iDcrm and Numenes News

iDcrm 1.3 Is coming, and it is amazing

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:42:33 +0200

We are currently testing iDcrm 1.3 and are soon to start beta testing. If you are interested in becoming a beta tester please contact sales@numenes.com

What is new in 1.3?

A lot is new, we have added a whole bunch of features requested by our users.

We just want to highlight the major updates:

1. We now have a true Ipad version. Check our iDcrm for Ipad page a see the screen shots. It works fantastic and makes working with Microsoft CRM on the road a piece of cake.

1. We have adding a server component to help administrate and control iDcrm usage. You can predefine the setup of IDcrm and you can assign who can use iDcrm and with what rights they can use it. This is not a mandatory component, but only if you want it.

1. We now have the full security model, so you can edit any record you have access to. Until version 1.2.9 yo can only edit records you own.

iDcrm 1.2.9 customers really love it

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 21:07:02 +0200

As said in the last blog version 1.2.9. is out and users are really happy with. We received some response from customers that we want to share with you:

I have been running the new software for a while, it is brilliant and mostly stable. The odd crash, but I do not lose data and it always syncs data back to the CRM. I am very happy with it and I have left an effusive comment on iTunes referring it as a fantastic solution.

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.
That was exactly what I was looking for.
It is refreshing to see fast and effective customer service/helpdesk these days.

I was interested in the volume license prices. Thanks for the list.
I already purchased one license through the Appstore and until now everything works fine.
So far no further assistance is required. I will check out the iPad Version as well then.

I emailed about 2 years ago when you had just released your MS-CRM for IPhone application. I have been using it and recommended it to a few people. Keep up the great work!

Just to let you know that it seems the issue was down to a connection error.
Both the iPad and iPhone versions are working so all we need do internally is apply the changes to all users then synchronise with the main database.
I will let IT know tomorrow and as far as support from your company is concerned, I must give a huge vote of thanks to you for your professionalism and tenacity.

I sincerely hope that we roll this out in the company.
I am certainly going to vote for it's use.

iDcrm 1.2.9 is available

Wed, 6 Oct 2010 20:57:45 +0200

The new iDcrm version is now stable and available. On the previous version there were problems on date formats in several countries.

This caused 2 problems:

1. We were not synching all activities and opportunities
2. Instability causing app to crash.

Our development has resolved the issues and has released the new version. In order to avoid this problem in the future we have altered our acceptance test procedure to include business partners in various areas of the world.

So we now have the all the new functionality available and stable. The main new features of the latest version are:
- Customizable home screen
- Dynamic views ( quick filering, customise what you see )
- Integration of outgoing calls and email.
- Support of service activities
- etc, etc.

iDcrm 1.2.9 is coming out

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:05:35 +0200

Just yesterday we released version 1.2.9. We had to release this quickly as we were having problems on the stability of the product. Thanks to some really good help from our customers and determination of the development team we have the issues and now have good stable version.

We are currently distributing to our resellers and customers.

We can now focus completely on the development of version 2.0 for the iPad.

We are aiming for november to release it.

iDcrm 1.2.7 is finally available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:50:22 +0200

After a long wait and a lot of work, iDcrm 1.2.7 and iDcrm 1.2.7 SFA edition are finally available.

It took us a long time because we’ve done a lot of rework in the App. The exact list of changes is too long to be listed here.

I invite you to download our iDcrm 1.2.7 Release notes.pdf to review the changes.

You can contact your Microsoft CRM Business Partner to receive your upgrade or you can go to the Appstore in the coming days.

I would like to thanks our customers and partners for their patience and confidence.

Jean Stanghellini
R&D Manager
admin@numenes.com

Company switches from BlackBerry to iPhone, new OS is key

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:29:47 +0200

The following article is reprinted from CIO.com. Visit CIO’s Macs in the Enterprise page.

During the next few months, Varian Medical’s Matt Morse plans to live out of a suitcase, venturing around the world for the sole purpose of ushering the iPhone (and maybe the iPad) into his enterprise. He’ll spend time developing a strategy for the iPhone that fits into his company’s existing IT infrastructure and meets security and budget requirements, followed by a series of test cases.
If all goes well, sometime next year he’ll begin to deploy the iPhone and replace the BlackBerry for field service workers. “There are so many facets to look at in a new platform,” says Morse, senior IT admin at Varian Medical, a manufacturer of medical devices and software for hospitals and clinics in 60 countries. “I think the discovery phase and proof of concept will take at least six months.”
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled iOS 4, formerly known as iPhone OS 4.0, earlier this year, CIOs and tech analysts cheered iOS 4’s deep enterprise support. iOS 4 promised wireless distribution of in-house apps, multitasking, app and email data protection, mobile device management upgrades, and support for SSL VPN via apps from Juniper and Cisco, among other features.
But iOS 4’s expected release to the general public this summer won’t open the enterprise floodgates for the iPhone right away. Rather, it will only signal the beginning of the iPhone’s long march into the corporate world. For techies like Morse, much work still needs to be done.

The security equation changes

For the past five years, Varian employees have carried BlackBerrys to help them do their jobs. Varian’s BlackBerry users are on the frontlines in both sales and field service, tapping into a Microsoft Exchange collaboration messaging system with hooks into SharePoint, Office Communicator and VoIP.
Varian developed an app called MSO, or mobile services online, that lets BlackBerry field technicians securely connect to SAP on the backend. With MSO, they can handle customer-service tickets without having to fire up a laptop. They can look up schedules, dispatch orders, and allocate resources. MSO’s end result: response times within 10 minutes.
When the iPhone debuted three years ago, Varian executives warmed to the beautiful interface. Every year, more and more employees asked for an iPhone, Morse says. With the release of the iPhone 3G, Morse and his team had to officially support it. Today, one out of three mobile devices at Varian is an iPhone.
But none of the approximately 1,600 field technicians around the world are allowed to turn in their BlackBerries for iPhones—at least, not yet.
The reason? Field technicians absolutely depend on MSO, and MSO is not on the iPhone because of lingering security, reliability and management concerns. “BlackBerry has the enterprise integration with BES to really give us a securely and remotely managed device,” Morse says. “Policies can be enforced, and we can guarantee a lot more uptime and monitor it better than we can with an Active Sync-type device like the iPhone.”
But with its touted security and management features, iOS 4 has the potential to bring the iPhone on par with the BlackBerry, Morse says. Of course, he’ll have to wait for the general release to know for sure. “I’ve looked at the early SDK, but we don’t play with beta versions here,” Morse says. “iPhone 4.0 gives us the opportunity to begin the real discovery of the device capabilities.”
Another upside: Varian has been using Zenprise MobileManager for BlackBerry management, which helps IT departments identify who is using a mobile device, how the device is accessing the network, and what version of the OS is installed. Zenprise MobileManager now supports the iPhone.
Before Morse can give the iPhone the green light for field service technicians, he’ll also need to standardize on the iPhone 3GS because of its device encryption—that is, the current standardization on iPhone 3G won’t work for field technicians who require a higher level of security.

End goal: Quickly-deployed web apps

Yet security and management are just part of iPhone enterprise adoption. The iPhone represents an entirely new development platform and services architecture. Morse will have to consider not just the iPhone but what it will bring forth in the future (and whether or not Apple and the iPhone can handle it).
For Morse, though, that’s a good problem.
He gets excited, for instance, about the iPhone’s potential as an end-point to Web apps. The beauty of Web apps, he says, is a faster release cycle. Think of a dynamic MSO. iPhones and iPads “would be a rock star of a solution,” Morse says. “We’re not talking about just a mobile device with some glamorous interface technology, we’re talking about having something that lets people do work and solve problems and that can be reliably revisited over and over again.”
But first Morse will have to meet with field service managers, engineers and installers around the world to find out how an iPhone or iPad can improve their jobs. Can the iPhone’s geo-location help them allocate resources better? Will mobile social networking help? What data should the iPhone track? Can the iPhone facilitate customer interaction?
“There’s an amazing amount of discovery because the capability [of the iPhone] is so large,” Morse says. “Then we have to pare it down into a viable scope, otherwise you’re going to shoot the moon and you’re never going to get anything deployed.”
[Tom Kaneshige is a senior writer for CIO.com in Silicon Valley.]

Apple’s iPhone replaces Blackberry for some bankers

Fri, 21 May 2010 11:08:32 +0200

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Standard Chartered is replacing the Blackberry, currently its standard corporate communication device, with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of its bankers switching to the Apple device for business communication on the go.

Standard Chartered bankers in Asia told Reuters that the London-based lender was giving its corporate Blackberry users the option of switching to the iPhone, with the company agreeing to continue to pay monthly billing for business-related telephone and data services.

“It’s a group-wide initiative involving wholesale and consumer banks globally,” said a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Standard Chartered, told Reuters.

The process of migrating corporate email services from the Blackberry to the iPhone started about a month ago, said the spokeswoman, although she did not know how many of the Asia-focussed bank’s 75,000 employees used company-issued Blackberries or when the switchover could be completed.

Bankers at other financial institutions such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Morgan Stanley have so far been restricted to the Blackberry as the standard device issued by their firms for business communications. Despite some indications of change, it may take time for a broader switch to take place, mainly because of security concerns, according to financial professionals and information technology analysts.

“If more companies switch to the iPhone, this is of course bad news for RIM,” said Lu Chialin, an IT industry analyst at Macquarie Securities in Taipei. “However, it will take a long time for companies to do their own internal testing before deciding to change, so it will be a while before it has any effect on RIM.”

Blackberries, from Canada’s Research in Motion, are the device of choice for bankers and executives who need regular access to email and the Internet when outside the office.

RIM had the biggest share of the U.S. smartphone market at 36 percent, ahead of handsets running Google’s Android operating system with 28 percent and Apple with 21 percent, according to a recent study by NPB Group.

Singapore-headquartered Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp began offering its staff the choice of Blackberry or iPhone about a year ago, although most of its bankers have so far stuck to their Blackberries.

Some small, privately-held financial companies in Asia have also started allowing employees to port corporate emails to their personal iPhones on request, bankers and asset managers told Trading China, a Thomson Reuters online community for financial professionals focussing on the Greater China market.

The biggest issue for most companies choosing telephone and email hardware is data encryption, said Macquarie’s Lin.

“RIM has a system that is more effective than most other handset makers, so if there is a shift towards the iPhone it’s not going to happen overnight but rather a slow and gradual change.” he said.