Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)

So annoying. Had a @MICROSOFT #windows10update and my USB devices, like clicker, mouse and cool Jabra headset with noise cancellation, couldn't be activated when plugged in.
Many places to find answers but not any of them helped me.
So - This is what I did and THAT worked for me:

1. Go to settings device manager
2. Find the device not functioning, in my case the USB composite device control
3. Disable it by right clicking on the device
4. Enable it again
5. Accept that the system tell you to restart the machine

After the restart the devices worked, and is still working, when plugged in.

DONE!
After two weeks trying.

Happy days!

Visual process overview and insights

Imagine if you could have a visual overview of your processes in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Power BI has a package for exactly that.

Try it out in a trial tenant with both Dynamics 365 for sales, project, marketing or service is activated and also Power BI.
Get the content package for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Process Analyzer.

 

Get information fast on Mobile

Deeplink from any mobile app to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Mobile Client Application (MoCA)

You get an e-mail with a notification and need to make some actions in your Dynamics CRM Mobile Client for Tablets or Mobile Phone.

Now - using this construct you can place link in e-mails or from push notifications to open a specific record from within Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The construct of the link is:

ms-dynamicsxrm://?pagetype=&etn=&id=

Where pagetype could be entity, dashboard, view or create

ent is the entitymetadat logical name

and id is the unique identifier for the pagetype parameter.

Example for an account is:   

ms-dynamicsxrm://?pagetype=entity&etn=account&id=91330924-802A-4B0D-A900-34FD9D790829

You can test it on your laptop if you have MoCA installed. Simple run the command (windows+R) in the example above.

Read more here.

Telemetri: Monitor how and where MD CRM is used in the organization

Telemetry

User adoption and optimization of your CRM deployment is vital for success. It is an on going process and requires insight in the users behavior in the system.

Using Microsoft Azure to collect and monitor these data, makes it possible for CRM owners, business analysts to make decisions based on trends and facts rather than guts feelings.

See the detailed walk through guide here.

Flow

Microsoft Flow

Flow is all about personal workflows. Workflows that start off in one application or service and live its life through a number of other applications, with criteria's, dependencies and constraints - Just to let a certain task or structured procedure flow more easily.

Try it out at flow.microsoft.com

You will find standard connectors for a number of application and services. Also Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Let it flow, let flow .... And achieve more.

MD CRM Partner ready material Spring release 2016

Training material is ready for this new spring release

The spring release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is here. As a Microsoft Partner you can find all relevant information here.

The detailed list of new and enhanced features is found public available here.

And you can get an overview by watching this video.

Have fun and achieve more.

Preview of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Toolkit for 2016 in preview

Now it is in previewIt is almost back
And it is working in the preview function

The developer Toolkit has been in preview via the Connect program.
And it is working like a charm.
Sign in to connect and get the latest build - And start building fast again.

Feature list:

Windows Mobile Templates - Wauuww... Processes, debugging....
Yet to come is the new component and patch deployments.

Happy building....

MSD CRM 2016 - Entity relationship diagram: Where did it go?

In the SDK you will find a Metadata Diagram Generator. SDK\SampleCode\CS\Metadata\Diagram\MetadataDiagram.sln

1. Download the SDK for 2016 here.
2. From Visual Studio 2015 open the solution file MetadataDiagram.sln.
3. Go to the configuration of the project for MetadataDiagram 
   
4. Right click on the MetadataDiagramConsole in the Solution Explorer and select Properties.  Click on the Debug section of the properties dialog.  Enter: “account contact” into the Command Line Arguments textbox to have the application draw only the account and contact entities.
   
5. Run the project in debug state (F5) or build it and execute it from the debug\bin folder of the solution folder.
6. Enter the server url and creds
7. Find the generated VSDX file in solution folder

Happy Research!

Take a nap - After using Microsoft PowerApp for developing Mobile Applications - For free

Here we go again. Another week of long nights without sleep and nothing but blue light from the screen.
Microsoft #PowerApps was introduced at convergence this week. Awesome. And to be honest - A smart enhancement of the beta project for Siena.
With PowerApps you definitely take the work out of working. You don\t have to do programming / coding - You just configure your way though the way you and your team decide to implement the most user friendly mobil interface for your application.
Use the rich library of connectors to connect to #Microsoft Dynamics #CRM, Nav, SharePoint and... sales force. Why Sales Force? I don't have the perfect answer to that. But being a leader in the IT industry, Microsoft is helping it decision makers to make the right blend of the applications in the infrastructure. Strangely enough, #SFDC is not able to enable same set of features. The power of Microsoft is illustrated in this way too:


But Microsoft is Microsoft. And with the 


Well - Read more about PowerApps here.
And sign up here.

Welcome to a better place.

Sending PDF reports from Microsoft Dynamics CRM

From time to time companies using Microsoft Dynamics CRM need to send out a PDF with the same layout as in a SRS Report or a document mail merge template.
A challange for the consult could be: What purpose does the PDF serve?
If it is a matter of reporting, why not use PowerBI, a dynamic spread sheet or simply let the potential recipients of the PDF gain access to CRM with a speck dashboard containing the relevant data?
It takes some guts to challenge the business users and system owners to think lateral. My opinion is, that looking at data directly from CRM in CRM involves the user the most, due to the human nature of being curious. Looking at data directly in CRM gives the user the ability to dive in to the data and discover patterns, trends and accuracy.

Well, if the company insists on having a report send in PDF format to a target group, there are different ways of doing this. Some of them are listed here:

1. Develop a script for a button and a plugin, to wrap the SRS report up as a PDF file and send it to some recipients from a list of contacts or users. This approach requires developer skills.
2. Use a third party tool like MSCRM Add-Ons (not as neat in charting, hence it is based on word mail merge and designed in MS Word) or one of these ISV solutions: https://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-jo/Applications/12884949612 http://www.dynamicsobjects.com/Products/DynamicsPDF.aspx
3. Have the report send as is from the RSR scheduling service. Is only working in an on-prem environment.

Again - In respect for you self and the company you are serving, you should ask the W questions before developing your rarely simple script and plugin.

Happy consulting!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 UR1 - Beyond the limit with transaction.rollback

In my day to day activities I try to evangelize the beauty of Microsoft Dynamics CRM as being the most obvious choice when it comes to an application framework.
I have developed siloed solution based on code that only i would understand. I have seen CRM and business process management solutions that were build for a specific business audience with some fine features and functions, but with limited flexibility when it comes to integration and extending of the features that came out of the box.

Now Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been here for quite some time. 2001or 2003 depending who you are talking to. It is a long time. And over the years the application it self has increased the number of work areas and features significantly.
A side effect is the structured frame work from where you can build almost everything your heart or business desires. Microsoft tend to promote the product Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a sales productivity solution, having al the necessary workloads for optimal sales, customer care and activity management. Now days analytics, mobility and business processes has reached the status of being on top of mind for CIO's, CFO's and CIO's. And some even love to have the ability to extend the solution with integrations to other Line of Business Applications, External datasources, Social media services and more.

And when the integration work begins with throughly discovery of the capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM used as an applicational platform to support al kind of things, I have quite often preached the importance of following guidelines and best practices when it comes to development of integrations. It is fairly simple to do CRUD operations using the api. With a limited effort it is also possible to validate and test any dependencies and constraints before you make the final commit.
BUT up until update roll up 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015, it has not been possible to roll your transactions back, when the commit action was executed. Poor attempts from very skilled developers has been made in an effort to mirror the good old transaction.rollback from Microsoft SQL server. The transaction.rollback can be placed in any part of your function or as part of your exception handling. Good thinking when you are doing CRUD's for entities in a structured relational database. Especially when you are handling thousands or even millions of records based on delta or fulldata sets.

NOW the trick is simple - ExecuteTransactionRequest
Read this very fine article from INOGIC to see a detailed explanation.
http://inogic.com/blog/2015/06/dynamics-crm-2015-online-update-1-api-support-for-transaction-4/

So - Would it be possible to include transactional applications like erp solutions - To have a more integrated and effective line of business application...... Based on a web application.... I think so.

Microsoft acquires sales gamification vendor incent games

Interesting way of motivating a sales team to get even better results. Read more...

Modify Sharepoint associated view

So - You want to have the title of any documents displayed in the list of documents on an enity.
With serverside integration to Microsoft Sharepoint it is now possible.

Simply modify the Sharepoint Document entity view called "Sharepoint Document Associated View" like this.

CRM 2015 provisioning for a loooong time

If you experience unacceptable long duration for provisioning of new instances on demobuilder, or if you are logged in to the instance in CRM Online before you have received any messages from Demobuilder and you are only able to see Services and Settings areas, please follow this procedure:

1. Follow the wizard from demobuilder.cloudapp.net for any demo template you wish to deploy
2. Monitor the provisioning from history pae in demobuilder
3. If status is "Provisioning CRM" or similar message for more than 4 hours
1. log in to portal.offices.com logged ind with the prefix for the organization you are deploying, admin@YOURORG.onmicrosoft.com
2. in same browser session, enter this url in the address bar: https://port.crm.dynamics.com/G/Setup/Index.aspx
3. select the settings for you new deployment
4. monitor the status of your demo history and when status is "Finished" your instance is available wth all the correct settings

Then you should be good to go........

Customer Care, Configuration, Pricing and Quotation taken to the next level

With the new release of Microsoft Dynamics CMR 2015, Customer Care is taken to the Next level.

 

You have propably read the Whats New sheet provided from Microsoft.

One of the capabilities with this new release is Product Configuration.

MSD CRM partners and Companies using MSD CRM as THE customer relationship management solution, have in the past found that it lacked on features for product configuration, pricing and quotation.

 

Now this is far more advanced in this major release.

Not only do you have product families and hierarchically connected product structures and dependencies. You also have the ability to enter attributes on the product when Building up your quotations.

This is a strong feature that connects directly into the contract management, SLA and entitlement features in MSD CRM.

 

Trying it out is very simple:

- Go to Microsoft Dynamics Demos

- Log in (Create an account in a simple step to gain access)

- Deploy a new instance of any kind (If you choose to deploy the empty one, remember to install the demo data in case you want to see how the O365 product from Microsoft is build up)

- Create a quotation on any entity you feel like, but make sure the selected pricelist is set to a pricelist that actually contains pricelist items

- Observe the feature of entering additional parameter information on the quotation lines and make sure you dive into the products to explore the advanced capabilities for product configuration

 

The new capabilities puts MSD CRM in a very strong position when compeeting with other so called CRM applications and services. Hopefully Gartner, Forester and other will discover this in the nearest assesment they will be doing.

 

Enjoy life - Enjoy Microsoft!

 

 

Unified Service Desk available for MSD CRM 2015

For the early ones: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43110

What is Unified Service Desk?
Mirrors of applications running in an unified application. All configurable in MSD CRM based on helper entities with configuration parameters.
Have call scripts and actions to guide the user behind a call center desk.

Enjoy!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Online at http://demobuilder.cloudapp.net

SO - CRM 2015 is here

Log on to http://demobuilder.cloudapp.net and sign up for an empty instance of CRM 2015.

Enjoy

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Import

Import has been a hazel from the early days.
Now - Is this due to limitations in the standard import interface from the MSD CRM GUI or is it lack of knowledge and skills?

Back in the days where high tech was Xerox and telefax, the successful businesses were the once that knew the products they were selling.

Now a days.... Well.... Back on the track.

When you do import data there is one thing thing you should know: What is your tool box!
Knowing your tool box makes it so much easier to maneuver.

I use Microsoft Excel as the simple toolbox.
Example: Export a number of records from an entity, modify using all hacks like dlookup, lookup and concagnating of fields. Brings me far of we are talking simple tasks.
So advice number one: Learn your Excel commands and functions

Microsoft access is a bit more advanced. In Microsoft Access you would be able to establish the same schema and base of data, that you would like to migrate from one solution to another. Lets say  you have a task where you would like to migrate data from Sugar CRM to MSD CRM.
Export your data from Sugar CRM into csv files and link each of them from MS Access. Create the relationships between the individual tables and you are almost there.
Download the import templates for each of the entities you would like to migrate data to, and replicate that schema model in a set of views.
Now you could decide just to export the tables to csv files from MS Access, but if approach the task with try and error you might want to repeat the task.... Too time consuming...... You might consider building up a set of macros, that export the data based on a file definition, for you to get the same set of data in a structured and exact same format over and over again.
Second advice: If you have a migration task with multiple simple tables from one source, your could use MS Access.

Third option is if we are talking complex migrations and multiple sources. You would have to cleanse data and uniform them.
That takes a MS SQL database and might even involve the usage of Analysis Services and Integration Services, where you could benefit from the framework in place.
Now - That would take some skills to get there, but it is not that hard. Microsoft provides a set of free applications and services - MS SQL Express is one of them. You would get all tools to do complex migration of data with a certain amount of data.
Third advice: Learn how the MS SQL Express engine is working, what are the capabilities, features and functions and how you can import, export, transform and plan you data.

And then the other once: Dynamics Connector, Scribe, KingSoft and others.....

I hope this has given you some inspiration to dive into the world of data migration and data management.

Internet Explorer 11 is just blank

Been a while, but i feel the urge to share this issue.

My internet Explorer 11 running on Windows Surface Pro (1) showed nothing but a blank page. Frustrating as partner source and other relevant Microsoft Partner sites requires Internet Explorer.
But i managed to reset the settings and made the explorer function again.

Taken from this post

Here is how:

1. Go to "Control Panel"

2. Click on "Networking"

3. Under "Internet Options" click on "Manage Browser Add-ons" which brings up "Internet Properties"

4. Select "Security" Tab

5. Click the button that says "RESET all Zones to Default Level" Follow the prompts and allow it to reset all security to default levels.

6. Click on the "Advanced" tab

7. Click on the "RESET..." button.

8. A dialog will pop up saying you must close all applications, ... or something like that.  Close all applications.

9. Then, press CTRL-ALT-DEL and open the "Windows TASK Manager"

10. Go to "Processes" tab, and find the first of several processes labeled "iexplorer"

11. KILL ALL IEXPLORE PROCESSES... you MUST DO THIS, or the reset you are about to do, will not work.

12. For me killing the first iexplorer process, will kill it's child processes, but watch this closely, it may take a minute or two to complete.  

13. When complete, close out the Task Manager, you should have NO OTHER Apps running - just in case this matters.

14. Go back to  "Internet Properties" where you are ready now to RESET IE to defaults. 

15. Proceed with RESET.

Enjoy!

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/