June 2017 Blog Review

There were lots of great posts shared in June but first a quick reminder to check out your local CRMUG events! CRMUGDC (Washington, DC Chapter) will be hosting a combined event with the Reston, VA chapter. This Summit Preview will be a full day event with 6 speakers! We will discuss a variety of topics from How to Use CRM to Drive Success to Extending Workflows; from Administrator Tips to Virtual Entities and Odata consumption. This is going to be a great event for all experience levels and job roles. To learn more and register check out the chapter page at CRMUG.com/Washington!

Ledgeview Partners shared Using Advanced Find in Microsoft Dynamics 365/CRM. This article walks through the information needed to get started on your first Advanced Find. This is a powerful skill that helps you understand more about CRM and how your data is related.

System Administrators often need to add new fields to their CRM implementation. There are several articles to check out on this topic:

• 5 Tips for Creating New Fields: My post on CRMUG
• Exploring Field Types - Rollup Fields: PowerObjects
• Exploring Field Types - Calculated Fields: PowerObjects

PowerObjects also shared Custom Action Quick Tips. Check this out to learn how to create a simple Action that can be used to do more complex logic without code. Refresher: Custom Workflow steps are code pieces that can be called by a workflow to do more complex steps, Actions are additional steps built inside CRM that can be called from code or workflows. Actions allow for the input of parameters as well.

Sonoma Partners worked to help with a very confusing topic in Best Practices for Microsoft Security Settings: Append vs. Append To. This discusses the differences between and meanings of the Append privileges as well as some tips to keep in mind.

This month details were also released on the July 2017 release for Dynamics 365. To learn more check out Jukka Niiranen's All You Need to Know About Dynamics 365 v9.0 (For Now) and Chris Cognetta's Dynamics 365 Spring Release: 5 Takeaways from a Business Solutions MVP.

As always, keep an eye on the CRM Tip of the Day to see if there is anything relating to your organization. This month I was particularly interested in:

• Pets are Dangerous
• Start Planning around Deprecated Features
• Developers, Start planning for New Features

That's all for today. Back to summer CRM enhancements!

November 20 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to the CRM news of the past few weeks!

Update 0.2 for CRM 2015 On-Premise has been released. For all the information review CRM in the Field’s Overview Blog.

PowerObjects shared Manipulating the Value of Days Remaining between Today and the Expiration Date in Calculated Fields. This shows you how to modify the Days Remaining field so that it will not show a “-ve” value when the expiration date is in the past.

Adam Vero the CRMGuru posted an interesting post on Figuring Out Shares in the PrincipalObjectAccess POA Table in CRM. This provides more information about how shares are saved behind the scenes and how to view/interpret that data.

Chris Cognetta shared the Great Microsoft Cloud InfoGraphic! This shows the number of users that are on the different Microsoft cloud offerings. It shows why this is such a large area of emphasis and why this continues to be important for future growth.

Leon Tribe blogged about the Post MVP Summit Roundup. Unfortunately not too much information can be released yet but at least we can see everyone’s smiling faces and get a little glimpse into what it is like to be a CRM MVP. Also mentioned was that the CRM 2016 features that have already been announced were presented and provided a much better understanding of the capabilities. So be excited for more information at the end of the year!

Finally, one quick tip from CRM tip of the day is what to do with Disabled User’s Personal Views. Everyone runs into a situation where a user leaves and their views remain assigned to that now disabled user. Check out this post to see 3 possible solutions.

That’s all for today folks. Have a great day and Happy almost Thanksgiving! (In America, or happy almost Christmas, Thanksgiving was forever ago why are you still talking about it in Canada :) )

March 13 Blog Review

Happy Friday the 13^th and almost St. Patrick’s Day! It may be tempting to get lost in the excitement but I need you to focus for just a few minutes on the CRM blogs that came out this week.

Hitachi Solutions posted CRM Business Rules + Calculated Fields = Amazing. This discusses how to use Business Rules to set a default value for all of the fields that you want to rollup. This will ensure you do not run into any issues because fields don’t have values or things like that.

Jukka Niiranen also talked about Rollup Fields in Monitoring Rollup Field Values with Workflows. This describes how you can use a workflow batch process to check for certain conditions and send out notifications if the rollup fields have hit a certain threshold.

PowerObjects wrote How to: Open Quick Create from a Sub Grid. This talks about a few options to make the + icon when filling in a lookup open up the Quick Create form.

McGladrey walked through Using Marketing Lists to bypass the limitations of Advanced Find functionality. Often people are asking for how can I find Accounts without contacts or similar requests, this blog walks through how to do that using Marketing Lists. Keep in mind this can only be used if the record set you are looking for is Accounts, Contacts, or Leads.

A few weeks ago the CRM Team Blog announced a new CRM for Outlook ebook. This week they posed the new CRM for Outlook User’s Guide Page. This is a place to send users for generic training or get some customizable trainings that you can personalize for your organization.

CRM Tip of the Day posted several tips to take a look at:

• In Dynamics CRM we Trust – This talks about the CRM Trust Center and gives you an overview of what is says and what you need to know.
• Demystifying pop3/smtp for CRM Online – this describes what configurations are not allowed for Server Side Sync with CRM Online and how to set up those that are allowed.
• Sky is the limit for the Workflows – There is no limit for the number of workflows in CRM Online, at least not an enforced one.

Also for those of you shipping off to Convergence next week, be sure to check out Ledgeview Partners Hitchhikers Guide to Microsoft Convergence 2015. Then make sure you review PFE Dynamics @ Convergence 2015. This talks about the sessions that the Premier Field Engineers will be leading meaning they will be packed with excellent content.

That’s all for tonight. Have a great weekend folks! Please share all your news from Convergence so we can look at it next week!

February 20 Blog Review

Welcome everyone! Let’s jump right in to the CRM news of the week.

Microsoft Convergence is coming up in less than a month! To get prepared check out Chris Cognetta’s Countdown to Convergence 2015 which covers everything you will need to know to attend.  You can also review Jamie Miley’s Convergence Party List so you can plan your free time.

PowerObjects demonstrated a new feature in CRM 2015 Introduces Nested Quick Create Forms. This shows how you can quickly create a linked record from another Quick Create Form.

CRM in the Field talked about CRM 2015 Upgrade: A few Things you can Prepare Ahead of Time. This discusses the steps you can be taking now to be ready for your next upgrade.

Leon Tribe discussed Setting up Handy Links in Dynamics CRM 2013/2015. This describes how to use test fields with a URL format to add quick clickable links to your CRM forms.

CRM Tip of the Day posted How Rollup Fields make Charts Better. This introduces the idea of using Rollup fields on parent records to get around the 50,000 record limit on charts.

CRM Tip of the Day also discussed How to Open a Record Using Just ID. This shows you the developer-approved way of opening a record using just the entity name and GUID.

That’s all I have for tonight. Stay warm this weekend!

February 13 Blog Review

I’m sure everyone has big romantic plans for the weekend so I will try to run through the news quickly.

At the end of last week, Rollup 2 for CRM 2013 SP 1 was released. So here is the KB Article and the Premier Field Engineers Overview.

PowerObjects posted Access Is Denied: How to Identify and Fix a Security Role Issue. This walks through some approaches for dealing with access issues and gives some helpful things to keep in mind.

Sonoma Partners talked about Custom Help Content in CRM 2015. This describes how to set up global and entity-specific help pages for your users.

Jukka Niiranen discusses CRM 2015 Rollup Fields: The Gotchas. This talks about the schedule on which rollup fields are calculated and the interesting fact that rollup field changes cannot trigger workflows.

CRM for Outlook is always an exciting adventure. CRM Tip of the Day discusses how to deal with duplicate contact issues in When Outlook Attacks.

CRM Tip of the Day also posted Qualify Lead – CRM 2011 vs CRM 2015. This walks you through what occurs when a lead is qualified in 2011 and 2015.

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

February 6 Blog Review

Welcome everyone to this week’s recap of everything in the world of CRM. Let’s see what we have to talk about today!

Of course the most exciting news this week was I hosted my first CRMUG Chapter Meeting. You can review all the details here! Also make sure you mark your calendar for our next DC Chapter meeting on May 13^th.

PowerObjects talked about Setting Field Values vs. Setting Default Values in Business Rules. This describes how you can use Business Rules to set default values for numeric, text and lookup fields and compares it to using logic to set certain field values.

Adam Vero discusses Special Privileges in CRM Security Role. This talks about privileges that can be set to User and those that can only be set to user as well as deletion access considerations for those permissions.

Hitachi Solutions blogged about The 3 Steps of CRM Success. This discusses the steps of defining the outcome, defining the success factors and execution.

Leon Tribe wrote about Faking JavaScript Codelessly which discusses how you can use Real-Time Workflows and Business Rules to replace your JavaScript with configuration.

Ledgeview Partners posted the list of Featured Speakers at Microsoft Convergence 2015. If you are planning or considering heading to Atlanta for convergence in just a few weeks, take a look at this to see what to expect.

CRM Tip of the Day commanded Don’t Hack the Button! This presents all the reasons for creating new custom ribbon buttons instead of modifying existing buttons.

CRM Tip of the Day also talked about Once Upon a Time this Rollup Field was Recalculated. This talks about how Rollup fields are calculated and how to check the updated time on a per-field basis.

That’s all for today folks. Have a great day!

September 26 Blog Review

I feel there are so many versions of CRM being discussed currently, we need to break up all news by version.

Applies to All Versions

CRM Tip of the Day discusses how to keep your users from becoming Overwhelmed with Reminders when first setting up CRM for Outlook.

CRM Tip of the Day also talked about how to use Privileges to Hide Site Map areas. This can be used to hide a particular entity from the Site Map, or a whole area (such as Settings).

CRM 2011 News

Rollup 18 was announced for CRM 2011. Please review the Knowledgebase, Download Page, and Blog.

CRM in the Field discusses Troubleshooting Workflows. This gives an overview of processes in CRM 2011 and then lists the steps to work through when you are having issues.

CRM 2013 News

Rollup 1 for CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 was announced. Check out the Knowledgebase, Download Page,

and Blog.

CRM 2015 News

PowerObjects discusses SLA Enhancements for CRM 2015 focusing on the ability to pause the SLA when the case is put on hold

PowerObjects also posted CRM 2015 to Feature Improved Search Capabilities. This goes over the new Multi-entity search which will be available in the web client (not just mobile as before).

CRM Team blogs talks about Creating Custom Help for your Users. In CRM 2015, instead of linking to the Microsoft help we can link directly to internal help sites allowing users to see what to do within our business processes.

Sonoma Partners shows of the CRM 2015 Calculated and Rollup Fields. Quick Note before you get too excited is that the field type of simple (regular), Calculated or Rollup must be set when the field is created. So if you want to migrate some existing code to use this instead you may need to migrate some data as well. There is a great list of limitations at the bottom of the blog to help give you a well-rounded view of the feature.

Sonoma Partners also discussed the CRM 2015 Enhanced Business Processes. This goes over the changes and also the limitations to keep in mind.

There was lots of news this week as the CRM 2015 announcement began to sink in. Hopefully I captured the highlights today. Have a great weekend everyone!

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 3 Blog Review

Let’s take a look at the CRM news on this short holiday week. Actually it was a holiday week for several countries – Canada Day on Tuesday and the 4^th of July on Friday!

PowerObjects is still blogging away about the Spring ’14 wave. They talked to us this week about setting up Server-Based SharePoint Integration in CRM 2013. Also they talked about a cool new service feature, Timers. This allows you to add timers to your case form to track SLAs and things like that. Check Out Update on New Feature: Timer Control.

CustomerEffective (sorry Hitachi Solutions) posted a very helpful blog on Keeping up with the Ever Growing Dynamics CRM Roadmap and More. This explains the different products and add-ons under the Microsoft umbrella and all the key details you need to know.

McGladrey posted a helpful tip in Formatting Date and Time Fields in a Mail Merge. This shows you how you can specify how the date will look in your merge. You probably don’t need to send out a letter that includes the whole timestamp.

That’s all for now. Have a great weekend everyone!

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

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.

October 11 Blog Review

This week was extremely busy for me. It also was busy in the CRM world. The latest Rollup for CRM 2011 was released and CRM 2013 became available as well. Check out this week’s top stories and blogs.

Update Rollup 15 has been released for CRM 2011. You can get all the details from CRM in the Field. The big changes in this rollup are improvements in CRM for Outlook. You can also check out the Knowledge base article for all the details.

Leon Tribe talked about how even if we do not have the Flow UI we can still design Work Processes in CRM 2011. The concept here is to create a workflow off of certain actions that causes tasks to be created. Then we can wait for those tasks to be completed prior to moving forward.

As you prepare for the upgrade, make sure you review your implementation for legacy code that is no longer supported. Check out PowerObject’s Using the Legacy Feature Check Tool to Prepare for CRM 2013.

CRM 2013 is now available. Donna Edwards posted all the links and information you will need to get started. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team also announced the CRM 2013 Customer Center, Implementation Guide and SDK.

PowerObjects discusses how to Create Business Processes in CRM 2013. Business Processes were partially available in CRM 2011 (after the Polaris release) but will be available on all Entities in CRM 2013. The process allows the system to guide users through what they need to do. These are easily created and edited by any users with the appropriate permissions.

CustomerEffective discusses another new feature of CRM 2013, Business Rules. This allows you to create rules on your form without the use of JavaScript. Some rules that can be created are setting fields to required, locking fields, displaying an error message, or doing a calculation.

Chris Cognetta posted about the CRM 2013 mobile offering. Check out the iPad Screenshot Tour and his tutorial on how to Pin CRM Tiles in Windows 8 Mobile Client.

If you are not already convinced to move to CRM 2013, check out Jamie Miley’s 7 Great Reasons to Upgrade to CRM 2013.

That should cover the top stories. Have a nice weekend!

September 27 Blog Review

As we approach the impending release of CRM 2013 I suspect that this review will continue to be divided. Half is for the future, half is for the past. Let us begin.

News about CRM 2013:

PowerObjects describes the new Inline Lookup Controls in CRM 2013. When clicking the search button on the lookup, records will display with basic information about the record. If the records shown are not what you are looking for you can either choose “Look up more records” or use the new Quick Create functionality to create a new record.

CustomerEffective describes some of the new Quick Features in CRM 2013. One of Microsoft’s biggest objectives with this release was Reimagined Experience. To aid with this (as well as Mobil and general user adoption) they have created quick features to help users accomplish tasks faster. There is the Quick Create which allows users to create a new record with just basic information without leaving the screen where they are working. There is also the Quick View to see the important highlights of a record. Magnetism also posted a good comparison of these features: Quick Create vs. Quick Forms.

For our CRM Online folks, Chris Cognetta explains what you need to know about the New License Model for CRM 2013. There are now several different license types and you can be flexible and assign different licenses to different users. How do you decide who gets what type of license? See Chris’ response:

Here’s the key – If the user is creating Sales Entities (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities etc.) then they need the Professional License. If the user is a backoffice user only updating (Not creating these records), then they could use the basic license. XRM applications not making use of the main these records types can really benefit from the Essential license to access Customized Entities.

Correction: Basic User licenses cannot use Opportunities.

Preact CRM posted CRM 2013 FAQ’s. They go through some of the top questions they have received from users with their answers.

Also this week I attended the MSDynamicsWorld Webinar What Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 will mean for the Enterprise customer. Most of the topics discussed were items that have been highly publicized already. They discussed the “One Microsoft” (integrated product suite) with the 4 key goals of: Reimagined Experience, Process Agility, CRM on the go and Social in Context. Also there will be twice-yearly releases for Online with a yearly On-Premise release that will be a rollup of the Online releases. Update Rollups will be delivered every 12 weeks. These twice-yearly releases do not include the Marketing Update releases. See Slide Below.

Most of the interesting points came out in the questions. The mobile apps that will come with the release are built on a new mobile framework called MoCA (Mobile Client Application). This allows developers to write apps that will work on multiple platforms. This will be available to ISVs and partners so they can write their own apps using this framework.

On the topic of marketing – Marketing Functionalities will never be available for On Premise deployments. These features will ONLY be available with CRM Online. This is because of the functionality involving working with other marketers and organizations, sending working copies, etc. This would not be able to work correctly On Premise.

News about CRM 2011:

PowerObjects also wrote about how to Assign Records to Inactive Users. This can be beneficial if you want to migrate old data. You do not want to give it a generic owner but you also don’t want to use too many CRM licenses. So create new users and then deactivate them. If you ensure they have a Security Role, records can still be assigned.

CustomerEffective introduces the CRM Data Detective! This is a cool tool available on CodePlex that allows you to look at how fields are being used in your organization. It is a good way to find fields that you may need to emphasize or remove. This topic has come up in my organization and I look forward to trying out the tool.

Leon Tribe talks to us about how to Report on Activity Parties. The User fields on an Activity (Owner, Required Attendee, Regarding, Sender, etc.) have Activity Party records. So Activity: Regarding = ABC Company; this means that the Activity has a related Activity Party for ABC Company with the Participation Type = Regarding. This is helpful to keep in mind when you build Advanced Find views. You cannot build an Advanced Find based on Activity Parties but you can include them in the filter criteria as a related record. Also, you can create Reports using the Report Wizard and pull in Activity Parties as the Related Record type. Then you can list the Activity Parties directly in the report.

This concludes the review of all the key things that were posted this week. The excitement is building for CRM 2013. We are only a few weeks away. CRMUG Summit is fast approaching as well. I hope to see all of you there!