MS CRM 4.0 upgrade issues list.

When upgrading MS CRM 3.0 to CRM 4.0, please follow the below chekclist to avoid failures:

1. Any Un supported customization will not upgrade

2. Any 3rd party tool will not upgrade like C360 components etc. It will give you trouble so first remove that and check your vendor for upgradeable version for CRM 4.0, I am sure they are upgrading it.

3. Any Connector like GP Connector, Biztalk Adapter will not upgrade

4. CRM Mobile Express 3.0 will not upgrade

5. CRM Accelerator for Seible will not supported to upgrade.

6. Sharepoint list webpart will not upgrade

7. Datamigration Pack will not upgrade

8. Your custom calls or code will not upgrade, you have to rebuild your code using new crm services, atleast you have to use crm discovery as it is multi-organizational system.

9. CRM Outlook Client will not upgrade

10. Any custom code for outlook will not upgrade

11. CRM Callouts need to modify and register with Plugin Register tool

12. Your code web to lead or web to contact need to modify by using CRM Discovery Service and updation manually

13. Any Code will not upgrade by MS CRM 4.0, you have to do all configuration manually.

14. Assembly written for workflow will not upgrade and link, you have to again link with it

Standard CRM Reports will be upgraded and link will automatically build with new CRM SRS connection. but following types of reports will not upgrade

• The Reports has been modified to use expressions for linking will not upgrade.
• The Report has been modified to use stored procedures will not upgrade.
• Reports that use information about workflow, such as sales pipeline report etc will not upgrade.

Happy MS CRM 4.0 Upgrade.

Increase Attachment size in MS CRM 4.0

By default, MS CRM 4.0 file attachment size is 5 MB.
Below are the steps to increase the default size to 10 MB.

1. Open the web.config of MS CRM

2. Locate httpRuntime the key within the element and change the values to the following: httpRuntime executionTimeout = "9999"
maxRequestLength = "10240"

3. Locate httpRuntime the key within the element of the element, and change it to the following: httpRuntime maxRequestLength = "10240"

save the web.config and restart IIS.

Integration of MS CRM (4.0) Online with SharePoint

Lot of people now a day’s talking about Integration of MS CRM (4.0) Online with SharePoint 2007.
Before we start thinking of Integration of MS CRM (4.0) Online with SharePoint we should be aware of the below restrictions of MS CRM Online.

Restriction(s) of MS CRM Online 4.0 hosted by MSFT

Plug-ins:
Plug-ins allow you to augment the Microsoft Dynamics CRM business logic with your own code, for both online and offline applications. These extensions can also be used for integration to external systems. In the previous version, this feature was known as callouts.

Extensions	On-Premise	Hosted	Online
Plug-ins	Yes	Partner specific	No

Workflow:
Call out to external systems from your workflow rules. Create custom workflow activities that can be used by your workflow rules. In the previous version, this feature was known as workflow .NET assemblies.

Extensions	On-Premise	Hosted	Online
Declarative workflows using workflow tools in Web application	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom workflow activities (.NET Assemblies)	Yes	Partner specific	No

The Probable solution would be:

1) Use standard/OOB workflows of MS CRM 4.0 Online and send out an email messages with the formatted message in the message body with all (or required) Values (Inserted / Updated / and record GUID in case of Deletion).

2) Add custom JavaScript in “OnSave()” event of the Entity, MS CRM forms where you can call out the web services (say using XmlHttpRequest / JSON) and there are chances that you will face the cross-domain Web service calls issues.

You can overcome the issue by hosting the “Internet Facing Web Services on your server” but that should be available over internet so that you can communicate CRM with exposed Web Service Server.


One more thing, I would like to share that “MS provides Partner Hosted Solutions”, you can go with it, but you have to pay (please correct me if I’m wrong), as it is paid service, I guess!!!!!

What's New in MS CRM 5.0

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

MS CRM 5.0 is currently on schedule to ship as part of the Office14 Wave (most likely sometime in 2010), and the team is only part way through the development cycle, having just completed Milestone 1 (M1). Even so, there is already much to get excited about. Here is a list of "features" that were discussed:

New Features For End Users
1. Enhanced Navigation
2. Single Page Forms
3. Data Filtering
4. In-line Visualizations
5. Team Ownership
6. Native SharePoint Integration
7. Unstructured Relationships

New Features For Administrators
1. Flexible Form Layout
2. Filtered Lookups
3. Form Headers & Footers
4. Solution Management
5. Multiple Option Sets
6. Drag & Drop Form Editor
7. Audit

New Features For Developers
1. Custom Code Sandbox
2. Plug-In Transaction Support
3. Automatic Plug-In Profiling

As you can see there is a lot to look forward to in CRM5, and I hope you are as excited as I am that the team has chosen to share this information early on.


Disclaimer: These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. The content of this site are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway. In addition, my thoughts and opinions often change, and as a weblog is intended to provide a semi-permanent, point in time snapshot, you should not consider out of date posts to reflect my current thoughts and opinions.

Assign Values to MS CRM attribute Types

Microsoft Dynamics CRM contains a set of attribute type classes used to define the attributes for each entity. These classes are specified in the following table.

Examples

The following sample shows you how to instantiate and set the value of each data type.

// Set up the CRM Service.

CrmAuthenticationToken token = new CrmAuthenticationToken();
token.AuthenticationType = 0;
token.OrganizationName = "AdventureWorksCycle";

CrmService service = new CrmService();
service.Url = ""http://<servername>:<port>/mscrmservices/2007/crmservice.asmx";
service.CrmAuthenticationTokenValue = token;
service.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

CrmBoolean boolean = new CrmBoolean();
boolean.Value = true;

CrmDateTime dateTime = new CrmDateTime();
dateTime.Value = "2006/5/27T17:00:00";

CrmDecimal dec = new CrmDecimal();
dec.Value = (decimal)10.1;

CrmFloat f = new CrmFloat();
f.Value = (float)10.1;

CrmMoney money = new CrmMoney();
money.Value = (decimal)10.00;

CrmNumber number = new CrmNumber();
number.Value = 10;

Lookup lookup = new Lookup();
lookup.Value = user.UserId;
lookup.type = EntityName.systemuser.ToString();

Owner owner = new Owner();
owner.type = EntityName.systemuser.ToString();
owner.Value = user.UserId;

Picklist list = new Picklist();
list.Value = 1;

Status status = new Status();
status.Value = 1;

EntityNameReference reference = new EntityNameReference();
reference.Value = EntityName.systemuser.ToString();

Key key = new Key();
key.Value = user.UserId;