3. CRMCulture | Productivity Pack Overview
No-coding, Ready-to-install Pivotal 6.0 enhancements — installed and configured by you in
minutes!
Generate quick wins for your organization with sexy features that users are sure to talk about!
Close the gaps on critical features missing from the Pivotal platform
Enable business analysts and power users to manage their CRM data more efficiently than any CRM
platform on earth
The CRMCulture Productivity Pack is a collection of no-coding, installable enhancements to the Pivotal 6.0 platform. The
power of both the Pivotal platform and our design is that almost all the features become available with no modifications to
your existing tables, forms or code and it works generically on any set of custom tables. You simply install the Productivity
Pack transporter file and many features will instantly appear, while some features need only be turned “on” in a Settings
interface. Most customers can realize these quick improvements in less than an hour of installation and configuration time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it supported? Yes, CRMCulture works closely with Pivotal Product Management to
insure that we are only using functionality of the core Pivotal platform.
Who supports it? Technical Support and Maintenance of the Productivity Pack features
are provided by CRMCulture for customers under maintenance.
Does it use supported Pivotal API’s? Yes, most functions are enabled via the use of the Global Notification
Handler technology provided by the platform. Along with some clever
programming and table structure we are able to do everything within
the parameters of the Platform.
What happens when Pivotal is upgraded? Pivotal understands that all customers are performing customizations to
their systems and they take great care to ensure that service packs are
compatible with your customizations just like they are with the
Productivity Pack.
Why not just wait until Pivotal creates these We encourage Pivotal to use our ideas to improve the core product and
features? in fact you can look to many aspects of the PCM and its modules for
CRMCulture influence. However, the CRMCulture innovation machine
will always be a step ahead, driving productivity and operational
excellence for our customers now, when they need it.
Is it available on CMS? PCM? or the Financial Yes, the Productivity Pack has specific versions for each of the base
Services business modules? Pivotal systems.
What Pivotal service packs are supported? Pivotal 6.0 Service Pack 8 or above is required.
Recorded video demo’s for each individual feature available at:
www.CRMCulture.com/Events
Copyright 2012, CRMCulture, LLC Page 1
4. CRMCulture | Email Preview
User Problem: Out-of-Box Outlook linking is just not enough to drive user adoption of the Pivotal Outlook integration.
Your users will applaud when they can preview key information about the Outlook Email, Appointment or
Task and you’ll be able to add an email preview window on any form within 5 minutes, to create a great
quick win for your organization!
Our Solution: Email Preview is a no-coding solution in which any entity that has linked Outlook interactions can
“Preview” the interaction all with a simple naming of the SRL and Preview text box via the Pivotal toolkit.
User Problem: Out-of-Box Pivotal does not allow users to see the Employee or Contacts that emails are sent To/From.
The poor user must double-click the item and then wait for it to open up just to see wrote it.
Our Solution: The CRMCulture Enhanced Interactions View solves the problem of not being able to see the employee or
contacts involved in the interaction by exposing these as comma separated fields using Pivotal Read-Only
View technology and no coding.
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5. CRMCulture | Preview Pane (any table)
User Problem: Longer comments and notes fields are awkward to read within grids and ends up being too time
consuming to open each row just to read a note and find the valuable information.
Our Solution: Using a new Toolkit control provided by CRMCulture, you can add record previewing for any table! Simply
add the new “Preview Pane” control to your Client Form toolbox and within minutes you can create the
same preview effect as Outlook Preview for any table. A great navigation enhancement!
With this enhancement, the user is able to quickly and efficiently view key information without having to
drill down into each row.
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6. CRMCulture | Tab Tools
User Problem: “All that data but so many clicks to read it!” Users have to click through all the tabs of a form to see if
there is anything underneath worth taking action on.
I.T. Problem: Any programmer can put counts on tabs, doing so consistently and on every form is the challenge.
Our Solution: Instantly convert your Pivotal system into a “Guided CRM” by helping users know whether or not there is
data under a tab without having to hunt and peck for it.
Every tab on every form of your Pivotal system can show a row Count or Sum of the underlying data with no I.T.
involvement.
Tab Tools requires no coding, and even works if there is no client task on your form
Individual tabs may be turned off if desired by setting a property of the tab
Sum rather than count rows automatically by setting a field to sum at the table level (screen capture below)
No performance loss because the counts and sums are read from the .NET grids rather than querying
Developer tools expand the functionality even further, adding a .Hide and .Show methods to .NET for
conditionally hiding and showing tabs, whereas .NET only offers .Remove method
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7. CRMCulture | Context Menus
The CRMCulture Productivity Pack adds a context menu of critical productivity choices relative to the selected data, creating
the most advanced navigation and grid manipulation of any CRM on the planet! Your End-Users, Power Users and Business
Analysts are guaranteed to find something here that they’ve needed but didn’t even know to ask.
Context Menu items appear based on the combination of the Table + Security for the current user, allowing the
administrator to turn on/off features for any table + security group combination. Because all configuration is done within
the Pivotal client, there is no need for any toolkit configuration.
Features include:
Hyper-Navigation — Instantly create distinct lists of parent records or see all related child records of any multi-
selected grid or search result list without writing queries!, i.e. select a list of Contacts and instantly convert it to
distinct Companies or convert the selected Contact to a list of related (child) Opportunities or Orders.
In-Line Edit Search Result Lists — Edit any Search Result List directly on the grid - just like Excel!
Batch Add — Select multiple records and add them to a child table - similar to "Add To Static List" but for
absolutely any related table! i.e. add Alerts or Notes across a selection of records instantly. Batch Add utilizes
the client form and server task logic just as if you had added the records manually.
Batch Edit — Administrators or Power-Users can easily clean data from any grid or search result list. Batch Editor
honors existing security and business logic, and supports all tables and fields, including custom tables.
Summarize Column — Multi-select any grid or search result list that has a currency or integer column and get a
summation of the selected rows, just like Excel!
Send Email Template — A more powerful alternative to Letter Express for quickly sending batch HTML emails or
single email templates. Supports email templates with attachments and merging of secondary grids.
Merge — We’ve added granularity to the out-of-box Pivotal Data Management Module by offering the same
Merge feature on a per table and per specific security group basis rather than the all-or-nothing approach of the
DMM.
Share Shortcut — Increase internal communication and user adoption by emailing hyperlinks of Pivotal records.
Email a single Pivotal hyperlink shortcut or a list of them to increase the productivity of the recipient plus reduce
typing errors that lead to the infamous “Are you sure you spelled that right, I can’t find him in the system.”
Copyright 2012, CRMCulture, LLC Page 5
8. CRMCulture | Hyper-Navigation
User Problem: End-Users and even Power-Users struggle in Pivotal to view key relational data. In Pivotal and every other
CRM this means writing queries of varying difficulty. Query writing is time-consuming, difficult for most
users and in many cases needs to be put into an I.T. request queue to have completed.
User Problem: Export To Excel, Add To Static List and Letter Express are not available for data grids and embedded SRL’s
on a client form, which is a huge frustration for users because the only solution is to write a query (see
above).
Our Solution: CRMCulture has unlocked the complexity of the relational database by reading the natural relationships of
tables from the Pivotal business module and converting those into a user-friendly context menu that
allows the selected records to re-display key Parent or Child relationships, all without writing a single
query. An administrator need only define the desired hyper-navigation menus in order to expose the
most powerful navigation of any CRM on the market.
For the given table and security group of the current user, context menu’s will display as follows:
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9. CRMCulture | Hyper-Navigation Use Cases
1. My Opportunities query could be converted to Distinct Contacts or Distinct Companies for an email campaign
2. From a company form hyper-navigation allows one to convert the data grid of related Contacts into an actionable list
of contacts to add to a static list, export to excel, etc… That is simply not possible without a query in out-of-box Pivotal
and a real frustration for users.
3. From a list of sales orders this month, right click to convert to the Order Detail, so that one can see what was
purchased. Right click again to convert the order detail into Distinct Products [purchased]. Right-Click the Products
and with a few more right-clicks hyper-navigate from Product Order Detail Distinct Orders Distinct Companies
(that purchased that product) and finally to Related Contacts (so we can market to them).
4. Select multiple Employees from an SRL, right click to convert to a list of Opportunities where the employee is the
Opportunity Account Manager. Hint: then use the “Summarize a Column” context menu for the selected list of
opportunities to compute their value rather than dumping them to Excel.
5. Select a list of Customer Service Tickets matching some criteria, right click them to convert to a Distinct list of Contacts
or Companies for emailing or some other action.
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10. CRMCulture | In-Line Edit Search Result Lists
User Problem: “I have a big list of data in a Search Result List. Why can’t I edit the data like it was Excel? Do I really have
to open each record? What? You want me to export it to Excel make my changes and then import it back
in? Seriously?”
Our Solution: The “Enable In-Line Editing” context menu and button bar, toggles the Search Result List to an editable
mode. As with everything in the Productivity Pack, the option only appears for specified Tables plus the
security group of the current user.
CRMCulture | Batch Editor
I.T. Problem: As an I.T. person, I periodically need to run large updates on records, changing territories, re-assigning
records, or just doing basic data clean-up. They don’t let me have direct access to the database to write a
SQL Update statement and I don’t have time to write a Visual Workflow.
User Problem: Sometimes I need to modify a large number of records myself without having to open each record
individually having to wait in a queue until I.T. can do a batch update. Can’t I just batch update my
Opportunity Forecast?
Our Solution: The Batch Editor gives members of designated security groups and designated tables the ability to update
multi-selected records. Batch Editing exercises all server task business rules in the same manner as if you
had updated each record individually.
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11. CRMCulture | Batch Record Creation
User Problem: Periodically users need to add a Note or an Alert across a large selection of records. They may also need
to add batches of records to other entities such as the Contact_Group, Contact_Interests or
Company_Type tables where the table is a collection of the many Contacts or Companies for that Group,
Interest or Type.
Our Solution: With the Batch Add feature users can select multiple records and add them to a “child” or “secondary”
table - similar to "Add To Static List" but for absolutely any related table allowed by the administrator for
the current users security group.
How it works: Using the natural relationships of the tables defined in the toolkit, the feature reads the default form of
the table and displays only the required fields. All business logic of the form is executed when the records
are created including default values on the form and triggered server tasks logic.
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12. CRMCulture | Summarize Column
User Problem: “All I want to know is the sum of these rows, like I can do so easily in Excel.” Users spend a lot of time
exporting records to Excel just so that they can calculate the sum of a particular field. What’s worse is that
if the data is in a grid on a form, they cannot even export it to Excel without writing a query.
Our Solution: The Summarize Column feature solves the problem just like Microsoft Excel did long ago, such that when
people see money they want to add it up. The summarize column feature continues the CRMCulture
philosophy that the CRM system should be working for us and telling us a story rather than having to
jump through a bunch of hoops to coax the information out of it.
How it works: The feature is generic for any table in the system and simply shows a list of integer and currency fields
available for the given SRL or Grid so as to honor field level security of the current user.
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13. CRMCulture | Email Templates
User Problem: “I just want to send a single email to a customer with template text and the same attachments I always
send, or I want to send a quick email with an attachment to my small list of customers but LetterExpress
cannot do single emails and it’s too much of a pain to set up for batch emails.”
User Problem: Pivotal’s eMarketing module is great for marketers wishing to send thousands of emails and to track all
aspects of the campaign but what about the end-user that just wants to send out a small batch of merged
emails?
I.T. Problem: There is no good method of triggering “system” generated merged emails.
Our Solution: Email Templates bridges the gap between LetterExpress and eMarketing, providing an easier and more
robust method of doing batch emailing, single email templates and triggered programmatic emails.
Feature ETemplates LetterExpress eMarketing Comments
Ease of use for end-user (Ranking 1 = Best) 1 2 3 eMarketing is not typically available for an end-
user and requires to much work to set-up for
quick on-the-fly email blasts.
Overall power for batch emailing 2 3 1 eMarketing is still the choice for large email
(Ranking 1 = Best) campaigns
Single Email Template from one record It’s very useful to have template emails for
frequently written text.
Attachments
Scheduled Emails Set an email to be sent a week from now via
the CRMCulture Notification Module.
Triggered Emails When used with CRMCulture Notification
Module. Can also be used with Visual
Workflow.
Click Through Tracking, Read Tracking, Bounce eMarketing remains the choice for high end
Tracking, Unsubscribe email marketing.
Outgoing email through Outlook eMarketing uses its own SMTP server which
makes it better for big batches while the other
two go out through the end-users Outlook
client.
Merge secondary data (child data) Only eTemplates allows users to define merge
tags for child data of the entity, for instance the
multiple line items of an Order or a Quotation.
Merge fields into the subject line
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15. CRMCulture | Auto-Complete
User Problem: Today, when entering values into combo boxes there is no auto-complete or even a list of the possible
choices without lifting the mouse to pull down the choices. This makes data entry slow and mistake
prone.
User Problem: Foreign Key fields are not much better because of the awkward pause and the extra key strokes needed.
Watch any new Pivotal user enter data and you’ll see their frustration with not being able to use the TAB
key like every other application they use. Users expect to use the TAB key rather than the ENTER key.
Our Solution: Auto-Complete for combo boxes and foreign key fields speeds and improves data entry by filtering the
possible choices and suggesting a response for the user much like the standard windows controls. This
functionality mimics the Auto-Complete features found in today’s modern browsers and implemented by
technology leaders like Google. The auto suggestion is instantaneous for the user, eliminating the pause
and extra key strokes of the out-of-the-box Pivotal. Finally you can use the TAB key to make your
selection just like every other application you use!
How It Works: Our solution dynamically replaces the Combo Box and Foreign Key controls with the improved control
throughout your entire application when first launched. Without any coding or configuration by you.
Figure 1 - With Productivity Pack Auto-Complete
Figure 2 - Normal Out-of-Box Pivotal (auto-complete disabled)
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16. CRMCulture | SQL Query
I.T. Problem: One of my users needs a complex query written immediately, but it cannot be written in the Pivotal Client
interface. I can’t do it in the toolkit with Custom SQL because that requires a UFO. The best I can do is
write it in SQL Query Analyzer and deliver it to the user as an Excel sheet. Unfortunately, now it’s not a
Pivotal Search Result List which they can take action on such as using it as a Call List, Email Merge or
LetterExpress and forget about Hyper-Navigating to other data or Batch Edit, and Batch Add.
Our Solution: SQL Query gives the business analyst limitless capabilities to write even the most sophisticated queries
within the Pivotal platform, while delivering the results as a native Pivotal Search Result List. Now the list
is actionable by using all of the other tools available for list manipulation and navigation. SQL Query
combined with Productivity Pack list manipulation and navigation tools knocks the socks off any other
CRM.
Upcoming Feature! Coming Soon!
In an upcoming release, CRMCulture will offer a method of defining the Search Result List fields in the Select clause which
will allow business analysts to go beyond the confines of the Pivotal Search Result list to create custom columns or draw
data from multiple tables all on the fly.
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17. CRMCulture | Address Correction / Geo-Coding
User Problem: “Data entry is such a chore, can’t Pivotal just lookup the city/state via the zip code and correct my address
mistakes.” “Do we save money if we zip+4 our zip codes or reduce bad addresses?”
User Problem: When creating a new set of records it is very time consuming to create a Company, then create a Contact
and then create a Note.
User Problem: “I’m planning a business trip. What other customers can I potentially visit within a given radius?”
Our Solution: Configurable and free web service based address lookup and correction from Yahoo! or Google web
services will auto populate missing information and suggest the U.S. Postal Service approved address
formatting including adding the proper Ave, St, Blvd abbreviations when appropriate.
Additionally, the CRMCulture “Create Contact” or “Create Company” can move all the data entry into a
single form, creating a more intuitive method of data entry while still creating the necessary Company,
Contact, Notes and Opportunity records if so desired.
Copyright 2012, CRMCulture, LLC Page 15
18. CRMCulture | Productivity Pack Administration
All Productivity Pack features are easily configured by administrators within the Pivotal client database so that the features
are instantly available. The key to many Productivity Pack features is sync’ing the Pivotal Business Module Tables and
Table_Fields definitions so that we could “customize” this already powerful infrastructure while also re-using the natural
relationships of the tables.
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