Hi,

Is there a way to make the Potential customer field in Quote entity as
NOT required?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions,

crsb

The entire sales process from opportunity up to the invoice requires a
customer. If you don't need the field, create a dummy account and set the
customer id to this dummy account in OnLoad.

--
Michael Höhne, Microsoft Dynamics CRM MVP
CRM Blog on http://www.stunnware.com

----------------------------------------------------------


"crsb" <srinivasa.bharadwaj@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:76d7f1b1-c86f-470b-bbec-0329d9d29f00@x1g2000prh.googlegroups.com...

Great ideas from Michael. Another thought, if you want to have a quote
without a customer, a good way to tackle it is through reporting. Create a
quote report that does not reference the customer name/address, then do as
Michael suggested and link it to your dummy account, then you could select
the non customer quote report.

"crsb" wrote:

On May 24, 5:04*pm, Joel CustomerEffective
<JoelCustomerEffect...@discussions.microsoft.com > wrote:
Thanks for the nice ideas Michael and Joel! What I wanted to achieve
is to be able to save the quote without entering the Potential
customer field because the client wants it to be that way because they
keep creating random quotes and only when the quote is won they want
it to be an account.

thanks,
crsb

Based on what you are trying to do, the suggestion should work. Just create
a dummy account called "Prospects" and create new quotes against that
account. Then, when the quote is won, before closing the quote, create the
account, revise the quote and change the customer to that account, then close
the quote.

The bigges issue with what they are trying to do and not creating accounts
until the customer buys somethign is they are losing a lot of visibility for
pre sales activity.

Even if somebody doesn't buy anything, it doesn't mean that they won't a
year from now, and when they call back, there is value in being able to see
what you have talked about with the person before and what you have quoted
them previously. If you don't have an account set up, they won't be able to
easily locate that. That would dilute one of the main benefits of a CRM
system, having a central repository for sales communication.

I would introduce them to the concept of the relationship type field, and
classifying companies based on prospect, customer, etc. That is the best
practice. Then they can use opportunity management, and associate the
opportunities to the prospect accounts.
"crsb" wrote:

If the customer wants it this way, then you have to use a workaround.
However, I strongly recommend creating accounts and contacts in the
beginning. What about emails being sent to the customer? They won't be
tracked correctly if you don't have appropriate records in the system. You
can set the regarding field to the quote, but don't have an activity history
assigned to accounts/contacts. And what if a potential customer does not
accept a quote for some reasons, but returns 12 months later. Wouldn't it be
nice to know that you were in contact with them before?

There are a lot of ways to separate customers from prospects, while still
using accounts and contacts for both. An easy option is the customer type
code field, which has appropriate picklist options. You could also add a
custom bit field saying that "this is a customer". Or add two date fields
for "date of first order" and "date of last order" and have a workflow
populate these fields whenever a quote is accepted/order is won/invoice is
paid. Or use reports to filter on any criteria you like.

Sometimes it helps to simply rename "Account" to "Company". If the business
model is so different that it doesn't make sense at all, then disregard
everything I wrote before. But then it may be easier to not enter the quotes
in CRM unless a quote is accepted. I don't see much value in having quotes
in CRM without knowing the company/individual behind.

--
Michael Höhne, Microsoft Dynamics CRM MVP

CRM Blog: http://www.stunnware.com/?area=blog

----------------------------------------------------------

"crsb" <srinivasa.bharadwaj@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:87cf122f-e879-41ba-aa75-b2776a2e2581@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
On May 24, 5:04 pm, Joel CustomerEffective
<JoelCustomerEffect...@discussions.microsoft.com > wrote:
Thanks for the nice ideas Michael and Joel! What I wanted to achieve
is to be able to save the quote without entering the Potential
customer field because the client wants it to be that way because they
keep creating random quotes and only when the quote is won they want
it to be an account.

thanks,
crsb

Replied a minute ago and wrote almost exactly the same, just to see your
answer after synchronizing. Even used the same sample of a prospect
returning after 12 months. Seems we share the same opinion :-)

--
Michael Höhne, Microsoft Dynamics CRM MVP

CRM Blog: http://www.stunnware.com/?area=blog

----------------------------------------------------------

"Joel CustomerEffective" <JoelCustomerEffective@discussions.microsoft.com >
schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news5009CEE-0225-4E3A-B99D-B1D7BDF4D7BC@microsoft.com...

On May 25, 12:58*am, "Michael Höhne" <michael.hoe...@nospam.nospam>
wrote:
Yes, you guys are right ! There are a lot of inconsistencies when you
don't use that field. I am trying to convince them to keep it the CRM
way if they are entering quotes inside CRM!

thanks,

crsb

On May 25, 1:02*am, "Michael Höhne" <michael.hoe...@nospam.nospam>
wrote: