A while back I did a post about everything getting lost on the Leads Notes tab when converting a Lead to an Account, Contact, and Opportunity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

The summary of that post is:

• This doesn’t appear to be a bug or technical problem but is the way the system was designed
• The Notes and Attachments in the Leads Notes tab aren’t lost during the conversion, they just stay behind with the closed Lead
• I proposed a workaround of hiding the Leads Notes tab to just prevent people from even using it

So while hiding the Microsoft CRM Leads Notes tab works great for fresh implementations, and to prevent any more issues with existing implementations, what about all of the companies who need to access all of the Notes and Attachments in the old converted Leads?

The quickest and easiest solution I’ve seen is a workaround that adds a new “Leads Notes” tab to the Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities entity. It looks just like a normal Notes tab but pulls the Notes and Attachments data from the original Lead using an Iframe and some scripting. 

Karl Iuel of Avanade posted a script with instructions of how to configure it.  Richard Knudsen of IMG also posted a script on his blog.

Before adding this to your MSCRM I’d suggest giving some thought to how your users will use this. The reason I say this is it’s your choice whether to add this to the Account, Contact, or Opportunity entity. My suggestion would be to add it to the Contact entity. Here’s why.

I tested Karl’s script on the Account, Contact, and Opportunity entities and converted a Lead.

With the Account version the Lead only transfers once. Meaning, if in the future you get a Lead who happens to be an employee of an existing Account in MSCRM that was a previously converted Lead, it will only transfer the Notes from the first Lead.

With the Opportunity version it depends on if you associate Opportunities with a Contact or Account. A user might get confused on where to look for the Lead notes if some of your customers are companies (Accounts) and some are individuals (Contacts).

With the Contact version the Leads Notes stay with the Contact. A Lead is somewhat of a combination of the Account, Contact, and Opportunity records. But to me it most closely resembles a Contact record. So when a user is later looking for notes of a closed Lead the first place they would probably look would be in Contacts records.

Again, it’s your choice where to put the new Leads Notes tab but it depends on how your company and users use your MSCRM. To validate which one works best I’d suggest having a couple of your key users test each version and perform tasks as they would as part of their normal day.

1. In Dynamics CRM for Outlook select “CRM” from the top menu (In the Web version select “Tools”)
2. From the dropdown list select “Options…”
3. On the window that opens look for the option to “Select the number of records shown per page in any list of records” and change the dropdown next to “Records Per Page” to the amount you would like to display. 
4. Click the OK icon.

Users always want to save as much time as possible. I’ve found that most users know Cut, Copy, and Paste (CTRL+X, CTRL+C, CTRL+V) but usually don’t know there are a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Here are a few:

General Shortcuts

• Copy text = CTRL+C
• Paste text = CTRL+V
• Undo previous text change = CTRL+Z
• Save a record = CTRL+S
• Close a record = CTRL+F4
• Cut text = CTRL+X
• Delete text = DELETE
• Delete text without putting it on the Clipboard = SHIFT+DELETE
• Move the insertion point to the start of the next word = CTRL+RIGHT ARROW
• Move the insertion point to the start of the previous word = CTRL+LEFT ARROW
• Select all text in the current field = CTRL+A
• Display the System menu for the active window = ALT+SPACEBAR
• Move forward through the form’s fields = TAB
• Move backward through the form’s fields = SHIFT+TAB
• Display the shortcut menu for the selected item = SHIFT+F10
• Display the corresponding menu = ALT + the key for the underlined letter in the menu name
• Cancel the current task or command, or close a selected list or dialog box = ESC
• Move up through a list of records = UP ARROW
• Move down through a list of records = DOWN ARROW
• Expand or collapse the preview in a list view = SPACEBAR
• Open the selected record = ENTER
• Select all records on the current page = CTRL+A

Dialog Box Shortcuts

• Move to the next option or option group = TAB
• Move to the previous option or option group = SHIFT+TAB
• Complete the command for the active option or button = ENTER
• Move between options in an open list, or between options in a group of options = ARROW keys
• Cancel a command, or close a selected list or dialog box = ESC
• Auto-complete lookup fields such as Primary Contact = Type a couple letters and CTRL+K

Form Shortcuts

• Save = CTRL+S or SHIFT+F12
• Save and close = ALT+S
• Expand or collapse Form Assistant = CTRL+SHIFT+F
• Cancel edits and close (Close) = ESC
• Delete the record = CTRL+D
• Save and then open a new form (Save and New) = CTRL+SHIFT+S

This is one of those handy features that still seems to get overlooked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

The situation is normally that a user needs to change one piece of data within several records. Maybe you have a dozen Contacts whose phone number all changed to (312) 555-1212. Updating the records individually would be time consuming.

To bulk edit/update multiple records:

1. Select the entity/record type you would like to update (e.g. Accounts, Contacts, etc). Records can be updated from the main menu area (e.g. the Accounts list), from within a record (e.g. the Contacts list within an Account), or through Advanced Find. 
2. Select the records you would like to update.  To highlight a list of records, hold the Shift keyboard key and click the start and end records. To highlight specific records, hold the Ctrl key and click the desired records.
3. On the Actions menu click “More Actions” and select “Edit”
4. On the Edit Multiple Records window that opens, enter the data you would like to change. This will add or update that data on all of the records you have selected.
5. Click “Save”.

Updating and Editing Multiple Records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

10/6/09 Update: A new post with a quick fix is at Quick Fix for Microsoft CRM Leads Notes Tab Notes and Attachments not Converting

Here’s more detail on the situation. You create a Lead record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and add text and/or attachments to the Notes tab. At some point you then click the “Covert Lead” icon. In the dialog window that opens you choose one or more of the options to create an Account, Contact, or Opportunity. When you view the converted Account, Contact, or Opportunity records and click on the Notes tab there’s nothing there. It looks like anything that was originally in the Lead Notes tab was lost.

So was everything lost? No, it wasn’t lost but it wasn’t moved over either. When converting a Lead stuff in the Notes tab doesn’t get transferred. If you change the Leads View to “Closed Leads” the Lead record and information are still there. If you open a converted Account or Contact and look on the Administration tab there’s a field called Originating Lead which links to the original Lead record.

So is this a configuration problem or technical bug or something? No, to the best of my knowledge it was designed this way and is how it works in all versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM including version 4.0. However, this “feature” only applies to the Notes tab for the Leads entity when converting the Lead. If you create a new Account, Contact, or other entity and add stuff to the Notes tab it keeps the data.

So what can be done about this?

There’s a simple solution with a short answer but I think it’s worth looking at a few related issues first. When I work with companies who’ve previously deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM and this Leads Notes tab situation comes up I almost always also find that:

• Users are not using the Notes tab correctly as a whole: According to Microsoft’s official training material the Notes tab is intended for general information such as a company overview for Accounts (i.e. Company was founded in 1800 and…) or a bio for Contacts (i.e. Contact attended Harvard and…). But a lot of people are using Notes for entering history such as phone conversations which is not what it’s designed for. Phone conversations and other time-based communications belong in History.

• Users are not using CRM consistently: Meaning, some people are using Notes for recording phone conversations, some are using History, or some really aren’t using CRM much or at all. This user inconsistency causes quite a few problems including poor data integrity, inaccurate Activities Reports, and problems with users not being able to find the right information to help customers.

• No implementation methodology: The one thing these companies all had in common was they didn’t use any CRM methodology for the initial implementation and/or didn’t get assistance from anyone who had Microsoft Dynamics CRM expertise.

While the above points don’t change the Leads/Notes functionality in CRM they highlight an important point. Why wasn’t this issue discussed early on during the implementation Analysis and Training steps so it didn’t become a problem later? Because there were no Analysis and Training steps. There was no implementation methodology and no guidance from someone familiar with the product. They had a company employee install the Dynamics CRM software and told users to start using it. This employee wasn’t aware of the situation. And they shouldn’t be expected to because it’s not their area of expertise.

Okay, so back to what to do now. What are some options?

There are several options for addressing the issue, such as custom development or using the built-in tools, but they all have some sort of constraint or limitation that usually makes them unfeasible. As an example, you normally would just use the built-in tools to delete a Tab but the Notes field is locked. You can move the Notes field but not remove or change it.

So, during the implementation analysis phase I normally recommend hiding the entire Notes tab from the Lead form so nobody has access to use it. This can be done by adding the JavaScript below to the OnLoad Event of the Lead Form Properties within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Note that the number in the code references the order of the tabs beginning with 0 so make sure to change the number to match the Lead tab’s position. If you’ve already deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM, before making any changes I would recommend reviewing your current Lead usage to determine what impact hiding the Leads tab would have on your users and customers.

tab1Tab.style.display = “none”;

If you’re having some of the other problems I mentioned, such as inconsistent usage or inaccurate report data, this may indicate greater underlying issues that won’t be corrected by making small fixes like hiding stuff. It may be time to re-evaluate your implementation.

One of the questions I’ve been getting about Dynamics CRM a lot lately is “Why can’t you create and send HTML based emails with images and other pretty stuff”?

Well, you can. It’s just not obvious. When you go to create an email template or just send a web form email through Dynamics CRM you won’t see anything that says “add image” or “upload HTML file”.  It looks like the only options are simple stuff like changing font color and creating bullet lists.  If you try to copy and paste HTML code you just end up with HTML code.

There’s a “hidden feature” of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. It’s called Copy and Paste. That’s right. You can copy and paste a webpage into a Dynamics CRM email form or template and it should show up perfectly (unless the HTML code is crappy).

Perform the following steps to get the hang of how to do it:

1. Open Internet Explorer (I’m using version 7.0) and go to your favorite website (yes, any website)
2. Somewhere in the webpage click the right button on your mouse and click “Select all” from the option list
3. Click the right button on your mouse again and click “Copy”
4. Open Microsoft Dynamics CRM
   1. If you’re using CRM for Microsoft Outlook, open Outlook, go to the top menu area where it says “File, Edit, View, etc) and click CRM, and click “Options” from the list
   2. If you’re using the web based version of CRM, go the top menu area, click “Tools” and select “Options” from the list
5. On the Set Personal Options window that opens, click the “Email Templates” tab, click the “New” icon, choose a Template Type
6. On the Email Template form that opens, place your mouse cursor in the large text area and do a Ctrl-V paste with your keyboard (press and hold the “Ctrl” key while simultaneously pressing the “V” key)
7. Ta-da! You should see the exact webpage with images, colors, and links

So you’re thinking “that’s great but how the heck do I get the marketing newsletter from my HTML editor into CRM”? Here are a couple more things to note:

1. Most popular HTML editors, such as good ole’ Microsoft Frontpage, have a few different editing modes like “code” and “design”. In the design mode, copy the webpage (not the HTML code) and paste it into the CRM email.
2. The email images must be stored somewhere where your email recipients can have access to view them. Since most people that receive your email won’t have security permission to access the images on your computer you’ll need to transfer them somewhere accessible. One option would be to talk to your website administrator about putting them on your company’s website server (e.g. yourcompany.com/newsletterimages). You’ll just need to make sure your HTML code path matches the location of the images.

 After you get the hang of this it’s pretty easy.