We use
InsideView regularly here at Navantis. We also include InsideView on most of our CRM bids when dealing with clients that have a need to research thier prospects (such as a Sales team vs. a Service team).
I wanted to provide a post using the
free demo of InsideView to show how quick and easy it is to use InsideView in your existing Dynamics CRM deployment, and highlight the power provided by this service.
Before you begin - Setup a new Dynamics CRM environment
I suggest that you do this using a seperate CRM instance so that you don't accidentally overwrite anything in an existing customized system. The InsideView documentation includes a great warning (although it's at the end of the document...)
"ANY/ALL UNMANAGED SOLUTIONS SHOULD FIRST BE BACKED UP (BY EXPORTING THEM AS UNMANAGED SOLUTIONS) BEFORE IMPORTING THE INSIDEVIEW MANAGED SOLUTION."
Step 1 - Install the InsideView Solution
The InsideView package is a managed solution that can be imported into Dynamics CRM, and accessed from the Dynamics CRM forms. InsideView provides a step by step guide to download the solution and how to install it. I have provided a link to that guide
click here
Note: If you are familiar with using the
Dynamics CRM Demo Builder system, it will preinstall InsideView as well... but that is for another post ;)
Step 2 - Test it out
Using InsideView with the Dynamics CRM demo data isn't going to work very well (those companies don't exist) so I added a new Account to test out the integration. Account name "
Rockwell Automation". After you hit the Save button and the form refreshes, the InsideView section will appear. If InsideView can identify the account info (name, url, etc) it will show it's results.
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| Account form showing InsideView |
Step2 - Synchronize the data
One of my favorite parts in InsideView, is the ability to have it perform an one-time synch to update your Dynamics CRM record with information available through InsideView. This means you can update Account, Lead and Contact information with one click (kind of)
To perform a sync in our example, I click on the
Sync button in the InsideView interface.
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| Sync button on form |
The first time you try to use the Sync function, InsideView will prompt you for some credentials. This is needed so that InsideView can access the CRM webservices to perform the one-time data sync.
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| CRM credientals |
The
sync dialog will appear next, and it presents a "merge" list of data from CRM and InsideView allowing the user to pick which elements they would like to persist. Pick your fields and hit the
Update button.
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| Sync Dialog |
Where is the data from? The lower right corner of the Sync dialog lists the sources it used to gather the data. In my example, the Rockwell Automation data has come from Reuters, InsideView, Netprospex and the internet community.
After the sync is finished, you will see a "success" message in the Sync dialog. Close the dialog and refresh the Account form. It would be great if this was done automatically, for now you should either reopen the form - or hit refresh (F5). The following image highlights the new data.
Step 3 - Learn more about the Account
Another great feature of InsideView is being able to research the organization from the CRM interface. There are a series of tabs that offer even more information, lets review.
People: Shows personnel identified as being related to this org. You can also research people on an individual level if needed.
Buzz: A collection of news items and articles posted from this Org/Person or about this Org/Person
Family Tree: Shows a heirarchy of this organization and any parent or child organizations
Competitors: Great information that can give you inside info about their industry and challenges
More: These tabs offer valuable information and insight through Financials, Jobs, Industry Profile and News. Helps to round out your picture of the organization and place in the industry.
Step 4 - Add Contacts
Now that we have sync'd the Account fields and learned more about the organization through the different tabs and lists. We are ready to have InsideView create some Contacts for us.
Navigate to the People tab, you can filter the list based on titles and perform searches for a particular person. When you mouse over a Contact, there will be a popup (similar to LinkedIn UI) that will show you summary information.
The selected row will also display a Sync button, which you can use to have InsideView create the Contact directly in CRM for you. Click the
Sync button and you will get a confirmation page asking if you want to make a new Lead or Contact record
or update an existing Lead or Contact that has can be identified by InsideView.
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| Create Lead or Contact from Sync |
When this is complete, you will see the success page and then you can go back to the Account, refresh the list of related Contacts and see the results.
Open up the new Contact record, and you can now see info and research the individual the same way it works for an organization.
This posting was an overview of the Dynamics CRM integration with InsideView and showed some examples of how you can work with the service. InsideView has tons of material (better) that explains their product features indepth. They also have regular live webinar demos that you can participate in.
Hope this useful, Cheers
