CRM Portal: Timely access to information increases productivity
AlfaPeople |
Jul 27, 2017

CRM Portal: Timely access to information increases productivity

Some time ago, I specialized in the implementation of business solutions oriented to the attention of citizens known as SIAC (Integrated System of Attention to Citizenship). The base implementation was performed on the CRM services module and consisted of native entity customization, the creation of custom entities, workflows or automated rules, email templates, and some extensions.

As part of this implementation, it was considered the installation of a portal developed in .Net aimed at the citizen, so that he could carry out his consultations, suggestions, congratulations, regulations, and requests for public information, in addition to being able to follow up on his cases.

Each institution that implemented this solution, had different points of view on how to handle the cases and what information they have to request when creating one from the Web Portal, which caused each project to consume a significant amount of time when making the adjustments to the Portal, which was not always considered within the project deadlines and even if considered, always exceeded the estimated time, which caused the project to extend in costs, deadlines and customer satisfaction usually ended declining.

If I had used Microsoft Dynamics 365 Portals (previously called ADX STUDIO) instead of the portal developed in .Net, today I could say that all the implementations I made were successful and fulfilled with the needs of the client, unfortunately, I can not say.

Now I will talk a little more about this product call Microsoft Dynamics 365 Portals, who quickly and simply adds a new point of communication for our customers, potential customers and even our collaborators, simply by using the templates that come by default with our product: (Self-Service Portal, Associates’ Portal, Community Portal and Personalized Portal)

These templates come with built-in functionalities depending on the chosen template. In simple terms, Microsoft CRM Portal gives us the chance to insert, read or edit information stored in our Dynamics CRM in a web page format.

One of the main advantages of this product is the self-service. Our clients have access to information in a fast and secure way, without the need to have a large team of service executives dedicated to providing this information, having the ability to generate a more fluid communication between the company and the client, increasing the Possibilities of generating a good service experience, with the respective increase of productivity that entails being able to manage the information ourselves.

Perhaps the possibility of making Dynamics CRM information available to your target audience might sound a little risky in terms of data protection; however, Microsoft CRM comes with its own security logic, which includes a public and a private section (login) for accessing the different pages contained in the portal. It also comes with a profiles logic that can be assigned to users, thus restricting the access to certain pages and restricting the modification of data, indicating what pages can be accessed or which visualized data can be changed. This last point is directly related to the CRM entities, that is, the permissions that are granted to the users are about the CRM entities.

Another one of Microsoft CRM Portal’s advantages is that the configuration of registry lists and the content of forms is obtained from Dynamics CRM’s own configuration; therefore, all you have to do is configure them once in order for them to be available in our portal and in Dynamics CRM. Plus, Microsoft CRM Portal provides tools for adding an additional layer of customization to the lists and forms in order to show the content on the portal in a different way than how it’s configured in Dynamics CRM.

Since we’re talking about Dynamics CRM’s main advantages, we cannot leave out customization. Microsoft CRM allows us to fully customize our portal, proving the option to modify the cascading style sheets (css files) using our own resources.

Microsoft Dynamics Portal is easy to install. It does not require deep technical knowledge. It only takes a few minutes and is done from the same page used to manage the Dynamics CRM tenants. It is important to note that currently, it is only available in its Cloud version.

If you would like to see a demo of this solution, ask for one right here.