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Further
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Are Free File Download Services Really Safe
Are Free File Download Services Really Safe?
On Monday June 27, 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that Grokster and Streamsoft, two free file download services, were operating illegally because they were allegedly encouraging illegal downloads of...
Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller
<font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Becoming a Reseller
Web Host</strong></font>
<font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Want to make money in the web hosting
industry? The...
Email Management and Email Archiving
The necessity for better email management and email archiving grows everyday. Email (electronic mail) changes and evolves with technology. In order to understand the email management technology that will be best for you or for your business let's...
I Love Spam
Spam is considered any unsolicited and often un-wanted e-mail. The term seems to have originated from a Monty Python sketch set in a cafe that serves nothing but the canned, processed meat, called Spam. In the skit there is a table of Vikings...
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IT Strategy For Midsize Business: Microsoft vs. Java, Great Plains & CRM
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Written By:
Andrew Karasev
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Midsize business or non-profit organization should decide if one-vendor solution would be appropriate and the associated risk acceptable. In our opinion, balancing the risk of one-vendor-approach is not economically feasible and should be avoided. This means that you need to decide if you plan to be Microsoft-oriented or Java/Unix/Linux/Oracle oriented. In the case of Java direction – you again have to further consider your options and if possible do not deploy too many systems from different vendors. Even if you host your systems with somebody else – we think that in the future you might have a risk of complex data conversion from one system to another. In this small article we’ll show you typical way if you follow Microsoft direction: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains and Microsoft CRM
• Sales Automation. It was actual at all the times, however now it is becoming critical to have decent Client Relation Management (CRM) system implemented. You order takers or sales people should be working exclusively in CRM, where you should have sales workflow, approvals, pipeline of pending deals, reporting with future cash flow prediction. Use Microsoft CRM Sales module.
• Servicing. If you would like to avoid tame wasting when your service and sales people are talking to each other and have long meetings to fulfill customer order, you have to organize them around CRM Service module: Contract, Case, Activity, workflow and assignments to service technicians, plus email to/from your customers should be captured in MS CRM
• ERP. Currently, Microsoft Business Solutions has MS CRM integrated with Microsoft Great Plains. Great Plains is good ERP solution for majority midsize business and fits to variety of business niches. Great Plains is integrated with MS CRM on the level of Sales Order Processing module (SOP).
• Customization. Usually each midsize business has unique procedures which should be mapped into their CRM and ERP. So, be ready to have minor or major - continued below ...
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continued ...
customization implemented. In the case of MS CRM – majority of the customizations are done in C# or VB.Net – so called Microsoft CRM SDK programming and development. It is open technology – you can download MS CRM SDK and have anyone with C#/VB.Net skills do the job. In the case of Microsoft Great Plains he technology is not that open and you might need somebody with Great Plains Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, Integration Manager, eConnect, SQL coding – this combination of skills is usually available from one of the Microsoft Business Solutions Customization Partners
• Integration. If you have something else, besides Microsoft CRM and Great Plains, then you might need the integration. Assuming that your major systems are on the Microsoft platform – integrations should be done via heterogeneous queries from the side of Microsoft SQL server – through linked servers
• Reporting. In our opinion – the best tool for non-financial reports (financial – use FRx) is Crystal Reports. Base your Crystal report on heterogeneous view or stored procedure to pull the data from multiple systems. You can deploy Crystal reports in your web application, if needed
Good luck with implementation, customization and integration and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 866-528-0577 or 630-961-5918! help@albaspectrum.com
About the Author: Andrew is Great Plains specialist in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Microsoft CRM Partner, serving clients in
California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Russia
Source: www.isnare.com
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Music CD-R vs. Data CD-R: Is There A Difference?
You wouldn't believe how many times I run across this question. Is there a difference between music CD-Rs and traditional data CD-Rs? I think what people really want to know is if I buy a data CDR can I still put audio on it and vice versa. Well,...
Meta Tags – An Introduction
A long, long time ago… In a galaxy far, far away…meta tags were the key component to search engine rankings. Okay, it was about 2 years ago, but that’s a long time in the Internet galaxy. Although still relevant, the evil empire…er, Darth Google,...
A Business Center in your Hotel: Curse or Blessing?
Your customers asked for it, modern hospitality philosophy required it and now you have one in your Hotel: A Business Center. Your Guest now has access to the Internet to read and write e-mails, surf the Web for the latest news and they can work in...
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