Support Diagnostics Tools

Has anyone out there worked with support and have been requested by the engineer to run a diagnostic? Are you curious why we ask for this and how it may benefit your troubleshooting situation? If so, read on....

 What is this diagnostic tool?

This is a tool generated internally by support for your individual support case

Why run the diagnostic tool?

The tool will help speed up the process of data collection. Once all of the data has been collected it is returned and processed through the case. This will be compared against a list of known issues, configuration issues, and other problem areas. If these are found, they will be flagged so that the engineer can potentially resolve the issue much faster than grabbing the data manually. By using the diagnostic to collect the information, we can reduce the number of back and forth communications asking for additional details about your system which can occur if we only request one or two pieces of information at a time. We also can eliminate any possible confusion about what information is being requested by having the diagnostic utility automatically recover the information instead of having to search the computer for the relevant information. This can also help eliminate several troubleshooting paths and can additional check the health of other areas of your environment where the engineer may provide you with proactive measures.

Overall, this can help reduce the time taken for troubleshooting a case to resolution, minimizing incorrect data collection, and making a overall better experience for you.

What is captured in these diagnostics?

There is far too much to list here about what is captured in each and every diagnostic. However, they focus on gathering key details and information such as:

• Event Viewer Logs
• CRM Server or CRM Client trace files
• Operating System hardware and software details
• Installed applications and version information
• Installed Hotfix and Update Rollup information for the relevant applications
• Various registry key settings
• Third party add-ins
• Plugin information
• Windows Services and Process Information
• CRM website settings
• IE Settings

The list goes on and on.

What diagnostics are there?

Client for Outlook Collector

Client for Outlook Configuration Collector

Client Performance Collector

CRM Server Platform Trace Collector

Server Baseline Collector

Email Router Collector

IIS Memory Dump Collector

Claims Based Authentication /AD FS /  IFD Collector

There is also a link here to commonly asked questions about the diagnostics:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973559

There will be more diagnostics coming in the future. As more troubleshooting points are found in each and every case, these are added and flagged in the diagnostics to better assist the next person that runs into that particular issue.