Download MS CRM SDK 4.0.7

It's been long since Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 SDK v4.0.7 is released and it's been quite some time since I've downloaded it too. Delayed to update my blog.

Download it here.

How to fix "The key specified to compute a hash value is expired"

On our CRM Production environment I experienced the following:
When one of the User opened CRM, the below message appeared:

The key specified to compute a hash value is expired, only active keys are valid. Expired Key : CrmKey.........


I resolved this by starting the Microsoft CRM Async Service and performing an IISRESET.

Javascript - Know how v1.0?

To know the protocol your current window is using:


What just happened is I had this little snippet below the "Click Here - Protocol" Button.
alert(window.location.protocol);

To know who is hosting my blog:


The executing code under "Click Here - Hostname" button is.
alert(window.location.hostname);

Application :- When we open an AJAX call from within CRM, we can generate the URL like this:
{
var Protocol = window.location.protocol;
var HostName = window.location.hostname;
var sURL = Protocol+'//'+HostName+'/webservice.asmx';
}

at runtime and pass it this way:
xmlHttp.Open('POST',sURL,true);

A useful piece of information I use it often now.

Reset Auto-Numbering counter - CRM 4.0

If you've worked with the default CRM functionality more over with the settings area, you must be aware of figure below. This is the Set Auto-Numbering window :

What if you created a few Contracts or Invoices or any of the mentioned entities in the auto-numbering page and now you want to reset the counter (i.e. the number field of those entities).

Not a good idea, don't even think of it! Well you may, considering all the consequences. Here I'll tell you where the counter values are stored in the database.

Table dbo.OrganizationBase as shown on your left which is stored under OrgName_MSCRM Database.

Take a sneak peek at the table content and you can notice the prefixes and counter value of KB article, Case and Contract entities. Now you can manipulate, AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Thanks to Nithya for.......

Passing CRM Form values to an IFrame

I guess the Title + Hyperlink explains it all. I had this similar requirement to accomplish and I googled "passing crm form values to iframe".

That was it, the first search result was my answer. Thanks for that post Nithya.

Passing CRM Form values to an IFrame

I assume that you have already added an IFrame to the entity amd unchecked "Restrict cross-frame security" under IFrame properties > Security section

PASSING SINGLE PARAMETER TO AN IFRAME :

• new_customfield1 - Schema name of my custom field.
• IFRAME_Custom - Name of the IFrame.

Snippet (You may place it on OnLoad or OnChange of the CRM Form as per your requirements)

var CustomFieldValue = crmForm.all.new_customfield1.DataValue;
crmForm.all.IFRAME_Custom.src = 'http://localhost/YourURL.aspx?value='+CustomerFieldValue.

PASSING MULTIPLE PARAMETERS TO AN IFRAME :

• new_customfield1 - Shema name of first custom field.
• new_customfield2 - Schema name of the second custom field.
• IFRAME_Custom - Name of the IFrame.

Snippet

var CustomField1 = crmForm.all.new_customfield1.DataValue;
var CustomField2 = crmForm.all.new_customfield2.DataValue;
crmForm.all.IFRAME_Custom.src='http://localhost/YourURL.aspx?value1='+CustomField1+'&value2=' + CustomField2;

Download MS CRM SDK version 4.0.6

Latest Microsoft CRM SDK 4.0.6 is available for download.

Direct yourself to the download page:
Download CRM SDK 4.0.6

Read the New Releases here:
New Release in Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK v4.0.6

Towards CRM 5.0

CRM 5.0 scheduled for release 18 months from now.
What's it going to have?

July '08 Microsoft released the "Statement of Direction" for the Dynamics CRM 5.0.

Key features:

• Make it more user-friendly and interactive with other Microsoft programs
• Improvements in contact and account management.
• Improving team effectiveness.
• Better productivity and more features in call centers.
• Improvements in outbound communication and scheduling.

Detailed information.

Apply colors to CRM form labels

To give the CRM form labels a special appearance you may want to have different colors to them.

Write this code snippet on OnLoad Event of the form:
var str = "";
str += "First Name";
str += "<SPAN style='color:blue'> Only for info. </SPAN>";
crm_form_label.innerHTML = str;

Happy coloring form labels!!

Novice is 'Certified'

I am glad to be certified 'Microsoft Business Management Solutions Specialist in Installation and Deployment - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0'. Moreover I am happy as it's my first certification. I know there are as many respected Microsoft Certified Professionals on our planet as uh (I mean they actually are), I am cheerful to join the gang too. So, congratulations to me.

I am off for celebrations. Cheers!!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sdk 4.0.5 Available

CRM Sdks have been releasing almost bi-weekly (consider few days up/down) and now the latest Sdk 4.0.5 is available for download.

It has a lot of VB.NET examples included (a 100 samples, inclined to the news). You can download it from here.

Displaying CRM 4.0 form field and tab

Here is the blog post if you want to hide the fields

To display a CRM form field, the below scripts must be used:

crmForm.all.new_field_c.style.display = "inline";

displays the label and

crmForm.all.new_field_d.style.display = "inline";

displays the TextBox.

Similarly to display a tab use

crmForm.all.tab1Tab.style.display = "inline";

Note: These are unsupported customizations.

Hiding CRM form fields and tabs

If you're looking for Display a hidden field or tab - Direct Here.
These apply to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Note - These are unsupported customizations and may not work on CRM Upgrades.
Avoiding Scenarios where you can apply this functionality, I am just getting down to it. Depending on your requirement you may want to do one of these.

Let me take one at a time:

Hiding CRM form field:
Suppose that field's schema name is "new_field".

This is used to hide the textbox
crmForm.all.new_field_d.style.display = "none";

Use this to hide the Label
crmForm.all.new_field_c.style.display = "none";
Note '_d' and '_c', they are important.

Hiding CRM tabs:
The General tab is common to all and you may never want to hide this tab. The custom tab(s), the one right next to the general tab takes the value "tab1Tab", next to this on the right takes the value "tab2Tab" and so on.

Apply this nugget to hide the 1st tab next to the general tab.
crmForm.all.tab1Tab.style.display = "none";

This is about hiding them, just in case you want to seek them.

Note: These are unsupported customizations.

URL Addressable forms and views

My personal favourite Dynamics CRM feature is the Addressable Forms and Views. CRM Forms and Views are URL Adressable. In simple words, the Forms and Views (Grid Views) have their unique URL. They can be directly referred using their URLs. This flexibility is provided so that customizers can embed these Forms and Views in other applications in case of any integration.

You can simply achieve this by clicking

More Actions -> Copy Shortcut -> Of Current View
in case of CRM Views


and
Actions -> Copy Shortcut
in case of CRM Forms.

On April 08

Ah! About a week late on updating about Novice events this April. That should make you understand that I had been a little busy, both on and off work.

The Sun is shining bright, the humidity is unbearable already and is expected to rise. Summer fall was late this year. Thank God.

April was fantastic month. Attended the MOSS Conference and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (Titan) launch event. A two day long conference was enough to gel along with a bunch of IT geeks at the MOSS Conference in Middle East. Joel Oleson, Todd Klindt, Patrick Beeharry, Eray Chou are few to name. They were all amazing. Any hitch in Sharepoint? Contact them. You owe me for marketting you. hehehe. I am sorry, but I just had to write about you guys.

Another short and sweet event was the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 launch. Short and sweet as it lasted 5 hours. Between these events were the satisfying part. The nourishment and refreshments provided via snack grabs and lunch.

Looking forward for more snack grabbing events, oh! I mean conferences, trainings and launch events. Damn! I must get over being foodie crazie!!!!!!!

Stop the save event

Sometimes you need to stop a form from saving.

Case example - You are validating some data on the form and if the data is incorrect the save event must stop and retun back to the form rather than alerting the fault on the form and continuing saving the form. The OnSave event should return a "false" value to avoid the form from saving. This can be achieved by writting the following nugget.

event.returnValue = false;

To continue saving the CRM form you may want to use this

crmForm.Save();
or
crmForm.SaveAndClose();

Ronald Lemmen has given a few more nuggets. Also going through the SDK would give you an advantage. Plenty of them available.

Happy Scripting..|/

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Launched

Watch the webcast. You can test the CRM Hosted solution absolutely FREE for 30 days. So get started without any major investment in staffing and IT.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Implementation Guide Update Available

Download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 implementation guide. Some 50 odd corrections and 3 new topics have been declared. I don't have to list them as the list is available with the download.

There is an errata sheet shipped with the download that describes the corrections and additions. Find it as a document file, "v4_1_0_errata.doc".

CRM 4 License key matrix

Tried upgrading the Trial version and received this error.

Upgrading from a trial version to full version was such a production. There is an upgrade matrix available, I found after a few clicks on the web. Simon Houston put forth the CRM 4 License Key upgrade matrix which clearly explains which version of CRM can be upgraded. If you do not find a relevant upgrade intersection, you have just one option left "Re-install CRM 4" from scratch.

Other Titan Guides and SDKs

You can download CRM Implementation Guide and CRM Deployment SDK. Click the respective links.

CRM SDK 4.0.4

Now available Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK 4.0.4 for download. This SDK contains a lot new and updated information. link>>

Rebranding CRM Live

Microsoft has re-named CRM Live to "Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online" in order mantain their three meta-categories "Live", "Online" and "Hosted services".

MOSS 2007 Conference '08

Two long day's and one "Fantastic" conference held at Dubai. Very informative of course if you are not were not too much familiar too MOSS, but familiar folks present there also had too much to learn(as I could guess by their questions). MOSS 2007 (expands to "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007") is basically a SharePoint site which can be customized to provide great functionality to streamline business processes. Apart from that one can build blogging sites, wikis and lot more cool stuff by using SilverLight and Ajax just incase you thought of entertainment.

Its a little OOB(Out Of the Box) blog content, but something I learnt; MOSS is integerable to Microsoft CRM and other Dynamics products. So in someway helpfull to the CRM developers. But one really needs to think - Why should you integrate CRM with SharePoint? I am also thinking!!!!!!!

On March 08

Just thought to write a summary of the previous month. I have no notes about the month previous to this, so may not have much to write. Microsoft's Heroes Happen Here Launch Event was all that I remember. Its sealed up there. Research continues on Plug-ins. Tried the new Registration tool which worked good. Still a dark area as to how can I access data retrieve and update it. Specially the custom entities don't seem to get in hand until the web service is added. Hopefully should find the solution soon as lots of forums and blogs have now started discussing them. Hope you have a good April, meanwhile I get back to my research.

Microsoft's Products Launch Event

Everyone present at the Lauch event was a {HERO} and I was glad I was one of them. Microsoft's biggest launch event. It was big because they launched 3 products in a line.

• Windows Server 2008
• SQL Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2008

There were 2 tracks simultaneously and I was interested in the Developer track, but attended the IT Managers track(I knew of it):)

Lots of functionality incorporated. Hyper-V(Virtualization) being one of the best I liked in Windows Server 2008, Intellisense in SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio having the same looks as its antecedent, but much more powerful with intellisense for javascript. Makes developers life easier.

About the Event, it was wonderful. Professional speakers from MiddleEast were there to present. We had speakers from HP and Intel to talk about their colaborative researches with Microsoft. The best part was the entertainment and loads of give away gifts. Microsoft XBox, Intel Core 2Duo processor, Click mouse(for hidden gaming freaks), Wireless keyboard to name a few. Unluckily I wasn't so lucky to get any.

I would have definately put on the event pics, provided I had a camera with me. I missed on it. Not to worry as many more such events gearing up, as I tool up for them.

Heroes Happen {Here}
Cheers

Importing customizations error

In one of my previous blog’s I mentioned some tips before you could export/import customizations. If you haven’t read it, it’s here.

One of the points I mentioned was - to publish both the entities together when you created a relationship between them. In case you published only one of the two and engage yourself in export/import operations, it would export the customizations, but while importing it display’s a failure message:

Failure:
new_account_contact : Invalid Argument.

new - is the prefix
account - is entity1
contact - is entity2; Just to make it clear to the new comers.

Looking at the error above one is pretty convinced that the error has occurred between a relationship, as you can see two entities involved; exact failure error message not mentioned. This happens when you don’t publish both the entities together when you create a relationship between them. Sometimes not doing this may fume your brains.My personal comment on this- if CRM does not allow importing customizations when there is an un-published relation, it should have checked before exporting the customizations. Sometimes software developers do get silly. I being a developer have experienced.
Expect a patch probably?

Avail the latest SDK 4.0.3

Haven't written much, infact anything about the previous two SDKs. Reason being this blog wasn't live then. Moving forward, you can download the latest Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.3 SDK. Click here to download the SDK. Find more here.

Waiting for further releases? Me too. Come back to find more.

Error while importing customizations

Many a times I have come across forums and discussions about customization import errors. I tried to find out the reason and came to a full stop with a solution.

Let me share it with the readers:

1. Always publish the customizations without fail.
2. When you are creating a relationship between two entities, remember to publish
both those entities.
3. Its a good practise to publish all customizations before performing
export/import job.
4. Its always a good practise to export all customizations and import only those customizations that you require.
5. If you have 2 entities in relation and would want to retain the relation while export/import, you must export/import both those entities together at once, or you'll have relationship breakup.

These are a few tips to avoid errors while importing customizations that I too came across and thougth to put it on my blog for good. Any more points to look forward for, let me know "for good". Come back to know more common errors and their solutions.

Importing data in CRM

Heylo! Used a tool to import data into CRM.
Pretty good tool to use.

1.You'll need the view of the entity you want to import data on.

2.Export the view as .csv

3.Enter data into it

4.Import it back into CRM using the CRM import tool

Simple tool at use and performs the task promptly. The screenshots and in depth explaination of the tool is here and the tool can be downloaded from MS CRM Data Import Tool.

Enjoy your weekend.

Disable a Crm Form field

Many blogs have this content on how to disable a crmForm field. I am not sampling code for how to disable a field but two different views of a disabled field and its code.

Does the below shown crm field appear disabled? Yes. Well, this is how you can achieve it at run time.

Code 1:
crmForm.all.prefix_entityname.Disabled = true;


Does the below shown crm field appear disabled? If your say is no. You are of course right. It does not look disabled, indeed it is.

And this is how you achieve it.

Code 2:
crmForm.all.prefix_entityname.disabled = true;

So, disabling a crmform field can take two different views as shown above.
Carefully admiring the code you will notice the difference.
Code 1: Capital D, Disabled
Code 2: Small Letter d, disabled.

Happy disabling crm form field.

Hello World

Every software programmers first successful code, every Computer Language Text book's first program and our Blog's first context :

MessageBox.Show("Hello World");

We are Microsoft CRM novice in the making towards professionals. Wish us good luck.