Jeremy Winchell

Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Posted On CodePlex

Jeremy Winchell — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:44:00 GMT

On Friday, Microsoft posted 3 of the 8 accelerators on CodePlex. I've listed all of the accelerators below and provided a direct link to the download for the ones that have been released. As more of these are released for download I will update these links below for quick and easy access.

- CRM Notifications
- Event Management
- Extended Sales Forecasting
- eService Portal
- Enterprise Search
- Sales Methodologies
- Business Productivity
- Analytics

To access the main Codeplex website for the accelerators, click here.

- Jeremy

Hiding the Add Existing Button in a CRM 4.0 Grid

Jeremy Winchell — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:33:00 GMT

This is a great post from Dave Hawes that shows you how you can hide the Add Existing button in CRM 4.0. You can use the same piece of code to hide almost any of the buttons on a Grid.

Click Here To Read The Article

- Jeremy

Embedding a Direct Link In An E-Mail - CRM 4.0 Version

Jeremy Winchell — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:03:00 GMT

This post demonstrates how you can leverage the Plug-In framework to quickly and easily embed a URL inside of a workflow e-mail in CRM 4.0....(read more)

Exporting more than 10,000 records to Excel in CRM 3.0/CRM 4.0

Jeremy Winchell — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:47:00 GMT

When you export records from CRM 3.0 to Microsoft Excel only the first 10,000 rows are exported. Unless you scroll to the end of the spreadsheet there isn't any kind of indication that a limit has been reached. The following post from Microsoft walks you through the steps necessary to increase the limit.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911395/enus$

To change this in CRM 4.0:

1. Log-in to the SQL Server where the <Organization_Name>_MSCRM database is stored
2. Open the OrganizationBase table
3. FInd the Column: MaxRecordsForExportToExcel
4. Change the value from 10,000 to the desired value
5. Committ the change to the database

- Jeremy

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

Embedding Direct Links To CRM In A Workflow Email - Take 2

Jeremy Winchell — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:43:00 GMT

A while back I wrote a post about how you can use JavaScript and workflow to include an e-mail link for a newly created or updated record. While the method works, it was less than efficient and opened the door to more problems than solutions. There is a much better solution and it can be implemented rather quickly. It utilizes the .Net framework and the CRM 3.0 workflow engine to build the Url and update the record itself, plus it's more flexible and can be used in a variety of situations.

A few benefits of using the comination of CRM 3.0 Workflows and .Net:

- The .Net assembly created can be used in a manual workflow rule in order to update a bunch of records with the Url. The original method only allowed you to populate the Url on a record by record basis.

- It eliminates the user having to save the record twice to make sure the Url is populated on the entity

Step 1 - Create A Custom Attribute To Hold The URL
For this example we'll just call our attribute: new_urllink with datatype varchar or Url

Step 2 – Create the Custom .Net Workflow Assembly
Create a new class library project in Visual Studio 2003

namespace MicrosoftCRM.Examples.Workflow

{

public class UrlBuilder()

{

}

public void UpdateCaseWithUrl(Guid ticketid)

{

//Create CRM Service Reference

CrmService myService;

myService = new CrmService();

myService.Credentials = System.Net.DefaultCredentials;

myService.Url = "http://<crm_url>/mscrmservices/2006/crmservice.asmx";

incident myIncident = null;

//Retrieve Case From CRM

myIncident = (incident)myService.Retrieve(EntityName.incident,ticketid,new AllColumns());

//Populate the Custom Url Field

myIncident.new_urllink = “http://<crm_url>/cs/cases/edit.aspx?id=" + ticketid;

//Update the Case in CRM

myService.Update(myIncident);

myService.Dispose();

}

Step 3 – Deploy Code and Update the Workflow.config File
In order to use your custom .Net assembly within the CRM 3.0 workflow engine you need to first deploy the code and update the workflow.config file. Stop the Microsoft CRM Workflow service on the CRM Server. Copy and paste your compiled .dll to the folder below.

<install_drive>\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\Server\Bin\Assembly

Add the following entry at the end of the workflow.config file which you will find in the same directory that you deployed your .NET assembly. This entry will allow you to utilize your .NET assembly inside of the workflow designer.

Restart the Microsoft CRM Workflow service. If everything starts up ok, then you are in good shape.

Step 4 - Create The Associated Workflow(s)
To fully complete this you need to create 2 workflows. The reason I suggest 2 workflows is so the one that actual updates the entity and assigns the link can be run on demand in order to bulk-update multiple CRM records with the link.

Workflow #1: Create a manual workflow rule for Cases that simply calls the Custom .Net assembly method.

Workflow #2: Create the workflow that is going to send the e-mail notification. The first step should either be a call to the previous workflow that builds the Url or you can call the custom .Net workflow function from here as well.

Step 5 - Your Done!

A List of Common Url's For CRM Entities:
You can find the paths for CRM Entities rather easily by browsing to the home directory of the CRM Website, if it's installed on the default website the path would be <drive>\inetpub\wwwroot. Once you have access to the CRM Website files find the folders that contain the edit pages for the various entities:

SFA - Sales Force Automation (accounts,contacts etc)
CS - Customer Service (cases,contracts etc)
MA - Marketing Automation (campaigns, marketing lists etc)

Sales Force Automation:
Accounts: http://<crm-url>/sfa/accts/edit.aspx
Contacts: http://<crm-url>/sfa/conts/edit.aspx
Leads: http://<crm-url>/sfa/leads/edit.aspx
Opportunities: http://<crm-url>/sfa/opps/edit.aspx

Marketing Automation
Campaigns: http://<crm-url>/ma/camps/edit.aspx
Marketing Lists: http://<crm-url>/ma/lists/edit.aspx
Campaign Response: http://<crm-url>/ma/campaignresponse/edit.aspx

Case Management:
Cases: http://<crm-url>/cs/cases/edit.aspx
Contracts: http://<crm-url>/cs/contracts/edit.aspx
KB Articles: http://<crm-url>cs/articles/edit.aspx

Custom Entities:
Custom: http://<crm-url>/userdefined/edit.aspx

*Please substitute the actual url of the CRM Implementation you are working with where you see <crm-url> in the links above.

Good Luck. I will be following up with a similiar post for Microsoft CRM 4.0 as well.

- Jeremy

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

Hiding System Views in CRM 4.0

Jeremy Winchell — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:43:00 GMT

If you wanted to hide a System View in CRM 3.0 it was easy, all you had to do was use the sharing feature of CRM. However, in 4.0 you can no longer do this with the System Views. The post below demonstrates how to use the plug-in framework to hide System Views in a supported way through the 4.0 SDK.

Hiding Views in CRM 4.0

It's a great article.

- Jeremy

Great Tool for Managing Plug-Ins

Jeremy Winchell — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:31:00 GMT

For those of you starting to develop Plug-Ins in CRM 4.0, there is a great tool that was developed to ease the deployment and management of CRM 4.0 Plug-Ins. The developers of the tool built a very nice GUI around the plug-in registration process which makes things much easier than using the command line interface.

Some of the features of the plug-in registration tool are:

- Deploy/Manage Plug-Ins for multiple CRM 4.0 implementations and Organizations (multi-tenancy)
- Register/Unregister Plug-Ins
- Register/Unregister Plug-In Steps (Create,Update,Delete)

For more information about the Plug-In Registration Tool check out the blog post below.
Blog: Plug-In Registration Tool

If you'd rather just hit the ground running, here is a direct link to the download package.
Download: Plug-In Registration Tool

- Jeremy

Locking Down Lookup Fields

Jeremy Winchell — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:16:00 GMT

I've encountered many situations during a CRM Deployment where we want to restrict the type of record that can be selected in a Lookup Field. In most cases it's been situations dealing with Opportunities and Cases in CRM. The Potential Customer & Customer fields can accept either an Account or a Contact as a value. What if we only want users to select Accounts? The Javascript below gives an example of how you can force users to only be able to select an Account when creating a new case in CRM.

When a user triggers the OnChange() event for the Customer Lookup field on a Case the JavaScript checks to make sure it has an Object Type value of 1, which is the Object Type Code for an Account. If it isn't an Account an alert message appears and the lookup field is cleared out.

try
{
if(crmForm.all.customerid.DataValue[0].type != 1)
{
window.alert("You must choose an Account for the Customer Field.");
crmForm.all.customerid.DataValue = null;
}

catch(err)
{
//window.alert("Display Error Message Here");
}

If you wanted to change this code so that only Contacts could be selected, then you would check for a Object Type Code of 2, which stands for a Contact. It is some short and simple JavaScript that will help control how information is recorded in your CRM system.

Field Level Security With CRM 3.0 - Part I

Jeremy Winchell — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:34:00 GMT

One thing that CRM 3.0 lacks is the ability to lock down fields, buttons, forms etc based on the security role of the user logged in. Ronald Lemmen has a great blog post that allows you to call out-of-the box Javascript code to accomplish this task. You can find the URL here. I've taken his original post that allows you to check for User's roles and went a step further and starting enabling/disabling fields, hiding fields, hiding buttons and other things that we'd like to lock down for certain users.

Javascript Function #1: getUserId()

This function executes a WhoAmI request in order to retrieve the GUID of the currently logged in user.

function getUserId()

{

try

{

var command = new RemoteCommand("SystemUser", "WhoAmI", "/MSCRMServices/");

var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)

{

return oResult.ReturnValue.UserId;

}

catch(e)

{

alert("Error while retrieving userid.");

}

return null;

}

Javascript Function #2: getUserRoles(userid)

This function takes the GUID of the user from the first script and it gets the list of all roles assigned to that user.

function getUserRoles(userId)

{

try

{

var command = new RemoteCommand("UserManager", "GetUserRoles");

command.SetParameter("userIds", "<guid>" + userId + "</guid>");

var oResult = command.Execute();

if (oResult.Success)

{

return oResult.ReturnValue;

}

catch(e)

{

alert("Error while retrieving roles.");

}

return null;

}

Javascript Function #3: userHasRole(userid,roleName)

This function takes takes the GUID of the logged in user and a string parameter where you specify the name of the role that you are looking for. It calls teh getUserRoles() function to retrieve the list of roles. Once the list of roles has been retrieved it loops through the array of user roles checking for the specific role passed to this function.

function userHasRole(userId, roleName)

{

result = getUserRoles(userId);

if (result != null)

{

var oXml = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");

oXml.resolveExternals = false;

oXml.async = false;

oXml.loadXML(result);

roleNode = oXml.selectSingleNode("/roles/role[name='" + roleName + "']");

if (roleNode != null)

{

if (roleNode.selectSingleNode("roleid[@checked='true']") != null)

return true;

}

return false;

}

Javascript Function #4: currentUserHasRole(rolename)

This is the function that you would call from you Javascript to determine whether or not the user has the role that you are looking for. This calls the other functions and will return true if the user has the role otherwise it will return false/null if they don't.

function currentUserHasRole(roleName)

{

userId = getUserId();

return userHasRole(userId, roleName);

}

Now that we have the primary functions involved in accomplishing field-level security in Microsoft CRM, we can put these scripts to the test.

Part II - Locking Down Fields

Part III - Showing/HIding Fields

Part IV - Hiding Buttons/Navigation

Hopefully, Part II will be published by the end of this week.

Embedding Direct Links To CRM In A Workflow Email

Jeremy Winchell — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:48:00 GMT

I can't think of a single CRM implementation that I've been involved in where workflow was not used to send any emails. Every implementation has used the workflow engine to send emails when records are created, ownership changes, or when Opportunities are closed as a win/loss. The workflow engine is robust enough where we can embed a lot of detail into the body of the email about the record itself, but what if the user wants to actually view that record in CRM? Even in the Outlook client this can be a 3 step process:

Open up the Email
Click View In CRM, this opens up the actual email activity in CRM, not the record we want to view
Click the Regarding Object Link

Now you are finally at the actual record you want to view. If you have Office 2007 there is now a button on the ribbon called View Regarding which cut's out a few steps from above. If you're not fortunate enough to be using Office 2007 yet, wouldn't it be nice if you could just embed a link in the body of the email message that provides a direct link to the record in CRM? Fortunately, it's relatively easy to do with a custom attribute and a little bit of Javascript.

Step 1 - Create A Custom Attribute To Hold The URL
For this example we'll just call our attribute: new_urllink with datatype varchar

Step 2 - Add The Appropriate Javascript to the OnSave() Event
The Javascript required varies depending on whether the entity is a custom entity or a standard out of the box entity. The Javascript is labeled appropriately below. The Javascript checks to see if this is an update form and that the new_urllink attribute is empty. If it is, then it will build the Url link.

Use the code below for a standard CRM entity (Example Below is for the Account Entity):
var objId;
var accountUrl;
if((crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue == null) || (crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue == ""))
{
   if(crmForm.FormType == 2) //Checks to see if this is an update Form (value of 2)
   {
        var embedUrl;
        accountUrl = "http://crmdemo/sfa/accts/edit.aspx";   //Default Path to the Edit.aspx page for an Account
        objId = crmForm.ObjectId; //Retrieves the ID of the current object
        embedUrl = accountUrl + "?id=" + objId; //pieces together the items required for a full Url
        crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue = embedUrl; //Sets the value of the field
        crmForm.all.new_urllink.ForceSubmit = true;
        crmForm.Save();
    }
}

Use the code below for a custom CRM Entity:
var objId;
var objType;
var customUrl;
if((crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue == null) || (crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue == ""))
{
     if(crmForm.FormType == 2)
     {
          var embedUrl;
          customUrl = "http://crmdemo/userdefined/edit.aspx";
          objId = crmForm.ObjectId;    //Gets the ID of the current record
          objType = crmForm.ObjectTypeCode; //Gets the type code of the custom entity
          embedUrl = customUrl + "?id=" + objId + "&etc=" + objType; //pieces together the Url
          crmForm.all.new_urllink.DataValue = embedUrl;
     }
}

Step 3 - Create The Associated Workflow
Now you can create a notification workflow and all you need to do is add this new_urllink field to the body of the email.

Step 4 - Your Done!

SFA - Sales Force Automation (accounts,contacts etc)
CS - Customer Service (cases,contracts etc)
MA - Marketing Automation (campaigns, marketing lists etc)

Marketing Automation
Campaigns: http://<crm-url>/ma/camps/edit.aspx
Marketing Lists: http://<crm-url>/ma/lists/edit.aspx
Campaign Response: http://<crm-url>/ma/campaignresponse/edit.aspx

Case Management:
Cases: http://<crm-url>/cs/cases/edit.aspx
Contracts: http://<crm-url>/cs/contracts/edit.aspx
KB Articles: http://<crm-url>cs/articles/edit.aspx

Custom Entities:
Custom: http://<crm-url>/userdefined/edit.aspx

*Please substitute the actual url of the CRM Implementation you are working with where you see <crm-url> in the links above.

Hiding Unwanted Navigation In CRM

Jeremy Winchell — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:34:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to hide certain Navigational items that exist CRM forms? One request we get from time to time is whether or not it is possible to hide the Sub-Contacts menu item, see the image below, from the Contact Form. In fact, this is relatively easy to do. All you need is a basic understanding of HTML and JavaScript.

To Get Started, Follow the Instructions Below

Find the ID of the Sub-Contacts Section:

Open A Contact in Microsoft CRM
With the Contact Open, Press Ctrl + N to open the Contact in a new window
In Internet Explorer Click View -> Source
When the HTML opens in Notepad do a search for Sub-Contacts, results are in the image below
Just before the highlighted text you will see: id="navSubConts", write down stuff between the "" signs.

Add the Javascript Below to the OnLoad Event of the Contact Form:

Open CRM in the Web Client
Click Settings -> Customization -> Customize Entities
Double-Click the Contact Entity
Click Forms & Views in the left-hand pane
When the list of Forms & Views appear in the right-side, double-click Form
In the right-hand pane, Click Form Properties
Click OnLoad and Click Edit
Paste the following Javascript in the box:

document.getElementById("navSubConts").style.display = "none";

Check the Enable Event checkbox
Click Save & Close twice and then click Publish

Test The Script:

1. Open up a Contact in CRM, if you're script is working correctly the Sub-Contacts menu option should now be gone, just like the image below:

You can use this same technique to hide other menu items in not only the Contact form within CRM but in any of the other CRM Forms as well. Now you have more control over what the users can and can't do in CRM. The main key to getting this to work is finding the right ID value in the HTML code. I've noticed that most, if not all of the Navigation is stored with <div></div> tags. If you can find the correct ID, then the rest is pretty easy.

What If: You can't remove columns from a View

Jeremy Winchell — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 16:51:00 GMT

I ran into an issue where I could add columns to a View but I could not remove columns. When I put the mouse over the column it switched to a hand indicating that I could click the item. However, when I did click on the column.... nothing happened. Usually the column header turns green letting me know that it is indeed selected. After scouring the web and the CRM forums I found the solution, about:blank.

In the Trusted Sites zone in Internet Explorer you need add about:blank as a Trusted Site. If you're not familiar with how to do this, you can follow the instructions below:

In Internet Explorer Click Tools -> Internet Options
Click the Security Tab
Click Trusted Sites
Click Sites
Type about:blank
Uncheck Requires Server Verification (if checked)
Click Add, then Ok

Now if you re-open CRM you will be able to remove Columns from a View.

Inetium Is A Finalist For Microsoft CRM Partner of the Year

Jeremy Winchell — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:36:00 GMT

On Monday, Microsoft announced Inetium as a finalist for the MBS Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner of the Year. Over 1,800 companies submitted applications and we were one of three finalists up for this award. The winner will be announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver July 10-12, 2007. We are excited to be recognized and this is a great honor for Inetium and our CRM Practice.

To read Microsoft's announcement click here:

Copy CRM Contents To The Clipboard

Jeremy Winchell — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:35:00 GMT

I had a client ask whether or not I could add a button to the Account Form in CRM that would copy and format the address so that they could paste it into an Email or a Word document. There is a function that you can call from Javascript/VBScript that will allow you to copy text, URLs etc to the clipboard for use in other applications: window.clipboardData.setData(tag,value);

Step 1: Determine which fields on the Form we need to capture and the schema name

In this case we wanted to capture the following:

Account Name (name)
Street 1 (address1_line1)
Street 2 (address1_line2)
City (address1_city)
State (address1_stateorprovince)
Zip Code (address1_postalcode)

Step 2: Write the necessary Javascript in Notepad (case sensitive)

var texttocopy;
try
{
texttocopy = crmForm.all.name.DataValue + '\n';
texttocopy += crmForm.all.address1_line1.DataValue + '\n';
texttocopy += crmForm.all.address1_line2.DataValue + '\n';
texttocopy += crmForm.all.address1_city.DataValue + ', ' + crmForm.all.address1_stateorprovince.DataValue + ' ' + crmForm.all.address1_postalcode.DataValue + '\n';

window.clipboardData.setData('Text',texttocopy);
}
catch(e)
{}

Step 3: Edit the isv.config.xml file to add the Copy Address button

Browse to the isv.config.xml file (<crm_website_folder\_Resources\isv.config.xml)
Make a backup copy of isv.config.xml file
Open isv.config.xml with Notepad
Add the following line between the <Entities></Entities> XML Tags

<Entity name="account">
<ToolBar ValidForCreate="1" ValidForUpdate="1">
<Button Title="Copy Address" ToolTip="Copies the Account Address To The Clipboard" Icon="/_imgs/ico_18_4004.gif" JavaScript=" " />
</ToolBar>
</Entity>

Copy and Paste your Javascript from Step 2 between the double quotes in Line 3
Save the isv.config.xml file

Step 4: Test the Button

Open up an Account In CRM
Click the Copy Address button
Open Wordpad/Work/Outlook or some other application
Click Edit -> Paste or hit Ctrl + V
The formatted address from CRM should appear

This will work on IE 6.0 and IE 7.0. The window.clipboardData.setData function can also be used to copy URLs. If you want to copy the URL of the open record use this Javascript instead:

var url;
url = window.location.href;
window.clipboardData.setData('Text',url);

CRM 3.0 List Web Part for Sharepoint 2007 Is Available

Jeremy Winchell — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:33:00 GMT

Microsoft released a new version of the CRM 3.0 List Web Part. The List Web Part is now compatible with MOSS (Sharepoint 2007). The first release of the CRM List Web Part was only compatible with Sharepoint 2003. You can download the new CRM 3.0 List Web Part using the link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bc9b3526-decf-4057-a530-91840c0d5401&DisplayLang=en