Neil McDonald's Dynamics CRM Blog

Neil McDonald's Dynamics CRM Blog http://xrmrocks.com Most recent posts at Neil McDonald's Dynamics CRM Blog posterous.com Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:39:00 -0800 CRM Email Router and Office 365 http://xrmrocks.com/crm-email-router-and-office-365 http://xrmrocks.com/crm-email-router-and-office-365

We were recently moved from Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) to the new Office 365 platform.

BPOS was built on the 2007 range of Microsoft’s server products, so the step up to SharePoint and Exchange 2010 is very welcome.

However, I needed to reconfigure our CRM email router to process emails from the new system.

I tried all sorts of weird and wonderful email server URLs and kept being greeted by ‘401 Unauthorised errors’. Using auto-discover seemed to work for a few of the mailboxes, but it was very slow and occasionally stopped working until the Email Router service was restarted.

Finally, I got it working. After accessing webmail from the 365 portal, take the URL from the address bar and adapt it for the Exchange web service URL e.g.

becomes...

My Email Router configuration profiles for both outgoing and incoming mail look like this: -

Now when testing the connection on users and queues, I’m greeted with the familiar Incoming Status: Succeeded message.

Another problem I faced was user passwords being incorrect. Before you are transitioned to Office 365, Microsoft advises you to change your BPOS password, so that it is replicated in the 365 system. If users don’t do this, they won’t be able to access their email until the transition has been marked as complete. Neither administrators or Microsoft support can reset passwords until it has been completed.

Frustratingly, it took 5 days to complete our transition, so some of our users were locked out for quite some time.

Luckily, if the user can remember their old password, they can still sign in with the Microsoft Online Sign-In tool, change their password and then log into Office 365. If they can’t remember it, pray that your transition is a fast one!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Tue, 10 May 2011 09:00:00 -0700 Add a CRM Calendar to a dashboard http://xrmrocks.com/add-crm-page-as-web-resource-to-a-dashboard http://xrmrocks.com/add-crm-page-as-web-resource-to-a-dashboard

Dashboards in Dynamics CRM 2011 are a great way to visualize data. Did you know that they can also be used to view pretty much any other web content?

I’ve recently had a requirement to add the CRM Calendar to a dashboard. I could have simply added a list of appointment activities to the dashboard, but the actual calendar control looks a lot nicer.

To do this, first we need to get the URL of the Calendar page. Load up the IE developer tools (F12 in IE9) and start a profiler. Now navigate to the calendar in CRM and click on ‘Month’, ‘Week’ and ‘Day’ (we want the URL for each page).

1_cycle_through_pages

Stop the profiler and take a look at the results

2_profiler

As you can see, we’ve got the URLs of the 3 calendar views needed for the dashboard. The URL seems to contain a parameter for the current date in ISO8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss). We’ll have to deal with that inside of our web resource.

Now we need to create the web resource which we'll add to the dashboard. We’ll create a simple HTML page with an iframe containing the calendar. We'll also provide some simple navigation to choose between the daily, weekly or monthy calendars.

Edit: Some of the onclick code in the links is refusing to display properly below. You can either copy and paste it using the 'Copy to clipboard' link or view the real code here.

<html> <head> <script type="text/javascript"> function ISODateString(d){ function pad(n){return n<10 ? '0'+n : n} return d.getUTCFullYear()+'-' + pad(d.getUTCMonth()+1)+'-' + pad(d.getUTCDate())+'T' + pad(d.getUTCHours())+':' + pad(d.getUTCMinutes())+':' + pad(d.getUTCSeconds())+'Z'} function loadCal(calType){ var today = new Date(); var formattedDate = ISODateString(today); var objFrame = document.getElementById("calendar_iframe"); var calSource = "/calendar/" + calType.toString() +".aspx?date=" + formattedDate; objFrame.src=calSource; } </script> </head> <body onload="loadCal('Month')"> Day Week Month </body> </html>

The loadCal() JavaScript function allows us to pass in the calendar type and changes the iframe according to the selected type. When the dashboard first loads, the monthly calendar will be displayed. 3 links appear above the iframe allowing the user to choose which calendar they want to view.

The ISODateString() function has been borrowed from Mozilla in order to get the date into the correct format.

Now we need to add our HTML page to the web resource. Edit your dashboard and click on Insert ‘Web Resource’

3_edit_dashboard

Now click on the lookup and select ‘New’ from the popup window. Give your resource a name, an optional description and a type of ‘Web Page (html)’.

Click on the Upload File ‘Browse’ button and select the HTML file which we’ve just created.

4_add_resource

Click on ‘Save’ and then ‘Preview’. You should now see a working preview of the calendar page.

5_preview

Close the preview and click on Publish. Once the Publish has completed, just Save and Close the window.

Now just fill in the rest of the web resource form and click Ok

6_complete_form

You should now be back at the Dashboard designer where you can position and resize your web resource as required.

Save and Close when done and take a look at your new dashboard!

7_finished

As you can see, using the IE developer tools, some simple HTML and JavaScript, you can add a number of items to a dashboard which may not be obvious when using the dashboard designer.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:54:00 -0700 CRM 2011 Update Rollup 1 http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-update-rollup-1 http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-update-rollup-1

Update Rollup 1 for Dynamics CRM 2011 has been released and fixes a lot of issues. You can get the update from Microsoft downloads now or wait for it to be pushed out via Windows update on 26th April 2011.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:43:00 -0800 Microsoft Community Contributor Award http://xrmrocks.com/microsoft-community-contributor-award http://xrmrocks.com/microsoft-community-contributor-award

Mcc11_social-media_logo

Well this was a nice way to end the week!

I've just received an email from Microsoft informing me that I have been recognised with a Microsoft Community Contributor Award. This is awarded to people who freely contribute their time to helping others in Microsoft online communities.

I'm honoured, thank you Microsoft!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:18:00 -0800 Interviews with Brad Wilson, General Manager of Dynamics CRM http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-general-manager-interviews http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-general-manager-interviews

Software Advice are posting a series of videos interviews with General Manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Brad Wilson. You can check out the first 3 here, here and here. As a Microsoft Partner, I was particularly interested in his views on where he sees partners fitting in with their cloud based solutions, so I've embedded the video below.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:35:00 -0800 CRM 2011 On-Premise Released! http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-on-premise-released http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-on-premise-released

Microsoft have just posted the final release of CRM 2011 On-Premise. You can download the installer from here and pick up the implementation guide here. To install, you will need to use the 90 day trial key provided and you will be able to purchase full license key from 1st April 2011. Users with active software assurance plans should get their license keys earlier, although there is nothing in my licensing portal just yet.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:00:00 -0800 CRM 2011 Add Multiple Users Error http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-add-multiple-users-error http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-add-multiple-users-error

I've been having an issue when trying to add multiple users on the CRM 2011 release candidate. I could add individual users fine, but the multiple users wizard showed the below error after selecting the license type and authentication provider.

Ldaperror

I looked in the event viewer and saw this message

Exception information: Exception type: ActiveDirectoryObjectNotFoundException Exception message: The specified domain does not exist or cannot be contacted.

I could add users fine individually, so my domain could definitely be contacted, so why was this error only occuring when trying to load multiple users? I turned on tracing, which displayed this:

Process: w3wp |Organization:38fbda44-2715-e011-8b1e-00151d004a11 | Thread: 4 |Category: Exception |User: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 | Level: Error | SystemLabelDictionaryCacheLoader.LogDetails

The user GUID full of zeros lead me to believe that perhaps my CRM is getting a list of users from AD and is finding one without a GUID which caused an error. I connected SQL up to query Active directory to find out which user it was, but I was getting no further as everything seemed to have a valid GUID.

Then it dawned on me. Maybe the domain that could not be contacted, isn't the domain I'm logged in to? As far as I was aware, there were no other domains to contact, but the CRM server seems to think otherwise. I decided to load up Wireshark on the CRM server to capture the packets and find out what exactly the CRM server was trying to contact. I got to the stage just before I knew then error would occur in the wizard, then started capturing packets. I hit the Next button in the wizard and then immediately saw this in the Wireshark window: -

It seems that the CRM is trying to contact the domain xtbase.office. Now this domain was removed 3+ years ago, so I had no idea why the CRM would still be finding it. I used ntdsutil to try and clean up whatever was left over from the old domain, but there was nothing to clean up.

I then remembered the options on the screen I could't get to via the wizard...

Ldap_trus

Trusted domains! Finally, I ventured onto my PDC and looked in Active Directory Domains and Trusts. Under the properties of my domain, on the trusts tab, there was the problem domain. An outgoing and incoming trust for xtbase.office. I deleted the trusts from the list and tried the Add Multiple Users wizard again. Success at last!

So the main lesson for today is: Read the error message, then read it again!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:40:00 -0800 IFD with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 http://xrmrocks.com/ifd-with-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011 http://xrmrocks.com/ifd-with-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011

Michael Guthmann has posted a great video showing how to configure CRM 2011 for an internet facing deployment (IFD). You can read his post and watch the video on the Dynamics Team Blog. I have also embedded the video below.

Update: Jim Glass has now posted an updated IFD 'how to' which I've embedded below.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:54:00 -0800 Update Rollup 15 for Dynamics CRM 4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-15-for-dynamics-crm-4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-15-for-dynamics-crm-4

Microsoft have released the 15th update rollup for Dynamics CRM 4. Read more about it on the official blog.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:53:00 -0800 Scribe Certified! http://xrmrocks.com/scribe-certified http://xrmrocks.com/scribe-certified

Screen_shot_2011-01-01_at_21

After using Scribe for most of my CRM integrations for the last 2 years, it was about time I took the certification exams.

Although I have been using the product for some time, the training material provided was invaluable and I learnt a lot that I would never have picked up in day to day use. It's well worth reading/watching if you use or are planning on using Scribe.

I'm pleased to say that I passed both the Server and CRM adapter exams. Not a bad start to 2011!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:09:00 -0800 CRM 2011 Release Candidate http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-release-candidate http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-release-candidate

Microsoft today announced the first release candidate for Dynamics CRM 2011. The download links for each component are available here. I'll be installing it tomorrow!

There's a launch event planned for 20th January 2011 which you can register for here.

Finally, Microsoft also announced that CRM 2011 Online will be available from 17th January 2011.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:00:00 -0800 CRM 2011 Repeated Login Prompt http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-repeated-login-prompt http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-repeated-login-prompt

Updated at the bottom for the CRM 2011 Release Candidate.

I've had this issue recently and it was driving me crazy. The CRM worked fine from the server with http://localhost and http://server-name, but if I tried to access it from anywhere else, I was repeatedly asked for login credentials. I got around it temporarily by adding a host header to the site, but this still caused me problems when trying to access the web services.

I've read some articles suggesting the below method to fix this:

go to IIS manager
select the CRM website
select Authentication
select windows authentication
click on Providers, and add kerberos as the second enabled provider after NTLM

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. Instead, I got it working by editing the file %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config as below.

For all of the CRM web site nodes find and replace all instances of: -
<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" />
with
<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" useAppPoolCredentials="true" />

e.g.

<location path="Microsoft Dynamics CRM/XRMServices/2011"> <system.webServer> <security> <authentication> <digestAuthentication enabled="false" /> <basicAuthentication enabled="false" /> <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" /> <windowsAuthentication enabled="true" useAppPoolCredentials="true" /> </authentication> </security> </system.webServer> </location>

For the top level directory I needed to add useKernalMode="true" also.
<location path="Microsoft Dynamics CRM"> <system.webServer> <handlers accessPolicy="Read, Script"> <clear /> <add name="ExtensionlessUrl-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*." verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="AXD-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.axd" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="PageHandlerFactory-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.aspx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="SimpleHandlerFactory-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.ashx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.asmx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="HttpRemotingHandlerFactory-rem-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.rem" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="HttpRemotingHandlerFactory-soap-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.soap" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="svc-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.svc" verb="*" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="rules-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.rules" verb="*" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="xoml-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.xoml" verb="*" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="xamlx-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.xamlx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="aspq-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.aspq" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="cshtm-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.cshtm" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="cshtml-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.cshtml" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="vbhtm-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.vbhtm" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="vbhtml-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" path="*.vbhtml" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="false" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" responseBufferLimit="0" /> <add name="ISAPI-dll" path="*.dll" verb="*" modules="IsapiModule" resourceType="File" requireAccess="Execute" allowPathInfo="true" /> <add name="TraceHandler-Integrated" path="trace.axd" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Web.Handlers.TraceHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="WebAdminHandler-Integrated" path="WebAdmin.axd" verb="GET,DEBUG" type="System.Web.Handlers.WebAdminHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="AssemblyResourceLoader-Integrated" path="WebResource.axd" verb="GET,DEBUG" type="System.Web.Handlers.AssemblyResourceLoader" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" path="*.aspx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="SimpleHandlerFactory-Integrated" path="*.ashx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Web.UI.SimpleHandlerFactory" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated" path="*.asmx" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHandlerFactory, System.Web.Services, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="HttpRemotingHandlerFactory-rem-Integrated" path="*.rem" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Http.HttpRemotingHandlerFactory, System.Runtime.Remoting, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="HttpRemotingHandlerFactory-soap-Integrated" path="*.soap" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG" type="System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Http.HttpRemotingHandlerFactory, System.Runtime.Remoting, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" preCondition="integratedMode" /> <add name="CGI-exe" path="*.exe" verb="*" modules="CgiModule" resourceType="File" requireAccess="Execute" allowPathInfo="true" /> <add name="TRACEVerbHandler" path="*" verb="TRACE" modules="ProtocolSupportModule" requireAccess="None" /> <add name="OPTIONSVerbHandler" path="*" verb="OPTIONS" modules="ProtocolSupportModule" requireAccess="None" /> <add name="StaticFile" path="*" verb="*" modules="StaticFileModule,DefaultDocumentModule,DirectoryListingModule" resourceType="Either" requireAccess="Read" /> </handlers> <security> <authentication> <windowsAuthentication enabled="true" useKernelMode="true" useAppPoolCredentials="true" /> <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" /> <digestAuthentication enabled="false" /> <basicAuthentication enabled="false" /> </authentication> </security>

Hopefully one of these methods will work for you!

Update: I've found that I still had this issue after installing the CRM 2011 Release Candidate. However, fixing it was a lot easier. Still edit the %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config file, but this time you only need to remove the line below, which I have commented out rather than delete (full snippet below). Then just restart IIS and it should work as expected!
<add value="Negotiate" />

<location path="Microsoft Dynamics CRM"> <system.webServer> <defaultDocument> <files> <clear /> <add value="default.aspx" /> </files> </defaultDocument> <security> <authentication> <windowsAuthentication enabled="true" useKernelMode="true"> <providers> <clear />  <add value="NTLM" /> </providers>

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:00:00 -0800 CRM Timeline http://xrmrocks.com/crm-timeline http://xrmrocks.com/crm-timeline

Lauren Carlson over at Software Advice, has created a great interactive timeline showing the growth of CRM software over the last 3 decades. It's very interesting to see how much has changed over the last 30 years and I can't wait to see what happens in the next 30! Keep an eye on it, as it will be updated over time.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:23:00 -0800 Update Rollup 14 for Dynamics CRM 4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-14-for-dynamics-crm-4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-14-for-dynamics-crm-4

Microsoft have released Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 14 along with an accompanying podcast. You can get the software updates here. It includes more compatibility fixes for IE9 but it's still not perfect.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, normal service will resume in the next week or so!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:40:00 -0700 Update Rollup 13 for Dynamics CRM 4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-13-for-dynamics-crm-4 http://xrmrocks.com/update-rollup-13-for-dynamics-crm-4

Microsoft have just released Dynamics CRM 4 update rollup 13. You can read more about it on the official blog and download it here. They mention that the rollup contains fixes for some high impact Internet Explorer 9 issues which will come as a relief for many!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:00:00 -0700 Internet Explorer 9 - First Impressions http://xrmrocks.com/28259676 http://xrmrocks.com/28259676

I've just downloaded and installed the public beta of the next version of Internet Explorer, IE9 and wanted to share my first impressions.

Once installed, the first noticeable difference is how minimal the interface has become. The address bar and tabs section seem to take up roughly 66% less screen space, since the address bar, search box and tabs are now all located on the same row. As I usually have a lot of pages open, I didn't think I'd like the repositioning of the tabs, but it really hasn't caused me any problems.

The next thing I noticed is the speed. It really flies. Microsoft have added GPU acceleration to IE9, so a lot of image rendering is now performed by your graphics card rather than your CPU.

Another great new feature, is the ability to add web shortcuts to your taskbar. You just drag the favicon from the address bar to your taskbar to create a shortcut. This is great if you want quick access to applications such as your email and it really feels like you're launching an app rather than a browser.

When launching apps from the taskbar, you'll notice that the back/forward buttons are styled to match the web site and the favicon displayed to make it feel more like an application.

IE9 has now caught up with other browsers and is finally HTML 5 compliant. This means that it can take advantage of the latest web technologies. I've tried out a few tests using http://html5demos.com and most (although not all) seem to work fine. However, I also carried out a test on http://html5test.com, which still ranked IE9 in last place.

1st Chrome 6.0.472.59 - 217/300
2nd Safari 5.0.1 - -208/300
3rd Firefox 3.6.10 - 139/300
4th IE9 - 96/300

Screen_shot_2010-09-16_at_15

Although IE9 is a vast improvement on IE8, there are still a few bugs to be worked out. My first problem came when trying to log into this blog to write this post. The login button I usually access the site with would not appear. Edit: After logging out to take the below screenshots, I've realised that the login button is hidden just below the 'Try it now' button.

Chrome:

Internet Explorer 9:

Screen_shot_2010-09-16_at_15

After finally logging in via the Posterous homepage, I started writing my post but found that I could not place images where I wanted - they always sat at the end of the post and could not be moved. Finally, after giving up, I tried to save my post to continue working on it in another browser, but it refused to save.

My second gripe is with the installation. It took quite a while and still required me to restart my system. No other browser requires this, so I have no idea why Microsoft have still not worked this out.

Overall, I really quite like Internet Explorer 9. Since it's still in the beta stage, I can accept that there will be bugs. In fact, the whole purpose of the public beta is to help identify these bugs so that they can be fixed before the final release.

If you have a spare machine/VM laying around, I'd recommend giving it a try yourself by visiting http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:00:00 -0700 Upgrading a CRM 4 Organisation to Dynamics CRM 2011 http://xrmrocks.com/upgrading-a-crm-4-organisation-to-dynamics-cr http://xrmrocks.com/upgrading-a-crm-4-organisation-to-dynamics-cr

I've posted another short video, showing how easy it is to upgrade a Dynamics CRM 4 organisation to Dynamics CRM 2011.

The steps involved were: -

Backup current CRM 4 organisation
Restore the database to the SQL server hosting the other CRM organisations
Use the Deployment Manage import wizard
Map any users that exist in the organisation to Active Directory accounts. If you are restoring to a server in the same domain, auto mapping users should work fine
Run the import
Log in and test

I did this using the all in one virtual server I had set up previously, which is proving to be a great little training ground!

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:00:00 -0700 Dynamics CRM 2011 Solutions http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-solutions http://xrmrocks.com/crm-2011-solutions

Solutions

Another nice new feature of Dynamics CRM 2011 is the ability to create solutions. A solution is a way to package up your CRM business application into an easy to manage and deploy package.

Create_solution

To create a solution, first you must give it a name, select a publisher and give it a version number. A publisher typically contains the details of the ISV which will be listing an application in the Dynamics Marketplace. Versioning is method of determining whether you are running the most up to date solution inside your CRM 2011 system.

Solution_config

You can add both existing and new entities to a solution. Familiar customisations such as templates, entities and workflows are still here but there are a few new additions. These include: -

Web resources - These allow developers to extend Dynamics CRM 2011 using familiar technology such as HTML, javascript, Silverlight and CSS. You can also use external resources such, as Bing and Google, by importing them into forms and dashboards

Dashboards - Dashboards offer a new way to view and analyse real time CRM data. I've wrote a little but about dashboards in my previous post

Service Endpoints - A nice way to integrate directly with hosted web services

Connections - These extend the relationship functionality found in CRM 4. You can now set up any type of connection between almost any CRM record e.g. Family, social networking, colleague, pet etc

Marketplace

Finally, the most exciting part of solutions is the abilty to buy and sell them via the Dynamics Marketplace. Much like an app store, the marketplace will help people find applications and services to extend their CRM system. Partners can showcase and sell their products, and visitors can download solutions and connect directly with Microsoft partners.

You can learn more about creating solutions by watching video 9 on the CRM beta site.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:16:00 -0700 Dynamics CRM 2011 Dashboards http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-2011-dashboards http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-2011-dashboards

Dashboards

The new real-time dashboards in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, finally brings Dynamics CRM reporting in line with the competition.

Dashboards are likely to be the new favourite feature among business and sales users who enjoy looking at pretty charts with lines pointing the right way. More importantly, they offer a powerful way to view and analyse business performance based on real-time statistics.

Create_dashboard

Add_chart

Add_more_dashboards

See the full gallery on Posterous

Users can configure multiple real time dashboards and share them with other users, just as they could with Views in CRM 4.

Drilldown

Charts can also be drilled into to get a more detailed look at stats and performance.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the dashboards and solutions which people come up with over the new few months. I'll be keeping a close eye on the beta forums to see some of the cool stuff people are creating.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:08:00 -0700 Dynamics CRM 2011 beta setup http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-2011-beta-setup http://xrmrocks.com/dynamics-crm-2011-beta-setup

I've created a short video guide for setting up the Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premise beta. I installed all of the services on to the same virtual machine, so some of the things done will not reflect best practices. The whole installation (excluding Windows setup and updates) took took just over an hour but I've tried to cut as many of the progress bars as possible.

Before I started recording, I installed Windows Server 2008 with SP2 and all available updates. I also turned off UAC and the Windows firewall.

If the video below does not work, please try here. Be sure to watch it in full screen HD, otherwise the quality is not great.

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]]> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/768349/Photo_on_2010-09-26_at_19.30__2.jpg http://posterous.com/users/36K9XjvcvX8t Neil McDonald Neil Neil McDonald