Import a Solution Without Form Customisations
I’ve been using a solution recently which I really like, but it has added quite a lot of new fields, tabs, sections etc to my default entity forms which I didn’t really need.
I want some of the features of the solution, but without the form customisations. To get around this I took a look inside the solution zip file.
Note: You should check that the solution does not rely on the form changes by performing this on a dev system first. Also, make a backup copy of the solution and your MSCRM database. In this case, I’m using a managed solution, so the changes can be easily reversed by uninstalling.
I extracted the customizations.xml file to my machine and opened it up in Notepad++. In this case we’ll look at the Account entity.
If you scroll through the Account entity, you’ll eventually get to the <FormXml> element. I find it easier to get the <EntityInfo> element out of the way by minimising it with Notepad++. It saves me scrolling through 2500+ lines.
The <FormXml> element contains all of the form customisations which are going to be imported i.e. fields to display, sections on-load/on-save script etc. Read the rest of this entry »
Login Prompt When Opening Web Resource From Outlook
I’ve been experiencing an issue since the launch of CRM 2011 (online and IFD). Opening a Silverlight web resource in a new window from the Outlook client causes the user to see a login prompt rather than the web resource.
Other people have been reporting the same problem in the CRM forums both here and here, but none of the proposed solutions seemed to work for me. I had to advise users to log into CRM from Internet Explorer and leave it minimised to get around the problem.
When Microsoft introduced CRM 2011 Update Rollup 8, they also introduced a number of new Xrm.Utility JavaScript functions. Xrm.Utility.openWebResource jumped out at me as a possible fix to the login prompt issue. You can read more about the new functions on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM blog.
The JavaScript I had been using to launch my web resource from the ribbon button was: –
window.open("/WebResources/cnova_XRM_CV_SearchPage.html#/VacancyID/" + idString);
Note: idString is the guid of the record I am clicking the button from. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Add a CRM Calendar 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).
Stop the profiler and take a look at the results
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.
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.
Microsoft Community Contributor Award
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Neil McDonald's Dynamics 365 Blog 