When it comes to maxims, the pithier the better, I always say. Most of the following maxims for CRM 4 fail the truly pithy test, but I hope they make up for it in usefulness. Let me know what you think.
Power-User & Configuration Topics
Entity Relationships and All That
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Example: 1:N from Contact to Registration, 1:N from Event to Registration. Here’s an article I wrote that contrasts the native and manual approaches to creating N:N relationships.
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Example: If you just want to know which accounts you’ve done business with, create an Advanced Find view on account and filter on which accounts have closed opportunities. But you can’t add columns from those closed opportunity records to the view.
Example: If you create an Advanced Find view on opportunities, you can include columns from both opportunities and their parent account records in the view.
Entity Customizations
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- Change requirement level of default Company attribute to “no constraint”, and change its Label to “New Account”.
- Create a new N:1 relationship to Account, call it “Existing Account”, and place it on the Lead form.
I discussed these and related customizations in this article.
- Add a custom N:1 from opportunity to contact, call it “Primary Contact” and add it to the opportunity form.
- Change the Display Label of the “Potential Customer” field to “Account”.
- If you don’t use the product catalog, change the “Revenue” field (schema name “isrevenuesystemcalculated”) so that its default value is “User Provided”.
- If your organization uses multiple currencies, add the “Est. Revenue (Base)” and “Exchange Rate” attributes to Opportunity form.
I discussed these and related customizations in this article.
Workflows
Here’s an article I wrote about on demand workflows and security roles.
Here’s an article I wrote attempting to clarify the issue of automatic workflows, security and scope.
