Report: Salesforce andMicrosoft Dynamics CRM Online

Compared

Updated March 2, 2014

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Table of ContentsIntroduction

Naming ConventionsCompany Backgrounds

Salesforce.com, Inc.Microsoft Corporation

Product OverviewsSalesforce

New ReleasesEditions and PricingData Storage

Microsoft CRMNew ReleasesEditions and PricingData Storage

Data Centers and StatusSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Browser SupportSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Device SupportSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Third Party EcosystemSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Sales & Delivery ChannelsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Login and Password SecuritySalesforceMicrosoft CRM

UI & NavigationSalesforce

General NavigationRecord Navigation

Microsoft CRM

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General NavigationRecord Navigation

Variable Screen LayoutsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

User OptionsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Point & Click Configuration and CustomizationSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Advanced Development & APIsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Search & ViewsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Duplicate Detection and MergeSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Workflow & ProcessesSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Reporting & DashboardsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Email IntegrationSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Email MergeSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Microsoft Office IntegrationSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Data Import ToolsSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Web Lead CaptureSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Email Marketing and Marketing Automation

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SalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Customer ServiceSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Enterprise Social NetworkingSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Online Help & TrainingSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

User ConferencesSalesforceMicrosoft CRM

Legal Notices

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IntroductionThis report is a fact­based comparison of Salesforce® and Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM Online.

For those who work for or who consult to an organization that is moving toward a new CRMsolution, this report can be viewed as a starting point. From here, we encourage deeperevaluations, which should include listening to each vendor’s representatives present theircompetitive strengths over the other’s application ­­ especially as these strengths pertain to yourorganization’s business needs.

We would also recommend signing up for a free trial of each system so that would­be users canexperience the general flows of the respective applications.

While we have attempted as much as possible to keep this analysis a statement of facts, weexpect that advocates for each solution will find areas that appear slanted in the direction of theother solution.

The analysis primarily focuses on out­of­the­box functionality. However, there are severalreferences to specific, third party applications. We have intentionally limited the number ofreferences to third party products.

Most links in this report are to web pages that are within the domains of the respective vendors,but it’s possible that some links will become stale over time.

Not all features and functionality of the respective systems are compared in this report. We willadd additional comparison points in future editions.

Naming ConventionsThis report will separately reference salesforce.com® (the company) and Salesforce(salesforce.com’s flagship product). For brevity, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2013 will bereferred to throughout as “Microsoft CRM”.

What are commonly known as database “tables” are known as “entities” in Microsoft CRM andas “objects” in Salesforce.

Salesforce.com consistently refers to a customer’s Salesforce account as an “org”. Microsoftgenerally refers to a customer’s Microsoft CRM Online account as an “organization”.

These respective naming conventions will be used where appropriate.

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Company Backgrounds

Salesforce.com, Inc.Salesforce.com was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, and went publicJune 2004. Salesforce.com was a pioneer in developing software as a service (SaaS) which isnow commonly referred to as cloud computing. The company has stated that it has over100,000 CRM customers.

Salesforce.com, Inc. is traded on the NYSE under the symbol CRM.

Microsoft CorporationMicrosoft was founded in 1975 by Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Microsoft is best known for itsMicrosoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of software. A successful,although lesser known product line, is Microsoft SQL Server, which is used as the databaseback end for Microsoft CRM.

Microsoft has also developed consumer hardware products such as the Zune and Xbox.Microsoft has expanded to the Web with products such as the Bing Search Engine. In June of2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer, the developer of a popular enterprise collaboration applicationof the same name.

Microsoft Corporation is traded on NASDAQ under the symbol MSFT.

Product Overviews

SalesforceSalesforce.com only offers its product as a hosted, subscription model. It does not offer anon­premises version.

Furthermore, Salesforce is only available on a multi­tenant, shared instance platform ­­ calledthe Force.com™ platform. With Salesforce, there are no options for a dedicated instance or adedicated server for a given customer.

While salesforce.com has achieved high scalability for its application, for a variety of reasons, ithas split its offering into multiple instances.

To supplement its core product offering, salesforce.com has acquired a number of othertechnology companies in the CRM and social media spaces. Acquisitions include Jigsaw,

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Radian6, Buddy Media, Assistly, Heroku and ExactTarget.

Salesforce.com internally developed a collaboration product called Chatter. Chatter is availablewithin all Salesforce editions at no extra charge and is also available as a free, standaloneproduct.

New ReleasesSalesforce has three major new releases each year. The release names are based on theseason and year ­­ e.g. “Spring ‘14”. For the most part, these new releases are fully transparentwith respect to existing customizations. Customers do not have to pay extra for new releases.

Salesforce.com provides extensive release notes in advance of each new release.

Editions and PricingSalesforce’s Sales Cloud is available in five different editions, which range in price from $5 peruser, per month to $300 per user per month. Each edition is the same underlying product, withspecific features and functionality either switched on or off, depending on the edition (PDF). Themost popular edition, Enterprise Edition, lists for $125 per user per month. The ProfessionalEdition lists for $65 per user per month. Normally, a 12 month commitment is required. A longerterm commitment, such as 24 months, can result in lower pricing.

The Salesforce.com Foundation provides free and/or deeply discounted licenses to certaincategories of organizations such as 501(c)(3) corporations and B corporations.

Data StorageAll editions of Salesforce have a minimum of 1 GB of data storage and 11 GB of file storage. Thetotal available storage can be higher on the Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited Editions asthere is also a per user allocation on these editions. For example, the data storage on EnterpriseEdition is 20 MB times the number of users (with a 1 GB minimum). File storage is 612 MBtimes the number of users (with an 11 GB minimum).

Each record in most Salesforce objects is deemed to use 2 KB of storage. Additional datastorage can be purchased in 50 MB or 500 MB increments. Additional file storage can bepurchased in 10 GB increments.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft has two main versions of its product, Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on­premises orprivate cloud) and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online ­­ the focus of this comparison.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is multi­tenant on the application instance, but single tenant onthe database instance ­­ each account has its own SQL Server database.

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New ReleasesMicrosoft is now following an agile release cycle for CRM and has several future releasesplanned at any given time.

Editions and PricingWith the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ‘13 release, there are three pricing levels for UserSubscription Licenses (USLs): Professional ($65), Basic ($30) and Essential ($15). A 12 monthcommitment is required, but payments can be made monthly. The subscription auto­renews atthe end of the subscription term.

Microsoft CRM Online is also available under Volume Licensing through the EnterpriseAgreement and Campus & School Agreement programs.

Data StorageAn organization is allocated a base 5 GB of storage.

For every increment of 20 Professional USLs, the included storage capacity increases by 2.5GB. Therefore, a customer with 20 Professional USLs receives a default storage capacity of 7.5GB. At 40 Professional USLs, the included storage capacity increases by 10 GB, and so on. Themaximum default storage included in a subscription is capped at 50 GB per customer.

Additional storage can be purchased for $9.99 per GB per month.

Data Centers and Status

SalesforceSalesforce.com’s service is collocated in multiple, top­tier global data centers. Salesforce.compublishes its data center security and disaster recovery information on its trust.salesforce.comsite.

Salesforce.com does own the data centers in which its customers are hosted, partly because itruns its entire customer base on just a few thousand servers and therefore does not require alarge server footprint.

Salesforce.com does not have a publicly accessible Service Level Agreement (SLA). Accordingto this source, Peter Coffee of salesforce.com said that SLAs are “formulated in confidentialdiscussions with individual customers.”

Microsoft CRM

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Microsoft has an Microsoft Dynamics CRM SLA which defines “downtime” and lists percentageservices credits for months during which availability falls below 99.9%.

Microsoft has its own data centers in locations such as: Quincy, Washington; Northlake, Illinois;San Antonio, Texas; and Dublin, Ireland.

Browser Support

SalesforceSalesforce supports recent versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft InternetExplorer and Apple Safari. Salesforce.com publishes supported browser versions.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM 2013 runs under recent versions of Internet Explorer on PC and under Chrome,Firefox and Safari on both PC or and Mac.

Device Support

Salesforce

In late 2013, salesforce.com introduced the Salesforce1 Platform. Concurrently, the Salesforce1Mobile App was announced. Salesforce.com publishes an app for iPhone and iPad and one forAndroid.

Using the Salesforce1 Platform, Salesforce apps can be built and customized and then deployedto the mobile devices. Compact layouts for mobile devices can be created for any Salesforcestandard or custom object. Mobile enabled Visualforce pages can be added to the screen layoutfor mobile devices.

Salesforce Labs offers a simple to use iPhone application for field salespeople called Logger.This, as with all Salesforce Labs apps, is not an officially supported application.

The full, desktop interface of Salesforce can also be accessed on iPad and other tablets viastandard tablet browsers.

Microsoft CRM

With the Fall ‘13 release, Microsoft introduced tablet applications for Windows 8 and for iPad.

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There are also iPhone, Android and Windows Phone apps.

Third Party Ecosystem

SalesforceSalesforce.com manages its own third party application site, AppExchange. The AppExchangealso has applications from salesforce.com’s internal, Salesforce Labs.

All applications must be certified and pass a periodic security check. All AppExchangeapplications are installed with the same sequence of clicks.

Some of the apps are free and some are paid. Not all applications are compatible with alleditions of Salesforce. For example, many apps require Professional Edition or higher.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft’s third party exchange is called Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace. This site spansdifferent Dynamics product lines, but the majority of third party products are for Microsoft CRM.

There is also a CRM App Store run by a French company named Prodware.

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Sales & Delivery Channels

SalesforceSalesforce is sold directly via a team of Account Executives and people in other named salesroles. Account Executives normally team up with a Salesforce partner when implementationservices are requested by a prospect. For opportunities that a salesforce.com partner registers,the partner receives a referral fee on the first year’s subscription revenue.

Microsoft CRMAn inside salesperson at Microsoft is the first point of contact for people at companies that areconsidering Microsoft CRM.

The inside salesperson gets a Microsoft partner involved with potential deals that represent overa minimum annual subscription revenue. A Microsoft channel partner who is brought into a dealby an inside salesperson, or who initiates a deal, receives a margin on the sale. Microsoft offersone level of margin for the first year subscription revenue and a lesser margin for subsequentyears’ subscription revenue.

Larger deals are handled directly by a Microsoft outside salesperson.

Login and Password Security

SalesforceSalesforce defaults to two factor authentication (a.k.a. 2­step verification) for org access. After anew user’s initial login, each time the user tries to login from an unrecognized computer ordevice, Salesforce emails a verification code to the user. The user must key in the verificationcode in order to log into Salesforce. This two factor authentication can be overridden by thesetting of Trusted IP Ranges by an administrator.

In the Enterprise Edition and higher, certain IP ranges can be restricted from login accessaltogether, as defined within user Profiles.

Salesforce allows for setting password policies, including: password expiration duration; howmany old passwords are remembered; minimum password length; password complexity.

Salesforce supports authentication via identity providers such as Active Directory with theimplementation of Single Sign­On (PDF).

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Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM users login via a Microsoft account (formerly Windows Live ID). Users canindividually set up two step verification within the administration area of their their Microsoftaccount.

Microsoft CRM Online can be synchronized with Active Directory.

UI & Navigation

Salesforce

General NavigationSalesforce displays different objects across the top part of the screen. Each group of users whoare in similar roles can have their own set (or sets) of tabs, as defined by “Apps”. An App is acollection of tabs that appears on the screen in a specific order. A custom App allows for acustom image in the top left of the screen.

A left sidebar shows Recent Items and allows for users to quickly create new records. Thesidebar also contains the Recycle Bin, where user­deleted records reside for 15 days beforethey are permanently removed from the org.

There is a global search box in the top left of the browser window.

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Record­to­record navigation all occurs within a single browser tab or window. No new tabs orwindows open by default. If a user wants to open a record in a new tab (or a new window), theuser must force a new tab to open by right clicking and selecting “Open in new tab”.

Record NavigationWithin each record, Salesforce displays sections of fields for the current record (and optionallyfields from a parent record) at the top of the screen. Below these sections are related lists ofrecords from other objects.

Users can either scroll down the record’s page to view related lists, or they can make use ofhover tabs near the top of the screen. Hovering the cursor over a top tab will cause a related listto drop down from the hover tab.

Microsoft CRM

General NavigationMicrosoft CRM 2013 introduced a fixed position, top command bar with drop down navigationbars. There are multiple available navigation bars. Each navigation bar contains a set of tiles.

Select a Module

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Select an Entity

Select a Recently Viewed Record Within an Entity ­ Command Bar Drop Down

Select a Recently Viewed Record Within an Entity ­ Entity Tile Drop Down

Select a Related Record List Within an Entity

After an entity is selected, a filtered list of records within the entity, based on a View, is displayed.Users can select any system View or personal View and then optionally pin a View in order tomake that View “stick”.

A Create button on the right side of the command bar allows users to quickly create new recordswithout having to first navigate to an entity.

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Once an entity, such as Accounts, is selected, a user can search within that entity using thesearch box, which is located to the top right of the list of records. Global search is availablethrough third party applications such as this one.

Record NavigationThere are two types of record forms, as shown below.

Form with Sections and Panes

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Information Form

There is a dropdown toggle above the record name that allows a user to switch between theseforms.

The top section of the record is fixed ­­ the scrollbar begins below this section. Using thescrollbar, a user can scroll down through the entire record detail.

In the upper right, a selector allows a user to go to another record from within the current View. Auser can scroll through each record within the current View.

In order to view related records, such as Contacts for an Account record, a user must click onthe down arrow to the right of the selected entity on the top command bar.

Variable Screen Layouts

SalesforceIn the Salesforce Enterprise Edition and higher, there can be variable screen layouts per userbased on the layout that is assigned to that user’s profile for a given object.

Multiple Record Types can also be created for objects. A Record Type can be associated with aspecific screen layout and it can also dictate which picklist values are available in certain fieldsor which Sales Process users need to follow in the case of Opportunities.

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The Record Type for a record is automatically enforced or is user selectable at the time ofrecord creation. Depending on permissions, the Record Type can be changed after a record hasbeen created.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM allows for variable screen layouts by user. Different users can see different setsof fields in a record, as dictated by users’ functional roles within a company, for example.

There can also be different screen records based on type of record.

User Options

SalesforceIn Salesforce, users have the option to customize their tabs and to set the appearance and orderof related lists within each object. Users also have access to email settings, such as asignature, for emails that are sent from within Salesforce.

There are a number of follow and notification options that pertain to Salesforce Chatter.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft allows users to set a number of personal options, including their default pane and tab,their time zone and their currency.

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Point & Click Configuration and Customization

SalesforceIn Salesforce, an administrator can add new fields to an object via point­and­click. Field typesinclude: Auto Number; Formula; Roll­up Summary; Lookup Relationship; Checkbox; Currency;Date; Date/Time; Email; Number; Percent; Phone; Picklist; Multi­Select Picklist; Text; Text Area;Text Area (Long); Text Area (Rich); URL.

Custom objects can also be added. A custom object can either have a lookup relationship with aparent object or a master­detail relationship. A many­to­many relationship between objects canbe set up using a custom “junction” object.

Microsoft CRMIn Microsoft CRM, a System Administrator or System Customizer can add new fields to an entityvia point and click. Custom field types are: Single Line of Text; Option Set; Two Options; Image;Whole Number; Floating Point Number; Decimal Number; Currency; Multiple Lines of Text; Dateand Time; Lookup.

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New entities can also be added. An entity can be related to another entity or entities asone­to­many, many­to­one or many­to­many.

There is also definable Relationship Behavior. Behavior can either be Parental or ConfigurableCascading. There are a number of options related to the latter:

Advanced Development & APIs

SalesforceIn the Enterprise and Unlimited editions, Salesforce allows for advanced customizations usingApex, salesforce.com’s proprietary development language, as well as Visualforce, which is usedfor custom user interface design. Apex is also the language used for creating Triggers.

Functionality developed with Apex and Visualforce can be added to the Professional Edition byway of a Managed Package.

Salesforce.com provides a sandbox environment in the Enterprise Edition and higher fordeveloping and testing customizations and code. The Enterprise Edition’s included, developersandbox can be created as a snapshot of the production org, but the sandbox does not inheritproduction data. It has a 200 MB storage limit. A full sandbox, which does inherit all data, isavailable for an additional monthly fee for the Enterprise Edition and higher. Another paid option isthe developer pro sandbox, which has a 1 GB storage limit.

Salesforce’s Enterprise and Unlimited Editions have a Web Services API. APIs include SOAPWeb Services, REST, a Bulk API and a Metadata API. Code examples in the API documentationare Java and C#, but the APIs can be called from a number of client side languages, includingRuby, PHP and Perl.

Salesforce also leverages the Eclipse open source IDE.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft provides an SDK for advanced development and integrations.

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Developers can write applications and server side extensions. Developers can also write clientside application extensions. A developer can add JavaScript to add functions for when specificevents occur on Microsoft CRM forms. REST and SOAP endpoints are provided. The RESTendpoint can be used for create, retrieve, update and delete from JScript and Silverlight webresources.

Developers have the ability to create custom business logic, workflow assemblies, and plug­ins.Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook can also be customized by a developer.

Microsoft offers a test instance add­on for $150 per month and a production instance add­on for$549 per month.

Visual Studio 2010 or 2012 is needed for writing custom code and integrations, as .NET 4.0 isused in Microsoft­supplied code libraries.

Search & Views

SalesforceSalesforce has a global search. When a user enters a full text or partial text (wildcard) string inthe Search box, Salesforce parses through all text fields (as well as several other field types,such as phone and email) within a standard set of objects, such as Accounts and Contacts.Search results are grouped by object.

A Search All link allows a user to expand the search across all objects, including Activities andAttachments.

Chatter feeds can also be searched for the same full or partial text string using the SearchFeeds button.

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Filter fields can be added to the search results for any object so that users can narrow theresults of a global search. An administrator can add any fields from an object as filter fieldswithin the search results for that object.

In Salesforce, Views can be used to create multi­condition, dynamic searches. Views only allowfor filtering on fields within an object. Reports can be used to to view records based oncross­object filters.

Microsoft CRMIn Microsoft CRM, each entity has a search box in the upper right. Users can perform a partial orfull string search within the current entity (Lead, Account, Contact, etc.) This search is onspecific fields, such as the Account Name field in the Account entity and the Full Name andAccount Name fields in the Contact entity.

Microsoft CRM’s Advanced Find allows users to search across any field within an entity and alsoacross entities. An Advanced Find can be used one time only or saved as a View.

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Duplicate Detection and Merge

SalesforceIn Salesforce, a user can check for any records that match the Lead record that the user iscurrently on. Results will display potential matches across the Lead, Account, Contact andOpportunity objects.

Up to three records can be merged into one. Salesforce provides a “stare and compare”interface for selecting the most appropriate field data for the Master Record (winning record)from each of the matching records. The losing record or records go into the Recycle Bin.

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Microsoft CRMIn Microsoft CRM, duplicate detection runs as a background job. Duplicate Detection Rules aredefinable by an administrator.

An entire entity or a subset of records within an entity can be checked for duplicates. After aduplicate detection job has completed, the user receives a notification email and can also checkfor the job results.

Duplicate Detection Rules are also run when a record is manually added or is imported. If asuspected duplicate is added based on a Rule, a dialog pops up to inform the user that they maybe creating a duplicate.

Microsoft CRM allows duplicate detection to be enabled for custom entities.

In Microsoft CRM, two records can be merged into one using a stare and compare interface.The “losing” record is marked as Inactive.

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Workflow & Processes

SalesforceIn Salesforce, Workflow Rules can be triggered by record creation or record editing. If a recordmeets certain criteria on creation or edit, a Workflow Action can automatically run. WorkflowActions include: schedule a Task; send an email alert; update a field; send an outboundmessage (an XML message sent to a listening service).

Salesforce Workflow Rules include Approval Processes. An approval process specifies thesteps necessary for a record, such as a sales quote, to be approved and who must approve it ateach step.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM has four types of processes: actions, business process flows, dialogs andworkflows.

Business process flows are new to Microsoft CRM 2013. These provide users with visualguidance through a series of steps and can prompt users to update certain fields at each step inthe process.

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Process flows are cross­entity, which means that a process can flow across Leads,Opportunities and Quotes, for example. Processes offers stage gating, which means thatspecific record updates need to occur in order for a user to be able to progress to the next stagein the process

Processes are assigned to users based their Role, which means that salespeople only seesales processes, for example.

Reporting & Dashboards

SalesforceSalesforce has a drag and drop report writer that allows users to create reports in tabular,summary or matrix format. Fields from a report’s objects, as defined by a Report Type, can beclicked and dragged by a user to add columns and to create groupings.

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Reports can have associated charts. The Chart Editor allows for defining a chart type and chartdata points.

The Enterprise Edition and higher includes Custom Report Types, which allow an administratorto define which objects to display to users when they create reports and to also definerelationships among these displayed objects for cross­object reporting. Up to four objects can beassociated with a Custom Report Type.

In the Enterprise Edition and higher, reports can be automatically delivered via email on ascheduled basis to licensed Salesforce users. Report data appears within the body of an emailas formatted text.

The Professional Edition and higher include Customizable Dashboards. Multiple collections ofreport­based charts can be arranged on a tab as different Dashboards. Salesforce has a defaultAdoption Dashboard which provides information about what extent different users are using theapplication.

Also in the reporting category, Salesforce has Forecasting functionality. Quotas can be set persalesperson, and then Opportunity forecast categories can be correlated with quotas, by timeperiod.

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Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM has a Report Wizard for creating new reports. A new report can be based on anexisting report. Reports can be filtered based on existing Saved Views or new filters can beadded during report creation.

Reports allow for a Primary record type and a Related record type.

Groupings and columns can be selected by clicking on boxes in the Lay Out Fields dialog.

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Microsoft CRM allows for a number of dashboard formats to be selected.

Microsoft CRM’s dashboards are real time and can be surfaced in any entity within theapplication. In Microsoft 2013, each module has its own default dashboard.

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Email Integration

SalesforceSalesforce provides a free plugin for Microsoft Outlook® called Salesforce for Outlook. Outlook2013, 2010, and 2007 are supported. Supported Microsoft Windows® versions are Windows 8,Windows 7 (64­bit and 32­bit), Windows Vista® (32­bit only) and Windows XP (32­bit only).Microsoft Exchange Online or Microsoft Exchange Server is required on the back end.

Salesforce for Outlook includes the Salesforce Side Panel for Outlook, which displays Lead andContact details inside of Outlook.

Salesforce also provides a form of universal email integration called “Email to Salesforce”. Eachorg has its own defined Email to Salesforce address, which, when BCC’d on sends or onforwards of inbound email, will automatically associate sent/received emails with Lead orContact records in Salesforce that have a matching email address.

Salesforce leverages Email to Salesforce for its email integration with Google Apps forBusiness. When an org is enabled for Google Apps, clicking the email address in a record willlaunch a GMail send window and pre­populate the BCC field with the Email to Salesforceaddress.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft offers an add­in called Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Outlook. With this add­inthe full capabilities of Microsoft CRM are available inside Outlook.

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Users can automatically track all email and appointments within Outlook. The Set Regardingdrop down list presents a user with the things the user is mostly likely to be working on. With oneclick, a user can link their activities (tasks, emails, appointment etc) to any record in CRM.

Users can convert emails to records, such as Opportunities, in CRM. Users can also accessemail templates and CRM custom fields from within Outlook.

Email Merge

SalesforceSalesforce allows administrators and users to create email templates. Templates can be text,HTML, or they can be defined using Salesforce’s Visualforce markup language. A template canbe used to send a single email to a Lead or a Contact. A view can be used to send an email tomultiple recipients.

Email merges are server side ­­ they are processed and sent from Salesforce’s servers.

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Salesforce also offers email tracking for HTML emails, which will track each open by therecipient.

There is a daily mass email limit of 1,000. There is also a per send limit of 250 for theProfessional Edition and 500 for the Enterprise Edition.

Microsoft CRMIn Microsoft CRM, email templates can be created by users or administrators. Template basedemail can be sent to one or more records in a view by selecting some or all records in the viewand then selecting Send Direct Email from under the ellipsis.

Microsoft CRM Online does not have a built­in email router. For sending server side emails likethese, an email router needs to be configured on a customer’s premises or with a third partyservice provider.

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Microsoft Office Integration

SalesforceSalesforce has add­ins for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word that are packaged as “Connectfor Office”. The Excel add­in allows for connecting to Salesforce data. Excel’s VLOOKUPfunction can be used to combine data sets. Pivot tables and charts can be used for reporting.

Connect for Office is currently compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. It requiresMicrosoft Office 2000, XP (2002), 2003, or 2007.

Extended Mail Merge is available on request from Salesforce.com. Extended Mail Merge is aserver side merge that supports up to 1,000 records per merge and works with Firefox andApple Mac OS in addition to working with Microsoft Windows and IE.

One of the most popular third party apps on salesforce.com’s AppExchange, Conga Composer,offers enhanced merging of Salesforce data with Microsoft Office.

Microsoft CRMIn Microsoft CRM 2013, the Word Merge button has been removed due to the intentionally

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constrained user interface. However, the button can be added back using these instructions.

Microsoft CRM allows for exporting select records from a view to Excel as a static worksheet, oras a dynamic PivotTable or a worksheet that’s linked back to the source data.

Microsoft CRM also integrates with Office 365.

Data Import Tools

SalesforceSalesforce’s Import Wizard allows for importing a list of records into the Lead object. Recordscan also be imported as Accounts and Contacts in a single operation.

In the Salesforce Enterprise Edition and higher, an application called the Data Loader can beused for importing data into any Salesforce object. The Data Loader has a graphical userinterface, but can also be run in command line mode, which supports using relational databasesas sources and targets.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM’s Import Data Wizard allows for importing data to any Record Type in thedatabase.

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Web Lead Capture

SalesforceIn Salesforce, a wizard allows an administrator to generate “Web­to­Lead” HTML based onselected Lead fields. This HTML can be added to any website, where formatting and validationrules can be applied.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft CRM discontinued its Internet Lead Capture. This area of the application directs

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customers to several third party applications on the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace.

Email Marketing and Marketing Automation

SalesforceWith the acquisition of ExactTarget, which itself had previously acquired Pardot, salesforce.comnow offers both email marketing and marketing automation solutions as part of its product family.The ExactTarget, Buddy Media and Radian6 acquisitions have been blended into theExactTarget Marketing Cloud.

Microsoft CRMIn the marketing space, Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot. This is principally a marketingcampaign management application that was born as an agency solution.

While Microsoft has not yet acquired a classic email marketing or marketing automationcompany, ClickDimensions is the most popular third party application in this category forMicrosoft CRM. According to ClickDimensions, their application runs 100% natively inside ofMicrosoft CRM Online 2013.

Customer Service

SalesforceSalesforce.com offers Case management in its standard Sales Cloud in the Professional Editionand higher. Features include Web­to­Case, Email­to­Case and a Self­Service Portal.

With the Spring ‘13 release, Communities was added to Salesforce, which salesforce.comoffers for its own Salesforce Success Community site. There is an additional cost forCommunities.

Since Salesforce has built­in email services, threaded email communications between a Caseowner and a customer, within a Case, can be set up without any external components.

Salesforce.com offers enhanced customer service functionality as part of the Service Cloud.The Service Cloud is a more expensive user license ($135 per user per month for the EnterpriseEdition) that adds a number of components, including an Agent Console view, CTI, Community,Knowledge, Social, Live Agent, Social Networking Integration and Contracts & Entitlements(SLAs).

Microsoft CRM

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Microsoft offers Service management, which includes Cases, Articles, Contracts and Goals. Agraphical Service Calendar shows services bookings. Resources can be scheduled for on­siteand other time based services through the Schedule Service Activity function.

Enterprise Social Networking

SalesforceSalesforce’s Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) platform is called Chatter. Licensed Salesforceusers are automatically Chatter users, each org also comes with 5,000 Chatter Free users (forinternal users) and 50 Chatter External users.

Files and links can be associated with Chatter posts. Chatter feeds can be enabled for anyobject. Up to 20 fields per object can be tracked. When a field is tracked, changes to that fieldupdate the Chatter feed for that object.

Each user can select from a variety of Chatter email notification options, based on their personalpreferences.

Salesforce allows for the creation of Chatter Groups. If a Group is made private, people outsidethe organization, such as customers, can be invited to the Group and can log in using a ChatterExternal user license.

Salesforce offers both desktop and mobile Chatter clients.

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Microsoft CRMMicrosoft acquired Yammer in 2012 and has been integrating an increasing amount of Yammerfunctionality into Microsoft CRM. Each module (Sales, Marketing, Service) has its own “what’snew” section, in which users can create new posts and reply to and like existing posts.

Within the “what’s new” section of a module, users can filter on posts that are tied to specificviews, such as My Active Accounts.

Each entity can also have its own “what’s new” section, so that there can be conversations thatare specific to Accounts and Contacts, for example.

Online Help & Training

SalesforceSalesforce.com provides a Help & Training console to licensed Salesforce users andadministrators. The console includes a searchable knowledge base, FAQs, documentation,videos and other resources. Help & training is a part of the earlier referenced SalesforceSuccess Community site which also includes Answers, collaboration (Chatter), Ideas, usergroups and known issues.

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Users can personalize their Help & Training page by selecting and positioning modules. Usersand administrators can browse a training catalog and register for online or live classroomcourses.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft Dynamics CRM has a community site that’s part of a larger community site thatcovers all Dynamics lines. The site offers blogs, videos, community conversations, a knowledgebase and other resources.

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User Conferences

SalesforceSalesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce user conference is held in San Francisco in November.

Microsoft CRMMicrosoft’s annual conference is called Convergence and is held at different locations throughoutthe United States. This conference is for customers of any of the suite of Microsoft Dynamicsproducts.

Legal NoticesMicrosoft Dynamics, Windows, Outlook, Excel, Word, Office 365 and SharePoint are registeredtrademarks of Microsoft Corporation and/or its affiliated entities. Salesforce, Salesforce1,Force.com, Chatter, Apex, Visualforce and salesforce.com are registered trademarks ofsalesforce.com, inc.

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