'crm musings'
Last month Microsoft released 3 new CRM “Accelerators”. These new accelerators allow Dynamics CRM to be deployed quicker and more fully into organizations. They are great tools designed for rapidly deploying specific functionality. If you need this functionality (PRM, Customer Portal or Customer Care)… it is time to move!
Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator – The Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners. Download this release from here, as per the new Customer Portal. Again, this accelerator takes advantage of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK capabilities and tools – download the new SDK from here.
Customer Portal Accelerator – Build out new and powerful portals for you and your customers! This new release consolidates the functionality of Portal Integration, eService and Event Management into one consolidated portal. Download this release from here. This accelerator takes advantage of the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK capabilities and tools.
Customer Care Accelerator has been released! Build out new and powerful composite desktop applications for contact centers or any other business requirement where you need to “mash up” multiple applications from different platforms into one consistent desktop application! Download this release from here, please review the license terms for CCA when you download the solution.
June 10 2010 | 4.0 and Accelerator and crm musings | No Comments »
Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is available
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=f84f2bfb-393d-4b90-bf1b-300a82ec6083
Issues that were not previously documented in a Knowledge Base article
Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 resolves the following issues that were not previously documented in a Knowledge Base article:
- You cannot change the order of the bit fields on the Account form and on the Contact form.
- You can assign an activity from one queue to another queue even though you do not have the privileges in your security role.
- Windows Internet Explorer crashes or stops responding when you use the Advanced Find view on a computer that is running Windows 7.
- Reminders for Microsoft Dynamics CRM activities appear in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Microsoft Office Outlook even though the task for the activities is set to Complete in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Web client.
- When the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform processes a well-formed SOAP message that is sent from Java clients, you receive an error message that resembles the following:
System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document.
- You cannot close an opportunity if the topic of the opportunity is a null value.
- After you apply Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, you experience slow performance when you open Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Web client.
- Assume that you have a phone call activity that uses a contact or an account as a recipient. After you delete the contact or the account, you cannot open the phone call activity.
- When you create a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS 2008) report by using the new SSRS 2008 features, you cannot display the report in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.
- The Microsoft Dynamics CRM buttons are displayed on the Add-ins tab. You expect the buttons to be displayed on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM ribbon or on the Home tab in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Microsoft Office Outlook 2010.
- The February 2010 cumulative time zone update for Windows operating systems applies to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
- You experience slow performance when you add many members, such as 10,000 members, into a marketing list. Additionally, you may receive a time-out error message.
June 03 2010 | 4.0 and Rollup and crm musings and rollup crm dynamics outlook registry | No Comments »
Dave Berry over at the CRM Entropy blog posted an awesome bit of code last month and released it for general consumption. What it allows you to do is modify a record directly in a view in any CRM entity. Essentially the view turns into a sort of modifiable excel spreadsheet. It’s a well written customization that greatly enhances any CRM deployment.
For full details you can visit his site here: http://crmentropy.blogspot.com/p/javascript-grid-editor.html
April 16 2010 | crm musings | 1 Comment »
Microsoft has kept their word and are continuing to roll out CRM updates at regular intervals. The latest Rollup doesn’t contain any major feature enhancements but does contain fixes number for a number of minor issues.
You can read the issues fixed in the article located here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=979347
You can download Rollup 10 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=5da4d352-1d3f-4426-9c17-b256c30afdb9
April 16 2010 | 4.0 and administratiom and crm and crm musings | No Comments »
As you may have heard, Windows 7 was launched worldwide by Microsoft today. We here at Gateway Solutions have been testing Windows 7 internally for several months and have found that it is not only faster than its predecessor, but has a number of features that makes it the best Microsoft desktop operating system yet.br /br /In our internal testing we did not find any issues running the CRM 4.0 outlook client and Windows 7. That said, Microsoft released Update Rollup 7 for CRM 4.0 today to coincide with the Windows 7 launch. This release introduces major changes to the way the CRM client interacts with Outlook. It also adds official support for Windows 7. Below you will find the download link for Update Rollup 7. Please let us know if you would like assistance in installation or if you had any other questions about Windows 7 or CRM.br /br /Download Link: a href=”http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a4893988-7804-4e23-ab58-740441cc696edisplayLang=en”Microsoft CRM 4.0 Rollup 7/a
October 23 2009 | 4.0 and crm and crm musings | 1 Comment »
We recently started a project with a client who had some very complex spreadsheets. They wanted the data from a complex spreadsheet to reside in CRM but the algorithms and formatting frequently changed. Essentially they wanted us to build a tool that was able to keep this data in CRM but was flexible enough to handle significant changes.
We got the idea to create an excel add-in that took in the appropriate data from the sheet and to write that data to CRM. Our initial thought was to create a CRM entity that contained the schema for a particular sheet. One particular fields’ data was held in Cell X123 and so on. However, when I started the project it became clear that this might become a bit of a nightmare to maintain so instead we came up with the idea to use user defined functions (UDF’s).
We wrote a series of UDF’s that would store each piece of information for an entity and when triggered, write them all to CRM. The greatest part is that its completely dynamic. You only need to enter the name of the field, the entity and the value and the data is written into a temporary data structure. For example, the main UDF takes the value as its first argument, the field name as its second and the entity as its third. The function uses the Metadata service to verify that the field is a valid field and then stores the value. When the user presses the Write to CRM button, all of the data stored in the data structure is written directly to CRM. Since many users are familiar with excel and excel functions, it makes it an easy way for an end-user to import complex data into CRM as well as gives them the ability to create their own customizable interface.
August 20 2009 | crm musings | Comments Off
By default, after you complete an activity it will no longer appear on your GoldMine calendar. Here’s how you can make GoldMine show all your activities on the calendar:
1. Open your calendar. Right click in an area in the calendar and choose Activities from the menu.
2. A “Select Activities To View” box will pop up. Here, you can select the Scheduled / Completed activities you want to view.
3. Check the box next to the activities you wish to view on the calendar.
4. Click on OK
Now, all activities – scheduled and completed – will appear on your GoldMine calendar.
August 20 2009 | crm musings | Comments Off
Microsoft has released Rollup 5 in July and we feel it is ready for prime time.
You can download it directly from here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=5101d801-976b-4c11-bdfc-000b970ef4a3
View the KB article outlining the fixes contained in Rollup 5 here:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=970141
August 20 2009 | crm musings | Comments Off
