Archive for the ‘CRM 2011’ Category
Dynamics CRM Resource Center – Direct Links to What You Need to Know
April 30th, 2012The CRM 2011 Resource Center should be your portal to information, insight and help for anything for CRM. Just go to Settings, Resource Center and it will take you directly to the highlights page.
The Resource Center is evolving into a portal from which you can get to the vast wealth of information about CRM. Recently I was there on another mission but noticed that there are new features and direct links to pages that I would normally have to find via Bing. In the RC they are already book marked for you.
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CRM 2011 Outlook Client Server Address (URL) is not Valid
April 27th, 2012During a new CRM 2011 installation using IFD/ADFS we had everything running properly for a about a week and then IFD access broke. Users could no longer connect via Outlook. They were all getting the following error message.
Where the HTTPS://uniquename.domainname.com:444 was known to be correct as we could login via IE.
This error message points to KB2548802 - Configuration of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook client fails with the error: “The server address (URL) is not valid”
We confirmed issues 1 & 2 in the KB and checked the resolution.
This issue can occur due to the following reasons:
1. Anonymous Access is disabled on the CRM web site.
2. The Web Address URLs specified in the Deployment Manager do not match the CRM URL in IIS.
We were good on #1 and #2. Time to do more research. We then went to this support article – KB2498357 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Outlook client configuration fails with “The specified Microsoft Dynamics CRM server address (URL) is not responding”. What caught our eye in this article was the platform trace error example was identical to what we were seeing even though the error message was different. Our trace error looked like this:
Error Exception : Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: ‘https://<ServerName>/<OrgName>/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc?wsdl’. at System.ServiceModel.Description.MetadataExchangeClient.MetadataRetriever.Retrieve(TimeoutHelper timeoutHelper)
The resolution in this KB was to check the Site Bindings and ensure thaat you only have on http: and/or one https:// binding type. We checked and we only had one of each. But since we weren’t using the HTTP:5555 url anymore we removed it and then we could connect via Outllook.
So the answer at least in this situation was that if you don’t need the legacy binding any longer – remove it and it could solve the Outlook configuration issue.
Stand Alone Activity Feed Wall Window
April 22nd, 2012Do you need to just ‘listen’ to what is going on in the CRM system but don’t need to actually see all the details? Well then the What’s New window is just for you.
With one click you can create a standalone window that will display all the activity feed action without taking up a lot of space on your desktop. You can even close the primary CRM browser Window to give you one less IE tab to manage.
First go to the What’s new form -
Then click on the expansion icon to the right of the what’s new page heading .
This will open up the What’s new Window in a new chrome-less browser window.
If you want you can now close the original tab for CRM. With the What’s new Window you can monitor posts and even interact with them.
Since this is a chrome-less window you can’t re-size it but you can move it around your desktop. If you have dual monitors just drag it over to the second monitor to keep in your peripheral vision.
Here is a nice trick if you just want to go to the What’s new only window and also be able to re-size it. Create a bookmark directly to the URL.
Use the format below – just substitute your unique company name in the string. If this doesn’t work for you then capture your URL from the process you used first to open it in its own window.
https://YOURUNIQUENAMEHERE.crm.dynamics.com/main.aspx?page=Workplace&area=nav_personalwall&_hc=true
When you use this approach the re-size feature will be available.
CRM 2011 Entity Metadata Browser
April 17th, 2012The Metadata Browser is one of the tools that has been around since CRM 3.0 (I believe, at least V4) that simply put I just forgot about. Today, Jim Daly, Microsoft CRM Team SDK Guru Extraordinaire pointed me back in that direction in answering a question I emailed him about an attribute in the Post Entity. (if I could only remember half of what I forgot, I would be 2x better off than I am now)
In CRM 4 you could just browse to the Metadata browser in your on premise environment. In support of the new cloud world we live in the Entity Metadata Browser is now a managed solution that you can import into your CRM environment regardless of where it lives.
The browser provides significant insight into the underpinnings of all 238 entities that are built into the out of the box solution. This insight gives the developer much needed information on all the parameters of every entity.
To get access to the Metadata Browser you need to first download and install the SDK onto your local drive. It is totally free. You don’t need to be a CRM partner either to get it. http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24004
After you download and extract it, navigate to SDK\SampleCode\JS\SOAPForJScript\Script\SDK.Metadata.js in the folder you extracted it to.
After you have done that just go to CRM and import and publish the managed solution – metadatabrowser_1_0_0_3_managed.zip. Not to be snippy but if you need help doing this the information in the browser won’t be meaningful to you.
Then you can get access to the browser in one of two ways:
1. Navigate directly to it by this url:
<your organization URL>/WebResources/sample_/MetaDataBrowser/MetaDataBrowser.htm
2. Go to Customizations, Solutions, double click on the Metadata Browser solution in the grid view and it will open up in a new Window.
There is also a read-me document in the same folder on your drive with the managed solution.
Have a great coding day!
Read-Optimized forms for individual users
April 10th, 2012Recently we upgraded a client from CRM 4 on premise to CRM 2011 on premise and applied UR 7. This rollup includes a form viewing mode selection for either read-optimized or editable. We initially turned on the read-optimized setting system wide and then needed to disable it for selected users. This is done as follows:
1. Enable Read-optimized forms system wide by going to System Settings, Customization and selecting the checkbox.
2. Then go to Settings, Administration and then Users.
3. Select one or more users.
4. Then in the Ribbon Bar Form group select Edit to change their default setting to the ‘old way’.
KB2600640 and CRM Update – What’s Up?
March 27th, 2012While installing Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 (KB 2600643) on a clients’ desktop computer yesterday the following error message popped as soon as the install package started running.
When I Binged the error message it sent me to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2600640
After looking at the client’s computer I discovered that the CRM Outlook integration was only at Update Rollup 5. I then decided that I should probably read the KB article for Update Rollup 7 rather than just download and install. It wasn’t even in the fine print. Right in the System Requirements were two bulleted items and clearly not having Update Rollup 6 already installed was the culprit.
So I installed UR 6 and then UR 7 went in smooth as silk.
CRM 2011 and Window 8 Consumer Preview – A Very Early Look
March 9th, 2012Okay, I couldn’t resist checking out one of our CRM 2011 Online instances in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I am really pleased how well it works with IE 10 in that environment considering there hasn’t even been a whisper of talk about getting it ready for Win8. Although we can only suspect that the CRM Team has been hard at work on it as soon as they got their hands on an internal copy for testing.
While rummaging through the connection this morning I observed some cosmetic changes and a few bugs. Well not really even bugs since Win8 is just previewing in Beta now and no one is proposing that running CRM in it now is something you should event think about.
In any event I am collecting for fun a few screen shots of what I have discovered up to this point.
FYI – The fooling around I did (I wouldn’t call it testing) was done on a regular desktop machine after installing the default Consumer Preview without applying any edits to the system configuration – definitely a 100% out of the box environment applied to one of our 30 day trials of CRM 2011 Online.
| There is now an ‘X’ to clear out the contents of a text box |
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| Radio buttons have a slightly larger look and are more pronounced in IE10 |
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| Looks like the scroll arrows are missing? |
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Trying to run reports generates and error and no report.  |
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| If you generate an error and then try to send it (or infact do anything – don’t send or click on X) it puts you in a continous loop that you can only exit via Task Manager (yes that still existst in Win8) |
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| Loading customizations presents an error |
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| After clearing the error nothing shows up in any of the customizations Window |
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CRM Anywhere Video by Reuben Krippner
March 9th, 2012Nurture Marketing Solution for CRM 2011
March 8th, 2012This coming week we are introducing our Nurture Marketing Solution adder to our Email2CRM application. Email2CRM integrates Dynamics CRM 2011 and the VerticalResponse email system to provide a sophisticated approach to business class email marketing with Google Web Analytics.
What is Nurture Marketing? The underlying component of a process to ‘nurture’ a lead or a new customer is founded on the principal of drip email marketing.
Wikipedia defines Drip Email Marketing as follows:
“Drip marketing is a communication strategy that sends, or “drips,” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. These messages often take the form of email marketing, although other media can also be used. Drip marketing is distinct from other database marketing in two ways: (1) the timing of the messages follow a pre-determined course; (2) the messages are dripped in a series applicable to a specific behavior or status of the recipient.”Our new add-on to the core Email2CRM system allows you to do just that. Leveraging the funcationality of the Static and Dynamic Marketing list tools in CRM you can define a list of recipients or characteristics of recipients that you want to email. Once associated with a campaign those individuals will receive the sequence of emails at the scheduled time over the designated time period. Should someone be removed from the marketing list because they no longer fit the criteria they will no longer receive any emails in the sequence.
During the week of March 12th we have several webinars to demonstrate how this solution works. Sign up for an Informational Webinar Today!
As a start take a look at how the system is managed via the new Nurture Marketing Campaign custom entity. Click on image to display full size.
This solution works with both CRM 2011 Online, CRM 2011 Partner Hosted, and CRM 2011 OnPremise IFD mode.
Dynamics CRM 2011 R9 – Social Analytics on hyper-drive
February 22nd, 2012The R8 (CRM 2011 R8 Release Preview Guide) release this Spring will bring enhanced social functionality to the initial feature set introduced in November 2011. However, it appears what Microsoft might have in store for the Fall 2012 R9 release will take the Social functionality of the CRM system up by several orders of magnitude.
Microsoft’s “Project Vancouver” which is a SQL Azure Labs test project could be the foundation of the Fall release.
What is Project Vancouver all about? Here is snipit from the site:
Our goal is to enable businesses to build connections and communities among customers, influencers, and their employees; to support customer needs for high value information guided by peers and experts/influencers; to engage in conversations and respond to buzz around hot topics; and to make the voice of community actionable across the product lifecycle.
Here is what the Project Vancouver data screen looks like. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this inside of CRM and linked to records, enhanced by workflow and user personalized? I can’t wait for Summer to be over and for November to come around!
Click on image to get full screen view.
Source: What’s on tap for Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM ‘R9′ update later this year
