Tip:

When installing services pack 2 on server 2003 , please ensure that you have physical access control to the server.

Once the server pack is installed the default firewall will turn on and you may not be able to gain access to the server remotely.  So please avoid install this type of system service pack remotely on a hosted production server.  

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 has a great new feature called the Data Migration Manager. It really simplifies the process of importing and exporting a wide variety of data into your hosted CRM.

The screencast below is from Microsoft’s John O’Donnell, and gives a good overview of this handy new feature.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 : Data Migration Manager with John O’Donnell

Sometimes when dealing with SharePoint Document libraries and Lists you’ll need the ability to easily access the files in a way that would not require the use of the SharePoint front end. For instance, if you need to upload/move “X” number folders from the file system; using the SharePoint fronted to perform this operation could become cumbersome. In order to avoid these troubles and save time, perform the following steps:

1. Open My Network Places

2.    From Network Tasks choose Add a network place.
3.    In Add Network Place Wizard screen click “Next”.
4.    Select “Choose another network location” click “Next”.
5.    Type the address of SharePoint site/sub site. (e.g. http://p2-Testsite/Testsubsite/)
6.    Type in the username and password.
7.    Navigate to the Document library/list and create a Shortcut. It will ask you if you‘d like to place the shortcut on your desktop click “Yes” and you are done.

Phase 2 is proud to announce that we now offer Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server as the newest product in our lineup of hosted services. This is a one-of-a-kind offering, and we’re very excited to be able to offer it at huge discounts compared to buying this as a stand-alone product. This fits in nicely with our SharePoint and MS Project offerings as it integrates tightly with both.

We’ve been getting requests now for months from people asking about Team Foundation Server, and we will be turning our first customer on shortly.  Subscriptions start at $149 per month per user, with no setup fees, no contracts, and no minimum number of users.  Subscribe now >

There are two very different strands of thought on customer service when it comes to SaaS companies. Many prefer to automate everything and minimize the time their staff spends speaking with customers. This approach works best for a narrowly targeted niche application, that does one function and does it well.

Phase 2 decided early on that we’d take the opposite approach. We know that our hosted business applications touch many people in many aspects of their work across an organization. Most people we work with are not IT professionals, but everyday users of our software. We in essence become their IT department.

When you subscribe to an application with Phase 2, the following are included in the price:

- a user training session with one of our engineers

- basic customization and configuration of your application

- 9am to 9pm PST live customer support

- 24/7/365 support for emergencies

Phase 2 considers customer service paramount to its long-term success.  This customer centric management style is pervasive throughout the company.  We firmly stand behind our marketing message that we are always available to help.  We understand that the technology represents a significant departure for most of our customers.  Consequently, our staff is trained to go above and beyond to ensure that the transition occurs smoothly for each client.

Additional steps are taken by management to ensure that each customer is satisfied every time they contact Phase 2.  Automatic notifications within our ticketing system ensure that customers are issued trouble tickets for each issue.  Each of these calls is traced and reviewed by managers to ensure quick and effective resolution.  Upon ticket closure, the client is sent a final auto-notification verifying the issue is resolved and providing the final resolution.  Along with this notification is an invitation to participate in an online customer survey to provide feedback regarding their experience.  All customer surveys are reviewed by executive management.

Current avenues to access customer support include the toll free help line, online form submission, e-mail and real-time online chat services.  Our helpdesk is currently staffed from 12p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  On-call technicians are available beyond these hours.  Future plans include hiring an early shift to cover from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

When creating a SharePoint event receiver and attaching it to a SharePoint List or Document Library, one of the most important attributes to remember is the ListTemplateId. The ListTemplateId is an attribute that’s associated with a unique identifier for the target template for which the receiver is being built. There will be times when you’ll want to attach an event to a specific list or document library without having all the document libraries or lists triggering the desired event.

Here’s one quick way to do it.

1. Save the SharePoint list or Document Library as a template.

2. Go to the parent site’s template gallery to find the deisred list and save it on your desktop.

3. Download and install alphazip , or any other program that will allow you to extract and archive .cab files.

4. Rename “yourlist.stp” to “yourlist.cab”.

5. Double click on “yourlist.cab” locate the manifest.xml file and copy it to your desktop.

6. Open the manifest.xml in WordPad and locate the following:

<TemplateType>100</TemplateType> replacing the numeric value to something unqiue by checking against the SharePoint reserved values listed below:

7. CTRL+ S to save the file.

8.Drag and Drop the manifest.xml back to “yourlist”.cab overwriting the original.

9.Rename “yourlist.cab” back to “yourlist.stp”.

10.Upload list template back to SharePoint site and we are done

We issued a press release today talking about our better then expected growth this year, and our expansion and have received some great interest from the press and analysts already today.

Our home town paper, the Honolulu Advertiser wrote a feature about us today as well, and touched on our hosted business applications.

Feel free to write me [smitha  phase2int.com] with any questions or requests for interviews.

Rather than send instructions how to find a record, it’s easier just to link it. The Outlook e-mail may not be automatically tracked in your hosted CRM (depends on your settings), and the link only works for other CRM users with at least Read permissions, but to ask a quick question or answer one, it works pretty slick.

·In the Actions menu click Send Shortcut.

An Outlook e-mail message opens with the link to the record already in it and the record’s name in the Subject Line. Just add your recipients, message, and then send.

The recipient just need to click on the link. If they aren’t already signed into CRM, they will need to sign in. Sending a shortcut is a great way to ask someone about a record, remind them to complete a form, or answer a question.

Phase 2 targets the “Enterprise Software” segment of the SaaS industry, defined as all software required to run a small-to-medium size business. We offer products in two sub-categories of this segment: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and collaboration. Our hosted CRM offering is Microsoft Dynamics 4.0, a well recognized enterprise-grade CRM system. Under the collaboration sub-segment we offer SharePoint, ShareMeeting, Office Communicator and Microsoft Project. 

The collaboration segment has grown an average of 21% annually over the past three years while CRM has grown at 43% annually over the same period. Historical trends of these sub-segments are seen in the charts below.

Predictions for “Enterprise Application Software” sub segment.

The SaaS market is in its early high-growth phase. The industry has passed the inflection point characterized by the entry of a large number of venture-backed startups and established market leaders. The global market was valued at $4 billion in 2004 and $6.3 billion in 2006 (Evans-Correia, 2007). Rick Merrill, managing editor of Softletter and co-author of the “SaaS Report”, predicted that by 2011 the SaaS industry will be valued at $21 billion. The number of SMBs using a SaaS application grew 200% from 2006 to 2007.

Industry analyst predictions:

- “SaaS will be moving from the edges of the business portfolio to the core over time, and increasingly it will move into mission-critical business service functionality,” McNee, founder and CEO of Saugatuck Technology Inc., a research company, said, “We are forecasting that by 2011, a good 30% of all software deployed in businesses will be SaaS.”

- IDC predicts SaaS will be worth $11 billion by 2009 (Evans-Correia, 2007).

According to Gartner the global SaaS market will grow to $19.3 billion by 2011, tripling in size from the $6.3 billion it was in 2006. Gartner made the following predictions about SaaS for the year 2010.

- By 2010, 65% of European companies will have begun to use at least one SaaS application.

- By 2010, SaaS will have become an integral part of a business’ architecture.

- SaaS use in medium-sized and large businesses will have doubled by 2010.Software as a service is forecasted to have a compound annual growth rate of 17% through 2011 for small-and-midsize-business CRM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) software markets, more than double the growth rate for total enterprise application software as a whole.

- Software as a service is forecasted to have a compound annual growth rate of 22.1% through 2011 for the aggregate enterprise application software markets, more than double the growth rate for total enterprise software.

Merrill Chapman, managing editor of Softletter, reported at a conference on May 14, 2008 that the SaaS market will report revenue of $21 billion by 2009.

Many of our users inquire how to make the summary task view the default in our hosted Microsoft Project Server,  without having to do so for each project.  This method will only be applied to new projects.

-This will only work for Project 2007.

- This is a user setting not a machine setting.

1.    Start , Run and type regedit.
2.    Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\MS Project\Options\View
3.    Right-click on View and go to New - DWORD Value
4.    Set the name to Show Project Summary
5.    Click off Show Project Summary
6.    Double-click on Show Project Summary
7.    Set the value to 1. 

New projects will now have the project summary task displayed by default.