Tony Dye

ProVision Final Countdown

We've started our final countdown to going live on ProVision CRM Monday, July 7.  Will it be perfect?  Of course not.  Will it be fantastic anyway?  We believe so.  Is there so much do to in the next few days that we may all go crazy?  Absolutely!

CRM Starts Paying Off

We're not live on CRM yet, but some of the benefits are starting to be visible.  Our staff lives in Outlook all day long.  Now, with ProVision CRM, membership info is right there, without having to open another application.  Happy Days!

ProVision Clarification

In my "If We'd Done Our Homework" post, I may have over-stated when I said we've been waiting 2 1/2 years for ProVision.  We've been *looking* for 2 1/2 years, but actual development on the CRM base didn't start until February of 2007, and really didn't start on what's now ProVision until June or July of 2007, so we're not even to the one year point yet.  Still not where we want to be, but I don't want it to sound like our vendors have just been sitting around doing nothing!  Not at all....

Quick ProVision Update

First the bad news: we're not up and running on ProVision CRM yet.  Of course, that's disappointing.  But, there is good news to go with the story.  I asked Steve Bauserman of the ACTS group to give a quick update.  Here are his key points:

1. ProVisionCRM is the first application moved to Microsoft CRM 4.0
2. Complete Data Migration Tool (nobody else migrates attendance history, calendar, contribution history and pledge history) is 98% complete
3. ProVisionCRM On Demand is complete and has two implementations running with a third in process (check scanning and check-in not required)
4. ProVisionCRM On Premise is 95% complete (check scanning and check-in are in development) with two implementations in process
5. Over 20 churches and denominations are talking with ACTS Group about adopting ProVisionCRM as their Congregation Relationship Management System
6. ProVisionCRM is a foundational product which encourages ministries to have the information system they have always wanted
7. ProVisionCRM has multiple integrated accounting solutions ranging from QuickBooks to Microsoft Dynamics GP

At Perimeter, we're deep into looking at the quality of the data migration and looking ahead to our public web integration.  We wish ProVision CRM (we're calling it ProChurch internally, to recognize all it does) were done, and at the same time we know it will never be "done."  Exciting times are ahead :-)

ProVision CRM Update

It's been about a month since I last posted an update on ProVision CRM.  Things have seemed very quiet since then, but actually, a lot has been happening.

Here's what's happening right now:

• The first ProVisionCRM church goes live THIS week
• Twenty plus churches are talking to ACTS about moving to ProVisionCRM ("talk" meaning working on timing and requirements)
• ProVisionCRM is available as either on-premise or hosted solution;
• Microsoft has lowered the price of CRM to accommodate the faith based community!
• Microsoft has made GP available as a hosted solution at a fire sale price, making ProVisionCRM an enterprise solution for churches of all sizes
• In the next 60 days check scanning and check-in become available
• Before year-end, Asterisk/Hud integration will be available for ProVisionCRM

There's even more good news coming.  I can't say more now, but here's a quick hint. 

Update on ProVision CRM

It's been a while [way too long!] since I posted any updates on our ProVision CRM implementation.  Well, the short version: we're not yet up and running and we're not sure when we will be.

In measuring where we are, I have to look at some hard facts.  We're not at all where we want to be, and at the same time, we're still 100% committed to where we're going.  My Saturday morning discipleship group has just discussed this concept of "Reality is always your friend."  From Integrity, by Henry Cloud, page 107, quoting Jim Collins, in turn quoting Jim Stockdale:

"This is a very important lesson.  You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."  (Italics added by Cloud)

The fact is, the product isn't ready.  There are a number of challenges: the custom programming & configuration isn't complete yet (slightly complicated by Microsoft's early release of CRM 4.0), the data conversion is incomplete (also complicated by 4.0), and a lot of the process work is still being defined.  Hmmm...that sounds like a pretty bad story.  Well, we think it's more like a bad chapter in what will end up being a very good story.  Right now, it doesn't look at all good -- we can't even do a credible demo!  We are, however, still very committed to the product and to our vendor.

Even though we're struggling with the release schedule, we know that there are others who are equally concerned.  We're excitedly watching what's happening with The North American Mission Board (NAMB)  which is another ProVision implementation, although quite different from ours.  They are scheduled to go live in February.  In the mean time, we're reviewing our design criteria and basic principles yet again, making sure that when we do have a product, it will be a product we're very happy to use and show to others.

patience...patience...patience...

Microsoft Changes a Release Date

Alright, I know that title is of the "so what?" class.  But...there's actually more to this story.

OK, MS changed the schedule for the CRM 4.0 (aka Titan) launch.  What’s new about that?  Well…it’s not quite what you might expect.  4.0 was slated for Q1 of 2008.  A few days ago, we got word that there was already a release candidate.  Then a couple of days later we heard that it would be released before the end of THIS year!  Then, a few hours later that changed to NEXT WEEK!

Well this is all pretty good news for a lot of people.  Unless, of course, you’re ready to launch your ChMS product that’s built on CRM 3.0.  Do you go forward, or do you update to 4.0 and save your users from having to update in a few months?  We're very seriously considering upgrading to 4.0 and slipping our ProVision release date.

What would you do?  (well, besides go to a SAAS solution to get out of the upgrade business :-)

ProVision User Training, Day 1

Today we did our first real *user* training on ProVision.  I was kind of surprised (mostly pleasantly :-) that Whitney went way beyond just a showing, and actually let the 25 or so users get into the product and do hands-on!  Most of the focus today was on one of the keys of ProVision: familiarity.

In years past, I used the term "easy," and then tried "friendly."  OK, those are both good terms, but not necessarily accurate.  If you're an Outlook user, you might think it's easy or friendly.  However, there are plenty of other Outlook users who use it all the time, but think it is very UN-friendly.  Both of these groups still use it, and have learned to work within it.  Our claim (and it's proving to be mostly true) is that if you are familiar with Outlook, then using ProVision will also be familiar.  (Interestingly, a few people are learning features of Outlook during our ProVision training - hopefully that's a bonus)

Much of the day was focused on very basic things.  (do you retrain your staff on basics, often?)  Basics of navigation.  How to search.  How to search in a way to actually find somebody.  Searching on first AND last name at the same time, or pieces of each name.  These are basic, yet worth some focused time.  Some people saw this as a great benefit of our new system.  Dare we tell them it worked in the old system too?

After the break, Jim took over, touching on a lot more basics, like Internet Explorer toolbars.  It seems we can never over-train on the basics.  Then he continued, drilling into more details, like the way to look at families, and then members of families.  A bonus: according to Steve Bauserman, if you call Microsoft and mention that you're using CRM from the ACTS group, Microsoft should refer to the "C" in CRM as Congregation.  Even if they're just thinking about doing that, wow!

ProVision Launch Status

It was exactly one year ago today that we announced our ChMS decision.  A lot has happened since then.  Development...A Code Name...Installations...Demos...Scope Creep...Schedule Delays...Change in Subcontractors...Press Release...Change in Name...We even had a User's Group Meeting!  A few weeks ago, we did our first conversion of data, and then just over two weeks ago we started our IT and Super-User training.

This week, we start the training for our first group of "regular" users, and have a second group next week.  Then we do one final data conversion, set the bi-directional connector to our live database, and then give the big "GO" signal, and take it live.  Our most optimistic schedule has that go-live date the week of December 10.  And yes, we do have some fall-back plans in case our next couple of weeks turn up more than a reasonable number of surprises.

What's most interesting is that the go-live date isn't the end of the road -- it's the beginning.  After we get the basics up and running, there's quite a schedule of enhancements that will keep us quite busy for at least another year.  When is that slow time that people talk about?

Training Day 1 - Provision CRM

After almost exactly a year of planning and development, today was the start of our staff training on ProVision CRM.  Today's focus (and a couple more days this week) is for our IT staff and a select group who will become our early adopters, or MVPs.  These are the trail blazers who will break the system in, work through the likely kinks, and then be available to help others on the staff as we do the wider deployment over the next few weeks and months.

We did two parts of training today.  A fairly large introduction for about 40 people (below), then some hands on training for about half that group, with plans for the others to go through hands-on time after Thanksgiving.

Steve Bauserman (ACTS group) showed off lots of features of Provision. There were [at least] three major recurring themes:

1. Familiarity of the interface.  (In years past, I might have said "easy" or "friendly," but that's really not the point)  ProVision is built on Microsoft CRM, so the interface is primarily the same as Outlook, which is the key product our staff "lives in" every day.  So, love Outlook, or Hate it, if you use it, then you're already a long way to being ready to use ProVision.
2. A "right place" for each type of data.  ProVision CRM lets you pull all your data into one place, eliminating those ad-hoc, one-off, "temporary" data collecting points.  To put it into TBYL terms, the number of collecting points is reduced.
3. Sharing.  Somewhat the counter-point to the single collection point idea, if you really do put things into the database, just once, everyone on staff can benefit from knowing where to find things.  Imagine knowing that your fellow staff member actually called a person last week, so you don't have to call for the same reason.

Training continues Tuesday and Wednesday.  It's going to be a busy week!