Microsoft SharePoint 2007 – An iPhone Client to view SP Content?

SharePoint comes standard with the support for mobile browsing – and if you’ve used it, you would have to say it does the job. But what if you now you feel like bringing surfacing the information on an iPhone (Besides browsing SharePoint sites directly from Safari)? The product would no doubt be a very attractive app for use on the go.

So recently, I stumbled across quiet an interesting product ‘iShare’ from Spyk software: A SharePoint Client App for the iPhone.

The iShare app allows users to login using Windows Authentication or SharePoint Forms Authentication and view, search and create content within a SharePoint Site. There is a list of files which this little app can open:

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)

Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt, .pptx)

Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xslx)

Images (.jpeg, .jpg, .tiff, .gif)

Web pages (.html, .htm, .aspx)

Text Files (.txt)

Contacts (.vcf)

Now, I do not have an iPhone neither have I used this application – so I cannot comment on the product… so give it a shot and leave a comment :) Apparently you can get it on the iPhone Apps Store.

http://www.spyk.com/Products/iShare/Pages/iShare.aspx

Here are some screenshots from the iShare site:

Microsoft CRM 4.0 - Browsing documents more effectively in Microsoft CRM 4.0

Ever thought browsing thru attachments in Microsoft CRM 4.0 was painful? You had to open the Entity window (ie. Contact/Account/Quotes...) and then go to the Notes tab, then scroll down to the attachment you need. Seems like alot of clicks to me.



Luckily, the guys at mscrm-addons.com released a tool a tool called "Document Summary". The "Document Summary" is available in the "Documents Core Pack for MS CRM 4.0", which includes a range of other tools such as WordMailMerge, SharePoint Integration, Send to PDF, and more.

I haven't used it myself yet, but I've seen the demo video. Here's how it looks like:


So far it looks pretty good. Point, click and browse. Simple, and very nicely done.

I don't work for mscrm-addons.com, so I'm not trying to sell their products.

For more information:
http://www.mscrm-addons.com/Products/AddonsforMSCRM40/DocumentsCorePack/tabid/130/Default.aspx

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - Awesome CRM Search "Vista CRM Search Gadget "

I was browsing around, and came back to this blog which I read a while back. It was posted back in April 14th this year, but only now I had the chance to go thru what Joris has done for the CRM community.

Its a CRM Search application that consists of a Vista Gadget, and a search web application. Whats awesome is you can add it into IE7 as a search provider! The search works across multi entities, so it makes things very convenient.

Hum.... why does it looks like an application I saw in the latest CRM 3.0 demo VPC?

Vista CRM Search Gadget
http://blogs.msdn.com/joris_kalz/pages/Vista-Microsoft-CRM-Search-Gadget.aspx

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - Third Party Tool to extend Document Management capabilities of CRM using SharePoint

In a previous post, I've discussed about hosting a SharePoint Site as a tab within an iframe in a CRM entity UI. Many people are not developers, and so would need to rely on third party products. KWizCom have always been creating some very good SharePoint add-on products and this time they've created something for just that purpose I mentioned. They created a product which they call the "CRM Connector to SharePoint".

This product not only places a SharePoint site into an entity, but it also creates a new SharePoint site for every entity you create (for the more technical, it comes with a call-out/plug-in for CRM). It supports MOSS 2007, SPS 2003, WSSv3 and WSSv2.

For more information, see the following extract from http://www.kwizcom.com/ProductPage.asp?ProductID=186&ProductSubNodeID=192:

KWizCom CRM Connecor to SharePoint, now supports MOSS 2007 - enables users to better manage documents linked to any CRM entity (Account, Lead, Product etc.).
These document management capabilities are based on Microsoft SharePoint Services, and provide CRM users with the ability to:

• Create document libraries and folders
• Link documents to any CRM entity
• Search for documents from within MS CRM interface
• Expose documents to users who are NOT CRM users
  (and do not have CRM client license)
• Enables sharing applications beyond a single team-site scope

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - SharePoint Configured as a CRM Tool?

When SharePoint was first released I recall having a conversation with a fellow colleague about the possibility of customising SharePoint as a CRM application.

A company called "BPA" did exactly just that, and named the product "Easy CRM SharePoint" (Easy CRM software solution for Microsoft SharePoint). They have flash demonstrations for this CRM application, and it proves to be very interesting indeed! Click on this link to see it: http://software.crm-sharepoint.com/default.aspx.

So how did they do it? Does it integrate core CRM functionality into Outlook? Would it be better than Microsoft CRM 3.0 itself? Well, having a bit of a look into it, it appears they've used a series of lists, calendars and custom web parts to contribute to CRM functionality. They've even got lists of reports, offline access, an Outlook connector (to attach emails to items) and more. However, as compared to Microsoft CRM 3.0, it does seem like a little child, but I'll leave that to you to judge.

Microsoft CRM 3.0 and MOSS 2007 - CRM and SharePoint Integration

I've recently been looking at the integration of Microsoft CRM 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and my findings were pretty promising!

Of my findings, ways to integrate Sharepoint 2007 and Microsoft CRM include:

* Presenting CRM data in Microsoft's CRM list web part (More Info)
* Exposing basic lookup/view functionality from the CRM list web part
* Presenting KPIs, Reports, and CRM data with MOSS 2007 Excel Web Access Service
* Presenting CRM data, KPIs and more using MOSS 2007's Business Data Catalog (BDC) and BDC web parts (More Info)
* Exposing CRM data through MOSS 2007 Enterprise Search functionality using BDC
* Presenting CRM records in a SharePoint 2007 RSS feeder web part using the RSS adaptor from Microsoft (More Info)
* Storing CRM documents in a Sharepoint Document Library to leverage versioning control and better management (More Info)
* Integrating SharePoint 2007 document library with CRM information using a third party tool (c360 Word Mail Merge or MSCRM-Addons WordMailMerge)
* Integrating a SharePoint 2007 page into the Microsoft CRM interface as a sub application or as part of a tab using iFrame
* Using a CRM workflow and a CRM call-out assembly to create a Sharepoint workspace for a CRM record
* Using MOSS 2007's workflow (or an event handler) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) to create a CRM record when a subsite or list item is created.
* Presenting CRM Reports in Sharepoint using SQL Reporting Services web parts (Report Explorer and Report Viewer)

And more...
* Remembering the fact that Microsoft CRM is built on SQL, other applications can be created pulling data from filtered views (It is best practice to only use filtered views created by CRM.)
* Remembering that Microsoft CRM offers web services, other applications can be created to leverage off CRM's web services. Data security of the CRM data provided by the web service is inherited from Microsoft CRM when the you authenticate whilst connecting.
* Remembering that Microsoft SharePoint also offers web services, and hence call-outs can leverage off SharePoint functionality!

A small number of Blogs/Articles which I've read as a part of my research:
* Sharepoint Integration Approaches http://mscrm.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!534230C9D7A90B1B!390.entry
* Sharepoint with MS CRM 3.0 http://microsoftcrm3.blogspot.com/2007/01/sharepoint-with-ms-crm-30.html
* Microsoft Dynamics CRM Official Site http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx
* Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Microsoft-CRM-Integration-Customization-Sharepoint.htm
* Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway http://ezinearticles.com/?Microsoft-CRM-Integration-and-Customization:-SharePoint-Document-Gateway&id=26933
* Microsoft CRM 3.0 SDK http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa682866.aspx
* Reporting Services WebParts - Walkthrough http://blogs.sqlxml.org/bryantlikes/articles/628.aspx
* SQL Server Reporting Services Web Parts Review http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2005/01/21/358073.aspx
* Questions I asked on the CRM Community Site http://www.microsoft.com/Businesssolutions/Community/NewsGroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.crm.deployment&tid=d6f67d53-fe75-4d6f-8bf8-d4fe79b15e5f&cat=〈=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1
* Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007(MOSS 2007) And Microsoft CRM Integration http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/MOSS_2007-CRM_Integration.asp

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - c360's Word Mail Merge

A while back, I mentioned that MSCRM-AddOns.com released a version of Word Mail Merge that integrates with SharePoint (http://sharepointsix.blogspot.com/2007/03/ms-crm-30-updated-addon-for-crm.html).

A few weeks ago, c360 also released a version with equivalent functionality:
http://www.c360.com/WordMailMerge.aspx

Word Mail Merge allows you to merge CRM data into Word documents and save it to SharePoint directly!

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - Updated Addon for CRM

About 2 weeks ago, Mscrm-addons.com released a new version of the WordMailMerge add-on.

The new features are rather "Powerful" as it integrates with SharePoint. Using MSCRM-Addons.com's WordMailMerge, you can now generate documents with CRM data, and save it directly to your SharePoint Sites! Wonderful, if you are using Sharepoint to store and share your documents.

And the goodness doesn't just stop there! You can now even store the WordMailMerge Document templates in Sharepoint! So no more of those shared-folder days... Links to your generated documents can be attached to your CRM letter activities. SWEET!

The following is a screenshot of their customisation:


And two links to demo videos from MSCRM-Addons:
1. Create letter and save it into Sharepoint
2 . Send a created letter as PDF and save it into Sharepoint

Source MSCRM-ADDONS.com: http://www.mscrm-addons.com/Default.aspx?tabid=82

Microsoft CRM 3.0 - C360.com and MS-CRM-ADD-ONS.com Word Mail Merge

I was looking online for some good add-on software to do better mail merges in MS Word with MS CRM 3.0 data. Here's some add-ons available:

* c360 Word Mail Merge
* MSCRM-ADDONs.com Word Mail Merge
* Microsoft Business Data Lookup Snap-in for MS CRM 3.0

It appears that C360 and MSCRM-ADDONs.com are selling the same software but just branded differently. Interestingly enough, their pricing on Word Mail Merge appears to be the same. C360 provides revised user guides, and sometimes more bug fixes to Word Mail Merge. Yet, MSCRM-ADDONs.com provides an extra add-on called "AutoMerge", which works with MSCRM-ADDONs.com's Word Mail Merge to generate documents as part of a MS CRM 3.0 workflow!

Hang in there, because there's always a third option (which is free!) - the BDL Snap-in. This Snap-in is available for Microsoft Word/Excel 2003, and 2007 and provides an interface to browse through MS CRM 3.0 data. It also allows the user to attach a document to a CRM entity or activity. Nice. One BIG BUT! This snap-in doesn't seem to work with MS Word fields/Mail merge. It simply inserts text into your document.

So what is your choice here? Stick with these options? or... reinvent the wheel? Test these products out, and find out for yourself. If you need custom development, I could always be reached douglas.leung@uniqueworld.net :)

Here's some useful links:
* MSCRM-ADDONS.com http://www.mscrm-addons.com/
* C360 http://www.C360.com/
* Microsoft Dynamics Snap-ins http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=b44f8ee7-4d2b-4e39-9bfb-1119fffbe018