Improve performance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The performance of your CRM implementation is one of the key factors for customer acceptance. There are multiple options available for optimizing your system. Here's a list to get started:Microsoft - Optimize Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0Microsoft - Optimize Microsoft Dynamics CRM 1.2Aaron Elder - Optimize the CRM Webservice CallsBrein Reid - Reduce the amount of useless calls to IIS 6.0

Welcome to the blog world David!

One of my fellow CRM MVP's has just decided to start blogging as well. Please welcome David Jennaway in this world by paying a visit to his already valueable blog:http://mscrmuk.blogspot.com/

Convergence 2007 Copenhagen

It was a last minute call, but I'm attending the Convergence as well. Please leave a message or send an email if you wish to drink a beer :)If there's something interesting to share, then I'll make sure it's online as soon as possible.Also I'll be standing at the Microsoft Product Groups Booth for the MVP Program at the following times:- Monday 22nd 18:00 - 19:00- Tuesday 23rd 12:00 - 13:00-

Importing Customizations: Invalid Attribute

Here's an approach for finding a solution to a new error which I haven't discussed before. The error that I will discuss is the message "Invalid Attribute" while importing the customizations. This only appears when there are already customizations imported and you try to import a new version of the customizations file.I wasn't able to find out information on Google or Partner Source, but managed

MS CRM Role Utility

Ever since the Sandbox went down, I've received quite some questions around the Role Utility. Luckily I still had a copy available. For the ease of use I've uploaded this one and here's the link: link.Have fun

Speaker at Dutch Dynamics CRM User Group

Last week at the 4th of October, there was the first session for the Dutch Dynamics CRM User Group. This session was organized by the Dynamics User Group (http://www.dynug.nl) and hosted by Generali. The goal of this User Group is to get customers together and learn from eachother and have a voice within Microsoft.The agenda for this meeting was:- Welcome and Introductions- User Group and

Fetch the ObjectTypeCode based on EntityName

Not a very rocket science, but just something again that I don't want to type over and over again. So here's a piece of code that helps you to fetch the ObjectTypeCode based on the EntityName for CRM 3.0:private int GetObjectTypeCode (string entityName){ CrmMetaDataService.MetadataService metadataService = new CrmMetaDataService.MetadataService(); metadataService.Credentials =

Creating Environment independent solutions

When developing a solution for CRM, make sure that it runs on all different crm environments. Many implementations have their CRM installation on another port compared to the development environments. A way to handle this, is to look at the location of MS CRM as it is stored in the registery.// Set default valuesprivate const string CRM_REG_DIRECTORY = @"software\Microsoft\mscrm\";private const

Change requirement level at runtime

I've made quite some posts around how to dynamically modify the form by using JavaScript. One thing I haven't posted around yet, but what I do use quite often, is to modify the requirement level of attributes on the form at runtime. Based on a selection in the system, another field could become required. Also if the selection changes again, then the field should not be required anymore. Here is

Expert on Avanade.com

Avanade has create a profile for me on their public website in the experts section. It's quite a honer to be listed within the same list as Matt Joe, Dennis Mulder and Matt Parks. http://www.avanade.com/people/expert_detail.aspx?expertid=98If you want to become an Avanade expert as well, feel free to contact me (ronaldl at avanade dot com) and I'll make sure that you get in contact with the

Reawarded MVP

Hi Guys,As a reward for community work last year, Microsoft has reawarded me the Microsoft CRM MVP!My community work includes:- Around 1000 newsgroup and forum posts.- Around 75 blog posts, of which 35 self written articles. The blog had more than 75k visitors.- Writing the article "Many to many relationships" for the CRM Team blog and the article "The power of choice" for CRN.- Working as 'Ask

New reasons added for why your callout won't work

The last weeks I've been adding multiple possible reasons with possible solutions to the checklist as published earlier. If your callout is not working, then make sure you view this list.Happy coding!

Change username of user in CRM

Microsoft has released KB article #935220 some time ago. This article describes how to change the username of a user in Dynamics CRM. See the article here:How to change the user name and the logon name for a user record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 This worked for me, I hope this also might help one of you!

Add New Button on Lookup

Hi Guys,I’ve been looking into how to enable the ‘new’ button on custom entities. Here is what I have found. O yeah, For the direct solution scroll to the end of the mail.- You can set test some things when using this url:http://localhost:5555/_controls/lookup/lookupsingle.aspx?class=null&objecttypes=10001&browse=0&DefaultType=0&ShowNewButton=1&ShowPropButton=1Ofcourse modify the servername and

My current project

Hi Guys,Last weeks I've been working very hard for my current customer. Together with a team in the Londen, UK and a team in Hyderabad, India I'm working on a very interesting project. We're creating a CRM system for the London office of my client which will connect to a global CRM implementation and which will also have a self service web interface. This project does take a lot of time and

Fetching the selected records in a grid

Make sure that you read this page if you want to use the selected values in a grid:http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb267367.aspxUntil some time ago I was using one of the functions that CRM uses, but since that is unsupported and the method as described in the article as stated above is supported, I am using the new approach.In short it comes down to this:// window.dialogArguments

CRM Blog search

My fellow MVP Matt Wittemann has created a custom search which searches through all of the blogs listed on the blog list. You can search through all of these blogs by going to this page:http://google.com/coop/cse?cx=007820608918962702080%3Ao4ydxw03wpaor go to Matt's blog and perform a search from there.Thanks Matt!Update:Not only Matt has created such a list, also Mitch Milam has created such a

Microsoft Office SharePoint Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Copied from Joris Kalz blog:We just released the localized version of the list web part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to support Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS 2007). The great thing about is that you can use Sharepoint to create a dashboard to display essential Microsoft Dynamics CRM data for your users. E.g. this can be used to create a central portal or dashboard for your sales team

Clone a record

There are some interesting things in the May 2006 Demo VPC that you might not have seen before. One of them is cloning a record. There's an addon written and supplied with the VPC that does take of cloning a contact. I've used it in some other projects and will be using it in my current project again. Ofcourse you can modify the code to match any entity.I'll add the code here so that you dont

Error when creating a new appointment

Robert Feenstra, working for Atlanticasset, has informed me about an issue that he had when he created a new appointment. He did not only tell me his issue, he also was able to give the solution! To be able to help more people, here is the error and the solution.When trying to create a new appointment, upon save get the error: The record that you are requesting is currently unavailable. Either

Interesting issues with the CRMDateTime continuum.

This is a guest post by a friend and colleague of mine: Leon Krancher. He has been digging into an issue regarding CRMDateTime and integration. Make sure you read this before you start your own integration!Well I guess I’d better start off with a little introduction. My name is Leon Krancher and I’m a colleague of Ronald at Avanade. As we both work with CRM we occasionally find time to get

Dynamic picklists and other samples

Somebody asked me for some advice on how to create dynamic picklists. I have seen this question in the newsgroups several times as well. Now you might expect that I do have a coding sample for you, but I did not create one. And still I do have one which you can download here. Now... If I didn't create it, who did?Microsoft did create this for you. And made it available. And even better. You

Gezocht: Stukadoor

This post is intentionally in Dutch.Zoals de titel al aangeeft: ik zoek een stukadoor. Al meer dan een jaar kijk ik uit naar de oplevering van m'n huisje en het is bijna zo ver. Op 22 mei krijg ik de sleutel en kan ik beginnen met de binnenkant. Als eerste zullen de muren van spachtelputz voorzien moeten worden. De persoon die dat voor mij zou gaan doen, die heeft alleen juist dán twee weken

Tips on using the publishreports executable

Update: see the bottom for a solution to be able to use the filter in the report!Some days ago I posted an article around how to move reports from a server to another server in the development process. Now I've been working with it, I can share some tips.The first tip is on how to publish the reports. How does the publishreports.exe know where to find the publish.config and the reports? This

English version of Column on Channelweb

An article that I wrote some weeks ago for Channelweb was published in Dutch. I have translated the article because of the many requests that I got. Read here the English version of the column 'The power of choice'.The power of choiceMicrosoft will release the newest version of its much discussed product Microsoft Dynamics CRM in 2007. There are big changes to come which will make it possible to

Modifying the history (associated) view filter

One of my friends, Michael Höhne, has blogged about how to change the default view of the associated view. This is a very common requested feature, also by my clients. Usually I inform them that it is not possible to change it, but that will change as of today. Take a look at the post at this address be thankful that Michael is willing to share all the codes just for the community :)http://

New blogger

As you can see I have changed the blogger settings to match the new blogger style. This does mean that labels are now used, the history browser is optimized and I should have some new features as author. I still have to find that out, but for now the template is a bit changed. I'll work on that soon!

FetchXML into a DataSet

Once upon a time in the Netherlands there was this developer who was working on MSCRM for quite some time. He started to notice that he had to search again and again for the same questions. Luckily he heard about the term 'blogging' and so he started to post the most frequent questions on a blog. The goal was to be able to quickly retrieve the information that he had found earlier. The fact that

Copying CRM Reports

You will need to copy reports from a server to another server when you're working on a CRM project, right? From development to test, from test to staging, from staging to production. Usually I do add the reports to a release package and describe in the deployment manual how to deploy the reports and how to set the filter, categories etc.Until today. Since today I will do this completely different

This attribute map is invalid

Today I've been working on a nasty error which showed up during importing customizations. The error message was:This attribute map is invalid. The selected attributes should be of the same type. The length of the source attribute and the formats should match. The targe attribute should not be used in another mapping."To solve this error I have opened up the customizations.xml file and located the

CRM Blog list update

Today I received a comment on the post around CRM Blogs from David Yack. If I wanted to update his entry in the list. Ofcourse I did so. In fact, I have searched around the internet and updated the complete list. I believe all records are up to date. If any MS CRM related blog is still missing, please let me know. Here's a link to the list:The official MS CRM Blog List:http://

Import has encountered an error and has been canceled

Another error resolving post.Here's the error:Import has encountered an error and has been canceled. Your system has been restored to its original state. Import has been canceled because the ISV.Config file could not be imported. Check that the file format is valid.Also connecting to the CRM Workflow Manager will probably not work. This error message is thrown:The specified Microsoft CRM server

Reducing the transaction log file size in MS SQL 2005

In the past, when using MS SQL 2000, it was fairly easy to reduce the file size used by the transaction log. Just backup the transaction log, perform a shrink command and then the file size has dropped to a minimum.In MS SQL 2005 this won't work. If you do so, then the file might be shrinked a bit, but it is not very small yet. To do this you would need to do the shrink command (including

Column on Channelweb

The power of choice. It's one of the powerful marketing slogans Microsoft uses for promoting Microsoft CRM. And it is the title of a column that I wrote for Channelweb. If you go to the website at http://www.channelweb.nl and browse to 'business software', then you'll find my article. Ofcourse you can also go to this link directly: http://www.channelweb.nl/artikel.jsp?id=1906469The article takes

CRM as Development Platform

One of the questions that Steve Ballmer got after his keynote session was:Question:Love where we're going with CRM, it's beautiful. If we look at the CRM platform and generize it, what it really is, is a platform enabling tool. A framework for quickly developing and deploying any type of application. Make it web enabled, webservice enabled, all right out of the box. Do you plan to generize, or

CRM Titan Release Date

No I don't have the release date yet, though I'd like to share the update from the Convergence with you. The release date has been set to the end of the year. Altough an exact date is not set, Brad made us believe that the target RTM date will be November, similar to the release of v3.0. I think that they will work as hard as they can to achieve this goal. That could ofcourse mean that features

CRM Live screenshots!

Hi all of you,Just before going to sleep I'd like to share some images with you. They are images I made of the presentation of CRM Live during Steve Ballmers keynote. The presentation was given by Brad Wilson, General Manger for Microsoft CRM. The presentation actually was live from the internet, so these bits are online right at this time in the Microsoft data center! I'll give you some of the

Free Dynamics e-courses training

In the Convergence Update 2 I have mentioned that the E-Courses for Dynamics products are becoming available for free if you're inrolled in customersource or partnersource. Another MVP and Mujo who has replied to that posting have informed me that the e-courses are not available yet. They still get an access denied error message.Now I've been in direct contact with the person in charge with this.

Convergence Update 3

Hi all,Just before going to sleep I'd like to share some interesting things which became public today. In Brad Wilsons presentation these facts were mentioned:- Our Titan release is heading for release this year- Early Titan code is in the hands of our partners trough our Technology Adoption Program (TAP) - It's available via software bits and Live CRM instances - TAP releases will continue

Convergence MVP foto

Here's a picture just made some seconds ago. From left to right: JaAG, Ronald Lemmen, Frank Lee, Scott Colson. Matt Parks is running around somewhere as well, but he didn't make it to the photoshoot.I'll add some more pictures of the event later.

Convergence Update 2

Another great day in San Diego.Not too many announcements today yet, but i'm having a great time anyway. Ever since I've been here I've been in contact with a lot of people I mailed with a lot but never saw before. I met a lot of partners, other MVP's, ISV's, Microsoft employees and above all, people who just want to thank me for my active participation in the community.A nice thing I'd like to

Convergence Update

This event is amazing!I'm astonished by the set-up of this event, the attendees and all the good news which is being announced. I just attended the keynote session by Satya Nadella. There were made quite some interesting announcements:- Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 will be available on March 31 2007- Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 will be available in June 2007- Microsoft Dynamics SL 7 will be

Convergence 2007 San Diego

Both the MVP Summit as well as the Convergence are on exactly the same dates. Since I don't have a splitten personality, I'll go to just one of those events. This will be the Convergence! Feel free to contact me to make an appointment.See you in San Diego!

Dutch champion Judo

This is my first post not related to CRM, C# or myself. Instead, this post is about my little sister Iris. We do both practice Judo, there’s just this little difference in the level we do play this. I’m doing it just for recreational purposes and she’s putting all effort in being the best.And she does a great job! Last week she managed to beat all Dutch competition! Now she’s Dutch Champion for

Set a lookup to NULL

Quite often I see this question in the newsgroup: How do I set a lookup to a NULL value?Here is the answer for when you're working in server side code:Entity.Lookup = new Lookup(); Entity.Lookup.IsNull = true; Entity.Lookup.IsNullSpecified = true; this also works for customers:contact.parentcustomerid = new Customer();contact.parentcustomerid.IsNull = true;contact.parentcustomerid.IsNullSpecified

A schema validation error has been detected

More and more MS CRM developers are experiencing this error message:A schema validation error has been detected at line 21087, position 16.This error shows up if you want to import a customizations file which has been exported from a system which has the Update Rollup package 1 installed.There may be multiple reasons for this error to show up, but at least one of them is the existence of one of

Callout design issue

Last week I noticed some weird behaviour in MS CRM. For a business requirement I created a callout. The callout would perform some business logic as soon as an appointment gets created. The business logic should only run if the activty gets created by a quick campaign. Don't ask me for the reason, but that was requested.No problem, I created a pre callout which runs on the appointment's OnCreate

Error while importing via Tools -> Import

Today I got a question regarding importing via the CRM Import tool (Menubar -> Tools -> Import). Only a small number of records would import, all the others would not. Even though the source seemed fine, they did throw this error:0x80040328: Number of columns does not match the header rowThis appears to be related to the source anyway. When you save an file in Excel 2003 as csv, it does the

Multiple Avanade clients win Pinnacle award

The Convergence 2007 Pinnacle Awards recognize, honor, and celebrate customers that have achieved outstanding success with their Microsoft solutions as well as Microsoft partners’ solutions. The three categories are Role Based Customer Awards, Excellence Customer Awards and Industry Leadership Awards.One of Avanade's clients, Wellmark, has won the Industry Leadership Award for Healthcare. Another

Guest star on mscrm team blog

Jim Glass e-mailed me some time ago. This was the content:Ronald, would you like to be the CRM Team blog guest blogger for February? You can select any work day in February.Let me know what you think,JaAGObviously Jim is a man of less words, but with these words he did make me a very happy person. I was personally invited to write a blog post for the number 1 blog around MS CRM. And today is the

CRM with a SQL Server Named Instance

Today I ran into Kale David's blog. He posted a solution for running CRM on a SQL Server Named instance. The main point is adding a DWORD key to the registery.Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM\IgnoreChecksValue: 1See his blog for the full article.Thanks Kale!

Territory manager cannot belong to other territory

If you're working with territories by using the SDK, you might get this error message:0x80043805: Territory manager cannot belong to other territoryThis happens if you want to make a specific user manager of two territories. This is possible, but you will have to make sure that the field 'territory' is set to NULL of this user. When you change the manager field of a territory by using the SDK,

How to set the parent account via SDK

Last week I've been working on a migration application. One requirement in the application was to set the parent account of child accounts. It could be that a parent account has a parent account itself as well. So in my application I have followed this approach:- For each account in the source, create an account in CRM 3.0- For each account in the source, map the parent account to a crm accout

Uploading office 2007 (docx) files to CRM

On the newsgroups I've been talking to some people about uploading Office 2007 files. This appears to be not working as expected. There is a hotfix available for this issue now. Note: this hotfix is not included the rollup 1 package. Look at this page for more information: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929488

Food for hungry IT-people

For 3 years I'm working for Avanade, the joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture. Since 2004 we're located in the Netherlands and we have managed to grow from 17 to 100 Microsoft professionals. Now I ask you to help us grow even further!Worldwide we are an organization of more then 5000 professionals and we're looking for more people who are willing to be part of the worlds largest IT

http://www.ronaldlemmen.com

Now even easier to remember! This blog is accessible from the url: http://www.ronaldlemmen.comStill running on blogger's engine, but since I received my first ad's paycheck I'm able to serve you even better.Ronald

The best solution?

Have you ever wondered what the best solution is? For example, what if somebody asks you 'What is the correct regex pattern that would match to any 3 digits from 0-9 but not match if those three digits are all zeros, e.g. 123 is a match but 000 is not a match?'So what is the best solution? Is it: ([1-9]\d\d|\d[1-9]\d|\d\d[1-9])This still would allow a string like 1234 to be correct.Or this one:^(

Showing a sorted list of the entities

When you want to show a list of entities, then you'd need the MetadataService. The code is not that hard to fetch a list of these entities. There's even an example in the SDK. The code to get all entities including custom entities would be:MetadataService.MetadataService service = new MetadataService.MetadataService();service.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;Metadata md

You've been tagged!

Aargh!I've been tagged two times by now. Once by Nigel van Houten and once by Sander Schutten. It's a game on blogs. If you get tagged, you need to give 5 useless facts about yourself and tag 5 other people. So here are my 5 useless facts:1) I do know both Sander and Nigel of the 'Hogeschool van Amsterdam'. Thats the school where we all have studied Information Technology.2) During my studies I

Callout not working?

Lets write a bit more about how to get a callout to work and to make debugging available. I already wrote something about this before in this post: Callout debug: Access is Denied.So your callout is not fired? Here are some thoughts to get started. Make sure that:- the callout even should fire. Are you using the right callout? Special attention to the email PreSend and PostDeliver callouts:

Virtual PC 2007 Beta: Keyboard Problems (repeating keys)

About everybody who's using the beta of VPC 2007 is facing the same problem: Keys are being repeated again and again. When searching around on the internet, I found that this bug has been submitted and will be fixed in the RTM. Furthermore I found that there is a temporary solution. The workaround is to use the idle_thread. Now how do you set this setting?- Use Explorer and go to the %root%\