MS CRM 2011 - Form Assistant

As we know that form assistant has been removed from MS CRM 2011 release. But it is available for very few special usages (such as Case and Service Activity).

MS CRM 2011 - Email Templates for Custom Entity not supported.

Adding the templates for the custom entity is not yet supported in the current 2011 release.

No BizTalk Adapter for CRM 2011

Recently, I got to know that there will be No Biztalk adapter for 2011.

The reason behind this is BizTalk Adapter for CRM 4.0 is being deprecated in favor of enabling the OOB BizTalk WCF adapter to work with CRM 2011's WCF endpoint for On-premised and  IFD deployments.

Dynamics CRM 2011 server is 64-bit only.

Just wanted to share this:

Dynamics CRM 2011 server is 64-bit only.

CRM 2011 client for Outlook is available in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Windows XP SP3 supports CRM Online 2011 client for Outlook

You can have CRM Online 2011 Client for Outlook installed on Windows XP. But you should have SP3 installed on your system.

Loop through all elements on a CRM Form

Sometime we require to set all attributes on a form to disabled or checking which attribute has been changed.

To achieve this, you need to loop through each attribute of the CRM form. Below is the code snippet :


var iLen = crmForm.all.length;

for (i = 0; i < iLen; i++)
{
   o = crmForm.all[i];   switch (o.tagName)
   {
      case "INPUT":
      case "SELECT":
      case "TEXTAREA":
      case "IMG":
      case "IFRAME":
      if (o.id != "leadqualitycode")
      {
            o.disabled = true;
      }
      break;

      default:
            break;
   }
}

The above code will set all attributes to disabled.

Prevent CRM from saving a record.

The OnSave event is fired when a user presses the Save or Save and Close button on the form. The event is fired whether the data in the form has been modified or not.

Validating data is a common reason to use the OnSave event. The OnSave event can cancel the save operation before it is sent back to the server. To cancel the save operation, the script should return false as shown in the following code.

event.returnValue = false;

The SDK helps in this situation. Look at the following page for more information. MSDN SDK: OnSave Event

Quickest way to detect if internet connection is available.

Today I came across of this article on Microsoft site:

Ping Class:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.networkinformation.ping.aspx
 
Very useful class to Allows an application to determine whether a remote computer is accessible over the network.

Hide ISV Button.

I needed to hide a button that I added to my form using the ISV.config file. IN ISV file you can specify the button to be display in create / update mode. You can have only one tag per entity.

Here is the requirement:
I have to display 5 ISV button in the form. Out of which 4 to be displayed in both Create and Update mode. But there is one button which has to be displayed only in Update Mode. If you use below XML line in ISV.config file

It will display all button in both mode. But there is no provision where i can specify some of the button in create and update mode.
So I've to hide the button using Client side scripting on Load of the form.

Below is the fucntion which hides the button:
// HIDE ISV Button
function HideISVButton(strButtonToolTip){
   var tag = document.getElementsByTagName("LI");
   for(x = 0; x < tag.length; x++)
   {
      if(tag[x].getAttribute("title") == strButtonToolTip)
      {
         button = document.getElementById(tag[x].getAttribute("id"));
         if(button != null)
            button.style.display = "none";
         x = tag.length;
      }
   }
}

// Call the function to hide the button:
HideISVButton("Click this button to Line Activate");

The above code loops through all objects on the webpage with a tag name of "LI" looking for one that has a title of ‘Click this button to Line Activate’ which is specified in the ISV.Config file. Once the code finds the correct ToolTip of a button, it gets hidden.

Online Demonstration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Lead Capture

Today I found a very good link for Online Demonstration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Lead Capture

Please click here to watch the video.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Release Candidate (RC) Announcement

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Release Candidate (RC) is now available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.  As with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta, the Release Candidate is available for anyone to download, and will be available until the RTM release.  

This release represents the combined efforts and feedback from customers, partners and Microsoft teams working on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta so thank you for all of you involved in this process.


Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server Release Candidate 05.00.9688.34
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Microsoft Office Outlook 05.00.9688.32
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Language Pack (41 Languages)
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Report Authoring Extension
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 E-mail Router
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 List Component for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010


Enjoy RC !!!

To view and refresh data, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook must be installed

When trying to export data from CRM to a dynamic pivot table you receive the following message: “To view and refresh data, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook must be installed”, although the CRM Outlook client has already been installed and CRM is added to the Trusted Sites.


To resolve this issue follow the steps below.

1. Click on the cell which contains the message “To view and…”

2. Click on Connections [from DATA Tab]
It will open a Connection Window.

3. Click on Refresh [from Connection Window]

Now, the data will appear in the data sheet.

Happy import / export !!!!!

MS CRM 2011 Beta - CallerOrigin in Plugins is no more !!!

CallerOrigin has been removed in CRM 2011 Beta.

According to Experts, since the CRM 4 implementation was neither extensible nor reliable\secure. The recommendation is to not rely on caller origin when you extend business logic in the server (since it is easy for a client to spoof this data)

If you absolutely need it and can guarantee \ do not care about spoofing, create a custom field and pass additional origin info from the client.

Please note that we have a new property isOfflinePlayback in PluginContext to identify if a plugin was triggered as part of the Offline Playback.

Please have a look at the IExecutionContext. It has below properties:1. IsExecutingOffline
2. IsOfflinePlayback

For more information you can see in the CRM 2011 Beta Sdk. Topic = "IExecutionContext Members "

Hope it helps.

MS CRM 2011 Beta - Number of Tabs = 100

In MS CRM 4.0, there is a limit of 8 tabs for every entity. 

According to CRM 2011 SDK, "Each form can include up to 100 tabs. Tabs are a vertical stack separating the body of the form. Tabs may be expanded or collapsed. Navigation links below the form selector provide access to tabs. The body of the form will scroll to display the selected tab."

MS CRM 2011 Beta - You have already imported and upgraded this organization and cannot perform this operation again.

This is new in MS CRM 2011.

You will receive the above error in MS CRM 2011 when you try to import an Organization of MS CRM 4.0.

This is because in CRM 2011, you cannot import the same CRM 4 org more than once into a CRM 2011 deployment. The Organization GUID will not change. This is by design.


Hope this helps.

MS CRM 2011 Beta - DeletionStateCode - No longer available.

Finally it's time to say good bye "DeletionStateCode" attribute. The attribute has been removed from all entities.

Now, it is hard delete. If a record is deleted, it would be removed from the entity table.

Happy purging !!!!

MS CRM 2011 Beta - Ribbon Example [Grid / Form / Subgrid] Example.

I've started playing with Ribbons in MS CRM 2011 Beta.

Attached the code which creates below:
1. Custom Tabs
2. Custom Multiple Groups
3. Multiple Buttons in each group.
4. Pass values from Button click to Javascript.

Please download the code from the below link.
http://uploading.com/files/37d8f425/customizations_WorkingCopy_WithGrid_AndForm.zip/

Hope this will help. Please let me know if you help.

MS CRM 2011 Beta - Product Keys

Here are the Product Keys for MS CRM 2011 Beta.

The following product keys are available for this release:
•Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workgroup (5 CAL limit):
  FF2JM-QX9PG-HXT8M-MMHXG-4MF32

•Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server (no CAL limit):
  4FDTK-3HYV2-D9CCJ-4MF9Q-QJ32X


Important
•Although the application may display a 90-day trial period, these trial product keys will expire after 270 days.
•Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional edition is no longer available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

MS CRM 2011 Beta - Error adding user on On-Premise

You may get the following error when trying to add a user to an on-premise organisaion in MS CRM 2011 Beta.


Errors:
1. You do not have the necessary permissions to change the domain logon name for this user. The following user was not added: ....
2. An error has occurred


As of now the resolution is an IISRESET on the CRM Server.
1.) Open the CMD window (Run as Administrator) on the CRM Server
2.) type iisreset, then Enter.


Hope this helps.

MS CRM 2011 Beta - Invalid User Authorization

You might see below [Invalid User Authorization] error when trying to access / connect to Online CRM 2011.

The work around is, sign out of the currenyly logged in Windows Live ID from all other browser sessions. Once you signout, try to access your Online CRM, now it will prompt for Sign in details.

As of now Online CRM 2011 can't handle this. Hope this will be resolved in RTM by Microsoft.

Hope this helps.