Microsoft Dynamics CRM / CRM 2011

Sdk 5.0.9 is available

2012-01-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24004

Cheers,

Convert text field to link button to open CRM record

2012-01-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

I was working on a requirement to display a readonly field on a form and it should open a record if clicked. This can be achieved by adding a text field and then converting it to link button. It can be done by calling below function. Test Account is the link button added to account form.

google.com can be replaced by CRM record url.

function ConvertToLink(fldName) {
    var btn = "<a href='javascript: void(0);' onclick=\"window.open(\'http://www.google.com\', \'windowname1\', \'width=600, height=650\');  return false;\" style='color:blue;text-decoration:underline !important'>Test Account</a>";
    var ctrl = Xrm.Page.ui.controls.get(fldName)._control;
    // Add the new button 
    ctrl.get_element().innerHTML += btn;
    // Hide the textbox 
    ctrl.get_element().firstChild.style.display = 'none';
}

You can refer this for more details on similar customization.

Happy JS,

Podcast and Overview: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6

2012-01-16T00:29:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/01/12/podcast-and-overview-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-update-rollup-6.aspx

Enjoy the rollup 6

Multiple Relationship & Mapping

2012-01-06T12:12:00.001-08:00

CRM 2011 allows creating multiple relationship between 2 entities. In our implementation, I created primary contact and secondary contact lookup attributes on account entity. It works fine when we create an account and then associate primary & secondary contact to it.

The problem occurs when I tried creating it from left navigation link of accounts from contact entity. It set both primary & secondary contact to current contact which is not desirable. One just need to set primary or secondary at any given point of time. In my case, I need a primary contact.

I did it using following lines of code.

var FORM_TYPE_CREATE = 1;
var formType = Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType();
if (formType == FORM_TYPE_CREATE) {
    Xrm.Page.getAttribute('new_secondarycontact').setValue(null);
}

Hope it will be useful to you.

Happy Coding,

CRM 2011 very well explained

2012-01-05T10:19:00.001-08:00

http://www.dynamicsexchange.com/CRM-2011/CRM-Overview.aspx#CRMPeople

Cheers,

Custom Lookup view for related entity records

2012-01-05T08:43:00.001-08:00

I was working on requirement where accounts and contacts having n:n relationship. N:N related contacts are being displayed company contacts. There is also active contact lookup field on account form i.e. account 1:n contact related.

I wanted to display only contacts those are related to current account in lookup view. Here is how I achieved this.

function customLookview() {
    // generate new guid and specify here
    var viewId = "{7595F4DA-6340-492A-BBA8-0E87A7CC532C}";

    // Set the entity name
    var entityName = "contact";
    //Associated company contacts
    var viewDisplayName = "Associated Company Contacts";
    var accountId = Xrm.Page.data.entity.getId();
//fetch xml to get related contacts

var fetchXml = "<fetch version='1.0' output-format='xml-platform' mapping='logical' distinct='false'>" +
  "<entity name='contact'>" +
    "<attribute name='fullname' />" +
    "<attribute name='telephone1' />" +
    "<attribute name='emailaddress1' />" +
    "<attribute name='jobtitle' />" +
    "<attribute name='fax' />" +
    "<attribute name='address1_postalcode' />" +
    "<attribute name='address1_line1' />" +
    "<attribute name='address1_stateorprovince' />" +
    "<attribute name='address1_country' />" +
    "<attribute name='address1_city' />" +
    "<attribute name='mobilephone' />" +
    "<attribute name='contactid' />" +
    "<order attribute='fullname' descending='false' />" +
    "<link-entity name='new_contact_account' from='contactid' to='contactid' alias='aa'>" +
      "<filter type='and'>" +
      "<condition attribute='accountid' operator='eq' value='" + accountId + "' />" +
    "</filter>" +
      "</link-entity>" +
  "</entity>" +
"</fetch>";
//grid xml for formatting view
    var layoutXml = "<grid name='resultset' object='2' jump='fullname' select='1' icon='1' preview='1'>" +
  "<row name='result' id='contactid'>" +
    "<cell name='fullname' width='300' />" +
    "<cell name='emailaddress1' width='150' />" +
    "<cell name='parentcustomerid' width='150' />" +
    "<cell name='telephone1' width='125' />" +
  "</row>" +
"</grid>";
    // specify the schemaname of the lookup control
    var lookupControl = Xrm.Page.ui.controls.get('new_coborrowerid');
    // set the parameters
    lookupControl.addCustomView(viewId, entityName, viewDisplayName, fetchXml, layoutXml, true);
}

Thanks to Nishant for this post -

http://nishantrana.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/filtered-lookup-in-crm-2011/

Happy Coding,

CRM 2011–Add Plugin Assembly and Sdk Steps to solution

2012-01-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Below are the steps to add new Plugin assembly and plug-in steps –

1. Open the solution –> Go to Plug-in Assemblies –> Click Add Existing assemblies from grid –> It will display below popup, select assembly and click ok.-> Should see the plugin in Plugin assemblies grid

2. Open Sdk Message Processing from Solution –> Click on Add Existing –> It will open below popup –> select the steps for specific plugin and click ok.-> should see the Sdk plugin in grid

Happy Coding,

Plug-in assembly does not contain the required types or assembly content cannot be updated.

2012-01-04T10:19:00.001-08:00

I was importing a solution from DEV to QA org and got above error with no other information.

It happens because of possible modifications in plugin assembly. Below are few -

1. Plugin class name modified

2. Metadata modification (culture, version, public key token)

You should remove the old plugin & steps from environment(QA in my case) and then try to import solution again. It should fix the problem.

Happy Coding,

Difference between CRM 4.0 and CRM2011 script for using on form customization

2012-01-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

Came across nice blog post on comparison of CRM 4.0 & CRM 2011 JavaScript. Thank a ton!

You can refer that here

Happy Coding,

Amol

CRM 2011 : Javascript giving error randomly. CRMEncodeDecode is undefined

2011-12-08T00:25:00.000-08:00

I was executing fetchXml using JavaScript (for more details on how to execute fetchxml using JS refer here) in my Html+JS application.

One of the line of code was - request += CrmEncodeDecode.CrmXmlEncode(sFetchXml);

I was getting rando error “CrmEncodeDecode is undefined” . CrmEncodeDecode object is a part of global.ashx which was not loading properly. As it was a test app, I was using hard-coded CRMurl and not using “GetGlobalContext().getServerUrl();” to get it.

If you use GetGlobalContext(), it also loads related files as well. For getting CRM config data, I would recommend  to use client global context by adding below line of code in your application.

<script src="../../WebResources/ClientGlobalContext.js.aspx"></script>

Happy JS,

CRM 2011 : Execute fetchXml from Javascript

2011-12-07T05:15:00.000-08:00

Paul from customer effective published couple of nice articles for executing fetchXml using JavaScript.

http://blog.customereffective.com/blog/2011/05/execute-fetch-from-javascript-in-crm-2011.html

http://blog.customereffective.com/blog/2011/05/parsing-and-consuming-the-crm-2011-soap-service-inside-javascript.html

Kudos to Paul!

Happy JS

P.S. Shortly, I will upload my sample which has similar functionality.

CRM 2011 – Good list of Javascript articles

2011-12-07T00:34:00.001-08:00

Just came across an article related to CRM 2011 javascripts on community site. Thought of sharing it -

http://community.dynamics.com/product/crm/crmtechnical/b/crmbusiness/archive/2011/12/06/crm-2011-good-list-of-javascript-articles.aspx

Happy JS,

CRM 2011 Teams & Queues

2011-12-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

Some of the most important considerations regarding teams include:

Most record types can be directly assigned to a team. After creating teams, security roles can be assigned to them and users added as members.
Users added as members of a team inherit the team's security privileges in addition to those derived from the user's security roles.
Users from different business units can be assigned to the same team.Records assigned to such a team will then be available to all team
members without having to give users organization-level security privileges.

Some of the most important considerations regarding queues include:

Cases and activities are automatically enabled for queues; most other record types can be but require a simple customization to do so.
Optionally, records enabled for queues can be configured to automatically create corresponding queue items when a record is created or assigned.
Queues are user-owned, which means that a user or groups of users can have access to certain queues without requiring access to all
queues.

CRM 2011 : How do specific condition for Activity Party in Query Expression?

2011-12-01T09:16:00.001-08:00

I was trying to retrieve campaign response by customer using query expression. In CRM 2011, customer is of type activity party in campaign response. Activity Party records are stored in activity pointer entity which needs to link with the parent entity. Below snippets can retrieve all campaign responses by particular customer(Activity Party)

// Create the ConditionExpression.
ConditionExpression condition = new ConditionExpression();
// Set the condition for the retrieval to retrieve all activities that belong to the current user.
condition.AttributeName = "partyid";
condition.Operator = ConditionOperator.Equal;
condition.Values.Add(contactId);

// Build the filter based on the condition.
FilterExpression filter = new FilterExpression();
filter.FilterOperator = LogicalOperator.And;
filter.Conditions.Add(condition);

// Create a LinkEntity to link the activity participant to the activity.
LinkEntity link = new LinkEntity();

// Set the properties of the LinkEntity.
link.LinkCriteria = filter;

// Set the linking entity to be the activity.
link.LinkFromEntityName = "activitypointer";

// Set the attribute being linked to to be the activityid.
link.LinkFromAttributeName = "activityid";

// Set the entity being linked to to be the activityparty.
link.LinkToEntityName = "activityparty";

// Set the attribute linking to the activityparty to be the activityid.
link.LinkToAttributeName = "activityid";

QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression();
query.EntityName = "campaignresponse";
query.Criteria = new FilterExpression();
query.LinkEntities.Add(link);
query.ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(new String[] { "activityid" });

var campaignresponses = (EntityCollection)service.RetrieveMultiple(query);

Happy Coding

Dynamics CRM–Child Pipeline Explained

2011-11-25T07:05:00.001-08:00

You can not find better article on Child Pipeline than this one. All credit to Mark Kovalcson

http://crmscape.blogspot.com/2009/02/ms-crm-40-plug-in-stages-pipelines-and.html

Enjoy.

Integrating Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

2011-11-21T02:55:00.000-08:00

Special Thanks to Girish Raja for this video. Nicely explained http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/OSP309

Happy Coding,

SSL Explained–Simplest Possible Explanation.

2011-11-21T02:52:00.001-08:00

I am developing a WCF service for one of my project using HTTP as the transport, security is provided by a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). While googling, I stumbled upon a good article on MSDN. I thought of sharing it here. Soon post the WCF architecture for exposing CRM services.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms734679.aspx

HTTP Transport Security

.NET Framework 4

Other Versions

When using HTTP as the transport, security is provided by a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) implementation. SSL is widely used on the Internet to authenticate a service to a client, and then to provide confidentiality (encryption) to the channel. This topic explains how SSL works and how it is implemented in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Basic SSL

How SSL works is best explained through a typical scenario, in this case, a bank's Web site. The site allows a customer to log on with a user name and password. After being authenticated, the user can perform transactions, such as view account balances, pay bills, and move money from one account to another.

When a user first visits the site, the SSL mechanism begins a series of negotiations, called a handshake, with the user's client (in this case, Internet Explorer). SSL first authenticates the bank site to the customer. This is an essential step because customers must first know that they are communicating with the actual site, and not a spoof that tries to lure them into typing in their user name and password. SSL does this authentication by using an SSL certificate provided by a trusted authority, such as VeriSign. The logic goes like this: VeriSign vouches for the identity of the bank site. Because Internet Explorer trusts VeriSign, the site is trusted. If you want to check with VeriSign, you can do so as well by clicking on the VeriSign logo. That presents a statement of authenticity with its expiration date and who it is issued to (the bank site).

To initiate a secure session, the client sends the equivalent of a "hello" to the server along with a list of cryptographic algorithms it can use to sign, generate hashes, and encrypt and decrypt with. In response, the site sends back an acknowledgment and its choice of one of the algorithms suites. During this initial handshake, both parties send and receive nonces. A nonce is a randomly generated piece of data that is used, in combination with the site's public key, to create a hash. A hash is a new number that is derived from the two numbers using a standard algorithm, such as SHA1. (The client and the site also exchange messages to agree which hash algorithm to use.) The hash is unique and is used only for the session between the client and the site to encrypt and decrypt messages. Both client and service have the original nonce and the certificate's public key, so both sides can generate the same hash. Therefore, the client validates the hash sent by the service by (a) using the agreed upon algorithm to calculate the hash from the data, and (b) comparing it to the hash sent by the service; if the two match, then the client has assurance that the hash has not been tampered with. The client can then use this hash as a key to encrypt a message that contains yet another new hash. The service can decrypt the message using the hash, and recover this second-to-final hash. The accumulated information (nonces, public key, and other data) is now known to both sides, and a final hash (or master key) can be created. This final key is sent encrypted using the next-to-last hash. The master key is then used to encrypt and decrypt messages for the reset of the session. Because both client and service use the same key, this is also called a session key.

The session key is also characterized as a symmetric key, or a "shared secret." Having a symmetric key is important because it reduces the computation required by both sides of the transaction. If every message demanded a new exchange of nonces and hashes, performance would deteriorate. Therefore, the ultimate goal of SSL is to use a symmetric key that allows messages to flow freely between the two sides with a greater degree of security and efficiency.

The previous description is a simplified version of what happens, because the protocol may vary from site to site. It is also possible that both the client and the site both generate nonces that are algorithmically combined during the handshake to add more complexity, and therefore protection, to the process of exchanging data.

Certificates and Public Key Infrastructure

During the handshake, the service also sends its SSL certificate to the client. The certificate contains information, such as its expiration date, issuing authority, and the site's Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). The client compares the URI to the URI it had originally contacted to ensure a match, and also checks the date and issuing authority.

Every certificate has two keys, a private key and a public key, and the two are known as an exchange key pair. In brief, the private key is known only to the owner of the certificate while the public key is readable from the certificate. Either key can be used to encrypt or decrypt a digest, hash, or other key, but only as contrary operations. For example, if the client encrypts with the public key, only the site can decrypt the message using the private key. Similarly, if the site encrypts with the private key, the client can decrypt with the public key. This provides assurance to the client that the messages are being exchanged only with the possessor of the private key because only messages encrypted with the private key can be decrypted with the public key. The site is assured that it is exchanging messages with a client that has encrypted using the public key. This exchange is secure only for an initial handshake, however, which is why much more is done to create the actual symmetric key. Nevertheless, all communications depend on the service having a valid SSL certificate.

Happy Coding,

CRM 2011–Code Generation Tool (CrmSvcUtil.exe) for early bound entities

2011-11-15T01:57:00.001-08:00

Code generation tools helps you to generate typed classes for all CRM entities and it’s attributes. This output file contains one class for each entity, providing early binding and IntelliSense to aid you as you write custom code. It is available with CrmSdk.

Note – CrmSvcUtil.exe requires Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll (onpremise) and Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll (online).

For On-Premise installation refer below command (select the CrmSvcUtil.exe folder in command prompt) -

Command Line -

CrmSvcUtil.exe /url:http://<servername>/<organizationname>/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc
/out:<outputfilename>.cs /username:<username> /password:<password> /domain:<domainname>
/namespace:<outputnamespace> /serviceContextName:<service context name>

Usage Example -

CrmSvcUtil.exe /url:http://192.68.150.175/TestOrg/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc
/out:xrm.cs /username:administrator /password:welcome!2 /domain:contoso
/namespace:TestOrg.Entities /serviceContextName:DataContextTestOrg

More details about Code Generation Tool can be found at below links -

Create Early Bound Entity Classes with the Code Generation Tool (CrmSvcUtil.exe)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg327844.aspx

Create Extensions for the Code Generation Tool

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh547384.aspx

Happy Coding,

Ribbon Editor CRM 2011

2011-11-14T22:34:00.001-08:00

There are couple of tools already on codeplex for ribbon editing but the one Erik has developed is the best among all. It is simple to use and easy to customize.

http://crmvisualribbonedit.codeplex.com

More details -

http://erikpool.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-crm-2011-ribbon-editing-tool.html?showComment=1321337822663#c2860471621481300747

Thank you Erik Pool for this awesome tool.

Happy Coding,

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011–Update Rollup 4

2011-09-28T02:31:00.001-07:00

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27554

Happy Coding,

Friendly CRM Developer

New face of Neudesic.com–SharePoint 2010

2011-08-24T11:44:00.001-07:00

My company Neudesic just released a new and improved public website that was built on SharePoint 2010 and does some cool things with CRM. Luckily I have got a chance to be part of this process from UX side. I am very proud to say that this is great example of SharePoint + UX + CRM + other technologies. This is a great example of how Rich public facing site built on SharePoint 2010 can look and definitely showcases some great features!Press Release - Click here

There’s even a cool contest where you could win a Kinect (I’m not eligible.)

Note - Still some improvements are there, we folks are working on it, very soon we will see one more improved version of this.

Request
Please share your feedbacks/views/comments, this will help us.

MS CRM 2011 solutions for Release management

2011-07-07T09:56:00.001-07:00

Release management using CRM 2011 Solutions by MVP Ayaz Ahmad check this out..

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2011/07/07/solutions-amp-release-management.aspx

-AG

Microsoft SQL Reporting Services with Microsoft CRM Online

2011-03-01T11:08:00.001-08:00

Found good blog entry on how to create SQL reports on CRM online environment. Thought of sharing..

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2010/02/01/using-microsoft-sql-reporting-services-with-microsoft-crm-online.aspx

CRM 2011 RTM Bits

2011-03-01T02:07:00.001-08:00

Access the RTM bits at the following links:

Component	Link
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3f82c6f-c123-4e80-b9b2-ee422a16b91d
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Microsoft Office Outlook	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=22DC423A-7194-491E-A169-6ACE16BFDD36
Microsoft Dynamics 2011 CRM E-Mail Router	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=a995f6ad-0099-42fd-9b22-cf7b3d40a2bf
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Report Authoring Extension	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=64a09b75-8376-4b9d-aea3-8a83a1837c4d
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 List Component for SharePoint	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=23c0f351-8694-4d92-9ddf-34a949aec6a7
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Language Pack	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=db44c564-2338-407e-980a-c9c83ad37729

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workgroup Server 2011 (5 CAL limit): H84KC-JH8DF-7PDYK-TXBXR-2RMMT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 (no CAL limit): MQM2H-JYYRB-RRD6J-8WBBC-CVBD3

An update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Release Candidate is available

2011-02-28T03:02:00.001-08:00

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2461082

The update upgrades certain builds of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Release Candidate to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 build 5.0.9688.583.