March 28 Blog Review

The past few weeks have been very busy it seems - work and vacations and family and all kinds of stuff. So this is not really a weekly review but basically the whole month of March review. It has been a busy month in the CRM world with Convergence and all of the news from there. Make sure you check out Virtual Convergence. There are many sessions you can watch online for free so you can learn some of what those that attended learned.

This month Microsoft released the Scalable Security Modeling with CRM 2013. This is an expansion on the 2011 document including the new information on Access teams.

Since we have so much to cover I will try to hit the highlights quickly:

Power Objects:

Lookup Types and Customizing Lookups in CRM – this describes how to resolve the issue where a lookup only looks at a team instead of user and team.

Preventing Users from Going Back with Child Dialogs – Neat trick on how to prevent duplicate actions from users using the previous button within a Dialog in CRM 2011

Unwanted Activity Types in CRM – Options on handling Activity types you do not want users to use

Adjusting CRM 2013 Field label sizes – tips on how to make your forms look the way you want them to in CRM 2013

Customer Effective: CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 – Recap on the changes with the CRM 2013 UR 2 release. Also check out the PFE CRM in the Field Overview

Donna Edwards: Update Rollups – Should I or Should I Not, that is the Question – a look at how to know if you should install Rollups and how to plan for that

CRM in the Field:

Useful Tools and Features – a list of tools that they are using from CRM 2011 and 2013 that you may find useful as well

CRM 2013 Form Upgrade Experience – this discusses what to keep in mind when upgrading your forms for CRM 2013

Dynamics CRM Team Blog: CRM Online Sandbox Instances – some changes for CRM Online customers for non-production instances

Mitch Milam: KnowledgeBits – Make sure you sign up for Mitch’s newest tips and tricks newsletter

Salentica: CRM 2013 Form for Every User Error – how to deal with the “There must be at least one form for every user” in CRM 2013

Sonoma Partners:

Convergence Recap – Part 1, Part 2: Unified Service Desk and Part 3: Sonoma Partners Booth – check out everything you may have missed at Convergence

CRM 2013 Upgrade Considerations – things to keep in mind as you plan and execute your upgrade to CRM 2013

Jukka Niiranen:

Spring Cleaning for your CRM System – how to find which fields are not on your forms or which fields do not have data and what to do

Synchronization vs. Tracking: Understanding Activity Management Options in CRM – Understanding the differences between syncing and tracking and determining how you should handle your activities

2014 CRM Roadmap – a look at the 2014 roadmap as presented at convergence

Power User Tips for CRM 2013 – learn how to use CRM like a power user and be productive

That's all for today. Have a great weekend!

January 24 Blog Review

The big news this week was the release of Rollup 16. There are 3 places you need to look for all the details: CRM in the Field Blog, KB Article, and of course the Download Page. The list of fixes is huge in this rollup. Many issues that were introduced with Rollup 12 are listed as well as many CRM for Outlook fixes. Unfortunately, there are no particularly funny fixes (like Rollup 13’s “You cannot install Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on a computer that has a French version of Windows, SQL Server, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 installed”). So it looks like it will be a good change, we will have to see what the user community has to say.

Here are what I found to be the top fixes listed in the KB:

• Important Fixes
• Email attachments are not being deleted from the dbo.Attachment table when their parent record is deleted.
• Clicking on report preview throws error on an Updated Organization from Update Rollup 6, "HttpUnhandledException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: #3423D182".
• Appointments and Service appointments are automatically shared with the user that shared the record.
• Reports do not render correctly after applying CRM 2011 Update Rollup 12.
• You can access System Settings no matter the security role assigned.
• Cannot update StateCode and StatusCode of Phone Call entity via plugin code.
• Creation and deletion of business units cannot be done in a timely manner.
• ERMO Fixes
• Deployments with large datasets in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 may suffer performance bottlenecks on default views, lookups, and queries if the EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization registry setting is set to zero.
• Unable to view Personal E-mail Templates with EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization is set to 2.
• CRM For Outlook Fixes (many more that are not listed here)
• Changes made to the personal view query is not updating in Outlook client since Update Rollup 12.
• After installing Update Rollup 15 for CRM 2011 the Mail Merge button on the entity record Add tab does not seem to do anything when clicked.
• In some environments, conditions may exist when the registry keys of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook Client are being duplicated when being read causing an exception to occur that terminates the Outlook process.
• Conditional formatting breaks page navigation in view within CRM for Outlook client.
• When you select an email that is tracked in CRM, and you have the reading pane viewable for emails, Outlook may hang or become unresponsive. Once Outlook returns controls and becomes responsive you notice that the Track in CRM form region for the tracked in CRM email contains a large number of parties on the TO, CC, or BCC.
• Appointment created and deleted from the web will only be deleted from the organizers Outlook calendar. Occurs when the meeting organizer sends Outlook invitations.
• When you attempt to view html web resources in the CRM web or outlook client application by opening them from the ribbon, the web resources that are shown are old versions. This occurs even after you have published changes to the web resources. If you clear temporary internet files the web resources are shown correctly.
• Outlook saved views are not sorted alphabetically like in the web client.
• You receive error messages when accessing CRM fields in the CRM for Outlook client. "An error has occurred".
• Outlook Filter settings not taken into consideration when performing a quick search.
• Unable to configure CRM outlook client when TurnOffFetchThrottling is enabled.
• Outlook crashes when using CRM client for Outlook UR15 or UR11 CU.
• Odd Fixes
• Export to Excel in Outlook fails with long relationship/entity/field names.
• If the chart pane is enabled on any view for an entity in the Outlook client, and if the user utilizes the "Email a Link" feature and selects the current view, the URL that is generated and then copied to a blank e-mail will contain invalid parameters. Clicking on this link then generates a CRM platform error, which indicates that invalid parameters were passed to the request.
• When an error is raised when submitting the merge dialog form, and upon a second attempt to merge the data you change the selection of fields on the dialog, those changes are not submitted to the platform. The initial set of fields are used instead of updated.
• Filter in view does not work when for Option Set containing entries with '&' character.
• The owner of the child record in a merge inherits invisible rights to the master record.

Leon Tribe posted about Dialog Lookup Values for Common Entities. This explains what the Reference Entity and Reference Field are referring to when you create a new Dialog prompt with a lookup.

The CRM Software Blog reviewed their Top Ten CRM Software Blog Posts for 2013.

Jukka Niiranen discusses how to Expand the “Add Activity” Options on CRM 2013 Forms. This expands upon Develop 1’s blog to Restore Add Activity Buttons in CRM 2013.

That’s all for tonight.

Webinar: Best Practices in Leveraging Extensibility Options for Dynamics CRM

Today, I attended a webinar about extending CRM featuring @MitchMilam hosted by CRMUG. Mitch discussed the extension options, their features and limitations as well as some examples with possible solutions. I wanted to review the main takeaways here.

Always remember there is not one correct answer but many different options. Depending on your situation and requirements, one of the options may be more correct than another.

There are 3 main questions to ask when looking at a project: immediacy, available resources, and Budget.

Immediacy: Does the user need to see what’s happening (JavaScript)? Can it be done on the Save (Plugin, Workflow)? Think about Asynchronous operations versus Synchronous operations.

Available Resources: Do you have someone who can do what you need? Can you hire a programmer?

Budget: Not just money budget (hiring developer, consultant, purchasing a tool) but also time budget. Do you have time to hire someone new or learn a new skill?

I compiled some notes on the tools along with my knowledge of the matter.

Feature	Type	Skill Set	Pros	Cons	Notes
Bulk Import	Built-in	Customizer	Allows you to quickly create records from a file	Limited duplicate checking against only one entity, cannot create additional records	Consider instead writing a custom App that can do exactly what you need
Bulk Edit	Built-in	Power User	Quickly update a set of records	Same edit to all, no logic
Advanced Find	Built-in	Power User	Find specific groups of records for other operations (Marketing Lists, etc.)	Limitations	This came up in the context of deleting E-mail Attachments - you can find E-mails with Attachments by using Advanced Find but you can only delete the whole message not just the Attachment.
Workflows	Built-in	Customizer	Quick, no developer necessary, can create/update records, send e-mails, etc.	Limited processing options but can be extended with Custom Workflow Activities, all run asynchronously
Dialogs	Built-in	Customizer	Allows for user interaction	Requires user interaction, cannot be run on multiple records, runs as the user	Note: if a Dialog calls a child workflow it runs with similar access to an on-demand workflow, as the user.
Field Level Security	Built-in	Customizer	Can allow user to see/update the data only if they are included on the FLS Profile	Based on User/Team membership not security roles	See more information in my earlier post
Role Based Forms	Built-in	Customizer	Can hide data from the form but expose to other users, based on Security roles	Data is only not visible on the form, users would still have access in Advanced Find	This could be combined with FLS for more granular permissions
JavaScript	Extension	Customizer	Can run whenever the form is loaded, saved or a field is changed; does not necessarily require a developer	Performance (form load time) can become an issue
Plugins	Extension	Developer	Can be asynchronous or synchronous; can run as the user or as another user	Runs on the save, user will not see the change unless they refresh; requires a developer
External Applications	Extension	Developer	Can be designed to fit any business need; many options	Requires a developer and time to design/write.

 If you are a CRMUG Collaborate user, you can watch the recording and download the slides.