Technical

Cross domain remote debugging

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:41:00 GMT

When you are developing with a virtual PC which is running in its own domain or want to debug any other system which is in a different domain than you own user remote debuggin will normally fail on authentication errors. How do you set this up ...

Source control server setup

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:28:00 GMT

For my source control I use subversion and I found the easiest method to install a fully working subversion server (combined with trac for issue tracking) is to do that on linux. I can setup a clean server from scratch in about an hour including all required configuration. For a windows server I would need that just to install windows and get all the software packages. Best thing is I have a...

Localhost and integrated security

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:43:00 GMT

One thing I allways run across when installing a new server is that it won't allow connections over the loopback interface when using integrated security. I usually test the applications from the server console and everytime they give errors; 401.1 for most applications but the Microsoft Virtual server administration console for instance returns status 500 with a message parameter incorrect. The...

Version Control

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:54:00 GMT

Version control is important when your developing software. I know I am not the first guy to throw away the wrong file or section off code. When properly installed using source control will also service as atleast a partial backup you of your source. And as an added benefit you can see who did what and when which can be usefull in tracking bugs. What do I use, how and why?

Event Listner

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:48:00 GMT

A new tool is available which allows you to view CRM plug-in events as they occur, including all details available from the IPluginExectionContext. For more information click here.

Tracing and Debugging error in CRM 4.0

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:12:00 GMT

If errors in Microsoft CRM occur there can be a user friendly or otherwise limited message presented. To find out what actually is the problem is not difficult you just have to know where to look. Wether it is an authentication issue or a SoapException 'Server was unable to process request'. This article offers some pointers on where to look for additional details.

Microsoft CRM Date values

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:36:00 GMT

CRM support user working in multiple time zones by storing alle date time values as UTC. This way the time can be easily adjusted to the users time zone setting. This article explains this in a bit more detail. As for date values, some dates such as a birth date can be fixed regardless of time zone. CRM will still adjust these to the time zone, this may show as a full day difference in the...

CRM 4: Waiting workflows

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:46:00 GMT

In CRM 4 workflows can have the status waiting when an they are waiting for an event such as a timer or they will also have this status if an error has occured. To find out which take the following steps.

Translation assistant

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:37:00 GMT

With version 4.0 Microsoft CRM the option to have multiple languages in a single interface became available. To translate the various available labels CRM offers an option to export all labels to an excel file. The problem I found with this file is that it lacks context of the text you are translating. For instance the text "Address 1: Line 1" this appears for each entity, form and view...

Crm 4.0 Sitemap & ISV.Config Editor

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:13:00 GMT

As of CRM 4.0 the sitemap and isv.config file are no longer available on the file system but stored in the database. Which means that for each change you have to export the customization, make your changes and then reimport the customizations file. This tools is indented to make this easier. For more information click here.

Plug-ins and Workflows: Extension of Microsoft CRM 4.0

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:47:00 GMT

Microsoft CRM 4.0 has several methods to add functionality, to create custom workflow in CRM you have two options plugins and workflows.

CRM 4.0 Plug-in message input parameters

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:51:00 GMT

The CRM 4.0 plug-in model offers great capabilities. But when working with the plug-in messages you would need to know which input and output parameters are available. Unfortunaly this is not (yet) in the supplied documentation, but here it is.

Crm Developers Tool

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:23:00 GMT

A combined Entity and Plug-in Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Allows you to browse the entire entity model beyond the standard list.aspx Entity Browser. And a plug-in browser which offers a GUI to view and update plug-in registrations. For more information click here.

CrmService Testing v1.1

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:18:00 GMT

I have added some new features to the Crm Test service proxy which you can read about in this article. The changes allow you to dicate which requests are expected and validation is then handled by the base class.

Testing without touching the CrmService

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:40:00 GMT

If you have ever tried to do unit testing on code which uses the Microsoft Crm Webservice proxy you will is nearly impossible to test just that code. I will allways rely on the Crm Server for data and callouts to function and test these in to process. This article offers a class implementation which actually stubs out the CrmService request.

Command Crm Customization Export, Import and Publication

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:57:00 GMT

Import, Exporting and publishing customizations in CRM 3.0 using the web interface can be time consuming. Also when an export fails the information returned is very limited. I created a small command line application to do just the same. It uses three WebServices provided by CRM specifically for this purpose.

The CRM webservice

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:23:00 GMT

The Crm 3.0 webservice is a great improvement on the 1.2 version but still due to the nature of webservices working with it can require some quite elaborate code. You need to instantiate the class, configure security, create a ColumnSet, add columns to the column set and finally execute the Retrieve method and cast its result. This results in about 10 lines of code for such a simple action....

Generating an Time table in SQL

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:34:00 GMT

In reporting queries it happens often that you need a ruler of some sort for instance a table containing all days between a start and end date. You can generate such tables by using a looping construct but this isn't the strong point of SQL.

Embedded Sql, LINQ like behaviour

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:10:00 GMT

When ever you create an application which uses a database. There certainly are variatons but you have basically two option when it comes to how you have de SQL-Statements. You can choose to type the SQL-statements in the source code or you can create stored procedures. Both of these have their own advantages and disadavatanges. In-code statements ensure that when te application is deployed, no...

Generic strong Type String to Any Converter

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:07:00 GMT

This is one of the oldes pieces of code i wrote in .NET and still use. This class is written for conversion of xml node values to a .NET type but can also be used to with plain strings. Every time I needed a node value I had to check if the node existed, is it an element or an attribute before I could even start converting the value. This class handles all this and using generics and the...

Captcha

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:14:00 GMT

For this site I wanted to add some mechanism to avoid getting the article comments spammed with links and other junk. To this end I added validation using captcha. I found the code to generate the image on the internet and extended it a little. I extended a TextBox control and created a Http Handler to facilitate easy use. The code for these is downloadable here.

This site

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:11:00 GMT

As you probably will guess and easily can see this site is written in .NET to be more specific in C# .NET 2.0. It also uses some content management. This basic content management system was written in a single weekend. Granted it isn't entirely fool-proof nor does it offer the options of the system available like DotNetNuke, but using some of the framework .NET features this system offers the...

Enable tracing on Microsoft CRM

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:13:00 GMT

Works for both CRM 3.0 and 4.0

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:36:00 GMT

The Microsoft community site for CRM 4.0. This includes links to the Microsoft CRM forums and other useful resources.

Aviva IT

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:07:00 GMT

The company I currently work for.

Microsoft CRM Dynamics Newsgroups @Microsoft

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:07:00 GMT

The microsoft management newsgroups on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Lots of problems kan be easily solved by searching here, if not just ask a question.

Microsoft CRM 4.0 Developers Tool

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:12:00 GMT

Update 1.0.8

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:59:00 GMT

This update contains some new features: Improved connection options: Quick Connect, Additional connection options Import/Export of plugins

Update 1.0.7

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:56:00 GMT

Version 1.0.7 includes relationship detail. Allowing you to view the relations ships for the selected entity.

Update 1.0.6.4

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:45:00 GMT

The tool has been updated to use the shared configuration file allready use by the translation assistent. Note: this version requires the .NET framework 3.5

Minor update

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:59:00 GMT

Version 1.0.6.3: contains minor fixes. An error occured in the server configuration dialog and an exception during the plugin load process, these is corrected. Also the latest Sdk (4.0.4) has been used.

Plug-ins by entity

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:57:00 GMT

Version 1.0.6.1: now includes an option to list plug-ins in the entity browser so you can see which plug-ins are registered on a specific entity.

Automatic plugin registration

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:57:00 GMT

Version 1.0.6 is now available. This version includes a feature to automatically register plugins based on assembly metadata. Download the latest version here.

Minor update

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Version 1.0.5 of the crm tool is now available. This version includes some minor changes and some bug fixes.

SDK Message Parameters

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:56:00 GMT

Version 1.0.3 includes an easy listing of all in- and output parameters available with the various SDK messages.

Error reporting

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:25:00 GMT

Version 1.0.2 includes some minor interface improvements and an error reporting option.

Plug-in Browser

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:57:00 GMT

Version 1.0.1 includes the plug-in browser. This browsers allows you to browser the assemblies, plug-ins and stesp registered on the connected CRM server.

Entity Browser

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:36:00 GMT

I have been working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for the past few months and during that time I had to lookup the names of attribute and values of picklists. For the first CRM has a nice build-in tool, but for the second you need to go into the customization module. To make things easier on my self I build a tool for this.

Planned Features

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:03:00 GMT

Read and write plug-in configuration from Xml file This xml format will conform to the Xml format used by the Sdk plug-in registration tool Multi language support

Periodic workflow rule execution

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:44:00 GMT

Application to periodically execute CRM workflows using a saved query.

Using the period workflow tool

Fri, 16 May 2008 15:49:00 GMT

Describes how you can use this tool to schedule a workflow rule to execute periodically.

Translation assistant

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Filtering and search

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:19:00 GMT

Version 1.1.3.0 contains some improvements to the windows forms interface.

Translation wizard

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:32:00 GMT

With version 1.1.2 Generation of the Excel translation file is included in a simple wizard. Translation in Excel, but with the knowledge of what you are translating.

Edit labels in Excel

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:31:00 GMT

As of version 1.1.0 the translation assistant offers an option to add information about the Localized label to the Object ID. Instead of just the GUID you will now also now what and type and which the label is for (Entity, Attribute, Form element, View, etc).

Version 1.0.1

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This version now uploads the customizations using the compressed messages otherwise the 5MB limit might cause problems. Also the configurations are now stored in a different file to allow sharing of the configured servers by all the tools (if supported).

Planned features

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:44:00 GMT

Add none entity labels such as the isv.config and sitemap

Crm 4.0 Sitemap & ISV.Config Editor

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:31:00 GMT

Event Listener

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:27:00 GMT

This application allows you to see all Plugin event available to the SDK as they are triggered. Each event is displayed with all the details available in the Plugin Context.

Update 1.0.1.4

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:31:00 GMT

In this version a QueryExpression in the property bag is fully displayed in the tree. Also by double clicking the node more details are available.

Update 1.0.1

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:49:00 GMT

This update contains some fixes to make the listner work when the server was connection over a network interface other than the default.

Basic Operation

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:10:00 GMT

Explains the basic steps involved in tracing crm events using the tool

Event listner communication

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:36:00 GMT

This explains how the eventlistner receives events and contains information for basic trouble shooting if the events are not shown.