Question 1

What can I do with RapidStart CRM out of the box

Accepted Answer

RapidStart CRM is a simple-to-use CRM solution. Within RapidStart CRM you can track potential customers (Prospects), as well as manage your current customers (Contacts and Accounts). In addition you can create and track Sales Opportunities and Service Cases for your Contacts and Accounts. Addons, ours and others, can quickly and easily add more capabilities to RapidStart CRM

Question 2

Why is RapidStart CRM free? What's the catch?

Accepted Answer

There is no catch. We have been offering RapidStart CRM apps since 2015 at a very low cost, and at this stage we have recovered all of our development costs. We decided that as many people as possible should be able to use them for success with Microsoft Business Applications, and eliminating the cost will open our apps up to people who had to struggle to get approvals and other things for what was a very inexpensive app in the first place.

Question 3

How do you make money with this?

Accepted Answer

Many people start with our accelerators, and then seek to expand on their capabilities. While they can utilize any competent partner, or do it themselves if they are comfortable, enough people decide to engage our services, as the original developers of RapidStart CRM, to assist. In addition, we have developed some paid Addons to quickly add valuable capabilities.

Question 4

Can you explain this "Power Platform" in layperson's terms?

Accepted Answer

Sure, imagine that the “Platform” is a $5 hamburger. Any of Microsoft’s first-party apps, like for example, Dynamics 365 Sales, adds a very thick slab of cheese to that hamburger for an additional $90. Alternatively, RapidStart CRM adds a very thin slice of cheese to that hamburger for no additional cost. If you ever outgrow RapidStart CRM, you can opt to have our free slice, replaced with their $90 slab, on the same hamburger. The hamburger itself, would not have to be replaced.

Question 5

How does RapidStart CRM compare to Dynamics 365 Professional?

Accepted Answer

Dynamics 365 Sales Professional and Dynamics 365 Service Professional are Microsoft’s first-party applications targeting Small and Mid-Sized businesses. These were not built from scratch; rather, they are feature-limited versions of Microsoft’s current Enterprise applications. RapidStart CRM is not a handicapped version of a larger product; instead, it was built specifically, from the ground up, to be a simple-to-use CRM Application. The customizability and extensibility of RapidStart CRM and Microsoft’s applications are identical as they are all built on Microsoft’s Dataverse platform. In addition to being much easier to use, RapidStart CRM is also significantly less expensive since it runs on Power Apps licensing as low as $5USD/PUPM, versus Dynamics 365 Professional, which costs $65USD/PUPM (retail). We wrote a post about this also here.

Question 6

What exactly is RapidStart CRM in Microsoft technical terms?

Accepted Answer

RapidStart CRM is a Model-Driven Power App built on Microsoft’s Dataverse (formerly called Common Data Service (CDS)) platform. Dataverse is the same platform that Microsoft’s first-party apps, like Dynamics 365 Enterprise Sales or Service, are also built on.

Question 7

What if RapidStart CRM is close to my needs, but not perfect?

Accepted Answer

Every business is different. That’s why all of our RapidStart CRM apps, including the purpose-built industry ones, are fully extendable/customizable. Depending on how technical you are, you can customize them yourself. But we know that many customers will not have the time, or interest, in learning how to customize themselves, so we offer paid service from our parent company Forceworks Global for that purpose.

Question 8

How do I install RapidStart CRM?

Accepted Answer

We created an Installation Steps page here

Question 9

Can people who are outside of my organization, like contractors, use this?

Accepted Answer

Yes they can! After adding them as Guest users to your Azure Active Directory account, they can be given access to RapidStart CRM. Note: you will still need a $5 Power Apps Per App license for each of them.

Question 10

Can I "Switch" RapidStart CRM to Microsoft's Dynamics 365 later?

Accepted Answer

Yes, however, as of today, moving from RapidStart CRM to Microsoft’s first-party applications is a migration project. But our observation is that once customers start using RapidStart CRM, and they customize and extend it to meet 100% of their organization’s needs, moving to the first-party apps is not really an option they even consider. We have over 90,000 users of RapidStart CRM… and we are not aware of a single organization that has moved from RapidStart CRM to Microsoft’s first-party applications.

Question 11

What are the minimum Microsoft licenses required to run RapidStart CRM Apps?

Accepted Answer

RapidStart CRM was purposefully designed to run on the low cost Power Apps Per App plan @$5 USD/pupm from Microsoft.  RapidStart CRM can also run on the Power Apps Per User and Dynamics 365 licenses.

Question 12

Where do I buy the Microsoft Power Apps Licenses?

Accepted Answer

You can buy the licenses from your Microsoft Partner or directly from Microsoft… there is no difference in cost.

Question 13

Why do I hear a lot higher license costs from Microsoft and other partners?

Accepted Answer

You are probably hearing about costs for the full Microsoft Dynamics 365 Apps. While everybody else would prefer that you buy those more expensive licenses, RapidStart CRM was designed to run on what is called the Power Apps Per App “platform” license, which is only $5. Microsoft recently separated their own first-party apps (Sales, Service, etc.) from the Platform that they run on, and made that same platform available for ISVs like us to build on. It’s one of those Win-Win situations.

Question 14

Don't I already have Power Apps licensing in my Microsoft 365?

Accepted Answer

You do, but the Power Apps capabilities that are included with Microsoft 365 are limited. RapidStart CRM apps require a Dataverse environment to run, so you will need the low-cost Power Apps Per App Plan. See minimum licensing above.

Question 15

What if I already have the necessary Microsoft Power Apps licenses?

Accepted Answer

No problem. RapidStart CRM apps can be installed on any Dynamics 365 Customer engagement licenses, in addition to the much lower cost, Power App Per App plan. They will work the same.

Question 16

Do you provide Support?

Accepted Answer

RapidStart CRM is a free app. We have created a free support forum here, but from our team, there is no free support. For other Support Options click here.

Advanced Support

for RapidStart CRM

from the company that built it

Advanced Support from Forceworks

"The Works" from Forceworks

Support Blocks from Forceworks