xRM User Group

This months user group will be held on Wednesday the 16th of March 2011, to coincide with the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Brett Yorgey from JayThom will be presenting, who will dive into all things CRM and how it best suits your needs.
The user group will consist of information and demos about the new user interface architecture, marketing, sales and customer services possibilities.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: Wednesday March 16th 2011 5:30pm – 7pm – Free Pizza and Drinks and then we dive in.

Please click here to register

This month we will be looking into customising the sitemap and ribbon bar followed by looking further into customising the form and the JavaScript samples that are included in the CRM 2011 Beta SDK.

We will also go over the Changes in the latest CRM 4.0 SDK (4.0.13)

The Session will be help at Microsoft’s Melbourne office on Wednesday the 1st of December.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: 5:30pm – Pizza and Drinks first and then we dive in.

Please RSVP at here

Hi Everyone,

One of questions that came up at this month’s user group that I didn’t answer was how to configure Filtered Lookups.
In this scenario we want a filtered lookup to show only contacts that are related to the customer of a case.

Before we start the “Responsible Contact” lookup dialog looks like this prior to enabling filtering.

To do this from the case form go to Customize and click “Form”

Select the “Responsible Contact” field and click “Change Properties” (Or Double Click)

In the “Related Records Filtering” section Check “Only show records where:”

Select “Customer (Accounts) (Cases)”

Select “Parent Customer (Accounts) (Contacts)”

Click ok, Save and then publish.

When you create a case and the Customer is an account the results displayed for the lookup will be filtered to the related contacts for both the search and auto resolve.

To stop users being able to turn off the filter uncheck the “Allow users to turn off filter” option in the “Related Records Filter”

The “Additional Properties” section allows you to turn off the search or set the default view and what if any additional views are available.

This is how the filtered lookup looks after turning off the search and limiting the views available.

Following on from last night’s session I would like to thank Dinesh Nanayakkara and Felix Hariyadi for preparing the code for the session which is available here. I have included links and some more information on some of the things discussed.

Firstly, to avoid the following error when creating strongly typed classes using the CrmSvrUtil:

“Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly ‘CrmSvcUtil, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ or one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0×8013141A) —> System.Security.SecurityException: Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0×8013141A)”

Download the updated SDK, with the signed version of the CrmSvrUtil http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/1/D/31D357F3-4EE1-48E7-8D75-F090D8FC97DFrorr/MicrosoftDynamicsCRM2011BetaSDK.exe

I have listed some of the other issues we encountered.

Running the plugin registration tool outside the server
When running the plugin registration tool from outside of the CRM server we encountered the following error:

“Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.IdentityModel, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35′ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ServiceConfiguration`1.CreateLocalChannelFactory()
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ServiceConfiguration`1.CreateChannelFactory(ClientCredentials clientCredentials)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.DiscoveryServiceConfiguration.CreateChannelFactory(ClientCredentials clientCredentials)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ServiceProxy`1.get_ChannelFactory()
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ServiceProxy`1.CreateNewChannel()
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.ServiceContextInitializer`1.Initialize(ServiceProxy`1 proxy)
at Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Client.DiscoveryServiceProxy.Execute(DiscoveryRequest request)
at PluginRegistrationTool.CrmConnection.RetrieveOrganizations() in D:\Projects\Resources\SDK\CRM 5.0 BETA\SDK Update\Tools\PluginRegistration\CrmConnection.cs:line 367
at PluginRegistrationTool.ConnectionsForm.OpenConnection(CrmConnection con) in D:\Projects\Resources\SDK\CRM 5.0 BETA\SDK Update\Tools\PluginRegistration\ConnectionsForm.cs:line 940″

To fix this, install the ‘Windows Identity Foundation’ from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974405

Invalid web resource type for form
We found that each time you opened the Web Resource Properties it would cause an error to occur when you clicked Ok.

To fix this, each time you need to select the resource from the Web Resource Lookup. Keep in mind this will clear any settings you have changed.

Tab Limits
One of the questions that came up last night, was if there was still a limit on the tabs allowed in a form.
I had a look through the SDK and didn’t find anything stating a maximum, so I ran a simple test by just adding 70 new tabs with sections and fields to a form. I was still able to save and publish and open the form without any issue. Now in my opinion, if you have a form that requires anywhere near 70 tabs, then you need to re-evaluate.

Another thing that came up was around changing the field tab order from top – bottom to Left – right. I couldn’t find any way in the CRM to set this, however, I found a post from Adi Katz at GI for CRM 4.0 which still works in CRM 2011. I added the code as a JavaScript Web Resource and called the function in the onload.

For those that wanted to see some of the videos I was talking about have a look at some of the links below.
First Interactive Look at CRM 2011

MS Dynamics CRM Team YouTube Channel

Lastly one of the other things we skimmed over last night was how to configure the filtered lookups. I have put together a step by step to illustrate what we were discussing and will post it tomorrow.

Hope this covers most of what we went over last night and look forward to see everyone next month.

Due to the running of the Melbourne Cup this week, We have moved this month’s edition of the Melbourne Xrm User Group to Tuesday the 9th of November. As with October’s session, we will be continuing to look through Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and explore how it can be used for development purposes.

Some of the areas that will be covered this month are:

•LINQ
•Plugins
•Form Scripting
•Web Resources

As always it will be held at Microsoft’s Melbourne office from 5:30pm.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: 5:30pm – Pizza and Drinks first and then we dive in.

Click Here to Register

We have had to delay this month’s session till the second week of November, we will update you once we have confirmed room availability please stay tuned.

This month’s session will be focusing on the development of applications in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 BETA. Because the area is so large we will split it over a few sessions.

Some of the areas that will be covered are LINQ, Plugins, Form Scripting, and Web Resources.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: 5:30pm – Pizza and Drinks first and then we dive in.

Thanks to everyone who came last night.

As promised here is the link for the CRM 4.0 to CRM 2011 JavaScript Converter.

Also there was an update to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 SDK released. In this release they have added some hands on labs and additional tools. Some C# sample source code has been updated and it also includes some Form JavaScript examples.

Next month we will be getting deeper into the Development and Customisation side of CRM 2011, I will post the agenda outline next week.

Over the next few months, the Melbourne xRM User Group will be taking the covers off Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, which was released to Beta this month, and discussing various aspects of the system’s new features

During the first interactive session, we will begin to look at the following.

• Ribbon Toolbar
• Form Features
• Form Customisation
• Data Import
• Dialogs & Processes

As always it will be held at Microsoft in Melbourne on the 6th of October.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: 5:30pm – Pizza and Drinks first and then we dive in.

Please RSVP at here

Due to the Australia Partner Conference we will be moving the September xRM User Group for Microsoft Dynamics meeting from the 1st of September to Wednesday 8th of September. The night will still be held at the Microsoft Melbourne Office.

Chris Plumridge from CyTrack will discuss how they have had a long history in contact centre solutions developed on the Microsoft platform that enabled Microsoft Dynamics partners to engage in partnership to deliver business solutions with Telephony channel specialists.  By combining the power of Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrated with your Telephony platforms you can offer market leading solutions for customer interaction.

This will be followed by Sean Edmunds from Experian, who will discuss different ways of compiling comprehensive business and consumer data and analysing this information in meaningful ways so that businesses can make better decisions and perform more profitably.

There will also be some discussion around the upcoming public beta release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Tech Ed 2010.

Microsoft
Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place
Southbank VIC 3006
Starts: 5:30pm – Pizza and Drinks first and then we dive in.

Sign up Here to Register

Due to our involvement in the World Wide Partner conference this month we will be postponing the Victorian xRM User Group series for the month of July.

This will be done with the expectation of continuing these sessions in August, with a huge session dedicated to WPC and the effects on CRM.

Please stay tuned for more details about this upcoming session on August 2^nd