There is a downloadable user guide from Microsoft which may go into more detail http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0db4d487-1baa-4619-9bc5-074d73c3997d&DisplayLang=en Leon Tribe

Broadly speaking you install CRM 4.0 on the new server and you can then restore the VMWare CRM DB onto the new SQL server and add it in via the deployment manager. The implementation guide gives information on this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1ceb5e01-de9f-48c0-8ce2-51633ebf4714&DisplayLang...

Save the data into a unicode-compliant text file, NOT a csv. The import tool will read it and bring the data in correctly. Leon Tribe

Could you use a discount list and set the minimum to 1? Leon Tribe

Short of developing an import utility or using a third party tool like Scribe, if you can extract the data out of the CRM into csv format, you can import it using the standard import utilities that come with CRM. Leon Tribe

There was a component called the Bridge Framework and it was great. Microsoft themselves used this in some of their demos and the part of it people remember was the ability to adjust a quote in Word and send this information directly back to CRM from the Word screen. The bad news is it was available...

The implementation guide is a good start: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1ceb5e01-de9f-48c0-8ce2-51633ebf4714&DisplayLang=en This takes you some of the way there. The rest you should be able to piece together from the forum posts and Google. The short version is you need...

Generally speaking the definitions are quite flexible but here is the common definition: Lead: An unqualified opportunity. This could be as simple as a business card or a conversation overheard in a pub Contact: The individuals your business interacts with during the normal course of the day (normally...

If you have the option enabled, all contacts you've created or that belong to accounts you've created will be automatically synced to Outlook. The rules behind what gets brought down to Outlook can also be changed to suit your needs i.e. 'only sync contacts whose name is XXX' Leon Tribe

I personally would still push for activity creation as you can report off this a lot more easily than a spreadsheet. You can stage them so that when the last activity of one stage is completed the next ones are created. Another option would be to iFrame the spreadsheet or an equivalent and hold the information...