Making the jump from a contact centric CRM product to MS CRM 3.0.

How are other network services companies structuring their CRM 3.0
accounts/contacts?

I am struggling with the best way to convert the logical structure of our
client base to the CRM structure.

Example of a multi-site company we would typically work with: (Logical
Structure)

Main Office
Remote Office 1
Remote Office 2
Home Office 1
Home Office 2

Contact 1
Contact 2
Contact 3
Contact 4

Contact 1 is the primary contact for Main Office, Remote Office 1 and Home
Office 1.
Contact 2 is a secondary contact for Main Office and Remote Office 1,
primary contact for Home Office 2.
Contacts 3-4 are secondary contacts at the Main and Remote Offices.

We need to record similar types of information for each location, however,
the values will all be different. (i.e.. Network details etc.) Financial
transactions for all locations are typically submitted to the Main Office. I
have the complete MOC and the MS Press book on CRM 3.0 but am either over
analyzing or suffering information overload. In our current CRM product we
created duplicate contacts for each location and recorded their specific
details under each individual's record. I believe that the Account centric
nature of CRM 3.0 should allow me to escape that duplication.

Should I be creating a sub-account for each location? I assume that I need
to create a custom entity for each category of network detail I want to
record, then I will create custom forms for those entities.

Are there Visio examples of structure available?

I look forward to your responses.

John

You may want to check out the Relationship Roles in Microsoft CRM 3.0 to link
Accounts/Contacts "many to many".

Good luck.

Frank Lee
Workopia, Inc.
http://www.workopia.com/Links.htm

"John" wrote:

Thank you for the response. I will investigate that.

I may be fine just creating additional addresses for the Remote Offices
under the Account, then adding the Home Office address as an additional
address under the Contact.

Do you think creating a new item (entity) in the Accounts / Details section
would optimal for recording network data? I would anticipate using a format
similar to the method employed for additional addresses.

Looking at the Account as the focal point, all resources it finances would
be recorded under it not the Contact. Am I looking at this correctly?

Is anyone else running a Network Services company on this product? If so,
how are you organizing you clients network data?

John