Archive for the ‘CRM 4’ Category
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.
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!
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!
Update Rollup 12 Podcast
Well this is a first. Microsoft have put together a podcast regarding update rollup 12. It includes an insight into the internal Microsoft process of putting an update together and update rollout tips. You can listen to it on Blog Talk Radio.
Unresolved email clear out
I find that our CRM queues receive a lot of spam and I was looking for an easy way to clear this out. The easiest method I’ve found is deleting emails with unresolved senders which do not have the ‘regarding’ set. The Advanced Find above returns most of the spam received and makes it very simple to clear it all out.
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Send mass mailings using templates
Campaigns with Dynamics CRM are a great way to communicate with your customers and leads, but for some reason, Microsoft left out the option of sending campaign emails using email templates. There is, as always, a workaround for this. You can send the email template via an on demand workflow against a list of contacts.
First of all create your email template for the entity you would like to send the email to. In this case, I am going to use the Contact entity.
Update Rollup 12 for Dynamics CRM 4
Microsoft have released Update Rollup 12 for Dynamics CRM 4. As usual it contains the normal batch of bug fixes, but importantly, it also adds rule deployment wizard support for Exchange 2010. Read more about the update here
Free CRM 4 HTML Email Campaigns
Dynamics CRM 4 does not come with the ability to compose HTML emails. This limits what can be done via marketing campaigns and email templates. There are companies who have created various addons and accelerators for this. Most give marketing stats and pretty graphs, but they are very expensive and do more than you need in many cases.
If you are looking to just send out a HTML email and do not care about click through rates etc then this free option should help. You’ll need a HTML editor and a web site where you can host a web page and some images.
First of all, you need to create your HTML email in you HTML editor.
Dynamics CRM spell checking
Sending important emails containing spelling errors is unprofessional. Unfortunately, Dynamics CRM does not come with spell check functionality.
The Google toolbar includes a built in spell checker which, when combined with tabbed browsing, makes spell checking CRM emails easy.You’ll need to follow my guide to enable tabbed browsing and also install the Google toolbar. Once it’s installed, just click on the spell check button when writing an email and any spelling mistakes will be highlighted and suggestions given.
There are a variety of accelerators that can add this functionality but I have yet to find one for free.
Thanks to Craig for the suggestion!
Neil McDonald's Dynamics 365 Blog 