Summary

CRM Systems are designed to track and analyze data relating to your customers and your organization's interactions with your customers. In doing this, CRM systems facilitate the every day tasks that make up the user's job. Microsoft CRM was specifically designed to improve business productivity, provide low total cost of ownership, and integrate powerfully to a company's existing applications.

Microsoft CRM Version 1.0 has surprisingly deep functionality for a first-release product. It is offered in various configurations and editions with functionality centered on Sales Force Automation, Customer Service, “lite” Marketing and Reporting.

Microsoft CRM provides two user interfaces that can be used to access the system. The Web interface is accessible through a Web browser and requires no additional client software installation. The Microsoft CRM for Sales Outlook interface requires Microsoft Outlook and an additional component install, and provides the capability for the user to work offline with a subset of the corporate CRM database. Developers can leverage the Microsoft CRM platform to create new interfaces and to enable Web sites and applications to integrate with Microsoft CRM's application programming interface. Microsoft CRM is sold on a named user basis requiring each user to have an assigned license.

Key concepts found throughout Microsoft CRM are Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, Cases, Activities, Notes, Products, and Subjects. Each of these record types is integral to building a complete view of a customer.