Microsoft Dynamics 365 Upgrading from 8.2.2 to 8.2.3

As part of troubleshooting Server Side Sync we upgraded our on-premise Dynamics 365 environment from version 8.2.2 to 8.2.3 (8.2.3 Details). There were several issues that occurred from this upgrade that I wanted to share to prevent you from falling into the same traps (or at least knowing how to recover when they arise).

Related Articles: Server Side Sync troubleshooting steps, Upgrade from 8.1.8.22 Issues

X-Anchor Header Change
The main reason we upgraded to this version was to ensure all integrations with Exchange used the X-Anchor Header. After the upgrade, this feature needs to be enabled by updating the OrgDB setting UseXAnchorMailboxInExchangeRequestHeader to True.

Navigation
After the upgrade, one of our Navigation menus had additional options. To resolve, I simply edited the navigation as part of the form editor and included this in a solution. Then imported this solution as part of the Live upgrade.

SQL Error
Post-upgrade several users reported getting a SQL Error when attempting to access Dynamics 365. This error would pop up anytime a list of records attempted to load without a wait/timeout. Direct links to Accounts could open but related records could not be viewed.

Teams are heavily used in our environment for access and sharing. We found that each of these users was a member of over 20 teams. When several teams were removed, access returned as normal.

Reopened Tasks
CRM for Outlook is also used in my organization. We have seen cases in the past where tasks or calls were created in Dynamics 365 from Outlook even though they already existed (lots of duplicates!). This issue is no longer occurring, but some tasks and calls are being reopened.

So post upgrade, its important to monitor modified Activities especially where they were created in the past and already have an Actual End populated.

Sharing Advanced Find
The last issue we have experienced (or at least we have found so far!) was related to sharing Advanced Finds. Users were able to share views with individual users but received an error when attempting to share with a team. Downloading the log file revealed "missing prvReadUserApplicationMetadata privilege". The User Application Metadata option is available on the Security Role Customization tab. I granted User level Read Access and this resolved the issue.

Has anyone else upgraded to 8.2.3? Any other issues I should be aware of?

User Application Metadata Security Update

4x4 Series: Planning your Upgrade

I was asked to participate in the CRMUG 4x4 webinar series. These are quick webinars with multiple speakers sharing tips and answering questions. I also wanted to document my tips here for future reference.

Upgrades are exciting but they can be a lot of work especially in very customized systems. Check out these tips and let me know what other tips you have.

Clean up Before

Determine what you can do before the upgrade to save you time during the upgrade. For example, when going from 2011 to 2016 (as I will do later this year) make sure that you are on the latest rollup so your JavaScript is up to date and work on getting all of your integrations on the 2011 end points. Look at unsupported code early so you can deal with it ahead of time or at least have a plan in place. If you are on 2013/2015 and moving to 2016, look at the JavaScript you have and see if it can be transitioned to business rules so it will upgrade without issue.

What can Wait

Two pieces to this point: waiting to take advantage of new features and implementing a code freeze. When you train new users on the system you want to focus on getting them to do their job in a new system, you do not also want to be training on new processes and features. Focus on migrating not improving/changing right away.

Also maintain the integrity of the upgrade by implementing a code freeze or as much as possible holding off development during the upgrade window. If you are making changes in production, you will need to re-work or at least review all of these changes in your upgraded development. Prepare a plan to hold off on most requests and also be prepared to get working on them once you upgrade

Showing Value

As you work on the upgrade look for the "Big Win" tips. This can be anything that helps users or is just a flashy feature. These are great to show off in training and show upper level management so they can quickly see the value of the upgrade. These can also be used for promotion to build excitement and drive user adoption. Also look for the features that executives will care about - will this help reporting? Performance? Be prepared to promote those items too so you can build sponsorship and buy-in. If the organization can see the value of the upgrade then they will be more likely to be engaged in training, patient during the code freeze, and ready to adopt the changes.

Other Tips

I also stole some tips from our partner Dave Ireland, at Salentica:

• Ensure you have current software, instructions, and license keys from all 3rd party vendors.  You don’t want to get to upgrade weekend only to find out you’re missing a license key or that you should have removed a managed solution from the old version prior to upgrading.
• If coming from CRM 2013 or newer, do you have access to your CRM Encryption key?  You may need it so be sure to have it handy.  Don’t forget to ensure the encryption is active post-upgrade or Outlook clients might not be able to connect.
• If coming from ‘pre-metro’ versions of the UI (CRM2011 or lower) allocate a significant amount of time for UI design work.  There’s a lot more white space on your canvas and there are also some new controls to play with, so take advantage.   Also test the layout of your forms on the mobile app if that’s in scope for your deployment.
• Have all users ‘gracefully’ remove the outlook client before cutting users off from the ‘old’ CRM version.  You can either get them to disable all of their sync filters or ask them to remove the Org from their configuration.  They key is to allow the Outlook client to remove all the data from its internal database store before the upgrade.
• Have a plan for handling regularly-scheduled integrations.  If you have integrations that run periodically or on a scheduled basis, determine how they will be impacted if your CRM is down for 24 hours.  Will the integration ‘catch-up’ or will you need to pause the integrations and run them manually once the new CRM is online?
• Do a dry-run in UAT.  Document every step and the expected duration of each.  On go-live weekend there’s a lot of stress that isn’t present when you’re doing the upgrade in a sandbox.  If you have every step documented (even in bullet points) it will help ensure you don’t miss anything or do something out of sequence.  Tracking the times will help you set expectations with the business owners about when they need be available for testing.
• Starting in CRM 2015, Contacts have an extra ‘system address’ added.  In previous versions, there are only 2 addresses on Account, Contact, and Lead.  Now there is an address3 on the contact record – if you use More Addresses, take note that the ‘first’ More Address might get dropped from the More Address list because it is now in the address3 slot, and no longer considered a ‘more’ address.  If this is a problem, you might need to manufacture a dummy address3 record, and bump all the other address numbers up by one to get back to where you started.
• If you are upgrading from 2011 be aware that the File -> Properties area of the form no longer exists. So you may need to consider moving the created on/by and modified on/by onto your forms as read-only fields.

Here are some tips from the other panelists as well:

• Plan well - inventory customizations (plugins, JavaScript, Workflows) and inventory connectivity to external systems
• Test in a Sandbox, make use of the Code Validation tool to test your customizations
• Clean up code - can we replace code with new out of the box features? Evaluate processes and determine if there is a better way to handle it
• Plan your timeline. You cannot make changes in a Dev 2016 environment and then import into a lower environment. You will need to do these changes multiple times. Factor this into your project plan
• Plan your training. How will you train? What do you roll out with the upgrade and train on? How will this impact users? Keep users informed and seek feedback. Make use of power users for improvements, engagement and also help with questions.
• Dealing with new features - wait to implement those until after the upgrade. This gives you more time to test and review and train separately.
• Scribe - always using web services when you are using the adaptor so everything should be straight forward to migrate.
• Security Roles - create new base role and go through permissions to identify what is unique for 2015 that wasn't in 2011. Must compare roles because new permissions were added.

What other tips do you have? What are you doing now to prepare for your next upgrade?

Check out the recording from the 4x4 Presentation here: https://www.crmug.com/communities/community-home/librarydocuments/viewdocument/?DocumentKey=1bf0e3e9-f225-4061-93ba-fa1f19b63d5d&tab=librarydocuments

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!

October 30 Blog Review

Happy Halloween!

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I do not have any spooky CRM Stories for you other than users saying they didn’t do something the system says they did. Instead I have a quick blog review touching on the highlights of the last few weeks while I was busy with Summit and such. Let’s jump right in.

PowerObjects is working on a series about CRM Upgrades. Check out this installment – Upgrading CRM: Reimplementation vs. Upgrade – Choosing What’s Right for you. This talks about what the options of reimplementation and upgrade mean along with the reasons you might select one or the other.

EMEA Dynamics Support posted a helpful troubleshooting article, Dynamics CRM Bulk Delete – General Support Questions. This works through the common questions and issues that they deal with and how to respond.

A little bit ago we talked about the CRM 2016 Release Preview Guide. This is a very long document, so if you don’t have time to read it you should check out Leon Tribe’s slightly shorter summary – Review of the Latest Dynamics CRM Release Preview Guide. There are lots of great new features centered around Microsoft’s themes for Productivity, Intelligence, Mobility and Unified Service.

Sonoma Partners shared the Negative Effects of a Disjointed CRM Environment. This touches on the importance of ensuring your CRM supports and aligns with your business as it grows and integrates with all the necessary systems. Some of the impacts of a disjointed CRM environment include customer satisfaction, employee productivity and retention and company performance.

Lastly, I will put all of you in charge of reviewing the recent posts of CRM Tip of the Day. What was your favorite tip? Anything that can help your business?

Have a great weekend and a happy Halloween!  

P.S. Make sure you come out to the Washington, DC Chapter Meeting on November 4^th get more details and register here. 

Summit 2015: Day 2 Takeaways

It's a bit late but it's always good to learn more Summit takeaways. Here is what was discussed on Day 2 of Summit 2015.

Upgrading

Between 2011 and 2015 there are over 1500 updates so there are many reasons to upgrade. Keep in mind that the longer you wait to upgrade the more difficult it will be. To upgrade (not migrate/re-implement) you will need to go through each version. Keep in mind the optional table merge for 2013 needs to be done to move to 2015. Make sure you schedule time for this in your upgrade if you want to skip 2013.

Upgrades are difficult because of the little hacks and things we did to get around limitations. Using Business rules will make future upgrades easier. Make sure you take advantage of the new features to replace the code you have.

Keep in mind that some new permissions were added with 2013. This means if you have custom Security Roles these will need to be updated to include the new permissions.

If you are considering using mobile, set up IFD and ADFS now. Code will need to be updated to work correctly with IFD. Take the time to do that work with the upgrade so that when you are ready you can just turn on IFD.

Make sure you talk to your ISVs early and ensure they have a migration and upgrade plan. Be sure to follow this plan to prevent accidental deletion of data.

When reviewing your reports, look on the SSRS server to see the date for the last time it was run. If it hasn't been run for 6 months, remove it.

When demoing new functionality, use CRM Online. CRM 2015 online is the same code base for CRM 2016 on-premise.

Tools:

• Legacy Upgrade Tool - report of everything that I going to fail in IE or Other browsers with the upgrade
• XRM Tool box: Document generator  shows all of the items that have been added to entities

Security

CRM was designed for sharing data. Don't over complicate it with too many business units or security limitations.

New in 2015 - Hierarchical security. This allows you to configure security based on manager or position hierarchy. In both, users will have full access one level down, then read access down the rest of the chain.

A great way to prevent mistakes that are more difficult to control is real time workflows. You can have these run pre-delete for instance to stop users from deleting records of certain statuses. These can be used for many user-error items such as changing status, reassigning, deactivating, etc. Bonus tip: You can even put the user's name in the error!

Implementation

When looking at a new to you implementation, first take time to evaluate security. This helps you be effective on day 1 as you evaluate concerns, risks, etc.

When building, create an implementation strategy. This gives you something to follow and later will provide historical data of what was done, when, and why.

When working on changes, ensure there is a gate keeper for these requests. This person can manage any dependencies and act as the owner for all changes that go into the production implementation. It is good if this person has a technology background so they can understand and monitor all dependencies for multiple areas (within CRM, integrations, plugins, etc.).

Share the love of CRM with your developers. Show then CRM and explain the power (i.e. creating a field here is updating the database schema). Show them how to build fields, workflows, business process flows, etc. This is a great way to get them involved and help to make sure all changes are fully evaluated to see if they can be done inside of CRM or not.

User Adoption tips:

• Find your biggest resistor and determine the main reason for the resistance
• Work with the resistors through personal training. Show them how CRM will help them. They will become your cheerleaders without even realizing it.
• Continuously provide tips and tricks
• Drive excitement by showing them new features and how these will solve their problems
• Show users what's in it for them

That's all for today. I hope to have Day 3 posted soon!

October 9 Blog Review

It’s a short blog review today because I still have lots of packing to do for CRMUG Summit! I’m looking forward to the week out in Reno connecting with so many great CRM professionals! My goals this year are to learn how to successfully upgrade from CRM 2011 to (hopefully) 2016 with minimal loss of sanity. As well as learning how to be a better Chapter Leader for Washington, DC (and promoting #CRMUGDC too)!

Some other reading for this weekend includes PowerObject’s JavaScript Best Practices for CRM 2015. This talks about what you can do but also gives some things to keep in mind while you are coding away.

CRM Tip of the Day shared Whatever happened to the “copy a link” button? This talks about how the button was removed in 2015 but there are a few ways to still get the link. (Spoiler alert: It was removed due to cross browser compatibility issues.)

CRM Tip of the Day also posted Do not Reuse the Owner field. This describes how the Owner field is much more than just a user lookup and how you need to make sure you consider security and all the implications before reusing that field.

Sonoma Partners blogged on Upgrading to CRM 2015? Here’s what you should Consider. This walks through a few things to keep in mind and the new features that you may want to upgrade for.

That’s all for today. I hope to see many of you in Reno!

July 17 Blog Review

Welcome to this week’s blog review! The most important takeaway today is that all of you should join me at the Nationals Game tomorrow (July 18). This is a meet up for the Washington, DC area CRMUG chapters. It will be a great way to meet other CRM users and learn a bit more about CRMUG even if you haven’t come out to our quarterly meetings.

Back to other CRM news, check out PowerObject’s Dynamics CRM 2015 Spring Update 1: Date and Time Data Type. This is talking about the new data types of User Local and Time Zone Independent. This gives customizers a way to ensure that all users see the same date when they look at a date only field.

PowerObjects also posted on How to Define Scope for a Dynamics CRM Project. This talks about the steps you should take when you plan out the project and what pieces need to be identified.

The Microsoft Dynamics Team Blog announced a way to Track Incoming Email from Anywhere with the new CRM App for Outlook. This allows you to use the CRM for Outlook features from the Outlook web app or desktop app.

CRM Tip of the Day also talked about CRM for Outlook and posted Read Only Users and CRM for Outlook. This discusses how the CRM for Outlook configuration requires a user to have write access to CRM.

That’s all I have for today folks! Have a great weekend!

July 1 Blog Review

This week’s blog review is a bit early due to the Holiday but the CRM news-machine is still running. Lots of great tips and tricks to share with you today.

PowerObjects posted two great how-to articles. How to Hide the Lead Qualify Button without Coding talks about how you can remove the Account and Contact create permissions to prevent some users from being able to qualify their leads.

Also see Aging using the ‘Older Than’ Clause with Advanced Find. This talks about the new “Older Than” option in Advanced Find with CRM 2015 Update 1. This will allow you to look at calls that are older than 24 hours or even Leads that were created 5 minutes ago. The possibilities are endless!

There are also a few CRM Tip of the Day posts that you should read. If your Child Workflow needs more than One Entity describes two options for getting the information to the child workflow. In CRM 2015 Update 1 you can create a process as global or you can use an intermediate entity to pass all the data (don’t forget to clean these records up!).

No email Without Activity reminds us that if you enable an entity for email you also need to enable it for Activities.

We have looked at Leon Tribe’s Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment over the last few weeks. This week he released Part Three – Technology. This includes embracing and using the new features CRM offers such as Hierarchical views, Business Process Rules and Business Process Flows. All of the improvements in CRM 2015 (especially update 1) make CRM a very appealing product which will help make your project a success.

As organizations are updating from older versions to CRM 2013/2015 many questions come up in regards to what should stay in code and what should take advantage of the new features. If you are in this situation, be sure to read C5Insight’s article – Business Rules or JavaScript in CRM…that is the Question. This talks about the benefits and limitations of Business Rules to keep in mind while you are making your decision.

Finally, the CRM Team is continually working on providing better training and documentation for CRM customers. This week they announced a CRM eBooks and Videos Page. This is a great tool for finding the resources you need.

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

June 26 Blog Review

Apparently everyone is off on vacation except for me. I just have a few quick posts to highlight for you this week.

First of all, several weeks ago we talked about the importance of people in your CRM deployment. This week Leon Tribe talked about the Top Ten Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment: Part two – Process. This stresses the importance of planning the system with the future in mind and fixing data quality issues early before they get too out of hand.

Next I love Hosk’s blog on CRM 2013 – How to stop these Annoying Things in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This talks about fixes for annoying things such as the Outlook download reminder, pending emails notification and send error report question.

Finally, PowerObjects provided a step-by-step walk-through of Collapsing Business Process Flows in CRM 2013/2015. This shows you how to create a web resource that will hide all the Process Flow details until the user needs them.

That’s all I have. Have a great day!

July 19 Blog Review

Let’s jump right into our CRM news of the week!

This is a bit more technical than I usually include but you should check out Hosk’s Don’t let bugs get into Production Environments. This stresses the importance of making sure you look for issues throughout the whole design and release process. It will be harder to fix the longer you let it grow!

Hitachi Solutions posted about 10 ways CRM Benefits the Individual. There are many benefits to using CRM. You users need to understand the ways it benefits them so that they will use the system and take advantages of what it provides.

C5Insight shared CRM Deployment Options … How to Decide? This walks through your deployment choices and the factors that will need to go into your decision.

Leon Tribe blogged about the Top Ten Secrets to a Successful CRM Deployment: Part One – People. This walks through ten reasons why people are essential to your CRM success including executive buy-in and training.

Finally there were two great tips posted by PowerObjects that are worth checking out:

• Clearing a Field Value Using Business Rules – This walks you through writing a business rule that will remove the value from a field on your form
• How to Make Unused OOB Fields Unsearchable in Dynamics CRM – Advanced Find is a great tool to empower your users but it can be very overwhelming when users see a long list of fields. To make it easier, set your unused fields as unsearchable so they will no longer appear there. Just keep in mind the limitations of unsearchable fields.

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

June 5 Blog Review

I cannot believe it is June already and summer is in full swing! Unfortunately I am not at the beach but we can make the most of it by looking at the CRM posts from this week.

CRM in the Field posted Improve CRM query performance using Compatibility version 120 with SQL 2014. This describes how some users saw performance issues in CRM for Outlook after upgrading from 2011 to 2015. To resolve check the Compatibility level of your SQL server to ensure it is set to SQL 2014.

Leon Tribe wrote Upgrade vs Rebuild, Interest vs Responsibility. This is a case study on the options available to upgrade from v3 to CRM 2015 and the implications of each method.

You should also check out Jukka Niiranen’s Tracking Pipeline Development Over Time in CRM 2015. This is the third article in his Smarter Sales Processes series.

A quick tip that is easily forgotten is that you can hold the Shift key to sort on multiple columns while in Advanced Find. Review Ledgeview Partner’s post on Sorting Multiple Columns in CRM for more details and screenshots.

The CRM Team announced this week the Dynamics CRM Dynamic Help Feature. This allows you to get help on an error within CRM for Outlook (CRM 2015) and be directed to an article for that specific issue. To get this all set up, they need assistance from users! So if you encounter an issue send them the error details and the redirect link so they can develop the necessary KB article.

Finally, here are a few quick tips from CRM Tip of the Day:

• My form Script Changes Aren’t Working – if your script changes did not take effect, try clearing your cache or using ctrl+F5
• Calculate the Difference Between Two Dates – With the CRM 2015 Update 1 you can now use the DiffinDays function to use a calculated field to show you how long an opportunity has been open

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

May 29 Blog Review

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

PowerObjects posted Preparing for CRM Upgrades. This is a great quick reference guide about what you need to know for all types of upgrades from simpler cases (2013 to 2015) to the bigger ordeals (4.0 to 2015).

Sonoma Partners talks about Avoiding Form Script Errors with CRM Online 2015 Update 1. The update includes a new way of loading forms which can dramatically impact performance. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind and be aware of.

CRM Tip of the Day posted an interesting tip – Where did the Opportunity subgrade pop-out button go? This talks about how administrators may make new lookup fields on the opportunity but if you ever make any sub-grids you will want to use the Potential Customer relationship.

One more post to highlight from CRM Tip of the Day is Please Subscribe me to All you’ve got. This is a great way to allow users to add contacts to multiple Marketing Lists at once by using a sub-grid.

It’s a quiet week with the holiday and everyone starting off their summer plans. Hopefully we will have more exciting news next week. Have a great weekend!

May 8 Blog Review

The most important news this week is that you need to be coming to the CRMUG Washington, DC Chapter meeting next Wednesday May 13^th (Blog, Video, Register). You can also see other news and posts below.

This week the CRM Team announced the General Availability for Spring 2015 Release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing. Their post discusses the key improvements to be aware of (and excited for!).

If you need more information, Anne Stanton compiled a list of Great Resources for Dynamics CRM v7.x.x. This links to the Microsoft videos as well as the different announcements.

Related to this update, Sonoma Partners posted CRM Online Spring 2015 – Folder Level Tracking. This is a great new feature which allows users to set up specific Outlook folders which automatically track and even set the Regarding to a specific record.

Adam Vero continued his charting series with “Mind the gap” to make your CRM Charts look better. This describes how to use the PointWidth and MaxPixelPointWidth properties to ensure your chart looks good on all size monitors and devices. These properties set the amount of the screen filled with columns and (from the opposite perspective) the max size that your columns can be.

I also found these two blogs from a few weeks ago from Ms. Dynamics CRM – Import Case, Account and Contact at once in Single File in CRM Import Wizard and Tips & Tricks: How to solve the Common Bulk Import Problem: ‘The Lookup Reference Could Not Be Resolved’ in CRM Import Wizard. Both of these are things that I have never tried but sounds very interesting. I can’t wait to experiment with it!

Finally, from the CRM Tip of the Day – Training? On New Features? Free? Yes, Please! This directs you to some training for the 2015 Spring release that is available on YouTube.

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

March 27 Blog Review

It has been another busy week in the CRM world. Everyone is catching up from Convergence last week and spreading all the information. So let’s take a look.

• If you missed Convergence in Atlanta, here is all the information you need:
• Video Library Now Available! Thanks for sharing Ledgeview Partners!
• PowerObject’s Convergence 2015 Takeaways
• Jukka Niiranen posted A Few Notes on Convergence 2015 Announcements
• Sonoma Partners’ Convergence 2015 Keynote Recap
• McGladrey shared Microsoft Convergence recap from a Dynamics CRM Perspective (lots of pictures!)

Lean Tribe posted A Codeless Alert System for Dynamics CRM. This walks through how to use Business Rules to set up an alert for users. This is a great way to get the user’s attention and force them to read a message before interacting with the record. The main benefit is that the business logic for this alert can be easily changed through the interface without needing to involve a developer to modify the code.

PowerObjects discussed Branching and Programmatically Branching Process Flows. This talks about how to deal with processes which change based on certain data and the multiple ways to achieve the desired result.

CRM Tip of the Day posted a great time about Avoiding Duplicate Contacts when Upgrading. This gives some things to keep in mind when you are upgrading your CRM system and the options you have for dealing with the Outlook client.

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

March 20 Blog Review

This has been a very exciting week because it was Microsoft Convergence! Lots of exciting things were discussed and announced so let’s cover that first.

The big announcement of course was the CRM 2015 Spring Release. The CRM Team blog posted the Official Pre-Release Content for you to check out.

Hitachi Solutions posted some great summaries of the announcements each day: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. The most exciting enhancement for me was themes which allows you to customize the colors of your CRM system and even add a logo! You can also see this feature on CRM Tip of the Day’s Turn CRM Green.

Microsoft’s Premier Field Engineers shared 3 posts on 15 tips in 15 minutes sessions that they had at Convergence – Upgrading, Optimization, and Customization.

Finally, McGladrey posted the Spring Release Highlights to recap what we have been looking at so far.

Non-Convergence related you should check out PowerObjects’ post on Definitions of ‘Append’ and ‘Append To’ in Dynamics CRM. This describes the difference, why it’s important and how to keep it straight in your mind.

That’s all I have. Have a great weekend everyone!

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!

January 9 Blog Review

It’s time for the first blog review for 2015!

PowerObjects gave us some insight into The Art of Campaign Design: Marketing Automation in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing. This shows a little bit about how to set up campaigns in MDM and how to set up some automation.

PowerObjects also talked about Key Considerations for Writing Scripts for CRM for Tablets Application. This discusses what to keep in mind when your JavaScript will be executed on a tablet and how to test.

Adam Vero pointed out that the CRM 2015 Exams have been posted along with some training. Use his blog as a reference for all the information you need.

Along with the 2015 exams being posted, all of the 2015 documentation is available. Use this CRM in the Field guide for all the links to CRM 2015 White Papers & Technical Documentation.

Sonoma Partners discusses the CRM 2015 Outlook and Sync Enhancements. Check out all the new features that will be available to ensure you can sync exactly what you want and how you want to.

Finally, let’s see what the CRM Tip of the day had for us over the last few weeks:

• Living in the Past – this talks about the upgrade path from CRM 4.0 to 2015 along with considerations and things to keep in mind.
• What to Consider before Changing your CRM partner – lots of good tips and thoughts in here including how to mitigate some of the risks.
• New Entities and Attributes in CRM 2015 – this is a list of all the new attributes in CRM 2015 so you know if you ever run across them.

That’s all for today. Happy 2015!

Summit 2014: Day 3 Takeaways

Last day! So much information! There is no way to capture all the important information (especially since I can only be in one place at a time), so be sure to review the slides if you have access and watch the encore webinars when they occur.

Charting you Can’t do out of the Box – Adam Vero

Before you start working ask: Who? What? When? Where (Device, Resolution)?

Tools: Blank paper and pencil or white board and colored pens (get buy-in, determine how it will look); Notepad, Notepad++ or Visual Studio

Goal: “Use simple charts in clever ways”

Method: build what you can with out of the box tools, export, edit, reimport and repeat. Keep in mind if you “Keep Both” on your initial import you will need to export the newly created chart because it has a new GUID.

To save space, make the chart title descriptive so we can remove the axis labels.

You can easily change colors in the XML by listing the RGB values, if you give 4 numbers instead of 3 the first number will set the transparency.

Errors on chart import: Invalid XML means missing < > or similar issue, Specific error probably means a property name is incorrect (generally must be Camel Case).

Use ToolTips to display data on demand. Can be used for information or values. Keep in mind the values cannot be formatted.

“Palette Shift” – colors are assigned in order, not related to the data. You can fix this by using multiple series rather than 2^nd category. Filter each series by value.

Upgrading CRM Panel – Chris Cognetta, Bob Kanzler, David Goff

Scope

You can postpone updating your 2011 forms but it is recommended that you do this with the upgrade so you do not need to train twice. The forms must be updated before moving to SP1.

Form merge feature will include all default fields plus your form. Recommendation is to start with blank new form and add all your fields to it.

Do not add new functionality with the upgrade. Wait before deploying Business Process Flows. You can use new functionality to replace existing code (replace JS with Business Rules) but do not add new features.

When going live, go right to the latest!

Business Process rules will probably continue to be improved and eventually replace dialogs.

Test ISVs and Integrations in Dev/Test environments.

Outlook Add-in

CRM 2013 for Outlook does not support Citrx (may work but not supported, no longer part of documentation)

Resource Challenges

Need FULL TIME Project Manager

IT must be involved in day to day, do not just let partner do it. They must be able to provide support starting day 1.

Requirements

Try to freeze development during the upgrade. If fields are added in both places, those fields are NOT the same (different GUIDs). This can cause an error when importing solutions.

Testing and Training Plans

Use front-line users as testers.

Custom security roles will not be upgraded (they will not include new 2013 permissions). Recommendation to resolve is remove custom roles, go back to Out of the box roles and trim down permissions as necessary.

Tips from the CRM Tipsters – George Doubinski, Gus Gonzalez, Joel Lindstrom, Jerry Weinstock

Check out the daily tips at www.CRMTipOfTheDay.com and submit your tips at jar@CRMTipOfTheDay.com

Tip #92 – review cascading relationships to evaluate and understand behavior.

Tip #158 – review Security Roles when you upgrade. Do a full review. Start with Out of the Box roles and trim them down. There is a codeplex tool to determine what roles people have. May want to hire a developer to write a tool to replace old roles with the new roles. Do NOT ever modify built in roles, make a copy and edit there.

Tip #121-125 – Workflows and Wait conditions. Be careful using “waiting” workflows because these are always running. When using wait, separate into parent/child workflows where the Child is called after the wait condition. Also be careful with “Canceled” – only use when something must be done.

Tip #84 – To resolve date issues across multiple time zones set the time to 10:59 AM UTC. This will cover most of the world.

The Confidence Code – Kelly Rosvold

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Sit at the table – be a participant not a spectator

Don’t leave before you leave – commit until you can’t, don’t step back too soon

Making your partner a real partner – give up control and let your partner support and help you

Check out: Lean In Circles to find support in your community

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay, Claire Shipman

Learn to be confident by: Failing Fast (take risks, fail smaller), Acting instead of holding back, practice making decisions, self compassion for missteps, move on!, banish negative automatic thoughts, reframe

Summit 2014: Day 1 Takeaways

I am going to try my best to summarize what I learned on Day 1 of Summit. There was so much more information but I could not possibly process it let alone try to put it into coherent sentences. (But of course the most important piece to note is that Tony Stein called me out in the CRMUG General Session and told everyone to read my blog!!!)

Upgrading CRM – Chris Cognetta

 2015 is more like an R2 version of 2013. It is just additional features so more like an update than an upgrade.

Today 95% of CRM deployments are virtualized. This is great for Security, Disaster Recovery, etc.

Upgrade Checklist:

1.      Review upgrade path

2.      Review infrastructure set up, current users, DB Size, etc.

3.      Review User Access (web, Outlook Client, Mobile, IFD)

4.      Review usage of Jscript for security, sub grids, and web service calls

5.      Review SDK enhancements for plugins or workflow assemblies

6.      Review integrations with 3^rd party IVS

7.      Review data integrations with scribe, SSIS, etc.

8.      Review data for decision on upgrade or reload

Rollup Rules: Read (make sure there is something you want), Wait (stay 1 behind)

Opening General Session: CRM 2015 – Jujhar Singh

Product Growth – Customer Service, Social Listening, Marketing and acquisition of Capptain (mobile marketing)

Sales productivity solution from Microsoft: Zero In -> Win Faster -> Sell More

Check out these slides about the future enhancements:

Techie Talk: Upgrading Complex Systems –Alex Fagundes, Jerry Weinstock

Upgrading is not a strategy, it’s a tactical exercise

CRM 2013/2015 is about 40% more efficient than CRM 2011 because of the consolidated tables.

On Premise Upgrade Scenarios: (1) In Place, (2) Connect to existing, (3) [RECOMMENDED} Side by Side

Some codeplex tools to check out to enhance your 2013 experience: (1) One Click Navigation, (2) Quickview Menu, (3) Quick Navigation

Partner Showcase: Resco Glass, wearable CRM – Ivan Stano

They have a working version of a CRM App for Google Glass – so cool!

Security and Performance – Adam Vero

Try to use a layered security model – start with a base role for all users, add roles for specific functions that ONLY contain the additional privileges

Security Roles assigned to teams are giving access based on the team (BU access would be the BU of the team NOT the user)

Access Teams are still regular teams and sharing but they remove the admin overhead of team creation. They are easier for users because they do not need to use the Share dialog and choose permissions.

Owner teams have security roles. Access teams do not have security roles.

If the Access team template is modified, this will not change any existing shares. It will only affect shares from that point forward.

When creating new lookup fields remember you are creating the RELATIONSHIP. You must think about and configure the cascading behavior.

Cascading Options for Delete:

1.      Cascade All – Kill all the orphans

2.      Remove Link – create orphan records

3.      Restrict – prevent orphan records

October 10 Blog Review

There are only a few more days before CRMUG Summit so next week will be full of news! Let’s see what has been going on this week.

The CRM Team posted – Looking for help for the CRM product family. This has lots of links to help, information and blogs about the different Dynamics CRM products (CRM, Marketing, Social Listening). This is a great resource to keep handy.

McGladrey posted two blogs about their takeaways from eXtream CRM 2014. What to Expect for CRM 2015 goes over the key features and functionality we can expect to be seeing in the next version. Then Looking beyond CRM 2015 talks about Microsoft’s vision and the things we can expect to see highlighted in the development of future products.

There were two CRM Tips that I would like to highlight today:

• The Undo Button – this discusses the functionality of Jason Lattimer’s Audit undo solution which allows you to roll back changes on your form to an earlier audit record.
• My Workflow is my business – here you can learn about the impact of the scope field on a workflow to segment your business processes or for use in testing.

CRM in the Field posted CRM Outlook Client Performance Troubleshooting and Optimization Guide. This goes through everything you need to look at and know when troubleshooting problems with CRM for Outlook.

Donna Edwards started her compilation of CRM 2015 Helpful Resources. Refer to this when you begin the process of upgrading to 2015 and find all the information you need.

Adam Vero posted a compilation of CRM 2015 YouTube Videos. This features three videos from Microsoft about what to expect in CRM 2015. The topics consist of Upgrading (must be on CRM 2013 SP1 to upgrade), Field Level Security (now for built-in fields!!), and Business Process Flow Improvements.

Finally, PowerObjects talked about the CRM 2013 Performance Center. This describes how to use this new functionality (2013 SP1) and how to review the data.

That’s all for today. Have a great weekend and I hope to see you at Summit!