March 11 Blog Review

Let's jump right in to the blogs posted this week!

CRM Tip of the Day shared The "Silent Observer" Custom Activity. This talks about how you can set Custom Activities to not appear in Activity Menus. This allows you to hide them from users but still use them for tracking of certain communication or events.

Jukkan Niiranen posted on Everything as a Service - Not Just Your CRM. This expands upon Microsoft's announcement of the CRM 2016 Spring Wave just last week.

Sonoma Partners blogged on Surfacing the Right Business Process Flow. Here they walk through a bit of information on Business Process flows such as making them available for certain Security Roles, setting the order/priority and allowing users to switch between processes.

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

4x4 Series: Security Suggestions for the New Administrator

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.

There are so many tasks for a new CRM administrator. Security is a key area to focus on. The administrator needs to be familiar with who has access to what and why. So this is an area every administrator should invest time in right away. If you are inheriting a system, reviewing the security at the beginning is a great way to provide immediate value because you may see security issues or concerns that were not previously addressed.

Dangerous Permissions

There are several permissions to watch out for in your security roles:

• Delete - is there ever a reason your users need to delete? If not, remove it (I would vote that it is removed for all entities and most users)
• Bulk Edit - Do you want users to be able to edit multiple records at once? If done incorrectly, this could result in a large number of records having valid data removed and replaced with something else.
• Export to Excel - Depending on the sensitivity of your data you may want to remove the ability to Export to Excel. Keep in mind that the permission is for the whole system not per entity. So if they can export their list of activities they could also export contacts with their SSN's.
• Import - You should determine which users need to create batches of records. If this is combined with Export to Excel this can be very powerful as you can export the data, edit it and import it back into CRM. However, if this is done incorrectly it could again result in the loss of valid data.

Some other permissions to check on include: Bulk Delete, Merge, Run Workflow, etc.

Also keep in mind that Deactivate is not a permission. This can be a good alternative to delete but you should also ensure that users are trained on the proper use that fits within your business process.

Security Role Report

CRM has a Security Role report out of the box. This can be run on all users to see what roles they currently have. By default this role will include all users (enabled and disabled). However, you can run the report on users in a specific view or selected users. This allows you to narrow down your search (at least to enabled users) before reviewing.

This report is not the easiest to read but you can export it to excel and modify, search, move, etc. to make it a bit easier to work with.

Advanced Find

My favorite way to monitor security is using Advanced Find. You can build Advanced Find views to show all users on a specific team or with a specific security role. I find this particularly valuable for monitoring the high access roles such as System Administrator and System Customizer. This allows you to quickly see everyone with that type of access.

Note: When you create a view for all users with a Security Role, you will want to search for where "Name" equals the role name. This allows you to capture all the different versions of the role (since there is a copy per business unit).

Advanced Find of Users on a particular team

Advanced Find of Users with a particular Security Role

Other tips?

There are so many other great security tips. Adam Vero shares a wealth of knowledge on this topic - breaking out security role by functionality (Base role + Export to Excel role for example), understanding cascading relationships, understanding sharing (See Special Privileges in CRM Security Roles, Figuring out Shares in the PrincipalObjectAccess POA table in CRM, Security Roles and Teams in CRM - An Inconvenient Half-Truth). There are even tools that can tell you all the permissions in a given role and vice versa (Check out Security Role Browser,  XRMToolBox).

Tips from Other Panelists

Thanks to Jim Lauer and Jay Murphy for all of these great tips!

• Start with a Basic role for all users then add additional access
• Limit Sharing to maintain good performance
• Keep it simple, make it easy to administer
• Copy system roles, do not edit in case you need to review later
• Add a number or other prefix to your custom roles to keep them at the top of your list
• Justify why access is needed before making changes. "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"
• Use a temporary team and add a role to test access for a limited time

So what are your tips? What Security issues have you had to deal with? Any surprises?

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 26 Blog Review

Let’s jump right in to this blog review!

PowerObjects shared Five Awesome Benefits of Parature, from Microsoft. This talks about some of the features of Parature so you can figure out if it would work for your organization.

CRM Tip of the Day answered a great question – Why don’t I get all of my characters? This explains why large text fields do not hold the number of characters you expect them to.

For those who have ever been curious about what a being a CRM MVP means check out Jamie Miley’s post – An Insider’s Overview of Microsoft’s MVP Program. This talks about what you need to do to become an MVP and the benefits of that status.

Sonoma Partners shared several great blogs that should be discussed. First of all, Performance Considerations for Creating Custom Reports in CRM. This talks about some things to keep in mind when creating SSRS reports to ensure they have optimal performance. Side note: if you want to learn how to create SSRS Reports, check out the CRMUGDC Presentation from February 24.

Secondly, they posted on How to Get Your Executives to Pay Attention to CRM. This is crucial because you need your executives to support CRM so that they can mandate and drive user adoption!

Finally, check out Microsoft Convergence Morphs into Two Conferences. This helps clear up any confusion about the changes and let you know your options when choosing which events to attend in the future.

That’s all for today!

February 19 Blog Review

The most important news you need to remember this week is that the CRMUGDC Q1 Chapter Meeting takes place on Wednesday, February 24th from 8:30-12:30 at the Microsoft Office in Chevy Chase, MD. We will be focused on reporting and talking about the importance of having good data. Make sure you check out the details and register here!

These events are great for everyone so you can network and get answers to your questions! If you can't make it on Feb 24, the next meeting is May 11th and will be focused on Service. Get a preview by reading Ledgeview Partner's blog Spotlighting Service in CRM 2016.

PowerObjects shared - Developers Rejoice! Solution Enhancements in CRM 2016. This walks through solution creation in CRM 2016 and shows how you can add specific components from an entity instead of the whole entity. This allows you to separate projects that have involve the same entity so they do not need to be released at the same time!

PowerObjects also posted Start Stretching! It's Dynamics CRM Training Time. Check this out to get more information on what you should be thinking about as you plan your CRM training. It talks about when users should get involved, how long the training should last, etc.

For those who are working to upgrade to 2016, take a look at Chris Cognetta's blog CRM 2016 Available but not Ready for Production. He talks about some items you need to be aware of as you look at 2016 and why you may want to consider waiting for Rollup 1.

That's all for today folks! Have a great day!

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!

February 3 Blog Review

This blog review will encompass the updates for the weeks of January 29th and February 5th. Let's jump right in to it!

PowerObjects posted about Business Process Flows: Conditional AND Statements in Branching Logic. This explains how to properly use branching logic in Business Process Flows.

PowerObjects also shared Who Wore it Best: System Views vs. Personal Views. This gives some comparison information about the types of views and where they can be used and accessed.

Adam Vero added a post on the Exams for Dynamics CRM 2016 and 2015 Update 1. This talks about the exams that are available and some information about each.

CRM Tip of the Day posted Avoid Cherry-Picking in the Queues. This discusses some solutions for people grabbing easy items out of queues. This talks about several routing and automation ideas.

For those using the Social components in CRM please check out the CRM Team's blog video: Exciting New Features in Microsoft Social Engagement 2016 Update 1.2.

That's all for today folks. Enjoy!