Microsoft Dynamics Crm 4 for Dummies

by David Lee, Joel Scott, David Lee

Book Overview

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is certainly a hot topic in business today. If you have a small or medium-sized business, chances are you're already aware of all it can do for you. But with so many options and so much to think about, how do you get a CRM system in place with a minimum of hassle? Well, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 For Dummies is a great place to start

Written by veteran CRM experts Joel Scott and David Lee, this friendly...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470343257
• ISBN13: 9780470343258
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: For Dummies
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Excelent for understanding our CRM Users

Im a specialist trainer who needed to explain IT tasks about Dynamics CRM 3.0 to my students, so I started purchasing this book "for dummies". This book is an excelent reference because you learn about user's point of view (none technical issues as installation or customization only day to day operations). Learning about Office Outlook allows better undestanding of MS Exchange Server, right? The book is full of excelents tips and some technical recommendations. I recommend to read this book before reading another excellent book as is "Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0".

Helpful for new Microsoft CRM user

This book is really for the new Microsoft CRM user and want to acguire the basic knowledge to use Microsoft CRM 3.0., like myself (with some background of CRM concepts, plus Microsoft Office outlook skills, it'll be so simple.) It is comprehensive and helpful to follow the step-by-step instruction of how to use the microsoft CRM 3.0 that describes in the book.

Excellent book gets you going quickly with Microsoft CRM 3.0

This book lives up to its promise and more. An easy to read book, but detailed enough to get you up and running with every facet of using Microsoft CRM. Whether you are new to Microsoft CRM or just want a reference that goes beyond the help files included with CRM, this is the book for you. With 29 chapters, things are organized neatly which makes certain subject areas easy to find. I used this book to get up to speed on CRM and also as a preliminary text for studying the CRM Applications exam. This wasn't the only reference I used, but it is a great starting place and helped me achieve a high score on the exam. Any computer topic can easily be dry and boring, but the authors really bring things to life with light and witty humor. I read this book myself cover to cover and now use it as a reference guide. As a CRM consultant I plan to give a copy to all of my customers, I know they'll appreciate it. While there is a short chapter on Workflow, if you're looking for in depth customization or programming information, this book does not have that. While they have several chapters on some of the built in customizations (out of the box), the authors did a great job of keeping on the intended topic of providing a general guide to using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

A Note From One of the Authors...

Hi, I'm David Lee and one of the authors of Microsoft CRM for Dummies. This is my second foray into Dummies books (I was technical editor of GoldMine for Dummies). I also developed many of the online Microsoft CRM training modules under contract with Microsoft corporation. My company, Vertical Marketing, has been in the CRM business since 1985 although we did not call it CRM in those days. We implement CRM systems all over the country, and I am constantly amazed at the number of people successfully using Dummies books to learn CRM tools. You are reading these reviews to help you decide whether or not to buy the book, so I would like to give you some thoughts. I will try my best to be as unbiased as I can. Having said that, I am still going to rate it at 5 stars. So here is who should buy the book, and who should not: This book is written for people in sales, marketing and customer support who need to get up to speed on Microsoft CRM as quickly and with as little pain as possible. It separates the sales and marketing sections from the customer support sections. Since it is likely that your job will focus on one or the other, this makes it easy to focus on the topics that you need the most. This book will not make you a Microsoft CRM administrator, engineer, or developer. The book is not as detailed as the online materials I developed for Microsoft. You can get through it in a fraction of the time and end up with a working knowledge of the system. But you will not learn to configure, install or customize the system. For that, you should contact Joel Scott or me for some in-depth training. I would like to offer one further comment. There are several interfaces into the Microsoft CRM system. They are called the Web Client, the Connected Outlook Client, and the Disconnected Client. They are very similar, and if you know one you will be comfortable in the others. There is another interface for hand-held devices which was not available when we wrote the book. We discuss all of the interfaces, but in order to minimize confusion we use the Web Client for all of the examples. The great strength of the Dummies series is that they make complex things simple in an easy-to-read format. We were afraid that if we showed multiple interfaces for the same functions, we would make things needlessly confusing. I hope this is helpful. David V. Lee President Vertical Marketing, Inc.

Good, with Limitations

Ordered this book because it was the first out on MS CRM. And while the book was helpful, it was typical "Dummies" material in that I think it lacked some things (e.g. Did not cover form customization, creating a letter/fax, etc.). So, it is a good primer to CRM, but I'm sure better material will be released. This is probably a good read for the average user, but for an admin or "trainer", you'll want to delve deeper.