Archive for the ‘CRM 2011’ Category
Scribe Certified!
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!
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.
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%system32inetsrvconfigapplicationHost.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" />
Upgrading a CRM 4 Organisation to Dynamics CRM 2011
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!
Dynamics CRM 2011 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.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Dynamics CRM 2011 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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
