Accelerators are add-on modules and CRM tools that deliver extended capability to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. The purpose of these Accelerators is to:

• Deliver functionality and unique CRM tools that is not available out-of-the-box today with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
  
• Drive innovation between major releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Build compelling solutions and further leverage your investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
  

Currently Available Accelerators:

• CRM Notifications Accelerator

  The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 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 plug-in to manage registration counts and waitlists.

• Analytics

  Many customers and partners will be familiar with Analytics Foundation for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 which was a business intelligence feature pack for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. Analytics Foundation for Dynamics CRM 3.0 included Dashboards, Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and a suite of new reports. Analytics Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (R1) expands on this, and is designed to support a range of business intelligence “maturity” levels for customers and partners. The Analytics accelerator has been built to cater for differing business intelligence skill-sets and experience levels.

• eService

  A configurable self-service portal for enhanced customer service through Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The eService accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides customer self-service capabilities (via a web portal) as a configurable out-of-the-box offering.

• Social Networking

  The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows business professionals to monitor and analyze customers’ conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services. This first release of the accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases.

  The release contains full source code, automated installer, documentation and step-by-step installation and functional video

• Portal Integration

  The Portal Integration Accelerator easily connects Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an organization’s Web experience. This release builds on the eService portal engine and expands to allow customers to configure and expose any CRM entity to an external facing portal.

• Partner Relationship Management

  The Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners. It provides pre-built extensions to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM sales force automation functionality, including new data entities, workflow and reports. Using the PRM Accelerator, companies can jointly manage sales processes with their channel partners through a centralized Web portal, as well as extend this integration to automate additional business processes.

  The accelerator installation package contains all source code, customizations, reports, workflows, assemblies, documentation and installation videos.

The following Accelerators are pending release:

• Enterprise Search

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

• 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)