CRM 4.0 Accelerators: eService

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Similar to my recent posts about the On-Premise Accelerators for Extended Sales Forecasting and Event Management, the eService Accelerator contains some customizations that may be useful to import to CRM Online.  Unfortunately, the main value-add of the On-Premise eService accelerator is the ability to allow customers to create/modify cases and account data and schedule services through a custom web portal, which is currently not available for CRM Online.  The customizations included in the eService accelerator provide one basic value-add for CRM Online: the ability to track audits to the case, contact and account information.   Following is a description of the customizations included with the eService Accelerator.

Customizations can be found in the installation file and include modifications to existing entities, new custom entities, and new workflows:

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Existing Entity Customizations:
  • Case custom attribute: "msa_webportalcloseflag".  This is not relevant for CRM Online without the customer web portal so it can be removed.
  • Case form layout: new tab for Contract Management.  Also not really relevant for CRM Online.
  • Case relationship: new 1:N relationship to "eService Audit - Case" entity
  • Contact custom attributes: "msa_eserviceaccesslevel" and "msa_webuser".  Not relevant for CRM Online without the customer web portal.
  • Contact form layout: "eServices Access Level" attribute added to form.  Again, can be removed.
  • Contact relationship: new 1:N relationship to "eService Audit - Contact" entity
  • Account relationship: new 1:N relationship to "eService Audit - Account" entity
New Custom Entities:
  • eService Audit - Account
  • eService Audit - Case
  • eService Audit - Contact
  • eService Audit Configuration - not relevant for CRM Online without the portal
New Workflows:

Useful for CRM Online - with a few modifications:

  • MSA-eService: Audit Account updates via the eService portal - this workflow is not exactly triggered on the eService portal update; rather it is triggered when the "modifiedon" value changes within the account.  To use this workflow, delete the first check condition step (since the account changes aren't coming from the web portal user) and publish the workflow
  • MSA-eService: Audit Case updates via the eService portal - same directions as above.  This workflow also contains a notification email sent to the customer, so I strongly recommend that you modify this email message because it references the customers' change to the case.
  • MSA-eService: Audit Contact updates via the eService portal - same directions as the previous workflow.

Useless for CRM Online - these workflows will not apply to CRM Online without the customer web portal:

  • MSA-eService: Case Note added via eService portal
  • MSA-eService Portal Account Sign-up

Usefulness is questionable for these workflows:

  • MSA-eService: New Case created via the eService Portal - this workflow is only relevant for CRM Online if you wish to notify the owner of the account that a new case has been created.  All references to the web portal should be modified.
  • MSA-eService: New Service scheduled via the eService portal - only relevant to CRM Online if you wish to send the customer confirmation that a service has been scheduled.

Bottom line: if you are looking for a shortcut to customizations for tracking the audit history of the account, contact or case entities, it may be worthwhile to import some of these customizations.