KSF International Moving To A New Location

Effective October 31st 2009, our 3rd Anniversary, KSF International is relocating to new offices in the Brady Sullivan Plaza Tower on Elm Street in downtown Manchester. As our business has continued to evolve, we needed to upgrade our office space to a higher profile location and wanted to provide our staff with additional amennities.

Our new office space is in the newly renovated plaza on the 6th floor overlooking Elm Street. It offers our customers and employees a dedicated parking garage attached to the building and a brighter office space. Our new location is just 2 blocks from our former office.

What CRM Software Should I Use?

A question that our clients frequently ask is this: Which CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software should we use? There are literally hundreds of options available, from the most popular solutions like Microsoft CRM, Sage, SAP, Act! and Salesforce.com to OpenSource applications like Sugar CRM. Many organizations have custom developed CRM solutions built on one of the many database products. Many even ask us why should we use CRM at all?

The second question is the easiest! A CRM solution provides your company with many benefits - enhanced productivity, increased revenue, improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and improved customer retention to name but a few.

Which CRM solution is right for your organization is a bit harder to answer. Let me begin with a bit of background for those of you just beginning to explore CRM solutions.

CRM Solutions typically fall into one of three categories: Server Based, Desktop, and Hosted.

• Server Based - Server Based applications are the most expensive solutions to implement and are typically used by larger organizations. These solutions are software that runs on one or more servers with-in an organization. Users connect to these applications either through software installed on their computer or through a web-browser. Examples of server based solutions are: Microsoft CRM, SAP, Sage CRM, and Clear C2.
  
  
• Desktop - Desktop applications are typically used by individuals or smaller organizations. They consist of software that runs on each user’s desktop with a local database. Some desktop applications allow users to access a shared database to exchange data. Examples of desktop based solutions are: Act! and Goldmine
  
  
• Hosted - Hosted solutions are the fastest growing type of CRM solution. With a hosted solution, users access the software through a web-browser. The database is located at the solution providers’ data center. This is typically referred to as "in the cloud". Examples of hosted solutions are: Salesforce.com and NetSuite. If you have a limited budget or want flexibility in the number of licenses,  a hosted solution can be they way to go as most allow you to change the number of licenses on a month-to-month basis.
  

There are no absolutes here; most of the solutions are a high bred of each. Hosted solutions may have a stand-alone Desktop product for when you can’t connect to the internet and server based solutions may have a web-browser based interface. What our definitions deal with is the core of the software.

Next let’s take a quick look at what features to CRM solutions give you. For most businesses there are a core set of features that are required:

• Leads - Lead Management is the core, keeping track of your potential customer and marketing to them.
  
  
• Contacts - Contact management is the ability to manage multiple people at a single account. For example the purchasing manager and the accounting contact.
  
  
• Accounts - Account management typically takes over when a "Lead" becomes a customer. It’s good to be able to separate Leads from Accounts to make Accounts easier to find.
  
  
• Opportunities - Opportunity management allows you to track specific sales potentials with your customers. Perhaps it’s an order for spring or their next production run. Opportunity management allows you to create Sales Forecasts.
  
  
• Sales Forecasts & Quotes - Sales Forecasts are a reporting and analysis feature. They give you a view of your potential revenue based on Opportunities and quotes.
  
  
• Activities - Activity Management allows you to manage your schedule. It schedules follow-ups with customer, manages appointments for you or your field sales staff.
  
  
• Customer Service - Customer Service management allows you to track support or service calls from your customers. Depending on your organization, you may or may not have a need for this feature but it’s available in many packages.
  
  
• Marketing Automation - Marketing Automation is sometimes referred to as Campaign Management. It allows you to track how effective your advertising and promotion efforts are and give you an ROI analysis. If you use web based PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns, this is a critical component for you.
  

All of the leading CRM solutions provide you with most of these base functions. So, how do you choose? Well, the next set of criteria should help you flush out a few players. These are: Budget, Support, Flexibility, and Integration.

• Budget - While most of the CRM vendors will list this last, I always look at this first. Yes, it’s all relative. Yes, CRM will give you an ROI and save you "tons of money". But if you are going to have to spend thousands of (Dollars/Pounds/Euros/Yen/Kips) that would cause you to have to pawn the office coffee machine, it may not be worth it!
  
  Solutions can range from "free" (in the case of open source or shareware solutions) to $30,000 + hardware for top end solutions. Most CRM systems are priced "per user license" also referred to as a "seat". Think about how much you can afford to spend per-user-per-year.
  
  
• Support - Next in the list of criteria is support. How are you going to get help if you need it? Typically the more you pay per/seat, the more support is available. Be aware however that many CRM suppliers charge for support separate from the user license. While on the surface, open source applications may seem inexpensive, if you can’t get to your customer data and you are waiting for some random individual to answer your post on a forum, it can become very expensive-very quickly. Make sure that the software vendor provides support and training or that you have a reliable source for assistance.
  
  
• Flexibility - Unless the CRM system you select is specifically designed for your industry and the way you do business, you will need to make some customizations. There are two considerations here; how easy is it to make them, and will they stay when a new version is released. Some of the CRM software listed here requires someone with dedicated programming experience; some allow significant customizations to be made through simple fill-in forms.
  
  Generally, hosted solutions are more flexible and easier to use in this way. Also, systems that allow customizations are usually much better at retaining those customizations from version to version. You don’t want to spend hours and hours on customizations just to have to re-create them when you upgrade to the latest version.
  
  
• Integration - Lastly, but certainly not least, is Integration. Integration is the CRM solutions ability to talk to other software and systems you use in your business. If someone fills out the contact form on your website, you want that lead automatically loaded into your CRM system without having to re-type or cut and paste from your email. Or perhaps your staff needs access to order history, wouldn’t it be great to have one place to and see a complete history of a customer. With proper integration your CRM system can be a single resource.
  

Given all of these criteria how do you choose? I suggest looking over the websites of the major vendors and see which one has the features you are looking for in your budget range. Most vendors offer an evaluation program to let you poke around and see what the software can do. Another suggestion is to find a partner with experience in implementing CRM systems to assist you in defining your need and evaluating the different solutions. Even if you have to pay a small fee for the consulting, it can be well worth it. CRM systems take time to implement and commitment staff training and adoption. A good partner can assist you with the implementation; transfer of your existing data and with the integration of your other business systems.

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By: Thomas Lahey - KSF International Inc

How to deal with an embedded HTML form in an ASP.NET page

Let's say that you have an ASP.NET page that get's a content feed from your blog. In your feed there is an embedded HTML form that posts to another website. If you simply embed this form, the containing ASP.NET form will override the embedded ASP.NET form and it will just do a normal PostBack not post the embedded HTML form.

Here is a workaround that we've used. 

Close the ASP.NET form tag before your embedded content form begins, then create a dummy form tag after your embedded form is closed to clean up the ASP.NET inserted </form> tag. This allows your embedded form to work and prevents HTML validation errors.

A base asp.net form looks like this....

[Wire up and head stuff here...]
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
  <div>
    Hello World!
  </div>
</form>
</body>
</html>


Let's say that instead of Hello World I have an asp literal that is populated with content from say a blog feed that contains a feedback form. (or I could have just pasted an HTML form from some other source). My code now looks like this...

<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
  <div>
    <asp:literal id="litBlogContent" runat="server" />
  </div>
</form>
</body>
</html>


The way to implement this solution is as follows.....

<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
  <div>
  </form> <!-- Close the ASP.NET "form1" -->
    <asp:literal id="litBlogContent" runat="server" />
  </div>
<!-- Remove the ASP.NET close form tag that .NET inserted at the bottom of the page. -->
<!-- </form> -->
</body>


If you have a standard WebForm this works fine. If however you are using Master Pages, and your embedded form is in a content page, then you don't have access to the close form tag, so the you need to create a "fake" form to close the </form> tag embedded in your HTML page.

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="UpperBody" Runat="Server">
  </form> <!-- Close the ASP.NET close form tag that's embedded in the master page. -->
  <div>
    <asp:literal id="litBlogContent" runat="server" />
  </div>
  <form id="dummyForm"> <!-- put in a dummy form to deal with the </form> tag that's embedded at the end of the master page. -->
</asp:Content>


VisualStudio will give you a warning that there are missing open and close tags, you can just ignore these, what's important is that the rendered HTML when the form runs will validate.

If you have multiple forms on your page, you'll need to make sure that your ASP.NET form and input fields are BEFORE you insert the close form tag, and before your HTML form. Using this method, only one form will submit, the ASP.NET form or the HTML form.

UPDATE: I've been asked to show an embedded standard HTML form, so here is an example with just a simple HTML form.

Standard WebForm....

<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
  <div>
  </form> <!-- Close the ASP.NET "form1" -->
  <form id="standardHtmlForm" method="post"
      action="http://www.thirdPartySite.com/post.aspx">
    Field: <input id="txtInputField" type="text"></input>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
  </form>
  </div>
<!-- Remove the ASP.NET close form tag that .NET inserted at the bottom of the page. -->
<!-- </form> -->
</body>


Or with a master page.....

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="UpperBody" Runat="Server">
  </form> <!-- Close the ASP.NET "form1" -->
  <form id="standardHtmlForm" method="post"
      action="http://www.thirdPartySite.com/post.aspx">
    Field: <input id="txtInputField" type="text"></input>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
  </form>
<form id="dummyForm"> <!-- put in a dummy form to deal with the </form> tag that's embedded at the end of the master page. -->
</asp:Content>


Keywords: ASP.NET Embed HTML Form ASP.NET Page MasterPage

New Website Launches

Our new website has launched featuring bright new graphics and a host of new features.

After two years, KSF International has retired its old website. Our old site was developed two years ago when we first formed the company. It was put together in a bit of hurry and didn't accurately reflect our focus toward Business Systems Integration.

Our new site is much more informative and contains a great deal of new content. We've also optimized the site for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in order to better promote our services.

The new site incorporates new features including integration with Salesforce.com^®, an RSS fee from our Google Blogger.com Blog and takes advantage of some of the latest Microsoft^® .NET technologies.

We hope you enjoy browsing our new website and welcome your feedback!

KSF Participates in dreamForce

KSF Participated in the SalesForce.com, DreamForce Conference and Trade Show in San Francisco from November 2nd-5th. While there we participated in several training programs and received Partner status with SalesForces' ISV Program. KSF International is working with one of our clients to customize the SalesForce CRM solution and integrate it into a larger Business Intelligence system.

Salesforce.com CRM is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that requires no software and can be accessed through any browser and many cell phones! The SaaS platform can be used for CRM, Websites and just about any other application. KSF International would be pleased to discuss customization and development opportunities with you.

KSF Gains HP Developer Partner Status

Hewlett-Packard has approved KSF International as an HP Developer & Solution Partner in recognition of our Supplier Gateway products. We are proud to be named an HP Business Partner and look forward to working with our clients on systems and printing integration projects.

UK Financial Services Firm Selects KSF

A business financial services company based in London has selected KSF International to develop a CRM and Business Intelligence data warehouse application. The application will link offices in major UK cities as well as call centers in Asia. The project will integrate Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, Business Intelligence, force.com CRM applications, and integrate with an VoIP Telephone platform, IVR and call recording systems.