Microsoft recently announced that the new release of Dynamics CRM 2015 is expected to launch in Q4 of this year in December. Continuing to build on the great features and functions in CRM 2013, CRM 2015 is a release that will satisfy a lot of end users. Here’s a few reasons why I’m excited for this release:
Sales Hierarchies
See how info is related or grouped by viewing accounts, products, or users in hierarchical charts.
Why it’s exciting:This has long been something that users have wanted, but typically involved a 3rd party add-in and a lot of configuration.
Search
Improved search capabilities provide a quick way to find and navigate to records by letting users enter keywords in the search box on the navigation bar. The search box supports using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character, and allows the user to search across record types and get a full list of matching search results.
Why it’s exciting: Enterprise search proved popular in the CRM 2013 iPad app and allows end users to quickly and easily find related information across many different entities.
Business Rules
Business Rules have been great in CRM 2013 and CRM 2015 takes them a step further and executed irrespective of whether changes are made through the client or on the server though the SDK. Rules can be executed on create or update of the record and form specific actions.
Why it’s exciting: Server Side Business Rules mean even more logic that is embedded in plugins can be ported to the front end and managed by business users.
Calculated Fields
Now in CRM 2015, we have out of the box numeric calculated fields which we can add to the form and automatically calculate data. The fields contain a value calculated based on conditions and a formula defined within this field. The conditions and formulas can refer to the values of the other fields in the same entity or values of the fields in related entities. You can define a calculated field to contain values resulting from many common calculations, such as simple math operators, or conditional operations like “greater than,” “or,” “if-else” and many others.
Why it’s exciting: Calculated fields have long been a time consuming and code-based exercise to achieve.
Rollup Fields
Now in CRM 2015, we have the ability to add in aggregates using out of the box tools to easily meet client requirements. For example, users often want an aggregate count of child records like total revenue for the open opportunities related to an account. Now, this is will be possible in CRM 2015. Another benefit is that they are also portable as part of a solution so they can be transported between organizations.
Why it’s exciting: Rolling up data in CRM has often been a time consuming, difficult, and expensive exercise in previous releases.
For further details on what to expect in this Q4 release, download Microsoft’s Release Preview Guide
