Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework for Microsoft CRM

The recently announced Microsoft Office Information Bridge Framework considerably deepens the integration between Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft CRM. This closer integration makes it easier for users to create and track sensitive letters, escalate cases and look up customer data, all without leaving Microsoft Office 2003. This eliminates the need to switch back and forth between programs.

In addition, through powerful integration and collaboration between Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Proposals for Microsoft CRM will enable organizations to create effective sales proposals and shorten proposal-generation cycles.

In this sample screen shot, you can see the "Document Actions" section generated by the Information Bridge Framework and displayed in Microsoft Word. Within this section, users can quickly see data related to the account they are writing the letter to without having to open their CRM system. This Information Bridge sample includes (but is not limited to):

Account Details

Contacts

Recent Activities

Opportunities

Orders

Service Requests

The figure below illustrates the run-time architecture of a typical enterprise solution built on the Information Bridge Framework. On the desktop, Information Bridge solutions require that the client be running Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition or later, the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1, and Microsoft Windows 2000 or later. The server side requires Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3. Metadata Designer tool requires Visual Studio .NET 2003 or later.

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