:MsHelp

In the past when I was mainly working on custom software development projects, I liked to wireframe my application before actually diving into the code or IDE. To create these mockups I used tools like Balsamiq.

Creating mockups can save you a lot of time. Definitely when you need to start from the ground up. You don’t have to worry too much about functionality or the esthetical part of the application. The client will not start complaining that he/she doesn’t like that certain tone of grey that you have used or that a certain button doesn’t behave exactly like it should.

With Dynamics CRM this is of course a different story. First of all, you get already the base functionality straight of the box. Second, there will probably not be a lot of discussion possible concerning the GUI  of the application itself. Normally you stick to what you get out of the box.

However I see some added value in wire framing, prototyping or sketching your CRM2011 application. I will come back to that later on.

I went looking for some decent approach to start prototyping Dynamics CRM applications and my search brought me to mSketch from Magnetism. mSketch is a collection of stencils that can be used to create mockups of CRM2011 applications. All the work is done with Expression Blend 4 SketchFlow. If you don’t have that much experience with this tool, I would really advice you to check it out. This great tool was introduced by Microsoft to shorten the bridge between developer and designer creating WPF or Silverlight applications. The company Magnetism was also no stranger to me because I had been following their blog posts and work on Twitter for a while.

With mSketch you get a solution that you can open with Expression Blend. This solution contains the CRM2011 forms predefined by Magnetism. These forms you can then use to create your own implementation. A nice to have would be to have an installer that would install the stencils as a project type in Expression Blend.

I was quite impressed by the level of detail that the team from Magnetism had put in the creation of these stencils. The ribbon, the tabs, the fields.. a really nice job in total. Magnetism also provided a decent user guide that you can use working with the mSketch stencils. This is always on my checklist when I try new tools or applications: Is there a decent user guide that will actually help me? Yes there is with mSketch, check it out here: http://help.magnetism.co.nz/#getting-started-with-msketch

Here is what the stencils look like inside Expression Blend:

Ok, so the stencils gave me a great head start. All I had to do now was to copy one of the forms in my own solution and start the customization of my custom CRM2011 application. Using sketchflow functionality you can define the paths that your application needs to follow. Once completed I just had to push F5 and I had a running prototype of my custom CRM2011 application.

Now to come back to a previous discussion, what are the benefits of prototyping your CRM2011 application? Here are some of the benefits I see with prototyping a CRM2011 applications.

1) You can use Expression Blend 4 and the mSketch stencils together with a client to rapidly workout a draft of their CRM2011 application.

2) The client can easily play around with the mockup using the sketchFlow preview created by Expression Blend. This can be deployed to IIS.

3) You don’t need to have CRM2011 installed from the beginning, everything is done in Expression Blend (or IIS for the testing). In cost and performance requirements this makes a big difference.

4) You can limit the discussions concerning the placement of fields, the ribbon, the operations or scripts on a form. You can explain that this is just a draft, a prototype. The full functionality will come later.

More information on the Magnetism mSketch stencils: http://www.magnetism.co.nz/solutionscasestudies/solutions/msketch.aspx
mSketch user guide: http://help.magnetism.co.nz/#getting-started-with-msketch
More information on Expression Blend 4 + SketchFlow: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/blend_overview.aspx

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In this short blog post I would like to discuss the different methods to import your Outlook contacts into Dynamics CRM2011.

Track Outlook contacts

Tracking a contact in CRM 2011 means that you will select your individual contacts and select “Track in CRM” from the context menu. If this operation is completed you will have the same contact created in Dynamics CRM. The benefits are that your contacts are automatically kept in sync. For instance when you change a property of that contact in CRM, this property will be synchronized with the contact in Outlook. If you delete the contact in Dynamics CRM, it will stay available in Outlook. If you delete the contact in Outlook, it will stay in Dynamics CRM.

Steps:

1) Select you contact (one or multiple)

2) Right click and select “Track in CRM”

Bulk import

If you want to be able to manage all your contacts in Dynamics CRM, then you can use the “Add contacts” wizard available in the Outlook client. This is a convenient way of moving all your contacts to Dynamics CRM2011. I would advice to set up decent duplicate detection rules to prevent duplicate records.

Steps:

1) In Outlook, go to “File” and click on “CRM”

2) Click on “Import Contacts” and select “Add Contacts”

3) Now the “Add Contacts” wizard will open

4) Now the wizard will analyze your data

5) Once the analysis is done, the wizard will show you a list of what is has found. Here you can choose to group your contacts per

- Account (Accounts will be created based on the companies linked to your contacts)

- Email domain

- Category (Category specified in Outlook)

Here you can also configure whether or not an account should be created for the companies linked to the contact. Another nice feature is that you can decide here whether or not future communication with these contacts should be synchronized to Dynamics CRM.

6) Finally you can click on the “Add Contacts” button to add your contacts to Dynamics CRM2011.

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I was trying to view a specific record in an entity set when my Internet Explorer showed the message “Internet Explorer cannot display this feed”.

It seems that this has something to do with the build in RSS feed reader in IE. If you want to view the raw XML returned from your REST query without this error, then you need to disable this RSS feed reader. The steps to do this are the following:

1) Go to Tools –> Internet Options

2) Click on the “Content” tab

3) Under the section “Feeds and Web slices”, click “Settings”

4) Uncheck “Turn on feed reading view”

5) Click “Ok” and again “Ok”

Now when I try to view the details of a specific account using the following link:
xrmservices/2011/organizationdata.svc/AccountSet(guid’A76567FA-DF4E-E011-9FE0-951FA97376B7′)

I will see something like this

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Some time ago I explained how you can connect Scribe to CRM2011 Online using the CRM4 adapter.
I also mentioned that the CRM2011 adapter would be released very soon. Well, good news, the adapter has been released.
More information on the release can be found on their website: Scribe software blog

Of course Scribe Soft has like always made all the necessary documentation available to ease the installation process and general use.
You can find the release notes, help file and the adapter installer on the following location: Download CRM2011 Scribe adapter

In this post I would also like to take the opportunity to go shortly over the installation process.

1) First of all you need to make sure that you have the latest Scribe Insight 7.0.2 installed
2) Next make sure to install Windows Identity Framework (WIF), this is something the new adapter requires. You can download this on the following location: Download Windows Identity Framework (WIF)
A little side note concerning Windows Identity Framework, this can’t be installed on Windows XP. If you have this OS and want to use this adapter, then it’s time to upgrade your OS.
3) You also need to make sure .NET 4.0 is installed. This can be downloaded from this location: Download .NET Framework 4
4) Now comes the tricky part, you need to make sure UAC is complete disabled before running the installer. If you don’t
do this, you’ll keep getting the error saying that you need to install the prerequisites. You can turn of UAC via “Run –> msconfig- Tools tab”. Click on "Change UAC Settings" and pull the slider all the way down to the bottom.

5) Now you need to restart your computer
6) Now we’re all set to run the adapter installer.

In Scribe Insight you immediately notice that there are two adapters. One for CRM4 and one for CRM2011.

I didn’t have time to do much elaborate testing but when trying to connect to CRM2011 online I noticed that we now need to enter the user friendly name instead of the unique name. The UI during the connection process has also changed a little bit.

Up until now I’ve had a very good experience using this adapter, so ScribeSoft, thank you very much, nice work!!

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Scribe by default has a CRM adapter to connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Now with the release of CRM2011, Scribe is working on a specific CRM2011 adapter. However, with the current CRM adapter it is also possible to connect to Dynamics CRM 2011 (online and on premises). Just for your information, the new adapter will be ready very soon (end of this month?).

While testing Scribe with CRM 2011 Online I had however a small issue to connect. This problem was quickly resolved by browsing the Scribe knowledge base. So If you are unable to connect to CRM 2011 Online using Scribe, try the following:

You need to add two strings to following registry locations (depending on your OS):

32-bit Scribe Servers

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Scribe\Adapters\DynamicCRMAdapter

64-bit Scribe Servers

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Scribe\Adapters\DynamicCRMAdapter

Here are the things you need to add:

String Value Name:  CrmOnlineUrlOverride

Value:   https://dev.crm4.dynamics.com

String Value Name:  PassportPartner

Value:  crm4.dynamics.com

If there are any problems, let me know

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You probably have noticed that CRM2011 now comes with a very handy pane at the top showing tips&tricks, videos etc. to help you work with CRM2011. This is truly a great help if you are just getting started with CRM2011. If you however have a little more experience with CRM2011 and you were wondering if you could disable or hide this pane. Yes you can! You can do it on a personal or user level or organizational (then it will be disabled for all the users in CRM2011 regardless of their personal setting).

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see the image below

Disable it on user level

Go  to File – Options

There on the “General tab” you change the setting.

Disable it on organization level

Go to Settings – Administration – System Settings

And again on the “General tab” you can change the setting

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In this short post I’ll explain to you how you can create a calculated field in dynamics CRM2011. It’s actually just the same as in CRM4. The only thing now is that we have to use web resources. Web resources is new in CRM2011 and needs to be used whenever it comes down to using resources (like JavaScript) in dynamics CRM.

Ok lets start:

1) First create some fields. For this demo I’ll use: val1, val2 and result

2) The calculation will be a simple multiplication. I’ll multiply val1 and val2 and output the result in the result field.

3) Now we need to create the JavaScript that will do the actual calculation of the fields.

   1: function calculate()

   2: {

   3:     var val1 = Xrm.Page.entity.attributes.get['new_val1'].getValue();

   4:     var val2 = Xrm.Page.entity.attributes.get['new_val2'].getValue();

   5:     

   6:     if(val1==null)return;

   7:     if(val2==null)return;

   8:  

   9:     var result = val1 * val2;

  10:     Xrm.Page.entity.attributes.get['new_result'].setValue(result);

  11: }

Mind the new Xrm page model functions that I’m using. More information can be found on MSDN.

A little more information on the JScript. First I grab the data from both fields, check if they are not null and then do the actual calculation. Finally I set the result for the “calculated field”.

4) Now we need to add the JavaScript as a Web Resource. Go to the Web Resource section (Settings – customizations – Customize the System – Web Resources).

5) Add a new Web Resource. Here you can give a name, description etc. For the “type”, select Script (JScript). Finally click on the button “Text Editor” and add the code we’ve created above.

6) Once the Web Resource is created and published we can use it in our Account form where the custom fields are located.

7) Customize the form and select “Form Properties”. We first need to make the Web Resource available in this specific form.

8 ) Under the Events tab, add the Web Resource that we just created.

9) All that’s left to do is to configure the onChange events for the two fields and we’re done. Doubleclick on the field val1 and val2, go to the Events tab and configure the onChange event. The final result for each field should look like this:

10) Publish the form and you’re ready for testing.

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I was watching these video’s, testimonials, from different companies that attended the xRM Cloud Acceleration Lab and I thought it would be interesting to share. I’m also a big fan of Dynamics CRM 2011 and when you see these people talking about how they will utilize the newest features of CRM 2011 in their products..It’s just nice to see. I was really inspired by this product called DefenseeReady from Permuda Technologies. A product used by DoD departments. Yet again, you see that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can be configured, customized for just about anything.

The videos and more information can be found on the following link:

Blog Post: Dynamics CRM 2011: xRM Cloud Acceleration Lab Videos

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Today I planned to setup Dynamics CRM 2011 RC in a new virtual test environment. My host system is Windows 7 64 Bit so I thought that installing a 64 Bit guest OS wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Seems I was wrong… I first tried Virtual PC, here I first saw the winload.exe problem. I read on some forums that Virtual PC doesn’t support 64 Bit OS’s. Then I read on a blog that VirtualBox is a good package to create 64 Bit images. When everything was set up and I wanted to load the iso, the installer immediately showed me that error again saying that winload.exe was corrupt.

I realised that there had to be something wrong with my system because I was sure that my ISO was OK.

Then I saw the following error in VirtualBox.

Actually I saw it already when I first loaded up the virtual machine, but I kinda ignored it. To solve the issue I went into the BIOS of my DELL Vostro laptop and enabled the Virtualization Mode. That solved the issue! Now I’m installing my Windows Server 2008 R2 64Bit.

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