If you are familiar with using Windows applications (eg: Word, Excel) then you have the basis for learning how to use this application. Its friendly drag and drop interface makes it very easy to learn, especially if you are used to the drag and drop environment with Windows.

How often have you come across scenarios where people are dumping data into Excel to then manipulate it to get a result? And then doing the same process again at a later date to analyse new data? Well, setting up a Crystal Report to sit across the datasource is simple! And Crystal Reports can read data from a number of datasources (eg: MS SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Java Beans - you can even report from your Inbox or Contacts in Microsoft Outlook!).

Crystal Reports has the power to professionally format your reports to meet your business or personal requirements. Graphs, pictures, conditional formatting, lines, colour, summaries, formulas and a huge amount of other features can be easily applied to give your report the look you want.

In order to learn more about Crystal Reports, and reporting in general, we offer a number of courses addressing these needs:

Crystal Reports XI Level 1
Crystal Reports XI Level 2
SQL Fundamentals

NB: if you don’t use version XI (also known as version 11) don’t worry - differences between the version you use and XI are pointed out as all courses progress.

Please have a look at our website for further information: http://www.inhouseltd.co.nz

Or go directly to our training section: http://www.inhouseltd.co.nz/Solutions/InhouseTraining.htm

Matthew Thomas works for inHouse Limited performing Business Intelligence consultancy - a fancy term for helping companies make better use of the information they have which is targeted at the level of the user (ie: a manager wants an overview or health check on the business whereas an analyst want more indepth views of data to solve problems). He also teaches others how to perform these tasks and has been teaching Crystal Reports dating back to v7, along with other areas like SQL and Business Objects Enterprise.

Remember old good days when your company probably had Great Plains Dynamics? If you are in San Francisco Bay Area – you had local Great Plains Software partner consulting company, who served you basically coming onsite and charging you four hours minimum, even if the problem deserved 5-min fix? This was at the end of 20th century and remote support technologies were not very advanced – Citrix was making good progress and taking market over from Symantec PCAnywhere. Today, when Microsoft Terminal Server and Citrix are remote support standards and IT department uses them to host application server for nation-wide and world-wide users, you should probably be thinking of getting remote support for your ERP and CRM systems. In this small article we’ll take a look at Microsoft CRM remote support, customization, reporting, implementation and integration.

• Why Microsoft CRM Remote Support? Microsoft CRM market niche is still narrow and MS CRM consulting companies do not have enough clientele in their respected locals markets: Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York – even in these hypermarkets. In order to survive Microsoft CRM VAR went to nationwide and even international markets to get clients base.

• Technology-driven consulting companies. Microsoft CRM has web and MS Outlook clients and so by its nature it is web application. When you are considering hosting your web site – you typically do not care where hosting company is located – you consider price and quality. Microsoft CRM could be hosted with .Net hosting companies and implementation could be done remotely with web-session-based training.

• Customization. Today, even if Microsoft Business Solutions has open technology Microsoft CRM SDK – the complexity of the specific tasks (messaging through Lotus Notes Domino, generic MAPI, advanced MS CRM – Exchange connector) requires precision programming, which should be outsourced to nationwide development centers. As our experience indicates – clients are demanding the expertise, not just cheap generic developers. Whoever comes for the cheap price – they usually get poor results.

• Large Business ERP. Microsoft CRM proved its market strength and ability to automate large publicly traded corporation. It sits in Microsoft SQL Server and uses all the spectrum of Microsoft technologies: .Net, Active Directories, MS Exchange, Full-Text Search, Crystal Reports Enterprise. We are confident in Microsoft CRM ability to automate Aerospace & Defense, Pharmaceutical, Supply Chain Management, Medical & Hospitals, Distribution & Logistics, Oil & Gas, Wholesale & Retail, Education, Non-for-profit

• Integration. Microsoft CRM has standard integration tool with Microsoft Great Plains, Navision and Axapta integrations are on the way. However you can integrate Microsoft CRM with heterogeneous databases, such as Oracle, DB2, Lotus Notes Domino, Sybase, Pervasive SQL or Ctree/Faircomm.

• Web-Sessions and Skype training. Web Seminars are normal these days and you should be OK with the idea of remote web training. This will allow you to get the best expertise with moderate price.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is consultant and CTO in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions partner, serving clients in Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, Russia. He is Microsoft Great Plains certified master, Great Plains Dexterity, Microsoft CRM SDK C#.Net, Crystal Reports developer. You can reach Andrew: akarasev@albaspectrum.com