Microsoft Dynamics CRM system administrators take stock of CRM 2013 upgrade needs

Microsoft Dynamics CRM system administrators have plenty to worry about when managing a software upgrade, and CRM 2013 presents its own unique challenges. 

"If you're upgrading to CRM 2013 from CRM 2011 what is the first thing you would do to start planning that upgrade," one user asked an expert panel at a recent CRMUG online meeting.

"The biggest thing is training," said Dynamics CRM MVP Alex Fagundes, CIO/CTO at  PowerObjects. "What kind of training do you need? Do you want to do a train the trainer approach? Is it a small group? Don't just upgrade one day and have folks come in Monday morning and ‘bam' there's the new environment."

Fagundes noted that typically the larger companies understand the needed for training, but the smaller companies need to be reminded of its importance and develop a plan.

From a CRM administration perspective, Sarah Champ, Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft, said the first thing to do is run the custom code validation tool.

"Making sure that with the upgrade, many of the things that the pieces that are supported in 2011 will translate over," she said. "And also running test upgrades - these take into account if anything has broken during the upgrade or if things look different, and how you're going to make those modifications and changes before your users [use the new system]."

Another attendee wanted to know how much of the new functionality of CRM 2013 would be viewable in the Outlook client.

"The Outlook client works the same way - you'll just have the new forms surface when you double click it and drill into one of those records," said Laura Robinson, technology ...