Microsoft to buy Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion

Finally. Nokia mobiles has been running Windows Mobile since 2011. Now Windows OS will hopefully be closer to the hardware requirements.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/03/technology/mobile/microsoft-nokia/

Testing Beta version of CRM 2013 OnPremise - does the CRM Instance Adaptor for 2011 work with crm 2013?

Now - testing the new 2013 beta is a very positive experience up until now.

The UI has been updated and works surprisingly good in an intuitive way, the demo data gives a pretty good impression of the new process features, it doesn't brake down.

So - I wanted to see if the CRM Instance Adaptor for CRM 2011 does work for CRM 2013.

It does!

So a migration from CRM 2011 to CRM 2013 having the CRM Instance Adaptor in the domain model, should not lead to any concerns.

Get the Connector for Microsoft Dynamics from here

Get the CRM 2011 Instance Adaptor from here

Read my previous article about the Connector for Microsoft Dynamics here

CRM 2011 Process Dialogs - Use them

How often haven't you been asked for a new custom form to consolidate related entities for data capture?
Quite often i guess. Me too.

I recently wanted to bring something "new" into considerations for a client who was stocked in the decisions process for user friendly layouts.
The standard entity forms became too overwhelming in number of clicks and different forms popping up during the process of capturing data to Account, Contact, Opportunity and a custom entity. After quite a few iterations of presenting mock ups, discuss the adjustments to meet an acceptable usability level, modifying mock ups, presenting again and so forth - I brought in the suggestion of using process dialogs.
And to my surprise the feature was accepted after 10 minutes with the following argumentation:

• Full control for system administrators to add or modify process dialogs
• Flexible way of building up data entry forms for a specific purpose and with context driven tips added to each control
• Out of the box functionality that assumably is compatible for future releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Totally under judged be my and most of my fellow colleagues.

Here are some tutorials from around the web that illustrates the advantages and limitations of using process dialogs:

• https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmteamblog/archive/2011/02/02/welcome-to-the-world-of-dialogs-part-1.aspx#.UhxLERbFbGw
• http://intellicore-ltd.blogspot.dk/2012/12/workflows-vs-dialogs-microsoft-dynamics.html

And if you want to bring it a step further having buttons to activate a specific process dialog without going into the entity for the dialog:

• http://barrycrm.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/how-to-initiate-a-dialog-from-a-custom-button

Introducing a more flexible and personal way to buy Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - CRM Connection - Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Microsoft Dynamics Community

New pricing from Microsoft on Dynamics CRM starting from 2013.

Read more:
Introducing a more flexible and personal way to buy Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - CRM Connection - Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Microsoft Dynamics Community

What this means in short - Individual users can be assigned to a pricing model that fit their need of access and functionality.

1. Mix and match licenses
2. Compare and decide
3. Access through mobile applications is included at no extra license cost
4. Take advantage of more options for online support

Happy selling!

CRM 2011: shortcut from Dashboard in outlook client

I was recently on an assignment for a client where they use Outlook client for CRM 2011. First page any user hits when Outlook opens is the Dashboard is selected in outlook / Advanced Settings / open default.
It provides an overview of the activities assigned to the user, the team's overall task load and the opportunities being worked on.

It's messy if a user wants to create a new opportunity. You must first open the entity for opportunities, and then to create a new record.

A shortcut on dashboarded would do the trick.
Richard Knudson has created a blog post on the same subject.

http://www.dynamicscrmtrickbag.com/2011/11/20/crm2011-dialog-power-tips-run-a-dialog-from-a-dashboard/

This refers ClientGlobalContext.js.aspx. It is not necessary from a dashboard because top.window includes Xrm.
So here is my code for a resource file:

<html><head>
<script type="text/javascript">
        function safeNewWindow(url, title) {
        var x = window.top.Xrm;
        win = window.open(x.Page.context.getClientUrl() + url, "_blank", "height=600,width=800,model=yes");
        }
</script>

<meta charset="utf-8"></head>
<body><a onclick="safeNewWindow(&quot;/main.aspx?etc=3&amp;extraqs=%3fetc%3d3%26pagemode%3diframe%26preloadcache%3d1370596730722&amp;pagetype=entityrecord&quot;,&quot;&quot;)" href="#"><font face="Tahoma">Opret projektopgave</font> </a>
<p></p></body></html>

Enjoy!

CRM 2011 - Error importing solution package with plugin assemblies

At a client, there was an issue with importing a solution package from Development environment to a UTA, Training and Production envionment. Same symptoms everywhere: The solution package file could not be imported.
Error message: Assembly do not exist.

The solution package included all modified object s and dependencies, except security roles, field security profiles and workflows.

Resolution was to add a separate solution for the plugins and import that solution first.
All SDK messages are kept in the main solution package.

Cause to the issue is not yet identified.
Either the file size of the solution package exceeds limit of object size in IIS configuration or the CRM Developer Toolkit, which was used for deployment of plugins from VS2012 to Development solution, could have made some bindings to the plugin assemblies that are not compatible to the solution package.

CRM 2011 - Error for script on form in IE10

A coleague of mine had an issue with some scripts on form, fetching related data on selection of a lookup field.

In IE9 it works perfectly. But in IE10 the data are not fetched.
Now one solution is to add the url for CRM instance to lists of url's to be opened in compability view. The infrastrukcture are not in place for a GPO. Another solution was required.

Solution was straight forward:
In system settings, customizations the falg for "Open in most recent version of Internet Explorer" must be cleared.