Short Introduction for Aileen Gusni: A passionate Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional who thinks that she loves Microsoft Dynamics CRM. She is Microsoft Community Contributor – Dynamics CRM

and works for TFP Solutions Sdn Bhdin Malaysia. She has a blog which ranks amongst top Dynamics CRM blogs and is real help for lot of CRM problems. She is an active community contributor also.

1. Name, current job title and social media links please

Aileen Gusni, CRM Consultant

My Blog: http://missdynamicscrm.blogspot.com

My Linkedin Profile: http://my.linkedin.com/in/aileengusni

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/aileengusni

My Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/aishev

My Rockstar Profile http://rockstar365.com/aileengusni

2. What does an average day at work look like

CRM-ing, sometimes not happy, sometimes happy CRM-ing J, but most of the time I enjoy my working day.

3. What different roles/Job titles have you had whilst using CRM

Technical Consultant, Functional Consultant, CRM Project Fire-fighter, and any role that I can be.

4. What job did you did before you starting using CRM

I was professionally unemployed (just a recent graduate Spoiled Kid, but I am not a Spoiled Brat J, then I tried to train people and got my first Internship Job), before I got my first CRM job (it was uncanny and unexpected experience I’d never thought before, but I’m lucky)

5. What was the first version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM you worked with and how long have you been using Microsoft Dynamics CRM

CRM 4.0, since 2011, my first job.

6. How do you stay up to date with the CRM

Google of course, plus Social Media with interaction with other experts that I admire.

I also keep looking the profound MSDN Articles with CRM SDK plus TechNet articles.

7. What one feature would you add to CRM Product.

Specifically, I wish CRM would grant my wish to give editable inline view (main grid or sub grid) to all entities, system and custom entities. Because I am frustrated that every customer ask me how to key in bunch of related records at once without opening form one by one.

If I may add another one, I want to have CRM with unlimited customization for some entities, such as Customer Address, Price List Item, Quote Product, etc to have other 1:N Relationship and flexibility in adding fields for those entities that we cannot add more fields.

8. What is the best tool/solution you have used recently

XRM Toolbox of course, because it has many things I want, like the Doraemon J

And if I can add one more tool, please let me mention Ribbon Workbench

9. What CRM certifications do you have, do you try and keep up to date with CRM certifications

All CRM 2011 Certifications, I try to keep up to date but just need a dedicated time to learn and take the exam.

10. How important is it to have good business analytical skills working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

It is very important, otherwise it’s just like building a house without enough foundation and material calculation because not enough skills to analyse them. Building the relationship, configure the security model, what potential conflict, what benefit if we use this, not use that, analyse the gap, solve the CRM requirement like a puzzle to construct them together piece by piece into big pictures or in other way from big pictures requirement we need to dismantle them, they all need business analytical skills, not only full programming skills, thus CRM needs Business/Functional Consultant with good analytical skills.

10 How useful is it to have programming knowledge to become a good Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional?

It is 100% useful, for example, when you prepare a demo environment, you want to show wonderful things to customer, you can at least create a static HTML to make fancier and awesome UI to attract customer or when you need to show business logic, calculation (complex one especially), or import unstructured data you would feel its advantages that having programming skills can reduce your manual effort helping you simplify the data, reduce your waiting time for programmer to get idle time and then help you, you can do it yourself as creative as you like!

11. How often do you travel as a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional?

So far I travel to neighbouring countries of my home land, Indonesia.

12. Can you see yourself not using CRM in your career in the future

I hope not, at least not now, because I’m just starting my career in CRM, but if that happened, I would like to improve my skills in Project Management or go back to .NET and Android Apps. However, opening a Restaurant is one of my backup plan J, but I do love CRM and I will do what I love as long as it is possible J

13. What are your hobbies outside of CRM

I love blogging, playing guitar, going to the gym, driving, watching movie, TV series, and sports (My favourite TV series is The Mentalist and my lovely Teams are Germany, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, and Madrid, with my favourite player is Thomas Muller right now, and I used to love Andriy Shevchenko, Michael Ballack, and Miroslav Klose) J, and now, surprisingly, I love cooking J

14. What was the last book you read and what was the last film you watched

Book = Chinese – English Dictionary

Film = Taken 3 (Movie) and The Mentalist Season 7 (TV Series)

15. Has CRM ever got you in trouble with your partner/family.

Not really, only if it is related to overtime thing, especially during tight deadline, Deployment Time (Go Live!) or Server Crash Time, cannot stand to keep answering the phone. But CRM is all about relationship and it can be xRM, so if I want to be a good xRM Consultant, I must know how to handle good relationship with my Partner and my Family J

16. Have you friends ever told you to stop talking/tweeting/blogging about CRM? What does your partner/family member(s) think of CRM

No, they support me, they won’t let me stop what I love to do.

Most of them always think CRM is only Customer Relationship Management. Easiest way to think about something is to decipher its short-form.

17. Tell me something interesting/unusual about yourself

Even though I am Bachelor of Computer Science, honestly I never love coding, not until I chose Networking as my Minor in University, every day dealing with cable and Hardware and also fast-IP Calculation, then I found that Web Programming is more exciting than I thought. After that I got Internship job, it was lucky, I didn’t know anything about .NET but I got this Internship job to build my University website, so I didn’t want to embarrass my University, I just want to finish them all with happy Users.

And surprisingly and suddenly I do love cooking and slowly becoming the house-chef, I never believe that I can love cooking.

I also never believe that I could have interest to write a blog and my blog can be viewed by more than 50k visitors in less than 1 year.

I never believe that I could work oversea, but CRM skills does make it real.

It leads me into conclusion that I believe I am not a good planner, I love make a plan, but I am not a good plan executor, unpredictable, I love doing what I need to do right now.

18. Who is the first CRM Expert you remember reading/seeing

In e-life, he is Scott Durow, the Ribbon Workbench author and creator,

In daily life, I have no choice but it’s my ex-boss.

19. Tips for someone who wants to become a CRM Expert

Learning by doing is the best one I can share and also please be active in the CRM Community, asking questions, keep reading, giving relevant and detailed answers to help the others, not only to get the answer verified. Keep up to date with the experts and keep searching and browsing CRM Latest information and SDK.

If you were trapped in CRM accidentally (like what happened to me), try to love it with all of your heart, CRM is different from Web Programming, you need to understand its structure, relationship, out of the box features, vanilla CRM, SDK, and also its limitation, its inner is much more complicated than its outer, to understand all of them you need to have passion and also need luck plus timing to get it nailed.

Everyone has their own value, know your passion and make passion as your pair in working, keep being professional, but friendly, keep learning from Microsoft articles and expert blogs or community forum, thinking outside of the box, keep building good reputation and relationship, never forget who taught you, who hired you, keep thinking that there is always another good person who is better than you, who is more expert than you.

“”When you work with passion, all seems doable, possible, feasible, and of course comfortable”

Here is a token of appreciation from my end:

Note: Before I end this, humble thanks to Ben Hosking from where I got the idea and questionnaire to do this, hope he would also answer me some time on this questions.

Hope it helps!