Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a multi-lingual Customer Relationship Management software package. The product focuses mainly on Sales, Marketing, Service and Help Desk sectors but Microsoft has been marketing Dynamics CRM as an XRM platform encouraging partners to use its proprietary (.NET based) framework to customize it to meet many different demands. The software has been moved to the cloud solution and exists in two versions - on-premise and on-line.
Its key focus is sales, marketing, service and help desk. However, it's highly adaptable and easily customizable to usage of both client-side JavaScript and server-side .NET code for plugins.
Major competitors to Dynamics CRM include SalesForce, SAP CRM and Oracle PeopleSoft CRM.
The Microsoft offering can be hosted on-premise by organizations, hosted in the public Microsoft Azure cloud for a fixed monthly fee, by a Microsoft Partner or as a federated solution. This flexibility lets companies change their deployment strategy as their business needs change whilst utilizing a single organization.
End users can access Microsoft CRM in the following ways.
- Via a web front-end using Internet Explorer 7.0 or later (support for FireFox, Safari and Chrome is delayed and scheduled for Q1 2013 software update)
- Using a native Microsoft Outlook plugin integration
- Using a mobile device with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile
- ISV solution such as CWR Mobility
Questions asked about Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 typically include those around configuration, client-side customization (e.g. forms, views, charts, dashboards etc.), deployment, or server-side development (workflow assemblies, plugins etc).
