Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Blog Post: Microsoft Dynamics CRM – ALM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CRM Solution Lifecycle Management

Magnetism — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Today Microsoft released a new white paper titled ALM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CRM Solution Lifecycle Management. It’s great to see a white paper or information being released in this area.

You can download the whitepaper here

What does this white paper provide?

"This paper provides a coherent, end-to-end approach to development, including version control and build and release management, of enterprise business solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM"

Why do we need to read this?

"While there are a number of approaches to ALM for CRM in the market, a definitive and full lifecycle approach has not been concisely communicated by Microsoft. Many customers, partners, and consultants are reaching out for best practice advice and guidance in this area, and it is Microsoft’s responsibility to deliver on this expectation. This white paper delivers on this expectation."

You can download the whitepaper here

Blog Post: Rapid Development Best Practices CRM Field Guide Chapter 24

Jerry Weinstock — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:54:00 GMT

It is week 24 in the review of the CRM Field Guide chapters from the book – The CRM Field Guide – How to CRM Like an MVP with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This week it is the 44 page Rapid Development Best Practices chapter.

This isn’t the typical instructional chapter in the CM Field Guide that walks you through a practical training session on a particular feature or component of the CRM system. You get to take a look inside a leading developer’s computer resources to see all the best utilities and methodologies that the author has assembled to make the development process less painful, more efficient, write and maintain better code, and deliver a superior product the client.

There are multitude of blog sites that have reviewed various utilities – free or commercial – to more rapidly develop CRM applications. This chapter does two things: puts them all together in one place and provides insight on why the ones that were identified are the best. Plus you get the re-assurance that they are good because the author is essentially giving us a peek inside of his computer and seeing the tools and processes he uses every day.

The author starts the chapter off with perhaps what could be considered philosophical perspective on life and how that applies to coding for CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Development Starts with Preparation

After providing links and usage guidance for about 25 tools the author then moves on to the subject of source control.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Source Control Best Practices

The author than wraps it up with the responsibility we have as a system customizer and working with the client.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customer Best Practices

The post Rapid Development Best Practices CRM Field Guide Chapter 24 appeared first on Innovating on CRM.

Forum Post: RE: Dynamics Sitemap error

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:16:00 GMT

Additionally you can use Sitemap Editor to Edit Sitemap:

sitemapeditor.codeplex.com

Forum Post: RE: Import From CRM 4.0 to 2011 failed

robledo5 — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:10:00 GMT

We resolved this issue. Our CRM Admin, went through the Oppportunities entity and deleted fields that were no longer being used. Once she was done we were able to successfully import the organization. Upgrade was a breeze after that.

Forum Post: RE: CRM Applications Certification

Hussman — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:09:00 GMT

Honestly, the Microsoft Customer/Developer Source, Partner networks have so many dead links and nobody bothers to fix them. It took me a long time before I could register as a Partner. These links should be fixed.

Forum Post: CRM Server Disaster

Ramtin.M — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:09:00 GMT

Hi Friends

Due to Some problems, My CRM Server Hard crashed :( every time I restarted it there was blue Screen... anyway, I could reach DATA folder of It's SQL server which contains All databases ... now I installed SQL Server again, but when I want to attach organization_MSCRM.mdf there is an error says It's log file header in invalid :( and I can not attach it, although I could attach the CRM_CONFIG.mdf file ...

PLEASE HELP :(

Forum Post: RE: Unexpected data changes

mohan billakanti — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:00:00 GMT

As Mubasher Said, There might be some code running behind the scenes which is updating the data. Below information could help you to check.

1) If java script: Open the corresponding entity in Design mode, click on "Form Properties" on ribbon bar.

2) If plugin: Go to Settings-> Customizations->Default Solution -> Plugin Assemblies and see whether any plugins registered.

3) If workflow: Go to Settings->Processes

Thanks,

Mohan.B

Forum Post: RE: Mail Merge Email Issue

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:57:00 GMT

Please refer to the below mentioned link. It might be of help for you:

www.powerobjects.com/.../crm-2011-campaign-activities-email-via-mail-merge

Forum Post: RE: Account duplication on qualifying leads

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:50:00 GMT

The following link might be of help for you:

support.microsoft.com/.../2693711

Forum Post: RE: CRM Security for Item Maintenance

mohan billakanti — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:12:00 GMT

Link mentioned by Adeel Can help you to understand/create roles and provide the Permission accordingly.

Couple of points to Note:

1) Always it is good practice to copy an existing role and modify as per our requirements.

2) I think, Extensions mean you are talking about custom entities, while adding permissions, you have a separate tab for custom entities, through which you can manage permission for the entities displayed under extensions.

Mohan.B

Forum Post: RE: Import issue in CRM 4.0

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:59:00 GMT

You can also follow this link as well:

groups.google.com/forum

Forum Post: RE: Error logging into CRM

HedgehogJames — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:02:00 GMT

Thanks Aaron, no-one can get in. Everyone who tries to access the CRM page gets the same message.

Scott, I had already restarted the CRM Server, thought that might clear it up but it made no difference.

Muhammad, all the users seem to be correct, present in the AD.

I have since opened up a support case with Microsoft and after much investigation it looks like our DNS server has somehow become configured incorrectly. We're still investigating to know for sure, but we're due to continue on with it on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday here) and I'll post an update when I know for sure that it's the problem.

Thanks for the suggestions,

James

Blog Post: Getting Rid of the Flow Forms in Online

Leon Tribe — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:15:00 GMT

As you probably know there are a bunch of features in CRM Online at the moment which have not yet made it to CRM 2011 (On Premise). Some of these I am very keen to see (such as Bing map integration and Yammer integration) while others I am happy to leave in the cloud.

One of the features in the second camp are the Flow forms for COLA entities (Contacts, Opportunities, Leads and Accounts). If you have not yet played with a 30 day trial of CRM online, this is what it looks like:

We now have three columns, the ribbon is gone, as is the navigation on the left and jscript. As a glimpse of the future, it is great. As a tool for my CRM workshops, it is troublesome, especially if those workshops are for a system which is going to be on-premise. In terms of its limitations, it reminds me a little of the Absolutely Fabulous remodelled kitchen by Bettina and Max in “White Box” (‘We will bring back the stairs with Orion’).

Using a CRM Trial in the Workshops

For CRM workshops, I find a CRM demo trial invaluable. Often, many of the people telling me about how their business works have not seen CRM before or, at least, are unsure of the finer details of how it works. Having a configurable demo system during these conversations gives the future users a sense of what the system is capable of (and not capable of) and provides a palette to mix their ideas with the configuration tools available.

When you have nervous executives in a room whose reputation, career and business depend on the system being able to perform a process as least as well as their current systems, the trial system gives a level of comfort difficult to achieve without it.

Unfortunately, an online form with a completely different look, feel and functionality to its on-premise contemporary hinders these goals. So how do we go from the above form to our, more familiar, ‘classic’ form?

Form Security

Our best friend in this case is form security, which I have talked a little bit about in the past. CRM (both online and on-premise) allows you to create multiple forms and to specify which roles can access these forms.

Suddenly the issue of the new form becomes simple to solve; we simply deny access to it to all roles. To do this we need to go to Settings-Customizations (or Solutions if the configuration is part of a Solution) – Customize the System – Entities - <Entity of Choice> (in our case, the Account entity). Once here, we can expand the drop-down to reveal Forms (which is where we want to go).

You should see three forms (I have Parrot above, which is an excellent add-on, but not part of the standard CRM suite). These forms are:

Information – Main: The ‘classic’ form
Account – Main: The new form (unless someone has access to more than one form, in which case it changes to a 3-column ‘classic’ form)
Information – Mobile: The configuration page for the Mobile Express form

In our case we want to remove the ‘Account’ form from being accessed by anyone. To do this we select the Account form and click ‘Assign Security Roles’. We then remove any access to this form for any role and remove it as a fallback.

The fallback is available so that if a user cannot access any form, there is at least one form they can use (the fallback option).

We then also make sure users have access to the form we want them to use. In our case, this is the Information – Main form.

Once we save and publish, we find our world has changed and the Bauhaus forms are gone and the more playful ‘George Nelson’ forms return (who would have thought I would learn about modern art while researching a blog post).

Conclusions

If, like me, you are not quite ready for the ‘modern’ style of the flow forms, you now have a way of turning them off. This is especially useful for workshops and demonstrations where the client will be using an on-premise installation with the ‘classic’ forms. Be warned though, when Orion is released, you can expect to see a lot more of the flow forms so do not think of this as a permanent form fix but more a stay of execution until On-Premise and Online are aligned.

Forum Post: RE: MS CRM 4.0 createdon time is showing one hour ahead with current time

Mohammad Atif — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:20:00 GMT

can you please make sure that you have the user time zone settings are set accordingly:

mscrmonline.wordpress.com/.../time-zone-setting-in-microsoft-crm

blogs.msdn.com/.../date-time-values-in-microsoft-dynamics-crm.aspx

Thanks,

Mohammad

Forum Post: RE: CRM 2011 : Business Management Error

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:13:00 GMT

The following link could be of help for you:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/crm/thread/15ac1c09-c246-48f0-a9ad-0e96207e8b0b

Forum Post: RE: Roll up 13 authentication issues

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:05:00 GMT

This KB Article could be helpful for you:

support.microsoft.com/.../2828015

Forum Post: RE: Has anyone found a intranet chat program that can save to the MS Dynamics CRM?

Roger Collins — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:26:00 GMT

I believe Whos On has this capability

Roger

The CRM Business Ltd

Forum Post: RE: Work Flow for Approval -Definition

Scott Durow — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:02:00 GMT

Hi,

From your screen shots - it looks like it could be a 'Scope' issue. You have the scope set to 'User' which means the automatic workflow will only fire if the record is owned by the same user who created the workflow.

Try setting the scope to 'Organisation' and see if it works as you expect.

hth

Forum Post: RE: IFD CRM login with Default Network credentials

Muhammad Adeel Javaid — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:48:00 GMT

Here is a link that you could follow:

www.crmsoftwareblog.com/.../dynamics-crm-technical-tip-url-rewrite-for-ifd-internet-facing-deployment

Blog Post: Within the world of the CRM Industry there is a cutting edge ...

astanton44 — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:27:00 GMT

Within the world of the CRM Industry there is a cutting edge ...

AND when it comes to the cutting edge pushing the design of data consumption is right up there with tying the use of CRM to employee motivation. As in they get more motived the more they use the internal CRM application. (yes, really, but I will save that for a future post)

Thanks to Mark for sharing this great post and a free solution on data display design - Perhaps take a few minutes to check it out and comment.

http://markmargolis.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/crm-timeline/#comment-500