Authored by Ryan Swiderski - Senior Consultant - Wipfli's Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team released a new version of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customer Portal Accelerator a few months ago, and we’ve already had a few chances to use it at clients and internally. This accelerator is a combination of the previous portal accelerators, which includes the eService, Event Management and Portal Integration Accelerators (see our previous blog posts for more information on the eService and Event Management Accelerators). There are a couple features of the new “all-in-one” accelerator that improve the overall usability, both from a system administrator and a customer perspective.
Dynamic portal content management
The accelerator includes an entire website to get you up and running, with all of the accelerators mentioned above staged and ready to go. A lot of the content on this website can be managed a couple ways:
Through the Content Management entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
or directly on the website if logged in as the System Administrator.
One of the advantages of maintaining the website content in the form of Microsoft Dynamics CRM entities and records is consistency. You can create footer text, for example, that is applied to all pages on the portal website. The ability to modify the web content directly on the website is a big usability win for non-technical resources who need to manage content on the website.
Windows LiveID Integration
What customer wants yet another username or password to remember? With the new accelerator, customers can be authenticated into your portal using their Windows Live ID.
In order for a new customer to gain access to their information on your portal, they just need to be a Contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with an e-mail address, and have a secret question/answer set-up. It’s pretty simple (once you get the Live ID integration hooked up).
Another benefit to the LiveID authentication is that your portal site is visibly tied in with Microsoft, which at least gives it some web cred right out of the gate.
If you have any questions about the customer portal accelerator and its application to your business or scenario, feel free to reach out to us.