May 2017 Blog Review

Let's jump right in to this short summer recap!

PowerObjects shared about Searching Relevantly in Microsoft Dynamics 365. This discusses the Relevance Search in Dynamic 365 which allows you to use filtering in your regular CRM searches.

Great reminder from Mitch Milam to Always Maintain Control of your Dynamics CRM/365 Assets. It is very important to have a structured release process that is followed and maintain the details/solutions from these releases.

Sonoma Partners also introduced us to Learning Paths with Learning Path Authoring Basics and Learning Path Authoring Guided Tasks. Learning Paths allow administrators to provide more contextual help to users. One of the tools for this is Guided Tasks which walk users through specific steps within the application.

Jukka Niiranen is keeping us up to date on new things in this CRM Life with Spring in the Dynamics 365 World.

As always, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the CRM Tip of the Day to see which of your issues they are solving.

That's all for today!

December 2016 Blog Review

I hope all of you have been warm and enjoyed this holiday season! Let's catch up on all the CRM news from the past few weeks so we are ready to start the New Year off right!

Ledgeview Partners shared a list of their Top 10 Tips of 2016. These are some great tips to be an effective CRM user.

PowerObjects posted Make Your Own Custom Shortcuts on a CRM Dashboard in Microsoft Dynamcis 365. This is a step-by-step guide showing you how to add a list of shortcuts to a section of a dashboard.

PowerObjects also walked us through how to Change Business Process Flows Using a Workflow. This will allow administrators to automatically switch processes based on certain conditions so that users do not need to click Switch Process.

Hitachi Solutions had some holiday fun while helping us learn more about Dynamics 365:

• Santa Trains the Reindeer with Dynamics 365 Learning Paths
• The Eighth Day of Christmas: Yes Virginia there is a Common Data Model
• The Grinch's Heart Grows with a Little Help from the Dynamics 365 Relationship Assistant

Hosk shared Dynamics 365 - What does Include entity Metadata do. For those building solutions and curious about this little checkbox this should give you the information you need.

Sonoma Partners also talked about Dynamics 365 and posted Updates to Business Rules and Actions. This discusses changes and new features you can start using.

Mitch Milam shared a great article on Always Maintaining control of your Dynamics CRM/365 Assets. This discusses the need to have control of your system and awareness of what is going on in which environments. Also be sure to keep backups of all solutions and use Source Control for any code.

As always, make sure you look at the recent posts from CRM Tip of the Day to see if this can help with any questions or issues you are having now.

That's all for this December day. Have a Happy New Year and a CRM-filled 2017!

August 2016 Blog Review

Let's start the month of August off right with some CRM Tip of the Day:

• Tale of a Small Change - great example showing the work that goes into "small" changes
• Record Merge fails when assignee has insufficient privileges - merge issues when reparenting records owned by administrative access users
• Get your Tab order in order - a few quick tips to help users tab through fields and enter data in your system

Ledgeview Partners posted Setting Up a Sales Follow-up Workflow in Dynamics CRM. This walks through a workflow example showing the planning and final logic.

Ledgeview also shared Customize Color of Dynamics CRM Icon Backgrounds. Use these steps to theme your entity icons to match the rest of your system.

If you are interested in testing out a portal solution check out Donna Edward's CRM Online Portal Trial - Step by Step Installation.

Sonoma Partners was busy this month and shared:

• How to Use CRM Business Process Flows: The Checklist Strategy - Pros and Cons of using Business Process Flows and what it means for your system and users. Major takeaway: Have a clear, defined process and report on usage of it.
• Troubleshooting the Dynamics CRM Outlook Addin - everyone has issues with CRM for Outlook so Microsoft has provided some new diagnostic tools to assist. This article walks you through how to get started with this tool.
• What did Johnny Cash know about CRM? - this discusses the importance of planning your CRM implementation and working with a good team to make that a reality.

Hitachi Solutions posted How to Create a Voice of the Customer Survey in Dynamics CRM. Walk through these steps to create surveys that you can send to your customers directly from CRM.

Mitch Milam shared Dynamics CRM Security: Crossing Your I's and Dotting Your T's. This is a great example of the need to double check everything and never make assumptions in your system.

Speaking of security, you can also check out Leon Tribe's post on Securing Records by a Field Value in CRM. This gives an overview of how to handle a complex security situation.

PowerObjects also shared several posts this month for you to check out:

• Best Practices for Business Process Flows - this gives tips to keep in mind during the design and build phase for BPFs
• How to Disable Exporting or Printing Reports in CRM 2016 - you always want to be careful with dangerous permissions in your system. This post shows you how to turn off Export to Excel and Print access for a particular security role. Be sure to ensure that it is removed from all roles that the user has.
• Using Security Roles to Disable Custom and System Dashboards - you can now limit dashboards to only certain security roles. In this way, you can hide unnecessary dashboards from certain user groups.

That’s all for August!

May 20 Blog Review

Let's jump into a quick blog review for your Friday afternoon.

PowerObjects posted Solving Security Headaches: Display Rules Based on Security Roles. This walks through how to use the Ribbon Workbench to modify the security of your forms.

CRM Tip of the Day shared the Illustrated guide to entity creation in Dynamics CRM. This walks through what to do when creating a new entity and some questions to keep in mind. Most important tips from my point of view are PLAN (all potential users, future impact) and don't turn on anything you don't need right now (most can be turned on later if needed).

Mitch Milam expanded on this TechNet Article with What's New for Administrators and Customizers in CRM 2016 and CRM Online. Check this out to be prepared for the updates.

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

May 14 Blog Review

Let's jump right in to this week's blog review!

PowerObjects shared No More Whoops: Preventing Accidental CRM Emails in a Non-Production Environment. Learn from other people's mistakes and take some time to make sure your test environments cannot send emails. It is not a fun issue to deal with. Also make sure you can easilly identify test records in your live environment so you don't use a real record as a test. (I feel so bad for people whose actual last name is "Test".)

PowerObjects also posted So Many Shortcuts: Reducing Clicks in CRM 2015. This is a handy reference for all the keyboard shortcuts you need to be aware of.

Mitch Milam shared a cautionary tale in Bad Design: A Tale of De-Architecture and De-Engineering. This walks through a very common scenario where a system is over-customized and this causes problems in the future. Be aware of the custom code you are adding and document well. Be ready to test thoroughly with an upgrade and know it may break. Also remember that out-of-the-box pieces were made that way for a reason. Maybe there is a chance to simplify your business process instead of complicating the system.

That's all for today. Did I miss anything?

Have a great weekend! 

May 8 Blog Review

Clearly the blog has been a bit delayed so we have a bit of catching up to do. Let's jump right in!

CRMUG has lots of exciting things happening over the next few weeks. CRMUG European Congress is next week so be on the lookout for news from that. Also the Momentum Chapter Series! The DC Chapter meeting is on Tuesday, May 10. We will feature deep dive content straight from Microsoft on top of our usual programming. Plus there's lunch! Get registered for the CRMUGDC Meeting or see if there is a similar meeting coming up in your city! As always you can stay up to date on all of the DC Chapter activities by joining our community at CRMUG.com/Washington.

Ledgeview Partners shared a quick tip in Getting CRM Columns Sorted Out. This shows users how to sort by multiple columns in a view.

PowerObjects posted a deep dive into One Click Document Generation in CRM 2016. They walk through how to create a table in the template to pull in multiple lines of data - such as multiple products from an Opportunity.

Hitachi Solutions explains how to Use Real-Time Workflows for Data Validation. Real-Time workflows allow an error message to be returned to the user when they try to complete a certain action. This logic will fire from the web version, Outlook and even the tablet app.

A quick tip from Mitch Milam - Repurposing CRM Fields, Just Say No! Do not change out of the box fields to something else for your use. Keep in mind that they were created for a reason and future versions might make use of them in different ways.

Finally, I always recommend you keep up to date with the CRM Tip of the Day. If you are a bit behind I would recommend checking out Teach our users to type-ahead and 
The Forgotten Three.

That's all I have for today. Let me know if I am missing anything!

March 4 Blog Review

Let’s dive right in with Microsoft’s announcement of the CRM Spring 2016 Wave. The focus of this release is the integration of FieldOne and AdxStudio. There is a large focus on the everything-as-a-service model and many exciting new fatures. There is a quick video that showcases these features as well as a new CRM Roadmap to be able to quickly see what is new and what is being worked on for future releases.

CRM Tip of the Day shared Advanced text Conditions in System Views. This shows you how to edit the Fetch XML for a system view using the example of wanting to filter only to those records starting with letters A through L.

Ben Hosk posted Questions on CRM Solutions and Environments. This walks through some common questions on Managed vs. Unmanaged solutions and the complications of both.

Mitch Milam has written a great new guide – Fun with Fields, A Dynamics CRM Customization Training Guide. This walks through all the different field types so you can understand all the nuances of each.

Now that you are full of CRM Knowledge you can go and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

February 12 Blog Review

In honor of Valentine’s Day let’s start out with a list of things to love about CRM:

1.       It is a great way to organize all your customer data and manage your business processes

2.       It is extremely extensible for all your integration and customization needs

3.       It allows non-developer types (such as myself) to easily modify the system and build process automation

4.       Lastly and most importantly – the COMMUNITY! The CRM community is awesome because everyone is sharing their knowledge through blogs and CRMUG. You are never alone in any issue or struggle! (And don’t forget the CRMUG Chapter meetings, come out to CRMUGDC on Feb 24)

Note: If anyone can think of a good way to tie President’s day to CRM please let me know so I can have a cheesy tweet for Monday J

The CRM MVP’s are particularly great members of the CRM Community. I want to quickly congratulate Mitch Milam on his 10^th year as a CRM MVP. Keep up the good work!

Now let’s look at the other posts from this week.

The CRM Support blog shared Dynamics CRM Support with Windows 10, Edge Browser, and Office 2016. This discusses which versions of CRM are compatible with the newest Microsoft technologies.

PowerObjects talked about CRM 2016: What’s New for Unified Service Desk? This talks about some of the new features for USD as well as some of the basics and how to get it set up.

Jukka Niiranen shared CRM 2016 Solution Segmentation for The Rest of Us. This describes how you can now package specific components of an entity. He also walks through what this means and looks like.

CRM Tip of the Day posted Unable to publish solution with calculated fields. This explains the error message you could see publishing a solution and how to get around it. Spoiler alert: you need to include all entities that are referenced in your calculated field.

CRM Tip of the day also directed us to the CRM 2016 Online vs. On-Premise FAQs. Review this list to see which features are supported in which CRM set up.

Finally, if you are thinking new year, new CRM check out RSM’s blog – Are you prepared for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Upgrade? This will provide a few points to consider and think about as you plan your upgrade.

That’s all folks. Have a great weekend!

January 22 Blog Review

The snow is coming down hard (for some of us), so that means you have lots of time to read up on all the CRM news of the last week.

Of course, you should start with a recap of last night’s 2016 DMV CRMUG Chapter Launch Party. We had a very good turnout especially considering the weather concerns. Hopefully everyone is excited about all the chapters in DC, Maryland and Virginia and will come to the upcoming meetings. Only lesson learned to implement next year will be emailing all the people registered to make sure they know it is on and have a way to contact me if they get lost.

Alright back to the blog world.

Ledgeview Partners posted on Retaining History – CRM Best Practices for Contacts changing Companies. This gives two possible solutions to ensure that the contact details are in the right place and history stays in the right place too.

CRM Tip of the day shared about Custom Activity Forms. This talks about which Activity entities can have custom forms and which ones cannot. They also provide some information as to why the custom forms may not be available for those entities.

CRM Tip of the Day also shared Consolidate your Workflows. This discusses the issues that can arise when you have multiple workflows for the same entity and/or trigger event. All of these will be firing, even if no action is taken, and will take resources from the asynchronous processor. To prevent this, review your workflows and consolidate like workflows into one.

Last but not least, Mitch Milam posted on What Exactly ins Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? This is not directly related to CRM but has some very interesting considerations for software and product development. It is ok to build something without fully knowing what the customer wants because they might not know themselves. Just make sure it is made in such a way that it can be easily expanded and built upon when they begin to figure it out.

That’s all folks! Stay warm this weekend!

January 15 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to the news of the week with Microsoft announcing Microsoft Envision. This is replacing Convergence and will focus on strategic leadership and Microsoft Dynamics. If you want focused learning on the Microsoft Dynamics Products you should look into the CRM User Group Summit.

David Yack talks about Making the Most of your CRM Trial by using the reset feature to go back to the base organization or to look at past versions.

PowerObjects shared about Color Themes in Dynamics CRM 2016. This specifically talks about how your color schemes impact the CRM mobile experience.

PowerObjects also posted The Great Debate: Dynamics CRM Connections vs Lookups. This shows the benefits of using connections including keeping your forms cleaner and eliminating the need for multiple relationships between entities.

Donna Edwards blogged about the CRM 2016 Task Flow. This walks through the new Task Flow feature – how to create and run in the web and via mobile. Task Flows allow you to provide a wizard for your users that can walk through multiple entities to help them finish all the steps for a particular task.

CRM Tip of the Day shared Recently Visited Items in Outlook Client. The Recently Visited button is a great timesaver in the web version of CRM, check this post out to see how to do the same thing when accessing CRM through Outlook.

Finally, Mitch Milam posted about Read Only Fields and the Dynamics CRM Workflow Editor. This describes ways to allow your workflows to update Read Only fields. You can remove the Read-Only condition on your fields while you edit the workflow or you can try one of his more elegant solutions.

Also, for those in DC, Maryland and Virginia don’t forget to plan to come to the CRMUGDC 2016 Chapter Launch Party! This will be a fun event to get to know CRM users in the area and learn more about all the local chapters in the DMV. Register Here!

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

April 10 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! Let’s jump right in with the CRM News from this week.

There is still lots of news coming out about the CRM 2015 Spring Release.

Mitch Milam had an interesting tidbit in Delete Plug-in Trace Log Records. As we learned last week, you can now view plugin trace data from within CRM. Interestingly enough, there is an automatic delete job set up to remove these trace records. So make sure you review that and make sure it fits your needs.

PowerObjects talked about the Seamless OneNote Integration. This allows users to quickly record notes on the record through the use of OneNote. This provides additional features like pictures which may make this easier for some users as opposed to the traditional Notes area.

Sonoma Partners posted on the CRM Online Spring Release ’15 Theming. This talks about how easy it is to change the color and logo for your CRM system. These changes can be exported/imported but not through a solution. This is a great way to brand your system or distinguish between your different environments.

PowerObjects shared a good tip on How to Fix the Omnipresent “CRM Auto Reloading” Issue. I’m sure many of you have struggled with this issue as I have and you will be happy to know that it can be resolved by changing a registry setting.

PowerObjects also discussed how Hiding a Field Does not Hide the Data in CRM. This is talking about how hiding a field via JavaScript or Business Rules only hides it on the form and the data is still accessible. Instead consider using Field level security. I also have an older post on the subject of Field Level Security vs. Not Searchable which may help you out.

Finally, we will top it all off with the top tips from the CRM Tip of the Day:

• Use an Exchange Distribution List for CRM Email Notifications – avoid having workflows that send emails to defined individuals, use a distribution list when you can.
• Why don’t I see any records in CRM Online – If you have signed up for a CRM Online trial recently, you may log into CRM and only see Service and Settings. If this is the case, double check that your user has a CRM License assigned to it in Office 365.
• Workflows on Change of Process Flow Stage – Be careful when making workflows based on the process flow stage advancing as users tend to click multiple times and then may need to go back.

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

February 27 Blog Review

Let’s get right to the CRM news of the last week of February.

PowerObjects gave a quick tutorial on Creating Monthly Goals in Bulk via Importing. Goals can be a great feature but there is no way to copy a goal. So to overcome this you can import your goals to create a large number at one time.

PowerObjects also discussed Customizable Help Now Available in CRM 2015. This describes how to set up custom help for the system and entity specific within CRM 2015.

Hitachi Solutions posted Great FetchXML Tool for CRM. This talks about the “Download FetchXML” button in Advanced Find and how you can use the XRMToolbox to work with the results.

Hitachi Solutions has also been working on a series about the Social Pane in CRM. Check it out to learn what posts are and how to use workflows to create and intact with them. It consists of Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The Microsoft Dynamics Team announced this week that there is a new CRM for Outlook ebook. This talks about everything you need to get started with using CRM for Outlook.

Mitch Milam discussed System-Wide Alerts in CRM 2015. This is a new feature in CRM 2015 that allows the user to see new alerts that can be triggered from things such as an import finishing. Still not much is known about this feature but it could be very powerful because it is viewable in Advanced Find and accessible via code.

I think that is all I have for today. Have a great weekend!

January 30 Blog Review

It looks like there are lots of great posts to talk about this week. Before I do, a quick reminder, if you are in the Washington, DC area you should check out the DC CRMUG Chapter Meeting happening next week – Wednesday February 4^th.

Alight now on to the news of the week.

David Yack posted a great tip on the Risk of Adding Field Level Security Layer. This is a good reminder to consider all the implications before you turn on this feature.

PowerObjects posted about Testing Incoming Mailbox Configuration for Server Side Sync. This discusses what the Configuration Test Results mean when you are configuring Server Side Sync.

Hitachi Solutions posted a great walk through about calculating the Last Activity Date in CRM 2015. This build upon an old blog that calculated the last activity date with workflows. Now in CRM 2015 we can use rollup fields to greatly improve this process.

McGladrey walked through their favorite new features in CRM 2015: An Upgrade with more Conveniences. This touches on some features like the multi-entity search and managing synchronization filters within CRM.

The Microsoft Dynamics Team Blog released some videos for Microsoft Dynamics Marketing 2015 Update.

Mitch Miliam announced his 21 Squared CRM Administrator Course. This is a great course for CRM System Administrators. It covers the tools you need as an administrator as well as the basic tasks you will need to do within CRM and on the server.

In CRM 2015 you can now use JavaScript to interact with the process. Sonoma Partners discusses this in their post CRM 2015 – Scripting Options for Business Process Flows.

Also a few quick tips from CRM Tip of the Day:

• Change Labels on Composite Controls – Have you ever wanted to change the label of composite fields (address pops out to street 1, street 2, etc.; Name pops out to First, Middle, last)? Well here is your answer!
• CRM Server Licensing 101 – So perfect. There are no words.

So it has been a busy week! I hope I covered all the best bits. Have a great weekend!

January 23 Blog Review

Let’s take a quick look at the CRM news that came out this week.

PowerObjects gave a few quick tutorials to help with CRM 2013. First check out, What to do when: The ‘Set As Default’ button for Dashboards Disappears in CRM. This talks about how to resolve an issue that occurs when your Homepage is set to Dashboards. Then also check out, Accessing the Business Process “Name” in CRM. This shows you how you can create a workflow to populate a field with the current process that is running. This allows you to do charts and reports on that data.

Hitachi Solutions discussed Complex Goal Calculations Using CRM 2015 Calculated Fields. This describes how to use Calculated Fields to determine the weighted percent achieved.

CRM in the Field wrote about the Dangers of Guid.NewGuid();. This is more technical than I usually include but it is very interesting. Apparently when GUIDs are automatically created they are sequential to provide better SQL performance. So don’t try to create your own through plugins/integrations unless you have a very good reason.

Mitch Miliam posted a tutorial of how to Find All Activities for a Particular Entity Type. This is a very helpful tip if you want to only look at Activities regarding Accounts or something like that.

CRM Tip of the Day had an interesting Truckstop discussion about turning off e-mail tracking with CRM for Outlook. You should also check out their tidbit on Dynamic Excel Export Not Working (hint: it has to do with CRM for Outlook too).

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!

July 18 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to the CRM news for this week!

Hitachi Solutions presented an innovated way to keep users up to date with Sending Text Message Alerts from CRM 2013. This explains how to use regular CRM email to send texts to your users. Use this to notify them of alerts, things that require their attention or goals they have reached.

 Rollup 3 for CRM 2013 has been released. Check out CRM in the Field’s Podcast and Overview for more information. This contains all the links and information you will need to get started with Rollup 3.

CRM Tip of the day had several helpful tips this week to keep us working efficiently. First of all, Do you know what a Wildcard is? This discusses how to use the * as a wildcard when searching in CRM. This is a very helpful feature and is often forgotten or overlooked. Personally, I like to use it on entities that have phone numbers as search fields. That way I can leave off the area code and not worry about formatting differences.

Another tip this week was Understand “First Response Sent” for SLA. This discusses some specific details as part of the Spring Wave enhancements for CRM 2013.

One more helpful tip this week was Adminless Traceless Troubleshooting. This describes how you may be able to use the URL for troubleshooting when you receive the generic “An Error has Occurred” message.

Mitch Milam is helping us this week with Monitoring Prospects and their Email Preferences. This describes the functionality of the “Do not allow Email” and “Do not allow Bulk Email” fields. As well as some discussion on how to review contacts with these fields set and then what to do about it.

Also this week the CRM 2013 Quick Start book was released (only ebook currently). You can get more information and a summary of the chapters on Julie Yack’s blog.

Jukka Niiranen wrote a great blog this week on Update Rollups, Service Packs, Major Releases: Understanding Dynamics CRM Versioning. This goes through what those confusing version numbers actually mean, how to interpret and what to expect going forward. It also has some great explanations of what a Rollup means compared to a Service Pack. This is one to read carefully, not skim!

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

July 11 Blog Review

Today is such a busy day here in America – free Slurpees at 7-11 and Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. Why isn’t it a holiday? How do they expect us to work under these conditions?

Moving on. Let’s take a look at the CRM news this week.

Hitachi Solutions posted New Shoes and Dynamics CRM Upgrades. This contains a great Features Cheat Sheet that describes the new features in 2013 and the Spring 2014 update.

PowerObjects posted a helpful tip: How to Open a CRM XML File on a Windows 8 or 8.1 Device. When you Export some data to Excel from CRM on a Windows 8+ device it will not automatically open in Excel. Follow the directions to fix this.

PowerObjects also posted about how to Display Business Process Values on Forms in CRM 2013. Adding these fields to your form can assist while you figure out reporting or other automation options.

There were several great CRM Tips of the Day. Check out Tip #175: Miscellaneous privileges with multiple access levels to learn where you can trim down the access those miscellaneous privileges offer. Also take a look at Tip #173: Don’t disable Quick Create for Standard Entities. This discusses what happens if you turn off quick create and try to use the tablet app.

Mitch Milam posted Refreshing you Development or QA Environment with Production Data. This goes through the important steps when you want to update the data in your other environments to match production.

Sonoma Partners loves to talk about mobile and this week is no different. Check out The Seven Use Cases Your Mobile CRM Sales Application Must Nail. This talks about the important features that your mobile workforce needs to be able to accomplish on their device. These things are necessary to achieve good user adoption.

That is all the news I have to pass along this week. Have a great weekend!

May 9 Blog Review

PowerObjects posted Moving CRM 2013 Business Rules with Static Values from Dev to Production. This describes what to do if you cannot activate one of your solution components due to a reference to the item in a development instance which has a different GUID than the production instance.

CustomerEffective wrote a handy blog on Retrieving a Record's GUID in CRM 2013. This describes how to create a Javascript Bookmarklet that will grab the CRM record GUID for you.

Mitch Miliam posted a helpful tidbit in Workflow Ownership and Disabled Users. Be careful when disabling users that nothing is assigned to them especially workflows which will stop running. Also a good reminder to keep an eye on your waiting system jobs to notice these problems quickly.

Sonoma Partners posted CRM 2013 - Phone Call Fields won't Default from Sub-Grid. This discusses how some fields are not auto populated depending on where you create your Activity from.

Sonoma Partners also posted Five Reasons Your CRM Deployment Needs Enterprise Mobility to ensure that everyone uses the mobile capabilities of CRM 2013.

Jukka Niiranen teaches us a thing or two in CRM Reminder Workflows Done Right. This describes the correct way to create a reminder workflow and some things you should keep in mind.

Biggest news over the last week was the release of Rollup 17 for CRM 2011. Here are the pieces you need to be able to find: Knowledge Base Article, Download Site, PFE Blog. Sonoma Partners also recorded their top picks here. Here is what I picked out of the KB (probably still too much to read but less than what we started with):

Important Fixes

·        Quick Find fails with "Invalid Argument" when whole number fields are added as find columns

·        Removing / Adding any field to the form after enabling the option "Automatically expand to use available space" causes the sub grid to shrink or resize to much smaller in size.

·        Reports cannot be executed once the default filter form the report is removed and the update is saved. The execution fails with the following error on screen. "Reporting Error: The repot cannot be displayed"

·        After applying Update Rollup 16, Solution import fails with overwriting components

·        After installing Update Rollup 16, CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10

·        A form has multiple tabs which are initially hidden and then made visible programmatically. Once the tabs are made visible, the navigation bar containing the links to other related entities moves down and part of it gets off the screen, making the users unable to see or select some links.

·        After exporting the results of a Quick Find search to Excel Pivot Table, the resulting file cannot be opened. The following error appears: "[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'AccountBase', database '...._MSCRM', schema 'dbo'."

·        Cannot change owner on create of Appointment after Update Rollup 16

·        Audit setting disabled when changing cascading behavior

·        Activity Types change when importing Solutions. As a result a view on the Activity entity that references the custom activity entity stops working. Warning message on the filter: This condition had one or more list values that no longer exist in the system.

·        After applying Update Rollup 16 in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, users are unable to remove Deployment Administrators if the account exists in a separate domain.

·        After installing Update Rollup 12, there are changes to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 forms that may impact the visually impaired such as lighter colors and the absence of highlighting on items such as the SiteMap and Tab titles.

Interesting/Odd Fixes

·        Bulk Edit on Cases shows wrong dialog box

·        Advanced Find date range with "last-x-fiscal-years" is wrong when exported to a Dynamic Worksheet

·        When you have an HTML web resource on a form, the web resource is removed when clicking the backspace button in Internet Explorer

·        Users attempting to delete the oldest audit log in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 after Update Rollup 12 receive the following error:

"You can only delete the oldest audit log"

·        If the number of notes on a record exceeds the records per page set in a user personal options, you will not be able to see the additional notes in the control. For example, if the records per page is set to 25, and you have 26 notes on the record, you will not be able to see the first note. Prior to Update Rollup 12 the Notes Control had "Add a new note..." and "Show more notes" hyperlinks on the notes control.”Show more notes" would allow you to display the next page of notes in the notes control.

·        Even though the print preview fits one page, always blank page 2 is printed.

CRM for Outlook Issues

·        When you create service activities and you sync those activities to your Outlook Exchange Mailbox, and you have devices like an iPhone or Windows Phone you will see UNKNOWN:UNKNOWN on the activity parties or invitees on those devices when viewing those service activities. This can lead to invitees getting removed from the service activity or becoming duplicated in CRM.

·        Poor performance with smart matching when the Email Hash and Activity tables have a large number of records.

·        Clicking the mail merge button in the Ribbon bar of the Advanced Find screen opened from the Contacts entity doesn't do anything.

·        The context sensitive ribbon is not displaying in the Outlook 2011 Client when configured to a CRM 2013 deployment

·        After Update Rollup 12 or greater is applied to the Outlook client, the startup time for Outlook.exe can be significantly impacted if the configured organization contains many customizations

·        Microsoft.Interop.Mapi.MAPINameId.GetHashCode module led to Outlook crash

·        Outlook start-up time is impacted post Update Rollup 12

·        Outlook Quick Find does not work correctly for custom entities after Update Rollup 12

·        When users have several forms open in the Outlook Client and then open a model dialog such as a Lookup, several of the forms will be forced to the background, losing focus.

·        An environment where the SendEmailSynchronously OrgDbOrgSetting set to 1 the message below is presented when forwarding e-mails from Outlook.

"A record with these values already exists. A duplicate record cannot be created. Select one or more unique values and try again. Do you want send the e-mail? If you click Yes, the e-mail will be sent out, but no corresponding activity will be created in Microsoft Dynamics CRM."

·        When a manually tracked contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is merged with another contact as a subordinate record, that contact can be incorrectly synchronized to Outlook if the Outlook Client is reconfigured.

·        Untracking an email you do not own results in the email being deleted from CRM

·        Quick campaigns are not working in Outlook client when Critical Update is installed

·        Users of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook may experience issues where shared personal views may not show up on entity grids if the views had been shared or unshared previously.

·        After installing Update Rollup 10, 11, or 12, file attachments for emails get a contentId appended to them. If file name is mywordfile.doc, then the file attachment in CRM will show {cid:somecontentid@somedomain}mywordfile.doc

April 11 Blog Review

It was not too busy in the CRM world this week.

Biggest news was that Microsoft released the Spring 2014 Preview Guide. This highlights Marketing enhancements and the new Unified Service Desk. There are many great features on the horizon!

Sonoma Partners featured Clogged Sync? Call the Plummer. This describes the resolution to several issues with the Server Side Sync in CRM 2013. Some of the issues were resolved with Update Rollup 1 but if you are still having issues you should check out their other recommendations.

Mitch Miliam featured a blog on How to Find What Does Not Exist. This describes how to use a Marketing List to find a subset of records that does not possess a certain quality. The limitations of this method is that it can only be used to find Accounts, Contacts and Leads. Also keep in mind that you will need to rebuild the Marketing List each time you want to get this list. So if this is data you need to gather once a week, it is not the best long term solution.

CustomerEffective posted Security Role Specific Dashboards in CRM 2013. In CRM 2013, System Dashboards no longer need to be visible organization wide. Now you can grant different security roles access to specific dashboards similar to how it is done for forms. This blog goes through that process.

PowerObjects described Hiding a Tab using Portable Business Logic. CRM 2013’s Portable Business Logic is a powerful tool that allows end users to create rules on the form that used to require JavaScript. Unfortunately there isn’t a “Hide Tab” rule but if you hide all the fields within a tab then the tab will disappear. Keep in mind you will need an opposite rule to un-hide the fields.

Jukka Niiranen posted about Accessing Special ActivityTypes with the CRM Report Wizard. If you have ever tried to use Advanced Find to view the information from an Opportunity Close or Case Resolution record you probably found it very difficult. However, you can access this information through the Report Wizard. Jukka walks through how to set that up.

That’s all for tonight. 

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!