Michael Intravartolo
Jun 30, 2014
If you administer your organization’s Dynamics CRM system (either on accident or by design) you are likely flooded with questions and requests on a daily basis from your CRM users. Staying on top of your game requires staying current on all the latest CRM news and trends, and knowing where to go when you don’t have all the answers. Here are some of my favorite Microsoft Dynamics CRM resources.
Blogs
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog
Lots of informative posts written by members of the CRM product and marketing teams that talk about the new or upcoming features in Dynamics CRM. An article here typically contains a more detailed walk through on how a piece of functionality within the system works.
Dynamics CRM in the Field
Usually topics discussed here are a bit more advanced in nature as the Premier Field Engineering team deals with a large number of enterprise level customers.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Service Blog
For CRM Online customers, this blog is typically updated in the event there is an unexpected service outage. If users are having a hard time logging in or you are seeing other strange behavior it might be a good idea to have a look to see if anything is going on. In cases where there was an outage a short synopsis is usually posted explaining the reason.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Blog
Content created by Microsoft CRM support engineers related to issues they are seeing when working with customers.
Documentation and Training
CRM Admin Best Bets – CRM Customer Center
Links to a tons of great documentation and videos that Microsoft provides for new implementations, troubleshooting and working with existing implementations, and user training.
CRM 2013 eBooks
If you are looking for some light weight training material that is easy to follow, check out the eBooks Microsoft provides for CRM 2013 to help new users get up and running.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 White Papers & Technical Documentation
If you are looking for technical documentation there is a great list maintained on this site.
Troubleshooting
Office 365 Portal – Dashboard
A tool for keeping track of potential service issues with not only CRM Online but all your Office 365 services. Drilling in a little further to the data provides a detailed look at the past 7 days’ worth of checks done and incidents raised against the various services and the ability to see any incidents for the past 30 days.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community Forums
If you have a question you can’t find an answer for related to Dynamics CRM, Dynamics Marketing, or Dynamics Social Listening ask it here. Community members, MVPs, and Microsoft support monitor the questions and do their best to answer everyone who posts. If you find yourself here take the time to answer someone else’s question if you can or provide your own twist on an existing answer. This is a resource that’s only as good as the people who participate. Pay it forward and everybody wins!
Built in CRM Diagnostic Page
In CRM 2011 and 2013 (Online and On Premise) you can access the built in diagnostics page which might provide clues to an administrator if a specific user is having connectivity problems from their local machine.
http://<YourCRMServerURL>/tools/diagnostics/diag.aspx
If you have additional resources for Dynamics CRM that are your “go-to” sites please share them with us and we will continue to share the wealth to help CRM Administrators everywhere.