R8 aka Q2 2012 Service Update Plans revised

The Q2 Service Update plans have been revised. As per the road map made available earlier this year, Q2 Service update was all about "CRM Anywhere". It planned to include Cross Browser availability and Mobility that would let Dynamics CRM be accessible "anywhere" be it any browser or any device.

However in the recent Press Release posted on 6th July, Cross Browser availability and Mobility plans have been delayed and these would not be included in the Q2 update. Here is what it says

On July 19th, as we committed, our Q2 release will include Microsoft SQL Server 2012 support, Industry templates and certifications for our online service. After listening to the feedback from our customers and partners we are delaying availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile and cross-browser support. These were previously scheduled to be delivered in the Q2 2012 Service Update, and we now plan to deliver them in the service update scheduled for Q4 2012

You can read the entire post here

This was one of the features that I was most excited about and I am little disappointed with the delay... Q4,,, a bit too long a wait :( Nonetheless it is always better to have a great finished product than half-baked one and as long as this feature is made available in the future with no scope for issues/errors.... I would be willing to wait...

Waiting for a great Cross-Browser Release!!!

Features to be included in the Q2 2012 service update.

Some very exciting features have been announced that would be made available in the Q2 2012 service update. Here we discuss a few of them

Cross Browser Support
CRM had been restricted till date to be accessible through Internet Explorer only. However, with this release the user would now have the choice of browser. They can choose from IE v7+, Firefox v6+ and Chrome v13+. Safari v5.1.1+ as a browser would be supported on Apple Mac OS-X and iOS 5.x.

CRM Anywhere:
Besides giving a choice of browser, it will also provide mobile options as a part of the new cloud based mobile CRM service called Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile. This would however be a paid service and to begin with only be available in 24 markets (India not included) Native apps would be available for the following devices

Windows Phone v7.5+
Apple iPhone 3GS+ iOS 5+
Google Android v2.2+
RIM Blackberry v6.x +
Apple iPad/iPad2 iOS 5+

Note: The initial release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile for Windows Phone will not support offline data

Dashboard view would also be available on the mobile. Check this out…



Industry Solution Templates:
Industry templates would be made available for the following

Life Annuity Insurance Sales
Non-Profit
Health Plan Sales
Wealth Management

Custom Workflow Activities in CRM Online:
It was not possible to create custom workflow activities in CRM Online and solutions had to be re-designed around Plugins most times. It would now finally be possible to create Custom Workflow Activities in CRM Online as well.

Rapid View Forms:
It would now be possible to design Rapid View Forms that would be read-only forms. This would help the forms to be loaded quicker when the purpose of accessing the data is only to read the information and not make any edits. It would be possible to convert the read-only form to edit mode at the click of a button.

It would be possible for the user to decide if they wanted their forms to be loaded by default in the read-only mode or edit mode.

To read in detail about the features to be introduced check out the release preview guide