IMPORTANT - If you have an Office 365 tenant already you should NOT create a CRM Online trial the way its outlined in this guide. Instead you should start the trial directly from within your existing Office 365 tenant using the Purchase Services section (see #8 below for the location of this section).

This is your quick guide to creating a CRM Online Trial from scratch.

1. Start an InPrivate session in your browser (open IE and click Ctrl+Shift+P) to avoid any potential cookie confusion
   x
2. Open this URL: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-free-trial-overview.aspx and click Try it free
   
3. Provide the information requested. Please note that:
   x
   #1. Country or Region: The country or region of your subscription determines the offers and pricing for which your organization is eligible, if you decide to activate your subscription after the trial period. The country/region must match the billing address of the credit card or invoice. You cannot complete setup without setting this option and you cannot change it after it has been set.
   x
   #2. Organization Language (aka Base Language): The base language determines default settings for regional and language options in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The base language for your subscription is determined by the language you select here. It cannot be changed after the sign-up process is complete, but you will be able to install additional languages from within the application
   
4. For this example I use Denmark and Danish (dansk) and click the create my account button to start the provisioning
   
5. Your tenant is being provisioned
   
6. OPTIONAL
   While your CRM Online tenant is being provisioned feel free to verify that your user (you) has been given a CRM license; click (1) users and groups and then (2) the name of the user (in my example "Egon Olsen")
   
7. OPTIONAL
   Click licenses
   
8. OPTIONAL
   If you click purchase services you'll see a list of services you can add (purchase) to your tenant, eg the Office 365 Enterprise E3 plan, in which you'll get the Office client, including Outlook 2013, which goes perfectly with your new CRM Online (take your data offline, work in the familiar UI of Outlook, track emails and much more). The E3 plan includes SharePoint Online as well, unlocking the Document Management features of CRM Online.
   
9. Your CRM Online tenant is provisioned, and you must next provide configuration information
   
10. To finalize the konfiguration you click CRM in the upper right side of the blue bar
    
11. In the next dialog you can provide a friendly name and purpose of your CRM Online instance 

    Friendly Name - Specify a Friendly Name to help you to identify this instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Friendly names are especially useful when you have purchased multiple instances

    Purpose - The purpose field is optional.  It can help you remember what you plan to do with this instance such as testing, development, or production.  Both the Friendly Name and Purpose field appear when you view your list of Microsoft Dynamics CRM instances
    
    Accept the default values or change them. When done click the Continue button in the lower left corner (in my danish example the button is labelled "Fortsæt")
    

12. IMPORTANT
    In this next dialog you must accept or set the Base Currency. Read the below carefully and then decide whether to accept the default currency or (1) change the default currency (in my danish example the button for changing currency is labelled "Skift Valuta". When done (2) click the Configure CRM buttom to finalize the configuration (in my danish example the button is labelled "Konfigur CRM"

    #1. Base Currency: Selecting the base currency for your organization is a one-time decision that sets the primary or default currency that is most used by your organization and the currency in which your organization does its financial reporting.
    You cannot complete setup without setting this option and you cannot change it after it has been set. If your organization records transactions in other currencies, you can add records using that currency, including the currency symbol and the exchange rate. When you save financial information in a record, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online converts the monetary values to the base currency. This conversion ensures that all financial information is available in one currency for data analysis and reporting.

    
    
13. We are nearly there - final configuration under way
    
14. All done - click Start CRM Online to start using your CRM Online trial
    
15. Your CRM Online ready - enjoy.
    
    Notice the yellow bar providing you with an option to download and install "CRM for Outlook". If you have Outlook already (eg via your Office 365 subscription), you can work with CRM from within your Outlook client that way.
    

Next up I suggest you decide what makes sense for you to test in order to make an informed decision on how CRM Online will help your organisation.

Microsoft Partners are trained to guide you and I strongly encourage you to contact your Microsoft Partner to help you getting the most out of your 30 days free trial.

In larger CRM Online deployments with complex structures of departments, regions, development/test environments etc you'll often want to consider seperate instances. But should these seperate instances go in the same tenant or in multiple tenants?

Whats a "tenant"?

A Microsoft Online Services tenant is an instance of Online Services created in Microsoft data centers that contains uniquely identified domains, users, security groups and subscriptions.

Whats an "instance"?

Whenever CRM Online (CRMOL) service is provisioned on a tenant for the first time, a default CRMOL instance is created. A CRMOL instance is similar to what is known as an organization in CRM On-Premises. Each additional CRMOL instance that you add creates a separate and isolated Microsoft Dynamics CRM organization on the same tenant.

Why would you need multiple instances of CRM Online if data segregation can be achieved using business units and role-based forms, you might ask? Well, multiple instances could come in handy when segregation of plugins/workflows/admin resources are required which cannot be easily isolated using business units in CRM. You can read more about the use case in the article "Multiple Instances in CRM Online - whats the use case?".

Single Tenant Deployment

A typical Online Service deployment includes one tenant only. A tenant can include one or more CRMOL instances; however, a CRMOL instance is always associated with a single tenant

Important about single tenant and instances

• A tenant can include up to 50 CRMOL instances
• In a single tenant deployment, a licensed CRMOL user can access all the CRMOL instances associated with the tenant:
• Additional instances is purchased via the Additional Instance Add-On (Additional instances can only be added to "paid" subscriptions - not trials or IURs). If you purchased your CRM Online subscription through Volume Licensing, you must go through your LAR to purchase the Additional Instance
• Existing trials and/or subscriptions cannot be merged onto an Additional Instance; instead, you will need to move your data and customizations
• Storage is shared across the primary subscription and any purchased Additional Instances
• Separate security groups can be set up for each Additional Instance
• All instances for a single customer will be setup in the same data center and storage consumption is aggregated and tracked across all the instances attached to a customer subscription
  x
  
  Fig 1: Single Tenant Deployment

Multi-Tenant Deployment

As an alternative to a single tenant with multiple instances, you can consider a multi-tenant deployment, which in some cases will be a better option for you if you need segregation. For a multi tenant deployment, you'll need a Multi-Tenant Amendment.

Differences between the Additional Instance Add-On and the Multi-Tenant Amendment.

• Additional Instance Add-On
  This is a subscription add-on, which allows your company to share users and data across your various CRMOL instances (ie. production, dev, test). They keyword here is “share”. You purchase this for $549/month per additional Instance.
  x
• Multi-Tenant Amendment:
  This is an actual amendment to the Volume License (VL) agreement in which you want to purchase X number of licenses, but manage each of those instances completely separately, where users and data are not shared. An example would be if your company wanted to split up your licenses between completely separate divisions (or geo locations) in which you do not share users or data across those instances/tenants

 Important about multi-tenant and instances

• In a multi tenant scenario, a licensed CRMOL user associated with a tenant can only access one or more CRMOL instances mapped to the same tenant. To access another tenant a user would need a separate license (currently $44/month) and a unique set of login credentials for that tenant.
• Each Tenant will require tenant administrator(s) with unique login credentials, and each tenant affiliate will manage its tenant separately in the administrator console
• Licenses cannot be reassigned between tenant enrollments. An enrolled affiliate can use license reduction under one enrollment and add licenses to another enrollment to facilitate this
• An Active Directory user should not be synchronized with more than one tenant (see additional notes at the end of this article)
  x
   
   Fig 2: Multi-Tenant Deployment

To sum things up

• Economics - An instance is priced at a price approximately 12 times the price for a CRM Online user
• Credentials - Every instance under the same tenant can be accessed by a user using the same set of login credentials. In a multi-tenant a user would need a separate set of login credentials
• Segregation - Data and user segregation can be obtained in a lot of ways, including business units, role-based forms, security groups - in multiple instances, as well as multiple tenants

See also

• New Feature: Multiple Instances in the upcoming release of CRM Online - link
• Using Multi-tenancy in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to Address Challenges in Enterprise Business Environments - link
• Quick Guide to Creating a Trial on CRM Online - link
• What is a Windows Azure AD tenant? - link
• Directory Integration - link
• Configure filtering for directory synchronization - link
• How to Synchronize CRM Online with your Active Directory - link

Additional Notes On Deploying and Managing Multiple Tenants

You can sync your on-premises Active Directory with multiple tenants if

1. You have multiple forests, and Forest A has DirSync server A and tenant A, and Forest B has DirSync server B and tenant B
   
   -Or-
   x
2. You have a single forest, and the forest has DirSync servers A and B and DirSync servers A and B are configured with domain and/or OU filtering so they never attempt to sync the same objects across the multiple tenants! (tenants A and B receive sync from DirSync servers A and B, respectively) 

For #2, if JoeUser@contoso.com is in the Sales OU, and DirSync Server A syncs the Sales OU to tenant A, while DirSync Server B does NOT sync the Sales OU to tenant B, then this will work fine.

Else, if JoeUser@contoso.com is in the Users OU, and DirSync Server A syncs the Users OU to tenant A, while DirSync Server B DOES sync the Users OU to tenant B, then this will NOT work, and you will have object conflicts.

Constraints 

Customers wanting to deploy and manage multiple tenants need to be aware of constraints that will apply to such configuration, including

• Each tenant must have its own namespaces: UPN or SMTP namespaces cannot be shared across tenants
• If an on-premises Exchange Organization exists, you cannot split this organization across multiple tenants
• A consolidated Global Address List will not be available, except if explicitly managed downstream from the synchronization
• Cross-tenant collaboration will be limited to Lync Federation and Exchange Federation features
• SharePoint access across tenants may not be possible. While this may be solved with Partner Access, the user experience is disrupted and licensing aspects apply
• You must apply explicit Filtering in each Instance of the DirSync Client to avoid cross contamination of accounts between tenants
• There can be no duplicate accounts across the tenants/partitions in the on premises Active Directory
• A single domain can only be federated with one tenant

Learn more

Setting up Active Directory Synchronization, Federation and Single Sign On is a multi step process. To learn more, you might want to check out these walk-throughs from our Ignite site

• Installing and Configuring Active Directory Synchronization
  In this guide, you'll see how to synchronize your on-premises and cloud-based organizations using Active Directory synchronization.
• Preparing Your Environment for Active Directory Federation Services
  In this guide, you'll see how to prepare your organization to install and configure Active Directory Federation Services.
• Installing and Configuring Active Directory Federation Services
  In this guide, you'll see how to enable single sign-on access in your organization using Active Directory Federation Services.
• Adding and Verifying Federated Domains
  In this guide, you'll see how to add a custom domain to Office 365 and then convert it to a federated domain.

Customer Relationship Management - or CRM - is on top of everybodys wishlist, they say, the analysts.

But what is CRM and why would anybody need it? Well - CRM from Microsoft is Less Talking, More Awesome. Read on and learn about eight Microsoft CRM capabilies - and why they might be just what you are looking for.

See note 1 below

 See note 2 below

See note 3 below

See note 4 below

See note 5 below

See note 6 below

See note 7 below

See note 8 below

This is the end of the article. Thank you for reading this far.... oh, wait - I nearly forgot. How about the business case? Well, again - the analysts are pretty confident  Microsoft CRM will be a sound investment for you (and so are we)

Notes

A few supplementary notes with regards to the above bullets. You can learn all about Microsoft CRM here

1. Native integration with Outlook
   You can use Dynamics CRM without ever leaving your Outlook (work with and track contacts, tasks, activities and emails). You can be productive using the Fluent User Interface - and the consistent ribbon based user interface requires minimum training. You can personalize your experience using the advanced personalization capabilities of Outlook (e.g. user-specific “My Sales Pipeline” view in the Outlook main screen). You can accelerate the lead uncovering process using the Social Media Connector, which helps to uncover new leads and identify influencers using variety of channels including social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (e.g. a customer seeking corporate contact).
   
2. Sales Force Automization
   Leverage Planning, lead and opportunity management, account management, analytics, pipeline management, etc to enhance to productivity of your salesforce.
3. Sales and Opportunity Management
   Structure your sales processes using the Sales Process Control. This control is provided as a guide to suggest certain actions to you to keep the sales on target towards completion. The proactive, in context suggestions will drive a structured sales process in an efficient way.
4. Marketing Management
   Speed up campaign planning and execution, segmentation, leads management and tracking, analytics, data management, response management
5. Customer Service
   Point-and-click tools for step-by-step workflow development for users to quickly automate common and repeatable processes (e.g. automatically assign activities to specific customer service agents
6. Case and Knowledge Management
   Support case management, content and knowledge management, service analytics, service and resource scheduling, account management
7. Channel Management
   Meet and interact with your customers and partners on the channels they want to meet you. Get the crusial insights from the social analytics and reporting capabilities in CRM
8. xRM
   CRM is a flexible development platform for management of any type of relationships. You can accelerate the creation of Line of Business (LOB) applications using Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a flexible development platform. By leveraging the Microsoft Dynamics CRM framework (database, UI, workflow, reporting engine), a savvy user or business analyst can now accomplish what before would require a developer. In other words, no need for custom development or a developer.

See also

• CRM for Dummies - get your free eBook here - link
• Customer Success Stories - link
• Unlock Your Potential with Microsoft Dynamics - link

Depending on business needs, technical requirements, or both, directory synchronization (aka DirSync) is the most common provisioning choice for enterprise customers who are moving to Office 365. DirSync allows identities to be mastered on-premises and all updates to that identity are synchronized to the Office 365 AD.

Currently DirSync syncs identities with Office 365 but does not offer the ability to configure business logic and assign licenses to synced users.

While we wait for a long-term solution to help automate license assignment for customers we have published a PowerShell-based solution that enables customers to apply their business logic to automate license assignment. This solution allows administrators to assign licenses to users based on the following:

1. Attribute value matching (i.e. “all users with UPN containing @legal.contoso.com”)
2. Group membership

Read more in this article "How to use PowerShell to Automatically Assign Licenses to your Office365 Users"

See also

• Planning Directory Syncronization - link
• Provisioning and Licensing Office 365 Accounts with PowerShell (PowerShell Magazine) - link

According to Gartner, “By 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO.”

CMOs, take a moment to think about all you might accomplish with the extra funds!

CIOs, get ready for the CMO to come to you for help with systems that increase marketing’s effectiveness and productivity.

Microsoft is ready with technology and solutions to meet your needs!

Recently, Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot, an Integrated Marketing Management solution that allows organizations to better understand their customers, manage and streamline marketing operations, and create automated and measurable multi-channel marketing campaigns.

(click pictures to enlarge)

Fig 1: Start your day in your dashboard

Fig 2: navigate to areas of interest, eg. Campaigns

Fig 3: get insights, take action

Whether you are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online or On-Premises, MarketingPilot can help you:

• Keep your teams collaborating and make sure the right resources are on the right projects.
• Align better with sales and improve effectiveness with true multi-channel automation.
• Get real-time insight into campaign spend and marketing budgets, and forecast more accurately.
• Plan, compare, and consolidate your enterprise media buying more easily than ever.

To learn more, sign up for this important webinar:

Leverage Marketing Resource Management (MRM) and Integrated Marketing Management (IMM) to Make Your Enterprise CRM Strategy More Successful

Date: Tuesday, June 18th
Time: 10:00 am PST

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How MRM and IMM promote sales and marketing alignment.
• How Dynamics CRM customers can leverage MarketingPilot’s MRM and IMM capabilities to improve marketing execution and productivity.
• How to incorporate MRM and IMM into your overall CRM strategy.

If you’re in IT, don’t keep this to yourself. Be sure to share this webinar invitation with your marketing colleagues!

SharePoint Online has an abundance of document management capabilities.

You can share documents with people inside and outside your organisation, for you and your (extended) teams to collaborate on and co-author. You can invoke document versioning to enable restoring of earlier editions and  log changes.

You can control the process of document editing by invoking what we call checking documents in and out. When a document is checked out by a person, only that person can edit the document – and obviously co-authoring is disabled. When the document is checked back in other people can edit the document again.

Checking documents in and out is a very powerful capability, and sometimes raises a few questions on when to use and when not. My colleagues on the Office 365 Communities has written an informative article on the topic.

Read more here

Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers a wide range of security modeling features, and it is important to choose the most appropriate approach to implementing a particular solution.

Each feature offers a combination of characteristics that provides a balance between granularity of access control, administrative ease, and impact on scalability. Having an understanding of the underlying mechanisms supporting each security modeling feature can be useful when selecting the best approach to solving a particular challenge, especially when planning to develop a large volume system.

A new whitepaper "Scalable Security Modeling with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011" describes how these security modeling features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for authorization work at scale, the implications associated with these features functioning at high volumes, and guidance on common and recommended usage patterns for modeling Microsoft Dynamics CRM security at scale, incorporating teams as appropriate.

Download the whitepaper here