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GoldMine : Carrying over Completion Notes

By Uncategorized

If you’re using Automatic Followups in GoldMine, then you might want to set up your History Notes to “flow” to the followup activities;

1. Go to Tools | Options
2. Click on the Schedule Tab
3. Check the box next to “Carry over completion notes when scheduling follow-up calls”

Having this checked will copy the Notes from the currently completed item to the Automatically Scheduled Followup Item.

GoldMine : Using dBase Expressions in Picklists

By Uncategorized

Did you know that you can use an xBase expression as a picklist item?
You simply need to add the expression to the picklist, prefixed by a tilde (~), like this:

~contact1->contact

Try it yourself; let us imagine we have a value in KEY1 that we’d like to easily copy to the Activity Code of a new history item.

1. Select Complete | Unscheduled Call | Outgoing Call.
2. Bring up the Picklist for the “Code” box by clicking into it and hitting F2.
3. Click “New”
4. Paste in the following text as the new picklist item : ~contact1->key1

Now when an end user selects that item from the picklist, it will copy in the value from the KEY1 field. Any Contact1 or Contact2 field is allowable. Have fun!

GoldMine : Lock down your Picklists

By Uncategorized

Did you know that you can configure any one particular Pick List to make it easy (and consistent) for users to enter data?

(Requires MASTER rights)

1. Bring up the Pick List for any field you like by clicking into the field and hitting F2.
2. Click on the “Setup” button.
3. Here are a few of the most popular options:
a. Unchecking “Allow Blank Input” will force the end user to enter in a value.
b. Checking “Force Valid Input” will force the end user to enter in a value that matches a Pick List item.
c. Pop-up when selected does what it says; pops up automatically when the end user moves to the field.

I have a lot of clients that protect the integrity of the data model with just a few modifications to existing picklists. My advice is to start slow with this process; try configuring a few fields at first, then expand as you get a feel for how the changes affect the end users.

 

MSCRM: Automate Tax on Products

By CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The out-of-the-box tax field on opportunity and quote products is a write-in field which means that users have to manually calculate the sales tax for each item and then type it in. This method is error prone and adds many steps to the user’s process so why not automate it?

If only some of your items are taxable, you should create a checkbox so that users can control when sales tax needs to be added. For this example, I’m assuming that all products are taxable at a rate of 6%. Create a calculated currency field and for the calculation use the Amount field. This is the price per unit multiplied by the quantity. If you’re using item discounts, make sure you calculate the tax based on the total after the discount is taken. See the setup below.

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The final step is to set the out-of-the-box tax field to your new calculated tax field. You need to do this because the final total calculation uses the out-of-the-box tax field. I used JavaScript – tune into the next webinar to see how this is done. (Or check it out on YouTube depending on when you’re reading this.)

 

MSCRM: Change Your Sandbox Theme

By CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

If you regularly develop in a CRM sandbox instance, a good tip is to change the theme of  your sandbox so that it’s different than your production instance. Our production instance has the standard dark blue navigation bar across the top so we like to change that to bright orange for the sandbox. This way it is very obvious that you’re currently working in the sandbox. It’s an easy visual cue to remind yourself which instance you’re in.

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Change your theme by going to Settings > Customizations > Themes.

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MSCRM: Business Rules & Composite Forms

By CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The address composite forms are used to quickly edit all fields of the address and present all of the fields together in a visually appealing manner. The trouble is that you can’t customize these forms at all. You can’t add or remove fields so when I wanted to use an option set for a customer State/Province field, I had to figure out a workaround.

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Luckily, business rules can be applied to all forms of an entity so I set up a rule to hide the out-of-the-box state at all times. Then my custom option set state field is placed on the main form. I have another rule that sets the out-of-the-box state field to the option set value so that the full address appears correctly. In the business rule, just remember to set the scope to entity so that it applies to all forms.

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Salesforce.com – How to Define Custom Fields and Objects in Salesforce Lightning

By CRM, Salesforce CRM

If in the lightning experience, customizing Salesforce is a bit different but all the object changes are still there.  To get there, click on set-up home -> Explore Objects

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On the top right corner, you will find a link to create objects and workflows.

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If you want to change some things in existing objects, just click the links to the object on this screen as well.  Here you have the ability to work on all details of that object from a single page.

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If you would like to search the setup area (as I always do), use the search box in the upper left.  This is a very useful piece to jump quickly to what you need (such as “users” shown here).

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Written by Prabha Krishnamurthy and Corey Babka

Salesforce.com – Working with Multiple Approval Processes

By CRM, Salesforce CRM

On the other screen that we jumped (to activate the approval process, you also had the option to set additional approval processes.  Once activated you’re not able to add other steps (unless you deactivate the process first).

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You can either do the additional steps from here or skip and save as one-step approval and later modify the approval process.  Here we’re going to just add another approval process based on probability (so as to not throw off the forecast).  Other examples might be a state code or a country value where accounting has to approving shipping rates, taxes, etc.

After we run through the same “create approval process”, we end up with a new one like so:

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After we activate it and go back to our approval processes, for the opportunities there are now two listed.  Here we can adjust the order if is matters.  Simply change the number, then click Re-Order.

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Then you’ll see it reordered.

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Written by Prabha Krishnamurthy and Corey Babka

ZOHO CRM – get another user’s attention in a record note by tagging

By CRM, Uncategorized, Zoho CRM

Say you’ve been assigned a task and you have questions for the person that assigned you the task.  You can ask them in person if you work in the same office, you can email them the question, OR you can write the question as a Note on the task and tag the other User.  By using the tagging method, they’ll get an email with your question with a link to the task record, and there will be a record of the question and clarification right with the task!

Here’s how:

  • Navigate to the record you have a question on (can be a Task, Contact, Lead, etc…).
  • Scroll down to the Notes section in the related lists area and drop your cursor in the next blank note.  screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-2-46-15-pm
  • Type the “@” symbol and start typing the name of the person you want to tag.
  • Once you type the first letter, you’ll be presented with a list of any matching Users, Groups and/or Roles that match what you’ve typed so far and you can select one.
  • Finish typing your note and hit save

screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-2-38-35-pm

The person or group that was tagged will receive an email notification that they were mentioned in a note with a link to the record.  (note, they must be logged into zoho for the link to work properly).

ZOHO CRM – Tab top to bottom in forms!

By CRM, Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM form navigation configuration just got more flexible!  We now have the option to set the ‘Tab Order’ to either Left to Right (previous default) OR Top to Bottom (NEW) on a section by section basis.

Why am I so excited about this?  Its because I prefer my forms to be organized with like information grouped together on a side, but then when I’d be filling in a form and tabbing from field to field the cursor would bounce from left to right and drive me nuts.  Now I can have the cursor travel from top to bottom on the left, then top to bottom on the right.  Here’s how:screen-shot-2016-11-12-at-11-40-10-am

  • Open the form for customization:
    • Setup Icon->Setup
    • Customization -> Modules
    • Select the Module
  • Hover over the section
  • Click the Gear Wheel on the right
  • Select Top to Bottom under Tab Order

 

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