Moments ago, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 went live!
For all of those of you who signed up for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta subscriptions, you should now (or soon) be receiving your invitation emails. This is especially exciting for those of us partners who have been under NDA from Microsoft to not disclose any information to the general public regarding the latest version. I will be putting together a roundup on all new features and options shortly, please stay tuned.
Here is a quick list of all notable and exciting features:
- Connections (adhoc links, used like Relationships)
- Send Marketing Materials, Attach KB Articles, add templates directly from CRM for Outlook Client (not a CRM email, a real email!)
- Save personal default views on any entity
- Mutliple Forms for all entities
- Apply Forms and Form Visibility to CRM Roles
- Field Level Security!
- Apply Field Security to Roles or Individuals
- CRM 4.0 Client Backwards Compatibility (Update Rollup 7 and beyond only.. with limited functionality)
- Dashboards / Charts / Visualizations
- Create Charts on-the-fly
- Ribbon UI, fully customizable via ISV.config replacement
- Change in Ownership… now Teams can own items
- HTML editor functions added to KB Articles, Emails, etc. (think TinyMCE)
- Conditional Formatting (colored grids), Available in Outlook 2010 only
- Goals and Metrics Built-in (same as the old Accelerators)
- Create Custom Activity Types (new entity type)
- Custom Rollup Queries
- Re-vamped Customization UI (drag and drop / left nav customization)
- Solution Management! (Attach a customization set to create Applications)
- Global Picklist Options (now called Option Sets)
- Global Javascript Libraries (Jquery!)
- ODATA Model / JSON / REST
- Sharepoint 2011 Document Library Integration (OOTB)
- Audit Log!
- Dialog Processes! (Think Call Script)
- Revamped Queues (Difference between “Ownership” and “Working On”)
- Cloud Trusted, Custom Plugin Code (All uploaded Plugins run in a sandbox environment)
- Filtered Lookups!
- Web Resources (images, HTML, JS, Silverlight, PNG, etc… all uploaded and stored on the server)
That’s about all I remember from CTP4 and can now talk about being part of Beta. Some items might be left out, and new items could certainly be added… I’ll update this post soon. Get on it! Post a comment if you have any questions.
