Eliminating Duplicate Entry for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

One of the last projects I worked on (with an international manufacturer) brought up an issue that faces almost every business we work with, and surprisingly very few recognize how easily something can be done.

The question can be framed simply – how do we get information from one system like our ERP, or accounting system, to automatically appear in another system like a CRM, without having to manually re-enter everything.

Maybe it’s a situation where you want to avoid entering the information twice or it may be that you are upgrading to a new system and want the new system to contain the data from the old system.

So the two scenarios people typically find themselves in are:

We have a CRM and ERP that shares information about our Customers and Accounts.  Currently entering information in to both systems takes too much time and we are finding that it is not always entered the same in each system.

-Or-

We just upgraded to a new accounting system or CRM and would like to have our historical information from the other system in the new system.

If you are working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and an ERP (like Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains) in our experience the best solution out there at this point is Scribe.  Scribe is our preferred tool to use to quickly and simply copy data from one system to another and allows you to define the parameters under which data is replicated.

What is Scribe? Scribe is a software integration tool that allows you to connect or integrate various databases, or systems, like your ERP or CRM together.  It supports both simple and complex data translations.

What is Scribe not? Scribe is not something you just install and it automatically copies your data from one system to another.  It does create a foundation for integrating all your databases in your organization but does require expert configuration.

A few overview bullets:

• As I mentioned earlier you can copy data between two supported software packages using Scribe.  Having a good knowledge of what happens behind the scenes of your software is helpful in doing this.
• Planning is of critical importance when undergoing a project of this nature.

Make sure you have solid answers for the following:

1. What information would you like to go from one system to the other?
2. Once you know what data is to go from one system to another, it is time to get a little more granular and determine exactly where you want the information in one system to go in the corresponding system.   For example you may want the account code in your ERP to go to the Account number in your CRM.
3. Decide if you want one system to be the master system, and read-only, or if you would like a two way synchronization where the information can flow from the CRM to the ERP or from the ERP to the CRM.
4.  Verify the requirements of Scribe server and decide where you will install Scribe.
5. You are now ready to install and configure Scribe.  We will continue on the configuration of Scribe next time.