Administering Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The Administrator's Guide provides information for users with System Administrator and System Customizer security roles Defined sets of privileges.The security role assigned to a user determines which tasks the user can perform and which parts of the user interface the user can view. All users must be assigned at least one security role in order to access the system.:

• Tasks that must be done when you first set up Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Modifications that can be made at any time
• Ongoing maintenance tasks

Tasks That Must Be Done When You First Set Up Microsoft Dynamics CRM

These tasks should be done before making Microsoft Dynamics CRM available to the users in your organization:

• Control information access: Tasks include setting up business units A way of representing a division or department in an organization. Business units are arranged in a hierarchy, and all users in the same division or department are assigned to one business unit., setting up security roles Defined sets of privileges.The security role assigned to a user determines which tasks the user can perform and which parts of the user interface the user can view. All users must be assigned at least one security role in order to access the system. to define who can access each record and who can do each type of task, adding users People who have active user accounts in Microsoft Dynamics CRM., and defining optional user groupings such as teams Groups of users who share and collaborate on business records.A team can consist of members who all report to one business unit or members who report to different business units.. More information: Controlling Data Access, Managing Users
• Configure sales: Tasks include defining territories Sales regions.Territories are used to manage accounts and sales, and to group data in sales reports., sales quotas Revenue objectives specified as monetary amounts that have been assigned to salespeople for a specified fiscal period., and the product catalog A compilation of all products that are available for sale.. More information: Creating the Product Catalog
• Configure marketing: Tasks include setting up system-wide marketing options. More information: Configuring Marketing
• Configure service scheduling: Tasks include putting users and resources Users that perform a service, or the equipment or facilities that are required for a service. on the schedule A list of times that a resource is available for work. Also, a list of service activities for a specific period of time., creating resource groups Groups of two or more resources (users, facilities, or equipment) that can be scheduled interchangeably., and defining services The types of work performed for customers by one or more resources.Services are schedulable activities.. More information: Configuring Service Scheduling
• Configure queues, contracts, and articles: Tasks include creating a subject A category used in a hierarchical list to correlate and organize information. Subjects are used in the subject tree to organize products, sales literature, and knowledge base articles. hierarchy, setting up queues Holding containers for activities that need to be completed.There are queues that contain cases and activities in the Workplace, and queues of articles in the knowledge base. for incoming cases Customer service issues or problems reported by customers and the activities that customer service representatives use to resolve them., creating contracts Agreements to provide support during specified coverage dates or for a specified number of cases or length of time. When customers contact customer service, the level of support they receive is determined by their contract., and setting up the structure of the knowledge base A feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM that provides a process for drafting, submitting, reviewing, and publishing articles about an organization's products and services. Users with manager-level security roles can approve, reject, add comments to, and unpublish articles that are submitted for review.. More information: Using Queues to Manage Your Activities and Cases, Creating Contract Templates, Publishing Articles in the Knowledge Base
• Specify settings that apply to your entire organization: Tasks include specifying naming conventions for contacts and personnel; conventions for displaying numbers and currency; conventions for displaying dates, times, and calendars; report categories; and specifics for how e-mail messages, marketing campaigns Marketing programs that use many communication vehicles to accomplish specific results. For example, using advertisements and direct mail to increase market share, introduce new products, or retain customers., and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook synchronization The exchange of data between a user's local data and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database so that the data is the same. are handled. More information: Manage Administration Settings
• Add languages: If needed, add support for additional languages. More information: Changing Regional and Language Options for Your Organization

Modifications That Can Be Made at Any Time

To make using Microsoft Dynamics CRM efficient for your users, customize it to match the way your company works. This includes:

• Customize the user interface. Modify forms Pages that display detailed information that users have entered into Microsoft Dynamics CRM about specific records, such as all information about a contact. Information that users enter in a form is stored in Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a record. and views Filters applied to a list of records. Users can choose different views that contain all the records or activities of a particular type or that are a subset of that type. to match how your users collect, enter, and view data. More information: Customization Capabilities
• Manage customizations for multiple languages. Export customized user interface text, such as field labels and list values, so that the text can be translated into each of the languages used in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation. When translations have been completed, import the translated text. More information: Translating Customized Entity and Attribute Text
• Configure auditing. Start auditing for your organization. Use auditing on entities and fields that you want to track for changes. More information: Auditing Data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Customize reports. Modify default reports to match user interface modifications. Create new reports for your business needs. More information: Customizing and Organizing Reports
• Configuring document management. Select those Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities you want to store on Windows SharePoint. After you set up document management for entities, store your documents for the entity records on Windows SharePoint and manage them the documents from Microsoft Dynamics CRM. More information: Managing Documents Stored on SharePoint From Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Create workflows to automate business processes. Automate business processes to use consistent record processing throughout your company. More information: Creating and Using Workflows
• Customize Mobile Express. Specify which entities to make available to Mobile Express users. Customize the forms for those entities on Mobile Express. More information: Customizing Mobile Express Entities and Forms

Ongoing Maintenance

• Personnel changes: Add and remove users, update teams, territories and queues, and modify security roles. More information: Managing Users, Controlling Data Access
• Business process changes: As tracking needs change, add and modify reports, customize forms and views, modify workflows, and monitor system jobs Processes that Microsoft Dynamics CRM performs independently or in the background. Other processes can be started before a system job has finished. Examples of system jobs include workflow jobs and duplicate detection jobs.. More information: Customizing Entities, Work with Workflows, Work with System Jobs
• Maintain data quality by prereventing duplicates. More information: Avoiding Duplicate Records
• Communicating with your users: Write announcements as needed. More information: Work with Announcements