Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring Wave Frequently Asked Questions
The pre-release information contained in this document is provided by an independent Microsoft partner and may be subject to change.
What is the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring Wave?
The Dynamics CRM Spring Wave consists of a series of releases that will be available in Q2-2014:
 ‘Leo’ Update for Dynamics CRM Online and On-Premise editions
ï‚· Unified Service Desk
ï‚· Microsoft Social Listening
As part of the Spring Wave a new Enterprise licence tier will be launched for Dynamics CRM Online.
What are the main improvements in the Leo update?
The Leo update focuses on improvements to the service capabilities of Dynamics CRM. Other enhancements will include Exchange Server Sync, iOS 7 support and a new Android mobile app.
How are the Dynamics CRM Service functions changing?
The Leo update includes a new CRM entity to track Service Level Agreements, improvements to Case Routing, new Case Hierarchy option enabling connected issues to be linked, membership based Case Queuing rules.
A new Entitlements entity will also be introduced that will control individual contact rights to log service cases.
Will the new CRM Entitlements entity replace the Contracts entity?
Microsoft has stated its intention to deprecate the Contracts entity in future CRM releases. These functions will remain after the Leo update but the new Entitlements entity will enable greater control of individual contact permissions to log service cases and associate these entitlements with specific products.
Entitlements records will connect with the new Service Level Agreement processes that are introduced in the Spring Wave. To benefit from these improved servicing controls it is expected that CRM customers will begin transitioning from the legacy Contracts entity.
Enterprise Licence Plan
How does the CRM Online Enterprise plan compare to the Pro licence tier?
The new Dynamics CRM Online Enterprise license plan gives access to the new Microsoft Dynamics Marketing module and Unified Service Desk. The Enterprise Plan also includes all the capabilities of the Pro licence level. CRM Online Enterprise licences are priced at $200 per user, per month (GBP pricing yet to be confirmed).
Is there a minimum number of Enterprise level licences for CRM Online?
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online requires a minimum of 5 x Professional licence users. There is no minimum for CRM Online Enterprise and these can be combined with Professional licences.
Microsoft Social Listening
How will businesses benefit from Microsoft Social Listening?
With the rise of social and mobile, the sales cycle has changed. Customers now go online as their first step in gathering information and use reviews to strongly influence purchase decisions. Often, customers will be over 60% of the way through the purchasing process before they contact sales.
Microsoft Social Listening (MSL) helps organisations monitor the social conversations in their industry involving customers, prospects and competitors and respond accordingly. MSL gives access to these conversations enabling benefits across sales, marketing, and customer care.
Listen for share of voice, brand, product, competitor and customer sentiment, campaign monitoring, competitive insights and more.
MSL is designed to look the same as the CRM interface and offers a number of easy to read graphs, lists and charts that makes social data easy to aggregate, understand and share.
What sources does Microsoft Social listening track?
The data is in the public domain from Facebook and Twitter using GNIP as the data aggregator. RSS and LinkedIn feeds are not included in the Spring Wave.
How does MSL measure if people are saying positive or negative things on social networks?
This is what is called Sentiment Analysis. MSL scans posts for key words and phrases, for example, words like ‘good’ or ‘great’ in the context of your search terms would be rated ‘Positive’ while ‘terrible’ or ‘dreadful’ would be rated ‘Negative’.
Microsoft Social Listening offers Native Language Processing for sentiment analysis in the native language and thus picks up on cultural cues which could be missed by translation.
How can I get Microsoft Social Listening?
Microsoft Social Listening is a cloud service provisioned on the Microsoft Office 365 billing platform.
MSL is available at no additional cost for Dynamics CRM Online customers with 10 or more Professional licences. Customers with fewer than 10 Professional licences who require MSL will first need to increase their number of CRM licences to reach this threshold.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Premise customers with active Microsoft software assurance can activate Microsoft Social Listening for an incremental cost of USD 20 per user, per month (GBP pricing has yet to be confirmed). There are no minimum licence requirements for CRM On-Premise customers. MSL is also available as a standalone solution at USD 100 per user, per month.
How many social posts will MSL track?
Microsoft Social Listening will track up a total to 10,000 posts per month across user defined social search terms. Additional post tracking capacity can be added for an incremental cost.
Users will get an alert when approaching their monthly quota.
Will MSL integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online?
The initial release Microsoft Social Listening release will be on a standalone basis. MSL will be integrated with Microsoft Dynamics approximately 8 weeks following the ‘Leo’ CRM Spring Wave update.
How long will it take for a new post to appear in Microsoft Social Listening?
With the initial release of Microsoft Social Listening this will be approximately 30 minutes. With future releases posts will be reported in a few minutes.
Can a CRM case be created from any posts with negative sentiment?
This function will not be available in the Spring Wave launch but Microsoft has stated its intention to include this in a future 2014 release.
Unified Service Desk
What is the new Unified Service Desk?
The Unified Service Desk (USD) is a new desktop application to manage all service interactions including new service script functionality and support for multiple simultaneous customer sessions.
How do I get the Unified Service Desk?
For Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online the USD is available as part of the new Enterprise level licence plan. The Unified Service Desk will be available to Dynamics CRM On-Premise customers in Autumn 2014.
Does the USD include telephony integration?
USD is supplied with CTI framework but adapters will be needed to enable integration for voice, chat & media including Microsoft Lync.
Can Dynamics CRM cases be created from USD posts?
This function will be added in summer 2014
Does USD support screen-sharing?
USD does not include screen-sharing capabilities but it can be integrated with LogMeIn and other remote desktop control services
Does this include Parature features following Microsoft’s recent acquisition?
Parature service features including knowledge base, customer care portals and web chat integration will be applied to the Unified Service Desk later in 2014.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing
How does Microsoft Dynamics Marketing compare to the inbuilt CRM Marketing functions?
The new Dynamics Marketing (MDM) module includes extended functions to manage multi-channel campaigns including email, social, events, sponsorship and advertising, and each creative asset.
MDM has an intuitive UI designed to look just like the CRM interface but with specialist marketing functions to plan each campaign step and simplify processes for automated lead scoring (on all CRM entities), marketing automation and demonstrating the impact of each marketing activity.
Who is Microsoft Dynamics Marketing designed for?
B2B and B2B marketing teams that want to increase lead generation through marketing automation, greater campaign personalisation and integrated planning with CRM using a single interface that reduces complexity.
With enterprise-ready collaboration Dynamics Marketing helps teams work better together, and with external agencies, on brand, content, and events, to stay aligned and agile.
How can I get Microsoft Dynamics Marketing?
MDM is available to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online users with an Enterprise licence.
Dynamics CRM On-Premise customers with active software assurance can subscribe to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing @ $125 per user, per month (GBP pricing has yet to be confirmed).
How many marketing emails will Microsoft Dynamics Marketing send?
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing includes entitlement to send up to 50,000 emails per month. Additional monthly send capacity can be added for an incremental cost.
What is the best way to demonstrate campaign ROI with Microsoft Dynamics Marketing?
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing will track all campaign costs and with CRM integration it will pull in revenue from won sales opportunities to display ROI. Further revenue reporting sources are available using PowerBI for Office 365 (requires separate Office 365 subscription).
How does MDM compare with email automation services like dot Mailer?
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing offers a wider range of inbuilt marketing functions compared to specialist email providers such as dot Mailer including advanced lead scoring, event management and campaign planning tools.
The initial release of MDM excludes several email marketing functions that are prominent in dot Mailer including: a drag and drop email template editor (MDM uses a rich HTML editor), subject title split testing, multi-part HTML / text delivery, send campaigns from multiple domains, email client reporting, email click hotspot reports and spam filter reporting.
What’s next for Microsoft Dynamics CRM?
Following the Spring Wave releases Microsoft will release further Social Listening & Marketing updates in Q4. Additional CRM enhancements will include:
ï‚· In built calculated fields without the need for custom code
ï‚· Improved process flows including branching logic
ï‚· Extended CRM offline capabilities for tablets
ï‚· New organisation hierarchies that graphically display the hierarchy & relationships between CRM account records.
