Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes the following:

Analytics

Extends business intelligence for Microsoft Dynamics CRM by delivering sales, service and operations dashboards.

Event Management

New functionality to plan, create, execute, and review events.

E-Service Portal

A configurable self-service portal for enhanced customer service through Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Enterprise Search

Rapidly configure portal views of CRM data within SharePoint (MOSS) and expose this data to MOSS enterprise search.

Extended Sales Forecasting

Enhanced sales forecasting mechanism for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

CRM Notifications

Newsfeeds (RSS) that allow users to subscribe to CRM “events” relevant to their job role.

Business Productivity

A collection of time-saving productivity customizations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Sales Methodologies

Practical Guidance for adoption of third-party sales methodologies such as SPI Solution Selling, Target Account Selling  (TAS) and Miller Heiman)

Current Released Accelerators:

CRM Notifications Accelerator  –

The CRM notifications accelerator allows users to subscribe to the CRM “business events” that are significant to them, e.g. a salesperson is interested in new leads and opportunities assigned to them whereas a customer service representative is interested in new service cases assigned to them. Once the user has subscribed (each user manages their subscription profile) to the types of events that are important to them they can elect how they want these event notifications to be delivered. Notifications are delivered via a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed and can be consumed with many desktop tools including Microsoft Outlook 2007 or the standard newsfeed Windows Vista® gadget.

Extended Sales Forecasting Accelerator –

The extended sales forecasting accelerator enriches the out-of-the-box sales forecasting capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Principally, sales users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM can review their individual sales pipeline and quickly classify opportunities as committed, excluded or upside. Sales managers can monitor and track sales targets, budgets and performance against these forecasts for specific time periods (e.g. months and quarters).

Event Management Accelerator –

The event management accelerator gives organizations the ability to manage the planning, execution, tracking and reporting requirements for events. The event management accelerator focuses on three areas of event management, namely:

• Event Planning - logistics around an event such as:
• Booking the venue
• Presenters
• Catering
• Presentation content preparation
• Event Attendance - all aspects around managing the attendees such as:
• Inviting the target audience via phone, fax, letter and email
• Managing registrations via phone, letter, fax, email and web
• Tracking all people who actually attended the event
• Event Review – Microsoft Dynamics CRM reports that measure the effectiveness of the event:
• How many people attended the event?
• What was the revenue impact of the event?

A core component of the event management accelerator is the web registration portal that customers and partners can deploy to allow web registration for their events and track these registrations in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The solution also consists of a plugin to manage registration counts and waitlists.

Link to Accelerators:http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=19132