AdvantageWorks

Real Estate Advantage Implementation Named as Finalist for Realcomm’s 2009 Digie Award

2009-05-26T10:23:00.002-05:00

After reviewing hundreds of nominations, Realcomm has announced the finalists for the prestigious Digital Impact “Digie” Award. Ascendix is pleased to announce that our client, Highwoods Properties has been named a finalist under the category “Best Use of automation” for a property owner in their use of Real Estate Advantage for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Read the Realcomm press release here

Highwoods worked with Ascendix to create an information bridge from lease and property data in their ERP back-office system to the prospect and tenant data residing in Outlook, Excel spreadsheets and sticky notes. The vision of their CIO, Art McCann was a 360 degree view of their prospect, tenant and broker relationships - from initial inquiry to lease renewal. Renewal processes have been automated, marketing and lead follow up has been standardized and forecasting and revenue planning has become much more visible and timely to the management team.

*Update*

The winners were announced on Tuesday, June 23rd, and although our implementation did not win the category, we remain very pleased and proud to have been named a top 3 finalist.

Although our solution for commercial real estate was first released in early 2007, and then on the Microsoft CRM 4.0 platform in June, 2008, we are still somewhat of a newcomer in this market and our clients are really starting to see the return on their investment in 2008 and 2009. We are in the process of building some great case studies from our 2008 implementations and are looking forward to making those available soon. We are also in the process of implementing Real Estate Advantage at several other top national brand companies this year and look forward to sharing those success stories in 2010.

Time to go bald again, 2009 edition!

2009-03-25T13:25:00.002-05:00

Friends, Family and Colleagues;

Thanks to the donations you made on my behalf these past three years, my team and I have helped raise over $15,000 for children’s cancer research. Just from a handful of us, our friends, and people like you who have supported us.

Well, this year the march goes on. Once again we will shave our heads in solidarity with children who have cancer and typically lose their hair during treatment. But this year, I will personally match the funds you donate on my behalf.

So please help support this worthy cause once again. It doesn’t matter if its five dollars or five hundred, every little bit counts. And it’s tax deductible!

Visit my fund raising site

Find out where the money goes

View Pictures from last year’s event

Donate here

Thank you again. As one of the members on my team has said, for us it’s a choice (and I’ll add, some good, clean fun), but for cancer patients, it’s a matter of survival.

For those of you in Dallas, We're shaving at 3:00 this Saturday, the 28th! We will probably arrive at Trinity Hall at around 2:00 or 2:30 for some liquid courage and then let the shaving begin.

Todd

The "Top 35 People to Watch" in 2009

2009-02-19T12:55:00.001-06:00

We at Ascendix would like to congratulate our friend and our client, Clint Osteen, CIO of Granite Properties, for making Realcomm's "Top 35 People to Watch" in 2009.

Congrats, Clint!!

Using the Microsoft CRM Workflow Engine to Enhance your Mobile Experience

2008-12-19T15:46:00.001-06:00

The workflow engine in Microsoft CRM 4.0 is quite a versatile toolkit and can do many things that requires programming in other CRM packages. The following is a practical example of something that we have set up in our production system that has really enhanced the use of information in a mobile environment.

In this example, we'll focus on Outlook tasks. When referencing a task in Outlook or on your mobile device, wouldn't it be nice if the contact information was readily available in your task, especially if that task required calling, visiting or mailing something to that person. Well, the low tech solution always exists - copy the contact information into your task and bingo.

Or, leverage the power of your CRM system and ensure this will happen automatically with just two quick clicks.

First, while in Outlook, schedule your task. In this case, we want to remind ourselves to do some research on a prospect prior to a visit. Since we're in the business of providing solutions to commercial real estate companies, we'll call this task "Do research on Thompson Brokerage and Grill. Of course we use Set Regarding to link to the company.

Then we close our task and move on with our day.

Then, several days later when the task is due, when we open the record in Outlook, Outlook Mobile, or our Blackberry device, we see:

All the user had to do was reference the task to the CRM account, contact, deal or any other CRM entity you define. The workflow takes it from there. Based on the rules of the workflow, it analyzes what type of record to which this task has been regarded, then merges in the appropriate information.

In the above example, we first test to see whether the task is regarded to an account, a lead or a contact. (You could just as easily add cases for deals/opportunities, leases, properties, listings, etc.

Then, the workflow merges in the data as you see fit:

This can be used for other Outlook activities such as appointments, or perhaps even more useful, the contact description. By using workflow to merge in important data in your CRM system into the contact's description field, you will be able to reference that information while viewing in your mobile device as well.

Merry ACX-Mas from Ascendix!

2008-12-17T14:18:00.008-06:00

Our front door security cameras happened to capture some footage of some tree trimming festivities here at Ascendix. Hopefully nobody figures out Ive posted these on our blog...

Enjoy...

2008 President's Club, Ctd.

2008-07-09T10:54:00.001-05:00

Press release will hit the wire in the next 24 hours.

Posted here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ascendix Named to 2008 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club
Microsoft Honors Ascendix Technologies for Outstanding Customer Commitment and Sales Achievement

Dallas, Texas — July 10, 2008 — Ascendix Technologies has been named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club, receiving recognition from Microsoft Corp. for its dedicated commitment to customers. This honor reflects Ascendix’s success in extending the Microsoft Dynamics platform to drive business advantages in companies worldwide.

The recognition came during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Houston. The elite club recognizes the top 5 percent of Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide and their constant dedication to delivering solutions that meet their customers’ unique needs, active pursuit of product and technological advancement, and impressive sales performance.

“Microsoft is proud to congratulate Ascendix on being named to this year’s Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club,” said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. “Ascendix not only has demonstrated a high level of product expertise, but also has provided a superior level of service and commitment to our Microsoft Dynamics customers, ultimately contributing to the overall success of Microsoft Dynamics and companies worldwide.”

Ascendix helps companies across the United States realize the benefits of their investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With 12 years of exclusive focus on the implementation of CRM and sales force automation systems, Ascendix has completed hundreds of successful implementations for small, mid-market and enterprise companies in real estate, financial services, investment products and manufacturing, including a multiple-thousand-user deployment for a Fortune 500 firm.

In late 2006, Ascendix achieved ISV certification for Real Estate Advantage, an integrated solution based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM for commercial real estate companies. Since the release, Ascendix has helped property owners, REITs, and full-service brokerages as they leverage the full value of their Microsoft investments and achieve the enhanced customer service, productivity and operational efficiency that promote growth and competitive advantage.

“I’m proud for our Ascendix team members,” added Todd Terry, managing partner for Ascendix. “Two years ago we made a key, strategic investment in the Dynamics platform to bring our verticals to market, which required a considerable amount of investment in terms of time, effort and money. Reaching President’s Club validates our effort, but more importantly our customers have benefitted greatly. It has enabled us to more efficiently and effectively provide the tools that help our customers execute their strategies for customer relationship management. Whether we are implementing Microsoft CRM as a part of our real estate vertical or for a company in the insurance industry, the highly configurable Dynamics platform has streamlined our efforts and allows us to spend more time with our customer on high-value activities such as workflow configuration or integration with financial systems.”

About Ascendix Technologies, Inc.
Ascendix Technologies, Inc., a Microsoft® Certified Gold Partner, is a privately held corporation located in Dallas, TX. Founded in 1996 by Todd Terry and Wes Snow, the company is celebrating its 12th year in business focused solely on the implementation of CRM systems for companies in both the mid and enterprise market space. In addition to commercial real estate, Ascendix has vertical solutions for capital markets, alternative investment products, and financial services. For more information on Real Estate Advantage, visit http://www.advantageworks.com. For more information on Ascendix, visit http://www.ascendix.com or contact them at 1-888-Find-CRM.

2008 President's Club

2008-07-03T15:47:00.001-05:00

Well we at AdvantageWorks, by virtue of our sister company, Ascendix, are very pleased to be officially recognized by Microsoft as a member of their 2008 President's Club.

Membership in the President's club means we have met a variety of conditions and qualifications, including product sales and service, that places us in the top 5% of partners across the globe.

Congratulations to the members of the Ascendix and AdvantageWorks' team. They definitely earned it.

Realcomm 2008

2008-06-11T17:44:00.004-05:00

Is another year in the books already? Seems like we were wrapping up Realcomm Boston just about 6 or 8 months ago. Here we are again, but this time in sunny San Diego, meeting and greeting the movers and shakers in the technology space for commercial real estate.

This year we are participating in 2 panel discussions and will of course be presenting our solution during one of the sessions.

Microsoft based solutions are really starting to make some ground into the commercial real estate space - as evidenced by Microsoft's increased participation in this year's event. Real Estate firms are especially starting to realize the benefit that front office and CRM solutions bring to their enterprise. With increasing energy costs and increasing availabilities, commercial real estate firms are putting the focus on vacant space and any inefficiencies in the process of acquiring or keeping tenants. Trying to achieve these objectives without technology, such as CRM, is an unnecessary, uphill battle.

Ascendix Account Manager Greg Moser and client, Highwoods CIO Art McCann (a member of Realcomm's "Top 35 People to Watch in 2008") take a quick break in the conversation to pose for a picture in our booth.

Technorati Tags: Realcomm,microsoft crm,commercial real estate

Ascendix Technologies Announces the Release of Real Estate Advantage™ for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

2008-05-31T09:49:00.001-05:00

(For immediate Release)

Dallas, Texas (June 1st, 2008) – Ascendix Technologies is pleased to announce the release of Real Estate Advantage 4.1 for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 platform.

“Our solution for the commercial real estate industry just got a great deal more powerful,” remarked Todd Terry, CTO and Managing Partner for Ascendix. “The 4.0 release has a host of new features, enhancements and capabilities that directly benefit the complex needs of the real estate professional. The enhancements in the platform have enabled us to bring an even richer offering to brokers, leasing agents, and asset managers; especially those companies which require globally scaled, multi-lingual, multi-currency implementations.”

Along with enhancements for the global enterprise, the Dynamics 4.0 platform adds new functionality for data management, duplication prevention, user-driven ad hoc reporting and an even deeper integration with the Office suite.

“Real estate professionals spend their entire day in Outlook and Office. Real Estate Advantage is embedded in Outlook, which means the user is one click away from managing deals, interacting with customers, or running reports,” added Terry. “When a user has to launch and login to another application, adoption rates are already at risk.”

Microsoft has also embedded their enterprise-class workflow engine in this release with Windows Workflow Foundation. This workflow system is an ideal engine for lease transmittal and approval processes and complex acquisition and disposition processes, and serves as an ideal tool for enterprise notification mechanisms. “Users are kept abreast of critical events, such as lease option expirations or a fast-approaching deadline for a 1031 investment,” added Terry.

Ascendix has also added new enhancements for Real Estate Advantage with this release, which include:

Enhanced functionality for managing multi-family properties and deals
Deeper integration with Microsoft Virtual Earth for mapping multiple properties with embedded property data and images
Improved quick searching with the ability to save custom searches, making it easier to get to data within the system
Multiple images allow for the tracking of a complete library of photos in JPG, GIF or other file formats related to a property
In-grid editing in the Microsoft grids streamlines the updating of multiple records at a time without losing context in the application
Prospect/investor/broker matching to deals and properties based on buying preferences

Ascendix will be demonstrating the Real Estate Advantage solution at RealComm in San Diego on June 9^th – 11^th. Contact Carolyn Pachall at 972.889.8089 ext 325 for discount conference rates.

About Ascendix Technologies – Ascendix Technologies, Inc., a Microsoft® Certified Gold Partner, is a privately held corporation located in Dallas, TX. Founded in 1996 by Todd Terry and Wes Snow, the company is celebrating its 12th year in business focused solely on the implementation of CRM systems for companies in both the mid and enterprise market space. In addition to commercial real estate, Ascendix has vertical solutions for capital markets, alternative investment products, and financial services. For more information on Real Estate Advantage, visit www.advantageworks.com. For more information on Ascendix, visit www.ascendix.com or contact them at 1-888-Find-CRM.

St Baldrick's 2008

2008-03-31T07:46:00.004-05:00

This is our company's second year to participate in St Baldrick's day, where a few of us agree to raise money for research for children's cancer by taking donations on our heads (so to speak). Its a great organization and a great cause. And it's a fun excuse to see what you look like bald.

There were 5 brave souls who volunteered from our company this year. We tagged ourselves the "Smooooth Operators" and should meet our team goal of raising $5000 for the cause.

Enjoy the slideshow of the event:

AdvantageWorks for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

2008-03-03T08:55:00.002-06:00

AdvantageWorks is excited to announce the availability of our full product line for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. From our Split View that brings data to the user where they need it, to our Editable Grid allowing data to be edited in place, our products enhance the usability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 resulting in increased user adoption, productivity and ultimately a higher ROI on your investment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

	Split View - Seamlessly extends the core Microsoft Dynamics CRM user interface, giving users greater freedom and control over their data Navigate multiple entities from the same screen Configurable tab layout Supports both system and custom entities Built-in templates for quick tab development Increases user satisfaction and product adoption Reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) by increasing efficiency and accuracy
	Editable Grid - Allows the user to edit the data directly in a grid via a single button click Supports both system and custom entities Respects security roles and customizations Designed to work with the our Split View or as a stand-alone component
	Relationship Navigator - Quick navigation of entities via all of their existing relationships. Create new relationships and activities on the fly without ever leaving the current view Navigate all related entities from a single location Expand entities to show relationships one, two, or any number of degrees away Create custom relationships between any two entities, including entities of the same type Built-in templates for quick tab development Create activities directly in the Navigator for any display entity
	Dashboard - Customized views of up-to-the-minute information on all key performance indicators (KPI) Configurable layout with zoom-in capabilities Supports filtering Supports editable grid Extensible via custom panels Supports custom panels Visibility controlled by security roles Tabbed interface for multiple dashboards
	Quick Search - Find records by searching entities by their business required and business recommended fields as defined through standard customizations Makes searching easy Supports both system and custom entities Search across multiple entities Supports both pre-defined and ad-hoc queries Results returned in editable grid Reduces dependency on the Advanced Find, which can be complicated for many users

Of course, all of our components support multi-tenant deployments, speak multiple languages, and make change in your favorite currency. For more information about our complete product line for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 please visit our website at http://www.advantageworks.com/products/.

Pseudo-Filtered Lookup Dialog in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

2008-02-18T20:34:00.002-06:00

One of the great unsupported customizations in Microsoft CRM 3.0 was the ability to apply a filter to a lookup with just a few lines of JavaScript. Ronald Lemmen had a nice post describing this approach that used a FetchXml query to filter the lookup values. However, in Microsoft CRM 4.0 this customization no longer works and when you attempt it you receive the following depressing error:

CRM Parameter Filter - Invalid parameter 'fetchXml=...' in Request.QueryString on page /_controls/lookup/lookupsingle.aspx

Figuring Microsoft must have renamed the parameters I spent some time today scanning the Microsoft CRM DLL files (Lutz Roeder's Reflector for .NET is a great tool for reverse engineering). Unfortunately I came up dry and have come to the conclusion this approach no longer works. Hey, it was unsupported in the first place -- can't really complain ;-) Since filtering is such an important feature of usability we still wanted to find a way to apply a filter to lookups. In our world we have relationships where entity names are not always unique across the organization, though they are unique within the context of their parent relationship.

Of the query string parameters still available one still gave promise of a possible solution - search. When this parameter is specified it defaults the search string in the lookup dialog and applies the search when the dialog is opened. While we are not able to target our filter to a specific field, we can still leverage the lookup search (and the search columns for the lookup view) to filter the records returned.

For this example assume we have two entities - state and city - with the state being the parent of city. In the City Lookup View add a find column for the state name:

In the onload event of the form we add the following:

document.FilterLookup = function(source, target)
{
    if (IsNull(source) || IsNull(target)) { return; }

    var name = IsNull(source.DataValue) ? '' : source.DataValue[0].name;

    target.additionalparams = 'search=' + name;
}

In the onchange event of the state field on the form we add the following:

document.FilterLookup(crmForm.all.awx_stateid, crmForm.all.awx_cityid);

When the user selects a state...

... and then chooses a city, they see this:

Filtered? Yes! Supported? Maybe not, but should be good until 5.0 :-)

AdvantageWorks Beta for Microsoft CRM 4.0 (correction)

2008-02-02T14:25:00.001-06:00

The previously listed email address for submitting requests to participate in the beta program was incorrect and should read as follows:

If you are interested in being considered as a potential AdvantageWorks beta tester, please send an email to support@advantageworks.com. Please include information about your company, development environment, type of deployment (on premise, hosted, or live), and a primary contact.

Using Nurture Marketing and CRM in Commercial Real Estate

2008-02-02T10:09:00.000-06:00

Ascendix Technologies will be sponsoring the TCN West Region Conference in Reno Nevada on February 28th and 29th. Wes Snow, President and CEO of Ascendix Technologies, will be presenting a seminar targeted for brokers where he will discuss the concept and philosophies of nurture marketing and how brokers can apply these simple principles to make a significant impact on their effectiveness and earning potential.

AdvantageWorks Beta for Microsoft CRM 4.0

2008-01-31T12:36:00.001-06:00

AdvantageWorks is pleased to announce the start of the beta period for our suite of products for Microsoft CRM 4.0. The initial release includes the following components:

Being a beta tester means you get to test prerelease versions of AdvantageWorks software currently in development, not available to anyone else outside AdvantageWorks. In return, we ask that you take the time to fill out bug reports and give us feedback; your job as a beta tester is an important one: to help us build a better, more stable product.

If you are interested in being considered as a potential AdvantageWorks beta tester, please send an email to support@advantageworks.com. Please include information about your company, development environment, type of deployment (on premise, hosted, or live), and a primary contact.

AdvantageWorks Update

2008-01-11T15:45:00.001-06:00

An update of the AdvantageWorks Components for Microsoft CRM 3.0 is now available for download. This update includes a number of small bug fixes and enhancements:

Fix- Editable grid is allowing closed / inactive records to be edited in the grid
New - Added ability to alias (sub-class) entities for purposes of configuration / query differences
Fix - Activities in split view is only showing records when the parent is the "regarding" object
Fix - Primary key columns are displayed as GUID's instead of links
Fix - Navigator generates an error when an activity with an invalid activity party is selected (one that MS CRM cannot resolve)
Fix - Clicking on row in contact tab causes exception
Fix - Contact tab - system error
Fix - Quick Search is generating a JavaScript error when used
Fix - Quick Search is displaying a search field for non-displayed grid columns
New - Added nurture marketing fulfillment

Partners can download the update via the Partner Portal. For a trial of the AdvantageWorks Components for Microsoft CRM 3.0 please click here.

We are currently hard at work on the AdvantageWorks Components for Microsoft CRM 4.0, so please check back here for more information and an expected release date.

Extending duplicate detection with Soundex

2008-01-02T13:35:00.001-06:00

The duplicate detection included in Microsoft CRM 4.0 is great. It provides a foundation for creating a variety of rules to detect duplicate records using "like" matches across multiple entity types. However, "like" matches can start to breakdown when the spelling of names differs, which often occurs with proper names. This article describes how to extend the duplication detection in Microsoft CRM 4.0 to include "fuzzy" matching based on the Soundex algorithm.

The Soundex algorithm converts a name into a four-character string, originally used for indexing, that can also be used for comparisons. In Microsoft CRM 4.0 to implement Soundex duplicate detection we created a new field on the entities to be compared for storing the Soundex value and added JavaScript to the "onChange" event of the name field to store the value. The steps involved are:

Add "Soundex" attribute to your entity
Add "Soundex" attribute to your form (set as read-only). This step helps illustrate the example, validates the logic is working correctly, and makes the field available to the JavaScript in step # 3. However, it is probably best not to display this value to the user and it could be hidden as described here on Ronald Lemmen's blog.
In the "onLoad" event set the ForceSubmit flag to true for the Soundex field
Apply "onChange" event to the primary name attribute using JavaScript such as the code found here to set the value of the Soundex field.
Create a new duplicate detection rule comparing the Soundex values

Once everything is in place, if you create an account named John's Bait Shop and try and create a new account named Jon's Bait Shop the duplication rules will detect a potential duplicate and alert the user accordingly.

What we found is not only is this rule effective in finding potential duplicates, but if Soundex rules are in place there is not really a need to use "like" matches based on the the primary field. Once the Soundex values are in place they can be used across entities like other duplication rules.

It is worth noting the "onChange" event only fires when the data is input via the standard UI. It is probably better to apply the Soundex logic via a server-side callout, but for the simplicity of this example we are just demonstrating a client-side approach.

Drip Marketing for Microsoft CRM

2007-12-20T14:54:00.001-06:00

We just finished the beta testing phase of our upcoming drip marketing bundle for Dynamics CRM. This has been quite a pet project for us, as we believe strongly in nurture marketing concepts and have practiced these for ourselves for the past 5 or so years. We've been using a tool other than Microsoft CRM for this up to now, and can now fully marry our CRM tools with nurture marketing!

What is nurture marketing? It's a marketing philosophy and selling process made popular by Jim Cecil and his Nurture Institute. At the core, it recognizes that customers will buy on their timeline, and by making "deposits" over time, (not junk mail, mind you) you will be ahead of your competition when your prospect is ready to buy.

A residential real estate agent in my neighborhood understands this concept well. Several times per year I get letters and mailings from her with truly valuable information: local event schedules (Go Cowboys!), neighborhood demographic trends, crime watch information, then occasionally a postcard of a recent sale. Four out of every five things I get from her have nothing to do with her or her services; just a "deposit" of useful information that keeps her top of mind. When we eventually get ready to sell our house, why wouldn't we contact her?

Keeping your company top of mind with prospects is pretty hard work without a technology tool. We look forward to making this module available to our own clients and partners. We strongly believe that using this tool, paired with Microsoft CRM, will impact your business in more ways than you can imagine!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

2007-12-18T08:47:00.001-06:00

It looks like it is now official -- Microsoft CRM 4.0 has been released to manufacturing and should be available for download soon (any day now). There many great new features of the new release of Microsoft CRM, but when you look past the new duplicate detection, multi-tenancy, data imports, etc., what we are most excited about are the following:

Business Modeling

With Microsoft CRM 3.0 it was often difficult to truly model a business due to the limitations of the types of relationships available. Microsoft CRM 5.0 introduces two new relationships, which eliminate the barriers that existed before:

Many-to-Many
One-to-Many (System-to-System)
Self referential
Multiple relationships between entities

By being able to more closely model a business the user experience is greatly enhanced through easier navigation, a more intelligent data model, and the flexibility to customize the system on an individual basis. No longer do we need to explain to our clients why it is not possible to have two contacts linked to a single record :-)

CRM Live

The introduction of CRM Live opens the world of Microsoft CRM to a new subset of businesses. As opposed to an on-premise deployment, there are no hardware costs associated with CRM Live and the licensing model allows smaller businesses to enjoy the same functionality larger ones have traditionally been able to implement.

Of course an on-premise deployment allows for greater flexibility and customization, and for larger businesses it is still the right choice -- especially where their business processes necessitate customizations beyond what can be achieved "out of the box". However, CRM Live also supports much of the same configuration options allowing ISV's to offer compelling vertical solutions in a true SaaS model.

Virtual Earth Interactive SDK

2007-10-11T17:17:00.000-05:00

I was doing some research for some enhancements to our integration with Microsoft Virtual Earth, and I happened on this link to the Interactive SDK for Microsoft Virtual Earth.

http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/#

Let me say that I was quite impressed. It even gives you source code for each example.

For instance, lets say in our Commercial Real Estate CRM solution we are looking at a property or series of properties on a map. We could have a custom menu with checkboxes such as: Restaurants, Convenience Stores, Airports, Copy and Fax centers, and Post Offices.

When the user checks one or more of the boxes, the SDK can show all businesses that match the checked categories that are nearby the property or properties on our view. The example they use in the SDK is pizza places.

Very slick stuff!!

AdvantageWorks Update

2007-09-18T21:04:00.001-05:00

AdvantageWorks is pleased to announce an updated release of our add-on components for Microsoft CRM 3.0. This update includes enhancements to all of our components, with specific enhancements including:

Editable Grid

Added ability to embed grid in a standard CRM form, giving you three ways to implement the Editable Grid:
Split View - used to display child records associated with a parent record
IFRAME - used to display the grid within the standard Microsoft CRM form or within your own custom application
ASP.NET Control - used to programmatically embed the grid in your own custom application

Split View

Added ability to add a summary panel for the selected record
Added ability to display c360 components in a split view panel
Removed need to define system filters in the AwxCore.xml file

Relationship Navigator

Changed Create Relationship dialog to use standard Microsoft CRM lookup controls in place of drop down lists

Quick Search

Changed lookup properties to use standard Microsoft CRM lookup controls in place of drop down lists

General

Moved documentation to an online format at http://wiki.advantageworks.com
Added a “Help About” dialog
Added new exception publish method for writing errors to the Event Log

To download the latest version of these components, please submit a download request via our website at http://www.advantageworks.com/Forms/Download.aspx. If you need an updated trial license, one will automatically be forwarded to you when we receive your request.

AdvantageWorks Wiki

2007-09-10T21:58:00.001-05:00

In preparation for the next release of the AdvantageWorks add-on components for Microsoft CRM we have moved our product documentation from a compiled help file to an online wiki format. This will allow us to keep the documentation more up-to-date, relevant, and targeted. At the same time the content will be easier to search, navigate, and will no longer require the installation of our trial software to obtain.

The wiki can be found at the following address: http://wiki.advantageworks.com. We have also started using wikis internally and have chosen to implement the MediaWiki software, which is the same software that runs Wikipedia. For the short-term we are hosting the AdvantageWorks wiki at ScribbleWiki, but we will be moving it to our servers once we complete some internal upgrades. When accessing the wiki please use the above URL, as it will point to our current site -- whether it is hosted or not.

In the true spirit of the wiki we encourage you to add relevant content, make edits, and participate in the discussion pages. However, for support requests please either contact us directly, or post a message to our newsgroup. We believe support should be available in many forms, and hope you find the wiki to be another useful way to learn about us and our products.

Migrating Security Roles

2007-07-20T22:09:00.001-05:00

At the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver Microsoft revealed the next version of Microsoft CRM (Titan) will include the ability to export and import security roles. On the surface this seems like a small change, but it was significant enough to get my attention as this has always been a sore spot for us.

True, Microsoft does provide some migration tools. However, the simple task of deploying an implementation from a development environment to a QA or production environment usually meant the manual update of security roles -- not only was this a time consuming practice, it was also error prone. Because of the number of records involved in the configuration of security roles and privileges and the differences of unique identifiers from one database to another there did not appear to be a simple way to script out the security configuration to automate this step in the deployment process.

Well, now there is :-)

This is something I had meant to do for a while, but never was motivated enough to sit down and work out the SQL statements. Until today when I found myself clicking little green circles one after another applying security changes from one environment to another. I came to a quick conclusion that I could write a script to automate this task faster than it would take me to complete the manual application of the security settings.

Warning: Unsupported actions ahead

Assumptions

The source and target environments have the same business unit names
The source and target environments have the same security role names

Instructions

Script out the source security role privileges from the source system as follows (carriage returns have been added for positing purposes):

SELECT DISTINCT 'INSERT INTO ROLEPRIVILEGES (ROLEPRIVILEGEID, ROLEID, 
PRIVILEGEID, PRIVILEGEDEPTHMASK) SELECT NEWID(), (SELECT ROLEID FROM 
ROLEBASE R INNER JOIN BUSINESSUNITBASE B ON R.BUSINESSUNITID = 
B.BUSINESSUNITID WHERE R.NAME = ''' + R.NAME + ''' AND B.NAME = '''
+ U.NAME + '''), (SELECT PRIVILEGEID FROM PRIVILEGEBASE WHERE NAME =
''' + G.NAME + '''), ' + CAST(P.PRIVILEGEDEPTHMASK AS VARCHAR(10)) +
'' SQL FROM ROLEBASE R INNER JOIN ROLEPRIVILEGES P ON R.ROLEID = 
P.ROLEID INNER JOIN BUSINESSUNITBASE U ON R.BUSINESSUNITID = 
U.BUSINESSUNITID INNER JOIN PRIVILEGEBASE G ON P.PRIVILEGEID = 
G.PRIVILEGEID WHERE R.NAME <> 'System Administrator'

OK -- I know, it's ugly. What is it doing? Basically, this script creates a set of insert statements to create the security role privileges in the target system. The insert statement using the names of the business units and security roles to get their ID's in the target system.

Note, the script does not export the privileges associated with the System Administrator role as this role is constant from one installation to another. Here is an example of the insert statement created:

INSERT INTO ROLEPRIVILEGES (
       ROLEPRIVILEGEID, 
       ROLEID, 
       PRIVILEGEID, 
       PRIVILEGEDEPTHMASK ) 
SELECT NEWID(), 
       (SELECT ROLEID 
        FROM   ROLEBASE R INNER JOIN BUSINESSUNITBASE B
                          ON R.BUSINESSUNITID = B.BUSINESSUNITID 
        WHERE  R.NAME = 'Role Name' 
        AND    B.NAME = 'Business Unit Name'),
       (SELECT PRIVILEGEID 
        FROM   PRIVILEGEBASE 
        WHERE  NAME = 'prvAppendAccount'), 
       32

As you can see the generated statement does not contain any GUID's and has the statements necessary to locate the appropriate identifiers embedded. Just image this line repeated 1000's of times and you can start to see the value of this approach. To run the generated statements in the target environment make sure the business units and security roles have been created (they do not need to be configured). If you are re-applying the security privileges to an existing implementation you can clear the existing records using the following statement:

DELETE FROM  ROLEPRIVILEGES
       WHERE ROLEPRIVILEGEID NOT IN (
             SELECT     P.ROLEPRIVILEGEID 
             FROM       ROLEPRIVILEGES P 
             INNER JOIN ROLEBASE R ON P.ROLEID = R.ROLEID 
             WHERE      R.NAME = 'System Administrator')

As a reminder, making updates to the database via SQL scripts is not supported by Microsoft. Errors in the scripts or execution of the scripts can result in damage to your Microsoft CRM installation, your data, or both. Please proceed with caution.

How to brand your CRM implementation

2007-07-09T22:04:00.001-05:00

Warning: unsupported (but minor) customizations ahead!

This is something we use in our development environments to quickly identify the client associate with the implementation, but is also a simple way to brand a production installation of Microsoft CRM:

To add a logo follow these steps:

Open the bar_top.aspx file in the <Microsoft CRM Web>\_root folder using a text editor

Replace the table with the class stdTable stageContextBar with the following:

<table class="stdTable stageContextBar" cellspacing="0"
        cellpadding="0">
    <tr>
        <td class="bar">
            <nobr id="tdStageContextBar">
<%HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(stageContextBarTitle, Response.Output);%>
            </nobr>
        </td>
        <td align="right">
            <img src="../_imgs/logo.png" />&nbsp;
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Copy an image file to the <Microsoft CRM Web>\_imgs folder (in the example above the image is named logo.png).

If you wish you can specify the image dimensions in the HTML, as well as add a title for the mouse over. That's it. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done ;-)

Creating your own customer fields

2007-06-13T21:27:00.001-05:00

Michael Höhne has posted another great article showing just what is possible with client-side scripting in Microsoft CRM. This particular post discusses how to add a customer field to a form, which is a data type not available as an option in Microsoft CRM (though it is used extensively internally).

If I had the wherewithal to extend what Michael has created I would encapsulate his code in a CSS behavior file and in the OnLoad event set the behavior for the account lookup field to the file created. This would allow the code to be quickly reused on other forms. But alas... it is late and I am tired, so I will just imagine myself doing this :-)

There are a lot of great tips and advice on Michael's site, so if you have a moment I suggest you check out:

http://www.stunnware.com

Or if you just want to subscribe to his blog you can get to that here:

http://www.stunnware.com/crm2/atom.aspx