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In this episode of the podcast I talk to Andrew Ly, who on top of being one of my favorite MVPs in the world he just became a FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect. Andrew discusses the process he went through to receive the recognition and how it is different from a Certified Power Platform Solution Architect. My Guest: Andrew Ly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlyadelaide/   Links: FastTrack Recognized Solution Architects - Power Platform: https://powerplatform.microsoft.com/en-us/fasttrack/recognized-solution-architects/ FastTrack Recognized Solution Architects - Dynamics 365: https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/fasttrack/recognized-solution-architects/

Recently Microsoft announced that they will be taking over the support of local user groups while other organizations battle to fill the gaps Microsoft will be unable to fill initially such as in person events and training. Most of the organizations looking to fill those gaps are led by implementation partners, and I wanted to share my thoughts on whether this is a good thing for the community and for the users. Article reviewed during this episode: https://msdynamicsworld.com/node/30151/node/30151

Today we discuss 10 capabilities from Dynamics 365/Power Apps that have been around for a while and whether they are still useful. need some work, or never worked whatsoever. The List: 1. More Addresses 2. Connections 3. Word/Mail Merge Templates 4. Follow/Unfollow 5. Merge 6. Duplicate Detection 7. Import Data Wizard 8. Bulk Duplicate Deletion 9. Sharing 10. Reports

To celebrate our 100th episode, I decided to compile some data about the show and go over it with you. Along the way, you'll find me going out in tangents and sharing some lessons and best practices...I hope some of these helps! Thank you everyone for tuning in, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel below and stay tuned for even more CRM MVP Podcast in the future! http://crmmvpmedia.com/

Most of the functionality in the Dynamics 365 Customer Service App has been around for years, so  I invited two Microsoft MVPs and Customer Service experts to discuss the value of these features today. The features we discussed are: Knowledge Base Subject SLAs/SLA Pausing Entitlements Queues Case Creation and Case Routing Rules Customer Service Portal Holiday and Customer Service Schedules Parent/Child Case Relationships Scheduling This episode is also available on video! If you rather see our faces as we discuss these topics live, tune in and subscribe to: http://www.crmmvpmedia.com/ Guests: Tricia Sinclair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/triciasinclair/ EY Kalman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thecrmninja/

The Dynamics 365 2021 release wave 1 is upon us and I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some of the features I’m really excited about, including very innovative (and borderline hard to believe) capabilities as well as some improvements we have been expecting for years! I also address a topic that might be very controversial to discuss openly but, are MVPs losing their “allure”? Are we just "influencers" now and not really experts? Important Links: Dynamics 365 2021 release wave 1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2021wave1/ Microsoft Power Platform 2021 release wave 1: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform-release-plan/2021wave1/

Most of the functionality in the Dynamics 365 Sales App has been around for over a decade, so  I invited two Microsoft MVP veterans and world-class implementers to discuss the value of these features today. The features we discussed are: Leads Quotes Orders, Invoices Sales Territories Goals and Fiscal Years Product Catalog Competitor Sales Literature Gamification Pipeline Charts and Sales Dashboards This episode is also available on video! If you rather see our faces as we discuss these topics live, tune in and subscribe to: http://www.crmmvpmedia.com/ Guests: Neil Benson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilbenson/ Matt Wittemann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwittemann/

Let's take an hour to go over the goals we set out to achieve in 2020, and how successful we were against those goals. We also go through some of the most exciting moments in the year, the launch of the Decision Accelerator Community, and the slow death of Dynamics 365 On-Premise.

A couple of years ago Microsoft released the $10 per user per app per month license and a lot of organizations were either tempted to make a move into the new licensing model or made the change altogether. Well, Microsoft seemingly improved this offer by allowing organizations to create Power Apps hosted on Dataverse/CDS for FREE*. Well, it's not 100% free, you do have to have a Microsoft Teams license, but who doesn't have a Teams License nowadays? Before you get too excited and start dreaming about moving your current Power Apps to Teams so they are free to use and access, there are some caveats we need to discuss. Guest: Joel Lindstrom: https://twitter.com/JoelLindstrom

Last year we got together and asked Microsoft for some new features and some changes or adjustments to existing ones...since we had such a poor record in 2020 (just like everyone else this year) we decided to give it another shot and ask Microsoft for some more stuff! Listen to five Microsoft MVPs as they each reveal their list of wants and needs for Microsoft while the other four MVPs react in real time. Guests: Nicholas Hayduk: https://twitter.com/Engineered_Code Lisa Crosbie: https://twitter.com/LisaMCrosbie Megan Walker: https://twitter.com/MeganVWalker Matt Collins-Jones: https://twitter.com/D365Geek

The Coronavirus Pandemic has affected millions of businesses around the world, one of those businesses is Dynamic Communities, Inc. The organization that runs the user groups globally and the organizer of many marquee events such as the User Group Summit that I've attended every year since 2012. This year the organization has been under heavy criticism for actions like cancelling or drastically changing events at the last minute and refusing to provide full refund to attendees. In addition to the horrible customer service some users experienced, the company laid off about 90% of their employees, and is currently trying to shift gears in an effort to stay alive. Is COVID-19 to blame for what is happening at DCI? Join me as I discuss with former VP, Program Team and GM of CRMUG Tony Stein and former Director of Global Dynamics 365 Community and GM of AXUG Heather Williams, who share their perspective and details behind some of the decisions that ultimately led DCI to this point. Guests: Tony Stein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-stein/ Heather Williams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-williams-68b69111/

The Product Catalog in Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a polarizing piece of functionality. Some people love it and some people swear they'll never use it, some think it's too complicated and some think it's not complex enough, some companies rely on it where others avoid it at all costs, so I invited Microsoft MVP and Solution Architect Gustaf Westerlund to dive deep into the Product Catalog and share all of our lessons learned and best practices to those of you wondering how it all works and how it could benefit your business. Special Guest: Gustaf Westerlund: https://twitter.com/crmgustaf

How scary would it be to end up with a failed CRM Implementation that costs your company hundreds of millions of dollars? This is exactly what happened on Halloween of 1999 to Hershey. Let's talk about this failed implementation and what we can learn from it.

Dealing with data is one of the most challenging aspects of owning a CRM Solution. Whether you are using Dynamics 365 or Power Apps, I wanted to share a list of 10 things you can put in place to make sure your data quality is always high. I also share a 10-question data readiness quiz to see how healthy your organization is in terms of data quality and data management...listen in and see how your organization scores!

There are countless online articles titled something like "Here are the secrets *insert profession or industry here* don't want you to know", and it gave me the idea for this episode. Here are ten secrets you probably didn't know about us, the Microsoft MVPs.

In this episode, I cover 10 quick and easy improvements you can add to Dynamics 365. Some of these are simple settings that most people never enable, and some require special (but free) tools to enable them but all of them are super simple and can make a HUGE difference for your users' experience.

There are things we learn from others, and things we learn on our own by making mistakes or missing opportunities and learning from them. Amey Holden is a Microsoft MVP and she is sharing the 10 things she wishes she knew early in her Business Application career. Hopefully you can learn something in this episode that you won't have to learn the hard way in the future. Follow Amey: https://twitter.com/AmeyHolden Links: Pimp my LinkedIn Profile: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbrBBiv8mBqfklikU7wbYg Ask the Experts LIVE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgbvXSAJLQ

Dynamics 365 Sales Insights enables organizations to bring together the art and science of selling. Engage buyers like never before with seller intuition and AI working in concert. Lisa Crosbie is back hosting the show and she dives deep into Sales Insights, its features and capabilities, and her Top 10 features! More info: https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/sales-insights/

Implementing Dynamics 365 can be tricky, there can be so many moving parts, but some of the things that you do on every Dynamics 365 Implementation must be done at the right time to maximize value. If you do something too early you may have to deal with it for the duration of the projects, constantly struggling to keep it up to date, but if you do something too late you might delay a project because you didn't start soon enough! Here are my Top 10 things most people get WRONG in terms of timing when implementing Dynamics 365, and why it is so important to get it right.

July was full of surprises, starting with a positive COVID-19 test on July 3rd, my battle against a virus that took me to the hospital twice and almost killed me, plus I talk about Dataflex announced at Microsoft Inspire, and a new free tool available to the Dynamics 365 and Power Apps community, Power Text! Link to Podcast episode I mentioned on the show: http://divetalkmedia.com/episode-15-this-is-why-we-havent-posted-for-a-month