Friendly Microsoft Dynamics CRM Monster

Merry Christmas !

2011-12-22T13:06:00.003+01:00

Only few days, hours left and it is X-mas, the time for eating, celebrating and have a good time.

So, I would like to wish all the readers of my blog a

Of course, more posts are coming your way :)

Keep reading!

New CRM 2011 book

2011-11-17T22:01:00.001+01:00

Of course several books have been published about CRM 2011 already, but this book is kinda special. I was one of the technical reviewers of the book (yes, shameless echo boost).

As reviewer you just get the chapters review them and send them back. The book Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 New Features book dropped on my doormat few days ago. It was kinda cool to see that the authors were Jim Wang & Darren Liu.

Of course I can tell you that you should buy and read it, but decide for yourself. Its good book and also for more experienced CRM users nice to have and it might give you some new insights. More info about the book here .

Happy ~~reviewing~~ reading :)

The Magic Ribbon: greyed-out + active buttons

2011-11-17T21:18:00.001+01:00

Releasing your solution to another environment brings a lot of challenges, especially when this is the production environment. It is an extra challenge to deploy to architecture where RDS (Remote Desktop Services), the next version of Terminal Server 2003.

During testing we runned into strange behaviour of the ribbon. It suddenly got greyed-out, but even stranger, the buttons still worked.

Magic Ribbon: grey-out but clickable buttons

Looking closely we saw an JavaScript error (yes, bottom left of your IE). The error point out to SEC7115, which should have something to do with CSS not loaded correctly (to show errors hit F12). You may have similar errors.

Error message in debug window

Security settings in IE

After some basic debugging and searches we also got some messages stating that "This page is accessing information that is not under control...".

Other side effect was that reaching the CRM application on server name worked fine, using the ip-address did show the mystery ribbon.

After some research this should do the trick and get it working again:
1) Add your CRM url to Local internet (Internet Options > Security)
2) Edit the settings in this zone -> Custom Level
3) Change in Miscellaneous section: Access data sources cross domain to Enable

Hope this post save you some frustrations and looking for solutions. The error might sent you to different path..

Happy debugging :)

iSad

2011-10-06T08:23:00.000+02:00

Just started to wake up and read the breaking news that Steve Jobs has passed away. I must say in the beginning I disliked the iMac ( tv like "PC"), in the time that I was building website. I spent lot of hours to have the same site on all OS's and browser versions.

This changed since the introduction of the iPad, which is used even more then my pc by my family, almost more then the television :) The step to iPhone was heavenly after all crappy other Smartphone like Blackberry, how you can type with that tiny keyboard, Nokia and also Samsung.

R.I.P. - Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

Prototyping CRM with mSketch

2011-09-01T13:46:00.001+02:00

Yes, August was quiet month or at least it seems so on my blog. Nevertheless, very busy month with a lot going on.

Currently working on an new implementation of CRM 2011. In every project you have to demonstrate/show the screen based on the requirements you have gathered.

Its commonly down in mock-up, images (either vmware, hyper-v or virtualbox) or via demo system like crm online. In all cases you have the challenges that you cannot show full functionality (besides out-of-box stuff).

A good alternative is the use of mSketch a solution (e.g. stencils) for Microsoft Expression Blend. I must admit I seen the name popup in my MSDN account, but didn't use it before.

The most interesting about this mSketch is that you can make a mock-up with actually functionality behind it e.g. pull downs are opening when clicking on it. The solution, yes everything is called solutions today same as in Visual Studio, exist of toolbox with all fields you can use for designing your form as you can see in the image to the left.

So you might think I could also use my own tools or my own development enviroment. There is more about this way of working then you might expect. I did some basic research I came across the book "Dynamic Prototyping with Sketchflow in Expression Blend".

There have been a lot of studies about how our brain is processing images. In short our visual cortex initially reacts and is attracted by straight lines and angles of light,which means that if we use black and white sketches we have a advantage over something with lots of colors, images etc. It would also mean that the audience quicker should understand what you mean and your feedback should also be more constructive.

Of course, you have to get used to the Microsoft Expression tool first, but that shouldn't be that hard. You don't have build your own solution for CRM, it is already there too, so you can start almost immediately.

The mSketch stencils are made by Magnetism, also more information about the out of the box functionality can be found there.

So start make your prototyping easier and more convincing, who wouldn't like that :-)

Dynamics connector... nice but no worthy yet?

2011-07-28T10:19:00.000+02:00

I first saw the Dynamics connector at Convergence of last year. I was at that time not very impressed and it seems still a lot of work had to be done for making it a solid solution.

I am currently working on new assignment and due to the requirement we have to implement Biztalk 2010 for integration purposes. So I am currently focusing on the heavy weight for integration.

Nevertheless, I also had to look to two integration based on the Dynamics connector and as you might expect they both failed. It was integration between CRM and ERP (Nav and AX). Most complaints I heard that its almost impossible to debug, I also experienced it myself. The error messages are so general that you keep searching untill.... The other complaint I heard that Microsoft support on the connector is bare minimum and seems not to get a lot of attention.

In both cases the solution tends to be to turn to non-free integration solution either of Scribe or even custom .NET solutions.

Of course, I am curious if this was just my bad luck or that more of you have bad experience with the free connector? I also read some post that people got it working, but it didn't say if it was just basic or more complex integration.

Keep it integrated! :)

You missed it?

2011-06-22T10:41:00.000+02:00

Yes, you might have missed it. Last Friday it was CRM day at Decisions Spring 2011. This time the event was held for 4 days in a row and also AX, NAV and GP had their own day.

It was a very interested event with many presentation including an impressive list of presentations given by people like: Varun Krishna, Larry Lents, Anne Stanton and Matthew 'CRM Bible' Wittemann :-) Of course, I must admit I was one of the speakers too and of course a litte proud to be in the company of big names in the crm community.

Of course, I had a presentation about data migration. This time about the 5 sins of data migration and after the ppresentation some very interesting questions and positive feedback too.

Now waiting for the next event, unfortunately I cannot make it to WPC but waiting for other events... might be Convergence and Decisions Fall 2011?

Don't miss it next time....

CRM & Marketing global workshop: "True Stories of Marketing with Microsoft CRM"

2011-05-22T09:34:00.000+02:00

How to extend a customer profile with marketing, how you know what information is shared on social media, howto measure your marketing campaigns, good use of newsletters? All genuine questions the answer you can obtain by visiting the global workshop of Clickdimensions.

This live workshop will include examples of real world campaigns where Microsoft CRM
was used to:

- Double a newsletter list in two weeks using a unique approach toward email marketing and lead scoring
- Develop an easy way to improve web traffic by understanding the quality of visitors by traffic sources
- Implement a strategy for creating great content that positions your firm as a leader
- Apply simple tips for search engine marketing and search engine optimization
- Provide sales with easy to use automated prospecting and marketing tools to make them more effective and efficient
- Identify how to best use the right social channels to drive business value

Interested in joining? Click here

Happy marketing :-)

The "June" event to visit : Decision Spring 2011

2011-05-05T13:27:00.003+02:00

Guess, you should already have been marked it in your agenda. The next edition of Decision is coming in June. The virtual event, yes no travelling required, no expensive tickets and you just can order pizza at home :)

It will take place from June 14th until June 17th and it covers of course CRM, AX, GP and NAV. You can visit presentations, real time Q & A sessions, network online, discover new products.

The schedules:
June 14 - AX Day
June 15 - GP Day
June 16 - NAV Day
June 17 - CRM Day

Of course I prefer 17th and you could visit my session about "The 5 sins of data migration" and also visit the sessions of CRM specialist like: Anne Stanton and Matthew Wittemann... mmmm didn't he write the 'bible'? ;-)

You can register here and here and here.

See you there, oh did I mentioned I have session too? ;-)

Reading, reading & more

2011-05-05T12:58:00.000+02:00

Guess the downside of new version for consultants is that we have to learn and get used again to new interface, new features etc. of CRM 2011.

I still wondering where are my tabs :-) Also some technical changes are interesting to know, so I am currently diving into subject as claim bases authentication, SharePoint 2010 and solution feature.

I guess I am bit old fashioned, but I gather some documents including installation guide, some background about claim based authentication etc. Oh and I did buy the book of Matthew Wittemann "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Administration".

I did read/scanned the book and I think its very useful and addresses most interesting topics you would need to know. It covers topics like installation, implementation strategy, functional area e.g. Relationship, service, sales, marketing etc. The books touches most area and in good detail. Of course I would personally more interested in migration & integrations, but the disadvantage of CRM 2011 that it has so many functionality that one book isn't simply enough.

Nevertheless I would definitely buy it and it fits well next too the collection of my CRM books :)

Happy learning :-)

Interviews about all you want to know about MS CRM

2011-03-04T17:57:00.002+01:00

You want to know more about the current CRM market, CRM Online vs SalesForce and right from the source. Yes it's possible on the blog of Software Advice you can find an interesting series of 7 video's about CRM.

The interviews you can watch are with .... Brad Wilson, indeed the GM of Dynamics CRM.

Below three of the video's, you can even click straight to the video yourself :-)

Ready to click?

"State of the CRM Software Market" interview with Brad Wilson
"Will Microsoft CRM 2011 Slow Sales force" interview with Brad Wilson
"Can Dynamics Crm Partners Survive in the Cloud Era" interview with Brad Wilson

Check them all out yourself :-)

The Scribe way to heaven

2011-02-18T11:05:00.000+01:00

Moving to the cloud or back

Yesterday, I attended the partner update of Scribe. Of course I was already awareof most development, but I will share them with you :-)

Guess, in all overwhelming release news we just add some more :) By end of next month the new adapter for CRM 2011 will be release and this one will also supported new features like sharepoint, team ownership etc. For all basic thins you still can use the CRM 4.0 adapter.

They also going to release new feature called "Scribe RS", which stands for Scribe Replication Services. I did participate in beta and it's great feature. You could use RS for replicating your CRM database from Cloud to on-premise db for BI, reporting, backups. In this cause your CRM application will not be influences by performance issues and you can query, make awesome cubs or build your custom BW database. Oh, and its free... check it out here.

Now you can can migrate, integrate and replicate with Scribe, why you need Biztalk?

BTW : I am already preaching for my speciality. My company is also listed now as certified partner should be obvious which one it is.

Shameless promotion.... don't you love it :)

CRM Online for everyone?

2011-02-18T10:37:00.001+01:00

CRM Online wants you

I signed up for the CRM Online Beta and you got 5 licenses. It worked great, did some testing, discovering, participate in scribe online beta. It all worked great.

Guess, all beta users received the offer to upgrade two months free, discount rates etc. They know how to sell it :) I only noticed that you had to buy 5 licenses... mmm I am only one, why I need 5? Lucky, I found some posting that you could also could lower the licenses.

A call to crm service desk and they help you and.... omg, now I have only 1 license for my CRM online... that's cool :-)

Guess,now you out of excuses ;)

Finally CRM 2011 / CRM Online has been released

2011-02-18T10:22:00.001+01:00

I attended the official launch event of CRM 2011 two days ago. Of course nothing really new, but more promotion of partners who already made or were in process of making solution for CRM 2011.

So what did I remember of it? The most 'remember-able' thing was the closing. The presenters of the sessions held that day were asked to give some tips/advice about CRM(2011). Sadly only a few answer the question correctly. Most just did a sales pitch and praised their on solution. I hope they listen better to their customers!

You can try it yourself by downloading or just try CRM Online yourself :-)

Interesting links:

Download software
SDK 2011
Implementation Guide

Not know what new features are? Check this videos of Sonoma Partners
Overview of video's.

Happy discovering :)

Yes the blog is back!

2011-02-09T14:01:00.000+01:00

Guess you might have seen things like "this domain is registered" or "dit domein is geregistreerd" when hoping to see my blog ;)

Sorry about that but I moved my domain name to another provider and was a bit to quick in changing some DNS settings.... which were restored to defaults again .. so just had everything changed as it should be.

Nevertheless we are back, reachable again. So, just working on some new integrations based on Scribe, involved in low budget data migration using the 'awesome' crm import wizard :-(

So, expect some new posts soon!

PS Attending the official CRM 2011 Launch at February 16th in The Netherlands

A better start of the year: crm 2011, scribe online and more

2011-01-19T12:07:00.000+01:00

The beginning of the year started slow, but seems that CRM contract market is really recovering compared to last year.

This month of course the release of CRM 2011 and also the release of online version. I am very curious how it will develop. My only concern is the service, who gonna help you when you got stuck?

So, partner hosted is still good option for companies who like to have additional (native) support. I still here 'rumor' that we still have to wait for partner hosted CRM 2011, so we will see how it develop.

Currently also involved in beta process of Scribe Online propositions, which replicated cloud data to your on premise sql server for BI purposes. It looks very interesting.

Have a good year :-)

Partner hosted crm - what to look for?

2010-12-17T10:42:00.000+01:00

The introduction of CRM 2011 online next month will start many discussion about where to host. Do we choose only for the lowest rate or do we expect more from a hosting provider.

Of course, we not only want to host one product, but in case of Dynamics CRM we also like to add Exchange and SharePoint. This together would give us all features for basic collaboration and a solid CRM solutions.

Furthermore I think the discussing about is my data safe is not relevant anymore most serious parties have SAS 70 certification which guarantees your data can be kept safe. Mostly the security risk is your responsibility and at the end we just goto WikiLeads ;-)

I was asked and also pointed out by colleague to Sherweb.com. This is one of the major player on hosting service including hosted Dynamics CRM, SharePoint & MS Exchange.

I personally would look at the following points for selected my hosted provider:

- what service they offer
- Security SAS 70
- Customer friendly.. e.g. wizard that help you select the best options
- Extra information for help you make decision
- Price vs what you get for it

I like the wizard (see image) that help you choose e.g. shopping cart principle. Also links to common question advantage of hosted vs on-premise (in house).

Interesting additional service are Outlook migration, basic data migration, training and of course service plans. Often forgotten, you want to know who to call if you got stuck(!).

Guess, the tip of the day, not only take the price in consideration, also see what extra services are available.

Happy choosing ;)

New Musing is Published :)

2010-12-09T19:03:00.003+01:00

Finally got some time to get writing again, so first time was spend on preview to the battle of the cloud.

Read more at msdynamicsworld.com

And of course more posts are coming here too about recently released Scribe NAV adapter 1.5 , Battle in the clouds - Dynamics CRM vs SalesForce and also shameless 'advertorial' about hosted crm provider ;)

Looking back...

2010-11-30T09:41:00.004+01:00

The end of the year is coming and of course we spend some time looking back at the past year(s), before we look to the exciting new year which will bring us to the cloud and much to learn about CRM 2011.

Of course even I get older and takes more time to look back. And yes, I know my pic is not showing ;) Nevertheless, one of the interesting points is to see how products and technology has developed during the last couple of decades.

For all those people working in the business of CRM (even if you still using not Microsoft) you can have a trip to memory lane and follow the timeline of CRM.

Have a nice trip!

Attending & "Speaking" @ Decisions Fall 2010

2010-10-05T09:18:00.008+02:00

Its that time again many conferences are organized in last quarter of the year. It started good for me with the first Scribe User Conference, which was a relief compared to other conferences.

The next will be the Microsoft Convergence in The Hague and also attending the technical partner training one day later.

In November the virtual Decisions Fall 2010 are organized from November 1st to 4rd. Also this time I will give a presentation again of course about my fav topic Enterprise data migration.

At least one advantage of virtual convergence is no travel, no plaines and you safely can sleep in the back. Isn't that awesome? ;-)

Happy eventing!

1st Scribe Software User Conference (part 2)

2010-09-28T11:47:00.003+02:00

The first day started of course with the keynote. The breaking news was the announcement that Scribe is going into the cloud in addition to their 'on premise' solution.

They doubled their software development department to build this new solutions. The first beta known as Denali project is the possibility to replicate Dynamics CRM database and use the replicated data for Business intelligence. The BI part is created in cooperation of Infinity Info Systems.

More details on the announcement can be found here!

Personally I am very curious about it, because I am working with hosted, cloud and on premise based solutions or a hybrid which sound very awesome*, doesn't it? (* - I picked that up in the USA).

Check back later for my next awesome posts ;)

Attending the first Scribe Software User Conference (part 1)

2010-09-25T12:48:00.009+02:00

The last 10 years I attended many different conferences. Most of them were ok, some were excellent and the last one held by some company called MS was very disappointing (Convergence 2009).

Of course, I was glad to hear Scribe organized their first conference and I decided to travel to Bedford NH, the A on the map ;-) As you may read before this is still my fav migration & integration tool.

After 7 hours flight to Boston and 1,5 hour drive to Bedford, I witnessed this at my breakfast the next morning..

Lucky some people of the hotel set off the fire alarm by accident, but what better entertainment with your first coffee and waffles ;)

The conference was held in SERECS not far from the hotel. A modern conference center with all the equipment you need, beamers, video sytems, multiple screen, so you could see presentations from every place in the room.

The people attending were both partners, mvp's as customers, which worked out fine. The presentations addressed topics that were interesting for all audiences and I thought most were very useful.

The sessions of the first day, I will give some highlighst in my next post(s), were well prepared and presented. The atmosphere of the day was I think best described as relaxed. It was not over the top and covered with marketing sauce like some...mmm (MS) events, but just down to earth, to the point and pratical and of course with some good sense of humor.

And maybe the lesson learned for the first day...

uncrapify yourself.... (guess you should have been there)

to be continued

First impressions - CRM 2011 beta

2010-09-17T13:32:00.004+02:00

After the installation adventure, which wasn't too bad (read previous post). I did browse around.

The new layout 'ribbon' is not too bad, but I guess you have to get used to it. Your routines make you expect functionality at other places. Out of the box a lot of 'wizard' guide you in easy step what to do.

Interesting new feature are integration with SharePoint, you can define on which location you want to save your documents and that already big enhancement compared to previous versions.

Sure interesting to test this later, but I still need to install SharePoint. Other features that seems interesting is auditing tracking functionality, dashboards althought this might make your application slower.

And I am very curious about data import capabilities, so a lot to find out.

Keep (beta) exploring ;)

Setting up VM VirtualBox for CRM 2011 beta

2010-09-17T12:02:00.004+02:00

Finally had some time to install VM virtual box, due to 64 bit issues with VPC. I must admit it works quick and easy, so nice tool to make images and its tool provided by Oracle ;)

So, I spend some time setting up basic instance of Windows 2008 Enterprise R2 and give it some basic roles for AD, DNS etc. I had to look up the details for deploying the domain, but the magic tool was dcpromo.exe.

I, of course, decided to change domain and servername, which gave me some issues with SQL & Reporting Server and had to change names. This article might be helpful. After few reboots, some reconfiguring using Report Server Configuration Manager was needed.

I ran into issue that the SRS was stilling using the old sql server name and already new service account. The solutions was change service account back to system and then you can change the database, reconnect and go head..

Some more rebooting and then installed the beta verion of CRM 2011 and alter SRS Connector.

And yes finally it works....

PS Don't forget the windows update... only 46+ updates were available ;)

Issues during adhoc install of CRM 4.0 on Windows 2008 R2

2010-09-01T09:33:00.003+02:00

Sometimes, you will be asked to (re)install CRM 4.0 and then you can expect to run into trouble. Mostly you won't have the right permissions or previous installation has failed and you have to figure out why... mmmm and not surprising I run into some nice issues...

The first I ran into was the following, after someone had installed CRM 4.0 and browsed to CRM:

"Problems with this Web page might prevent it from being displayed properly or functioning properly" Line: 194 Char: 1 Error: Object expected code: 0"

I found the solutions in one of the communities, here the quick summary:

On IIS 7.0, this issue mostly happens when the static content role is
installed AFTER CRM 4.0 is installed,

Steps to solve this issue:
1) Check if the static content role service is installed on IIS 7.0
(Server Manager -> right-click -> add roles -> check static content)

2) Be aware if the static content role is installed AFTER CRM 4.0 is installed,
the static http handler mappings are not configured!
( IIS 7.0 > website: Microsoft Dynamics CRM -> features view ->
double-click: handler mappings -> double click: "StaticFile" -> Type:
StaticFileModule,DefaultDocumentModule )

3) Do IISreset

Hope this helps and happy debuggin :)