Almost everyone we meet has the same problem with their CRM, and almost nobody describes it as a data problem. They say the system is out of date. But the system is doing exactly what it was told. What is missing is that somebody should have recorded something, and recording is work that competes with selling.
We built Dynamics CRM Assistant to move that cost. It is a Claude skill: it signs in as you, can only do what you are already allowed to do in CRM, and asks before it writes anything. It is free and open source, and we store nothing.
In sales: from afterwork to one sentence
The most common use is the dullest one. After a call the salesperson types one line in the chat, what was said, what happens next, when, and the activity lands on the right record with the right date. No navigating, no Set Regarding.
The same holds going in. A conference list or a stack of business cards becomes contacts and companies, and the assistant checks against what already exists before creating anything. That is the part that usually wrecks a CRM: fifty new contacts where twelve were already there under a slightly different company name.
- "List my open opportunities, sorted by when they were last touched"
- "Log a phone call on Nordic Marine, they want a quote before Friday"
- "Which customers have I not spoken to in six weeks?"
- "Summarise everything we know about this customer before the two o'clock"
The last one is worth pausing on. Reading up before a meeting is ten minutes that almost always gets cut. When it takes fifteen seconds, it gets done.
In service: the history before the answer
A case arriving almost always has a history, and that history sits spread across activities, emails and earlier cases. Finding it is possible. Finding it while the customer waits is another matter.
- "Summarise this case and everything we have done for the customer before"
- "Have we had similar cases on this product?"
- "Which open cases are older than a week with no activity?"
- "Add a note that the customer will call back on Monday"
What changes is not the response time on any one case. It is that the answer is built on what actually happened, rather than on what the agent had time to read.
Data quality: the gaps become visible, and easy to close
Everyone knows the CRM has gaps. Few know where, because finding out takes a report somebody has to build. The assistant can simply be asked: which customers have no address, which opportunities have no value, which contacts have had no activity in a year.
And then, this is the point, it can help you close them, one confirmation per change. Not a bulk update nobody reviewed, but a row at a time that somebody said yes to.
Why the confirmation is there
A tool that can write to your CRM without asking is a tool nobody dares point at real data. So it confirms every change, and so it signs in as you, it cannot see or do anything you could not already. Your permissions in Dynamics are still the boundary.
Reporting: a question instead of a report
A report is a question somebody asked six months ago, frozen into a view. It is valuable while the question is still the right one. The problem is every question that comes up in between and is not worth a development ticket.
"How are we tracking against last quarter on new customers in the maritime sector?" is one of those. It gets asked once, the answer is used in a meeting, and it never returns. Building a report for it does not pay. Asking takes half a minute.
This does not replace Power BI and should not. The fixed numbers followed every week still belong in a model somebody owns. What changes is everything else.
Proactivity is a side effect, not a feature
Nobody becomes proactive by wanting to. People become proactive when checking gets cheap enough. When "who have I forgotten?" takes fifteen seconds rather than a report request, the question gets asked on a Tuesday instead of at a quarterly review.
That is the real change we see: not that anything goes faster, but that questions which used to be too expensive to ask now get asked.
What it does not do
- It does not fix a CRM model that is built wrong. If the data sits in the wrong place, it finds it in the wrong place.
- It does not replace fixed reports followed every week.
- It grants no access anyone lacks. Dynamics permissions apply exactly as before.
- It does nothing without somebody confirming it.
Getting started
The skill is free and open source under Apache-2.0. Setup takes about ten minutes, and a Microsoft administrator does one approval step once for the whole organisation.
Download Dynamics CRM Assistant, or get in touch if you would like help getting started.
Common questions
What is Dynamics CRM Assistant?
A free, open-source skill for Claude that lets you work with Dynamics 365 in natural language, asking, summarising and updating records. It signs in as you and confirms before every change.
Can it see more than I can?
No. It signs in with your own work account and inherits your Dynamics permissions. It cannot see or change anything you could not already.
Does Breathe IT store our data?
No. The skill connects Claude directly to your own Dynamics environment. We store nothing.
Does it replace Power BI?
No, and it should not. Fixed numbers followed every week belong in a model somebody owns. The assistant covers the one-off questions it does not pay to build a report for.
What does it take to get started?
About ten minutes. Download the skill, add it to Claude, and have a Microsoft administrator approve it once for the whole organisation. After that each user signs in with their own account.