILTER” option to expand the filter pane. In here you can filter resources by organization unit, role etc. Just select the required filter and click apply.

You can also use the DAY, WEEK and MONTH options to change the scale of the data displayed.

These capabilities of Project Service are pretty easy to use / self-explanatory. Having said that they are also very important! As percentage utilization is often a key measure to ensure a professional services organisation remains profitable.

This is certainly something my company monitors closely! J

Hi,

Recently upgraded from CRM 2013 to CRM 2016  and USD version is 1.0 .

Replacement parameters are not populated with the CRM form page data

Steps:

1. Open OOB Unified Service desk and connected to Vanilla CRM 2016

which has sample data

2. Started Contact session - and opened debugger tab - verified data paramters

which has contact tab with url string, it is not populated with CRM page data.

Contact hosted control is of type CRM page - so it should display data parameters when it opens in USD

If we upgrade USD 1.0 to USD 2.0 , we don't have issue with replacement parameters but

Open GI java application automation is not working crashing with fault module - windows access bridge 64 -dll.

We are considering using Unified Service Desk mostly for Call Scripting and some integration with other web-based products.   I don't see a lot of chatter about it and I wonder if anyone else is using it and/or if it is problematic when it comes to performance and reliability.

We mostly use Chrome for Dynamics CRM Online since performance on IE, Edge and Firefox has been spotty over the last 6 months.   Anyone using USD?  Is it the same as using IE?  We also use mostly custom entities and have a lot of related entities and I'm worried about the performance if we switch over.

Also, why does it seem like nobody is using this product? (based on posts and lack of user created content online)

Thanks,

Dan

Is it possible to give access for field services and other modules to a user roles.By default (for non admin user) i can only see are give access to sales,services ,marketing modules.If it is possible to give access for other modules in crm to a user,how can we do it?

Greetings,

Here is the situation: I have three entities: Accounts, Orders and Orders Items. Accounts submit orders and the from the order items we add the order items.

I would like to have order items related to orders and the orders related to the account in a way that you would also relate the order item to the parent account.

What is the way to go to that?

I changed the N-1 Relationship of the lookup field between the Order and Account and the N-1 Relationship between the Order Item and the Order, both of them are setup as parental, but it does not seem to work because I see the records on the sub-grids I have created on the forms and I have set them up to show only related records.

Am I doing something wrong?

Any help is welcome.

Hello,

I recently created a marketing campaign and distributed campaign activities (phone calls) to a member of my team. I had anticipated that this would create tasks for him to call each of the leads in the campaign. Does this not happen or did I do something incorrect?

He can see the campaign and list but had I not told him it was there he wouldn't have known.

Thanks

Helen. 

How can I enable PHONETIC SEARCH in Dynamics CRM 2015 on-premise? By phonetic search I mean that the search results will contain also similarly sounding words e.g. Meier, Mayer...

I've seen some old posts about this topic but I am wandering what is the current solution that is easiest to implement.

Thank you.

Hi Team

We are using Dynamics CRM Online to manage the leads. I'm trying to setup a workflow where, if a lead is not followed up/modified or in other words has been idle for last 5 days, an email should be sent to a specific person. However, I can get it to work. Can anyone suggest an easy way to achieve this.

Thanks

Rishi.

This post is part of a series I’m creating connected with Project Service Automation (PSA) for Microsoft Dynamics 365. This time I will consider the project finder mobile app.

The concept behind project finder is to empower your team members to search for “jobs” available on projects and apply for them. This process is completed using a mobile application which is available for iOS, Android or Windows phones. You’ll need to download this from the appropriate app store on your device. (You’ll be looking for the Dynamics Project Finder app.)

Setup

Before using the app, some setup is required in Dynamics 365. In project service, open parameters.

Here you can open the project parameters;

In your project parameters “Resource requirements visible” and “Allow skill update by resource” options will need to be enabled.

Allow Resource Signup on Project

Next you will need to enable resource sign up on your project. This is done by opening the project team view for the project and using the “ENABLE RESOURCE GROUP SIGNUP” option.

Project Finder App

When you first open the Project Finder app you’ll be asked to login. After that you will be presented with a list of roles that might be suitable. Showing the start, end and length of the engagement, plus its location.

Tip: When I first tested this no work appeared. In my test scenario I was also the project manager on the project and was therefore already part of the team. Meaning no work was suggested. After I removed myself from the project team then work from the project appeared.

Notice the green and grey circles, these indicate if you have some or all of the required skills. Grey being you don’t have the required skills.

Full green being you have all the skills.

And half green signifying that you have some but not all of the skills.

You can also sort the work items by skill, start date, duration etc.

Selecting a work item will then show you the required skills and highlight which you have or haven’t got.

Having reviewed this information that can select the green arrow to open the project. (As shown below) Here they can see some additional information including other people already on the team. It might be useful to see the team members as working with people you already know might be a bonus.

If this work still looks interesting clicking the APPLY button will let the project manager know you are interested in joining this team.

Accepting an Application

You can see below that the project manager can see any resource requirements that have an application. (By viewing the team on the project.)

When the resource requirement is opened the project manager can then accept or reject the applicant.

Maintain Skills

It is also possible for team members to maintain their own skills from within the Project Finder app. Below you can see that I have viewed my profile in the mobile application. In here I can change my proficiency on existing skills or add additional skills.

Depending on how the skills has been created these changes will either automatically be applied or may need approval from a manager.

So, what do I think of Project Finder? I can see that in large organisations with multiple active projects this might be a useful tool. Unfortunately, in most of the companies I’ve worked for work tends to be allocated rather than requested. But just maybe having a tool like this might help change that!
J

Feb 1^st is almost with us! There are still places available at our next CRMUG meeting in Birmingham.

Meet the organisers ….

• Imtiaz Hussain– CRM Developer & Business Data Analyst
• Craig Seymour– Dynamics 365 Solution Architect
• Neil Parkhurst (me!)– CRM Functional Consultant, MVP

CRMUG provides a hub for thousands of CRM users, partners and developers. This powerful community is powered by users, for users. We three organise a small local group very much focused on Birmingham. Historically CRMUG (and other groups) have held the majority of their meetings in the south of the country, with all day events often being held in central London. This is fantastic but our founder (Imtiaz) recognised a need for a local group. We have teamed up with CRMUG to create such a group. Hopefully providing an alternative forum for CRM users, partners and developers to meet. The Birmingham area has a significant CRM user base and we’d like to do our bit to help bring this community together.

We plan to meet roughly once every two months. Our meetings will be informal and typically arranged for weekday evenings. We hope this means local people can attend after work. (We understand that contracts / freelancers can’t always afford to spend a day away from client facing work to attend this type of event!)

You can find out more about CRMUG at www.crmug.com

Join us on 1^st Feb from 6pm. Our evening will start with an informal networking opportunity, have a coffee / cake whilst you meet fellow CRM users. Then at 7pm we’ll host three informative presentation.

Venue: Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 75 Harborne Road, Birmingham, B15 3DH

Please register for this events on the CRMUG website, it is free to attend and everyone is welcome.

Dynamics 365 Licensing

As customers begin to prepare to embrace the new Dynamics 365 Platform there are many questions around licencing that will play an important role in how customers prepare.

Presenter: Razwan Chourdhry, CRM Evangelist & Solution Architect

Razwan is a significant contributor to Microsoft Dynamics community forums, including volunteering as a Microsoft Community Moderator. Razwan organises UK developer user groups, including CRM Saturday. (A free technical & strategy event, find out more here.)

Power BI for CRM

Power BI transforms your company’s data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. Mark will explain how Power BI can be used in conjunction with CRM

Presenter: Mark Cotton, CRM Practice Lead, Crimson

Mark is a highly-experienced CRM consultant with a deep technical understanding of Dynamics and the affect it can have on an organisation.

Unified Service Desk in 30 mins

Unified Service Desk (USD) is a configuration framework for quickly building applications for call centres. This powerful tool is often surrounded in mystery and confusion! In 30 minutes Neil will explain the “art” of using USD.

Presenter: Neil Parkhurst – CRM Functional Consultant / MVP.

Neil is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional with a wealth of knowledge on Unified Service Desk.

Presenting at our events is fun! We are always keen to hear from people who’d like to get involved. You might be a technical expert and would like to share your skills or a user of CRM who can enlighten the group with your stories about using CRM. If you’d like to present, please let us know.

Don’t forget you can still register here.

I would like to create plugin so that when the form is submitted, specific fields can be made required. If the fields are not filled, the form cannot be submitted. Can anyone show me the steps of creating such a plugin? Thank you!!!!!!

Whenever I try to open any of my bookings which have been scheduled, the app gets closed unexpectedly. Expected behavior would have been me being able to view the details about the current booking. I have tested apps on both the platforms including IOS and Android. Apps are an important part of field service as they are needed by field technicians to view various bookings they have been scheduled to. 

Any help. suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Unified Service Desk (USD) for Dynamics 365 can be used in my many circumstances. One might be answering service requests from your customers, this will commonly involve agents “working” a queue of cases. In this post I will look at a couple of actions that can help in this scenario.

Imagine you are in a service scenario, an agent may select a case from a CRM queue or alternatively may open it directly from a case view. In either scenario, if the case is in a queue we would want to show the current operator as working on that case. So that someone else doesn’t also commence work on the same job. When they complete the case it will be removed from the queue but if they exit the case without resolving it we’d want it to automatically available again in the queue.

There are a couple of USD actions that can help in this situation. WorkOn and LookupQueueItem.

LookupQueueItem allows us to find details of the queue item for the entity opened that has been opened. WorkOn lets us show the current operator as working on that queue item. (We can also use this same action to release the queue item.)

To illustrate how these actions might be used let’s look at an example, first of all a quick video.

The steps involved were ….

I already had the ability to select and open cases from a queue view or simply a case view. Both of these approaches to opening a case were actually from the same hosted control that I’d called “My Work”. To add the queue management functionality I have shown I followed these steps;

1. Create a LookupQueueItem action.
2. Create a WorkOn action.
3. Create a WorkOn action to release the queue item.
4. Alter my window navigation rule, to how I am working on the case.
5. Alter my SessionClose event, to release the queue item.

Step One – Create a LookupQueueItem action

The first step was to create an action that would look up the Id of the queue item. In my example I only had cases in my queue but obviously a queue can contain many different types of entity. So I wanted to create an action tha would work with any entity type, assuming I might want to queue other items as some point.

The result of this action is to create replacement parameters for the details of the queue item. You can then use these later. I have shown the results of running this action in the debugger below. In my example I was trying to get the Id of the queue item. So [[queueitem.Id]].

The action I created is shown below;

Step Two – Create a WorkOn action

Now I wanted to use the queue item ID to show that I was working on that item. I have given an example of this below.

Step Three – Create a WorkOn action to release the queue item

A further action was required to release the queue item, this will happen if I close the session and the queue item has not been resolved.

Step Four – Alter my window navigation rule, to how I am working on the case.

I already had a window navigation rule that will open cases from a tab I’d created called “My Work”. This same tab could include a view of the queue(s) that I work with or a list of cases.

Tip: I had similar navigation rules for other entity type that could be opened from my queue item view. Meaning I plan to include those later!

I opened my window navigation rule and opened the “Actions” view from the navigation bar. It was then simply a case of adding the actions we created in step one and two. (Notice their order forces a logical sequence!)

Step Five – Alter my SessionClosed event, to release the queue item.

The final part of my jigsaw was to release the queue item if not resolved. It is is resolved the queue item will get removed, so I didn’t need to worry about that. But I did want to release the queue item if the session was closed and the case hadn’t been resolved.

On Global Manager, we have an event that is triggered every time a session is closed. So I simple needed to alter that to release the queue item. You can see below that I have added my WorkOn (Remove) action to the SessionClosed event.

Hopefully you’ll agree this is a simple configuration and one you can hopefully adapt to how queues are used in your environment.
J

Hi

I have a scenario where machines belonging to individual customers are all based under one site.  The invoice may either go to the site owner or the customer themselves. Has anyone else come across this scenario, and what is the best way to handle it as a parent child relationship, ie Accounts/contacts, or maybe customer assets group within an individual location?

Thanks

Hi,

How to install Field Service on Dynamic CRM 2016 on premise?

Please let me know.

Thanks & Regards,

Vivek

Hello,

I am trying to find out how to enable and use the new Resource scheduling optimization for Field Service feature but I cannot find this anywhere! Can someone help with this please?

According to the Microsoft features FAQ page (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/dynamics-365-online-vs-on-premises-features-faq.aspx#BKMK_2016Update1) the feature was included in the December update to Dynamics 365 which I believe relates to the version 8.2.0.561 which is the version my new trial has (created this morning).

I have enabled the Field Service Trial and configured it but cannot find any documentation or settings to show me how to actually USE the feature or if it even exists in the solution.

Cheers,
Reece

Hi

I posted this previously but with no great success so trying this again.

We are using CRM Online 2015 Update 1, moving to 2016 Update 1 in the next two months.  We use Exchange on premise

We have 80+ queues setup for incoming emails to our Contact Centre.  We do not use automatic email to case creation ( business process reasons why we cannot use this at the moment).  So I cannot use the auto response from a case creation

I want to send an auto response email to every customer who sends an email into the queue, and also use it for Out of Office messages when the Contact Centre is closed for Public Holidays..

We don't want the call handlers to have to use Exchange and login to the different mailboxes to set these up but we do need a quick efficient way that we can create/amend auto responses and quickly switch them on and off when required.  Our IT support service will not allow auto response from Exchange due to potential looping issues.

I created a workflow to use and it worked ok until we got into an email loop because a user had sent an email from a queue to a queue but we also had problems with undeliverables from customers and their own auto responses.

So how do I filter out undeliverables, auto responses or emails from users or queues using a workflow or is there any other ingenious way or doing this OTB (must be OTB).  I would have thought that this was straight forward but If it is I cant see it!

Any help, ideas or inspiration would be welcome

Thanks

K

------------------------------
Karen Harvey-Johnston
Enterprise Business Application Analyst
Skills Development Scotland
Stirling
Scotland

Hello,

I recently created a marketing campaign and distributed campaign activities (phone calls) to a member of my team. I had anticipated that this would create tasks for him to call each of the leads in the campaign. Does this not happen or did I do something incorrect?

He can see the campaign and list but had I not told him it was there he wouldn't have known.

Thanks

Helen.