Larry's Taco Talk

Watch Out For the Organizer

2010-02-21T01:56:35Z

Today I’ve been preparing for my trip to Miami tomorrow to teach a CRM class. I logged into my airline and had it send me my flight schedule. I dutifully added that to my Outlook calendar using the e-mailed meeting requests. Great. Then I promoted those ‘meetings’ to CRM. Great. Then I noticed the flights were no longer on my Outlook schedule. NOT so great! So I went back to the airline and repeated the process. Then after I promoted each flight to CRM, I had a look at the Appointment record in the Details tab. There I found the Organizer for the appointment to be the sender of the e-mail, no-reply@aa.com. If the Organizer of an appointment isn’t the user whose calendar it’s for, it disappears from the calendar. So, I changed the Organizer to my User account. Now I’ll know when my flights are tomorrow!

Recovering a Clobbered Outlook Note with Windows Home Server

2010-02-12T03:39:03Z

Tonight we had a major crisis in the Lentz home. My wife accidentally clobbered an important Note she was keeping in Outlook. She didn’t delete it, that would have been easy. She managed to wipe out the contents. Recovering items from Exchange isn’t all that easy a project and the Note was definitely overwritten and therefore its contents gone. The only hope was trying to recover it from a backup. Restoring mailboxes from Exchange is never a fun project, and I do have other things to do tonight.

Luckily I installed Windows Home Server at Christmas so we had a backup of her notebook. I was able to recover her Offline Folders File (OST) from the Home Server. I then configured her Outlook to not use the Cached Mode (which uses the OST), disconnected the computer from the network so it couldn’t communicate with the Exchange server, renamed her old OST file and copied in the recovered OST. I then reconfigured Outlook to use Cached Mode and started it back up. Since it wasn’t connected to the network, Outlook relied on the recovered OST to tell it what it had. And it had the Note! I saved the contents of the note in various ways and then reconnected the computer to the network. Once connected, Outlook synched back up with current data. That presented a bit of a conflict with the recovered note. The note was displayed with a different icon. Double-clicking on it gave me a choice of whether to keep the recovered note, the clobbered one, or both. Tough decision but I eventually chose to keep the recovered note :-) The whole process only took a couple of minutes, once I decided on my course of action.

Hooray for Windows Home Server backup!

CWR on SBS 08

2010-02-01T00:48:16Z

For some time I have really loved CWR Mobility’s CWR Mobile CRM client for the Windows Mobile Smartphone. It worked great for me, until I upgraded my network to Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 08). From then (back in April) to today, I have longed to have the CWR client back on my phone. But every time I attempted access the server, I would get an authentication error and it would go no further. The kind folks from CWR were stumped as well. I even spent an hour and a half with Erik van Hoof, chief owner of CWR, in person, trying to figure it out. Then today Jeffry from CWR made a suggestion that started me in the right direction.

I started looking at the authentication methods for the CWR web site on my server. Everything looked as it should be. Then I drilled a bit further. Of the possible authentication methods, only Windows Authentication is enabled. We tried enabling other methods to no avail.

Then I noticed the Advanced Settings button. Trying this for the Windows Authentication method I saw there was a single check box to Enable Kernel-mode authentication. It was unchecked. I looked at a couple of other web sites and it was also unchecked. But the verbiage that went along with it suggested that it might resolve authentication problems and is on by default, except in my system. And I would assume other SBS 2008 servers as well. I simply selected this check box. This resolved my problem. I am now able to access CWR Mobile CRM from my phone and carry a fully functional Microsoft Dynamics CRM client with me anywhere I go.

CRM on SBS 08

2010-01-19T04:41:13Z

This weekend I set up a new Small Business Server 2008 for a client and included CRM 4.0 Workgroup Edition. I was able to access CRM fine using the web client from the server but when I attempted to access it from the client workstations, it wouldn’t connect. Short story shorter, the issue turned out to be the Windows Firewall on the server. You have to open up the firewall for the CRM port (5555 by default).

CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 8

2009-12-20T19:24:08Z

Last Thursday, December 17, Microsoft released the latest update to Dynamics CRM, Update Rollup 8. You can find the update files and information on the update from Microsoft KB KB 975995. Or you can go directly to the download files and information here. Both 32 and 64 bit versions are available for the server updates but only 32 bit is available for the client update.

Since the previous update, Update Rollup 7 was considered a benchmark update, it is required before you can install UR8 on the Outlook client. It is not required to update the server. I decided to try the Client update first to see what happens. If you are running Windows 7 as I am, you will need to run the update as an administrator, otherwise you get a message stating it requires elevation. The KB states that you must restart your client computer after installing the update but the update does not require it. On the other hand the server updates do require a reboot.

I am running Outlook 2010 Beta so I will be looking to see what compatibility issues are resolved with UR8. So far it seems to look and act the same. We’ll see. There is some speculation about that this update will address the 64 bit Outlook. I doubt this since there is not a 64 bit client rollup.

Office 2010 Beta and the Disappearing CRM Customizations

2009-12-04T04:57:31Z

This summer I installed the Technology Preview version of Microsoft Office 2010. It basically played pretty with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Recently the updated Beta version was released for public download so I eagerly downloaded and installed it. As with the TP version, I had to install the 32-bit version and upgrade an existing Office 2007 for it to install the CRM Outlook Client. Then I happened to notice that Customization was no longer displayed in the Settings area of CRM. This has been a common known problem for quite some time so I wasn’t concerned. All you have to do is close CRM, close Outlook, then reopen CRM and there it (Customization) is. Well… not with Office 2010 Beta it seems! I found that even if I rebooted my machine and did not start Outlook at all, Customization would still not display.

So, I decided to try to fix it. I first uninstalled Office 2010 Beta and checked CRM. Even with Office 2010 gone, Customization would not display. Then I installed Office 2007. That seemed to fix the problem. I installed the CRM client and still it worked as it should. Customization (and another item) were now displayed as they should be. That was a week or two ago. I kind of let it go since it was now working and I had other fish that needed frying.

Tonight, fish fried, I decided to try installing Office 2010 again. Boy it takes awhile to install. Probably because I did it across a wireless connection. Once installed, but before I launched Outlook 2010 for the first time, I checked CRM. Sure enough Customization was still available. Then I launched Outlook 2010 Beta. I closed Outlook and then launched CRM again. Once again Customization was no where to be found. Clearly there must be a link between Office 2010 and CRM and the disappearing Customization. I will continue to ‘play’ with it a bit and report back if I find anything significant. I’ll also Tweet it from @CRMLarry and reference #CRM & #MSCRM.

Office 2010 Beta & CRM

2009-11-17T04:09:55Z

Today Microsoft made the Office 2010 beta available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. So tonight I downloaded and installed it. I first attempted to do an upgrade into my existing Office 2010 Technical Preview but the beta didn’t like that very much at all. I had to uninstall the TP before I could attempt the beta install. Then the install of the beta version went well. I was very happily surprised when I brought up Outlook and it remembered my CRM Client for Outlook installation and configuration. I didn’t even have to run the Configuration Wizard. I did install the 32-bit version of Office 2010 since CRM does not yet support 64-bit clients. (Did UR7 change this??)

When using the CRM Client for Office Outlook you will not see the familiar CRM toolbar when you first launch Outlook. To find the CRM functionality, click on the Add-Ins tab at the top of the Outlook window.

I have not had an opportunity to try CRM with any of the other Office programs like Excel and Word. I did notice some issues associated with CRM not recognizing the version of Word when running the Technical Preview. I’ll see what happens with the new beta. I may even ‘play with it a bit’ if it doesn’t cooperate at first. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Where’s My CRM for Outlook Button?

2009-11-12T05:36:17Z

One of the advertised features of the recently released Update Rollup 7 for CRM 4.0 is the addition of a nice ‘CRM for Outlook’ button on the web application client screen. But I never saw it on my own system. I figured it was something unique in my system. But today I installed the rollup on a client’s network and didn’t see it on any of his folks’ workstations either. So I asked around and fellow CRM MVP Mitch Milam noted that he had not seen it on machines that already had the client installed, but did see it on machines that did not already have the CRM Client for Outlook installed. So I had a little look see here. I have one machine that doesn’t currently have the Outlook client installed. I brought up the CRM web client and sure enough there was the button. I clicked on it and it started the CRM Outlook Client installation process. So I guess the rule for the button is, if you need it you see it, if you already have it, you don’t see it.

CRM 4.0 SDK 4.0.10 Re-Released

2009-11-11T03:27:27Z

Due to an incorrect assembly in the SDK\Bin folder, Microsoft has released a corrected copy of its latest release of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK version 4.0.10. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82E632A7-FAF9-41E0-8EC1-A2662AAE9DFB&displaylang=en.

Microsoft often updates the CRM SDK so it is a good practice to check for a new update every few months.

Changing CRM Organization Name

2009-10-09T19:29:02Z

One of the attributes of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation is that the Organization Name is established when the program is installed and generally cannot be changed. The Organization is also the Root Business Unit for the organization and Business Unit names cannot be changed either. But… with version 4.0 there is a way, at least with On-Premise.

This is how to do it:

MAKE A BACKUP of your database!
Open the Deployment Manager on the server. Create a new TEMP organization. If you are running the Workgroup or Professional version it will remove your primary organization. If you are running the Enterprise version it will create an additional organization in your deployment. If so, DELETE the original (remember step 1!!!) using the Deployment Manager.
Use the Deployment Manager to Import an organization. When asked for the database, point it to your original organization’s SQL database.
During the Import process, you will have the opportunity to supply the Organization Name. This is your chance to supply the name of your choice. It will then be the name of the new Organization and the Root Business Unit.

Adding a Phone Call Button

2009-08-27T03:14:11Z

Recently a client asked me (after a bit of consultation) to add a Create Phone Call button to the Contact form to make it easier for the users to quickly record a conversation with a customer. This can be done by editing the ISV.config. The ISV.config is exported from CRM, can be modified, and then imported back into CRM to add features. I will let you learn about those particulars elsewhere. In this blog I’ll simply concentrate on the Phone Call button.

At first I thought I could simply add a URL for the Phone Call data form, ‘http://crmserver:port/organization/activities/phone/edit.aspx’ (or simply /activities/phone/edit.aspx) to the button code in ISV.config. Unfortunately this gave me a blank Phone Call form without including the Contact record information. So I did some head scratching and research. Nowhere did I find any specific code I could use, though I did find some useful information in “Programming with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0” by Jim Steger and Mike Snyder. They had an example of using JavaScript instead.

To figure out what I needed to include in the code I created a Phone Call from a Contact record (Actions -> Add Activity -> Phone Call) and examined the URL of the resultant form.

Part of the ISV.config button code includes a specification for an icon. Normally one might use the default icon. That works but I wanted a ‘phone’ looking one. So I searched thought the icons available and finally found it, /_imgs/ico_18_4210.gif. Looks good.

The following code snippet can be added to your ISV.config in the <Entities> section and includes the phone icon. Be sure to study the SDK if you are not familiar with editing the ISV.config. And remember it is all very case sensitive.

Even though this worked fine on my system, when I ported it to my client’s I had to do some tweaking to get it to install on his. Close attention to the peculiarities of ISV.config syntax is essential.

Finally, in order to activate ISV.config customizations, you must set the appropriate options in CRM. To do so in CRM go to Settings -> Administration -> System Settings. Click on the Customizations tab and in the ‘Custom Menus and toolbars’ section set the Clients to what is appropriate, normally ‘Web Application, Outlook, Outlook Offline’. This will activate ALL ISV.config customizations in those clients.

Installing CRM Outlook Client on Windows 7

2009-08-15T20:58:07Z

Windows 7 was recently released to manufacturing (RTM) and made available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. So I’ve downloaded and installed it. It’s pretty nice. Naturally I want to be able to run CRM on it. Most of the folks I’ve heard from had no problems getting the CRM Outlook client to work on Windows 7. However I ran into a few snags. Hopefully a couple of tips will help someone else.

First, I tried to install it on top of Office 2010. This didn’t work too well although I was able to upgrade my Vista Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010 with no problem. I decided to install Outlook/Office 2007 on Windows 7 first and will eventually try to upgrade that to 2010.

Windows 7 is installed on my laptop so naturally I need the Outlook Client With Offline Access. This is where my bumps in the road appeared. First, one of the pre-requisites that the CRM install program loads is the SQL Report Service Report Viewer. For some reason this would not load on my machine from the CRM install (unknown error). I resolved this by searching for the ReportViewer.exe from the Microsoft web site. This installed without a hitch and resolved that problem. The rest of the installation went fine.

The next step was running the CRM Configuration Wizard. It failed saying Access Denied to updating the SQL Master database. I presume that would be during the creation of the CRM offline database. This I was able to resolve by running the SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration wizard (which got installed with the SQL 2005 Express during the CRM install) and adding my user account as a Member of SQL Server SysAdmin role on CRM. Once done, the CRM Configuration Wizard ran and now the CRM Offline Client resides and runs great on my Windows 7 64-bit notebook. Next step – upgrade to Office 2010. I’ll let you know how that goes.

CRM Accelerators and SBS 2008

2009-08-08T03:31:57Z

I recently installed the CRM 4.0 Event Management accelerator. However, when I tried to run the web portal associated with the accelerator, it failed. The error message indicated that Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.dll was in the wrong format. Luckily I was able to enlist the help of my good friend and fellow CRM MVP Ronald Lemmen who questioned whether my server was 32-bit or 64-bit. Since my server is SBS 2008, it is 64-bit. He suggested I replace the .dlls with the 64-bit versions. They are located in the SKD in the \bin\64bit folder. Here I found the microsoft.crm.sdk.dll and microsoft.crm.sdktypeproxy.dll files. I copied these into the appropriate folder in the accelerators web site folder and voila! It worked. Ron credited Reuben Krippner as having posted the idea in the forums. Thanks, guys!

I am making some ‘refinements’ to the Event Management accelerator. I will post them here once I’m done. This accelerator is a great example of how CRM can be customized. It includes many elements: Custom Entities, Plug-in, Workflow, and Web Portal.

Sending Direct E-mail via Outlook

2009-07-31T05:07:20Z

Today I needed to send an e-mail blast to about 3,000 of my nearest and dearest friends. I created a template, selected the Contacts and then Leads I wanted to send to and sent the e-mail. Boom! I was through. Easy enough. Then I started to check the Contacts and Leads to see that the messages were in fact sent. Hmmm, nothing yet. Then after a bit, I noticed that the message was showing up in the History as expected. Seems simple enough but there’s more to the story.

First off, I have my user account set to send CRM e-mail through Outlook. For some reason my server E-mail Router service won’t start and I didn’t want to spend the time figuring it out. Maybe I should next time. This means that my Outlook must be up and running for the messages to be sent. And they are not sent all at once. No. I appears they are sent in batches of 10 and the batches are sent every 5 minutes. I can see this by monitoring my Sent Items. So at 10 every 5 minutes means 120 messages an hour. 3,000 messages at 120/hr = 25 hours. And this is 25 hours of continuous operation of the CRM Outlook client. My main machine is my notebook and I generally shut it down in the evening so I can take it with me where ever I go.

I think next time I want to send an e-mail blast, especially if I want it to go out quickly, I’ll figure out why my E-mail Router isn’t running.

Gidget Passes

2009-07-23T16:19:23Z

Larry’s Taco Talk would be very remiss if I didn’t commiserate on the passing of Gidget, the Taco Bell dog. Gidget passed away yesterday from a stroke at the age 15. RIP, Gidget. Yo quierro Taco Bell.