MS CRM is not the kind of product that a novice is likely to purchase off the shelf and install over the weekend. It requires some level of expertise in Windows Server 2003, Active Directory, IIS 6.0 (Microsoft's web server), Exchange Server 2003, and MS SQL Server 2000. Knowledge of ISA Server is also nice to have. These are all components of the Small Business Server. One will need to call upon the talents of a technology specialist to implement CRM. The software requires a server component plus licenses for each user. Therefore it is better suited for a workgroup of say 4 or 5 users, up to a few hundred, rather than a single user.

 Sales for Outlook, and CRM Mobile designed for the Pocket PC.
 

The web browser allows access to all licensed features and can be accessed across the Internet if desired. This could be a benefit to companies with branch offices or telecommuters working from home. Of course you'll want to set it up as a secured site.

The SfO has two purposes. First for those workers who use Outlook a lot in their daily routine, SfO provides a familiar home for CRM. It also allows for tighter integration between CRM and Outlook. Secondly for the road warriors, it allows them to take CRM with them and sync up any changes upon their return.

CRM Mobile is for guys like me who love their Pocket PCs (I'm writing this on my PPC with a notebook sitting beside me for reference and web search). The CRM Mobile allows me to sync up a subset of the database and take it with me for very fast and easy access throughout the day. The home screen shows at a glance the activities I have scheduled for the day. As I go about my daily rounds, I use this to record my actual arrival and departing times and notes about what I did while I was there. I can add new contacts and activities which can be linked to existing or newly created activities and contacts. I can link a meeting to multiple attendees which I find handy. All this is synchronized back to the server when I hook back up.

MS CRM actually has two separate modules (and a couple of levels of each). These are Sales and Service. As you might imagine, Sales is intended to facilitate the sales process. In addition to recording contact information and schedules, CRM is designed to step a new lead through the sales process. Perhaps you have a Marketing department (or person) who generates leads and enters the lead into the system, as a Lead. Once the lead is qualified, it can be appropriately assigned to a sales person to follow up and move the Lead to an Opportunity and eventually converting it to an account and a satisfied customer. Along the way, dollar values may be assigned to opportunities along with a probably of success. These can be used by the Sales Manager, or individual sales person, to make a valid forecast of anticipated revenues. Actual sales may be tracked as Quotes are converted to Orders, which are turned into Invoices which are tracked until they are paid in full.

The Service module is designed for companies that provide help desk and customer service support. Requests or issues from customers are entered and tracked as Cases. Activities are related to their respective cases and the time spent accumulated when the case is Resolved. Cases can be related to service Contracts and a Knowledge Base can be maintained to assist in resolving future cases.

As mentioned earlier, MS CRM requires Exchange Server. CRM uses this in two ways; sending and receiving. CRM can send e-mail to individual contacts, or do an e-mail merge to a number of contacts. Out going messages generated by CRM include a GUID in the Subject line such as CRM:{5494B101-2AC8-464F-980D-1A9F0B8F1696}:MRC. Wow! That's a mouth full. When the recipient responds to such a message, the E-mail Router on the server routes it to the appropriate user in CRM. I find this a very useful feature. Such e-mails show up in your CRM 'home page' so they are readily recognizable and available. Queues for e-mail, such as Info or Sales, etc. can also be configured so all users can see them and respond to them as appropriate. It is also possible to configure CRM to capture all incoming e-mail. However, I’d prefer to keep the junk out.

Although I really like MS CRM, it is an early version (1.2) and I miss a lot of the creature features I grew used to in GoldMine such as automatic formatting of phone numbers, city/state fill in based on zip code, etc. But I am getting used to it and coming up with workarounds for features like Groups. But I am viewing it less as a Contact Manager, and more as the Customer Relationship Management tool it's designed to be.