MS CRM 2016 On-premise Update ( Dynamics 365 )

The re-branding of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to 365 for on-premises deployments has arrived.

Download details of “December 2016 update for Dynamics 365 (On-Premises)” is here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54515

 the December 2016 update is not a new version. Deploying this update changes the version to 8.2.0.0749, which is still part of the CRM 2016/version 8 release cycle.

There is more information at https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3205084

Unable to Import Organization in MS CRM 2015

Sometimes we face an issue  in CRM 2015 OnPremise while importing Organization  with  following exception is logged: 07:53:20| Error| Import Organization (Name=”orgName”, Id={orgID}) failed with Exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Could not find stored procedure ‘p_CreateAuditEntry’

This issue comes generally after applying Update 0.1 to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015.

To Resolve the issue apply update 0.2  where the fixed has been released for this issue.

Hope this will help someone!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 in Q4 of this calendar year.

They are very working very eagerly and fast 🙂  Next update in coming with great business features .. Excited !!!

Read Below :

https://community.dynamics.com/b/msftdynamicsblog/archive/2015/09/08/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2016-delivering-the-next-generation-of-intelligent-customer-engagement

Java Script Methods Removed in MS CRM 2015 Update

Take a note on removed JS methods are either obsolete or replaced with other methods in MS CRM 2015 .You should make sure these methods aren’t used in your scripts.The following methods were deprecated with earlier versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and are no longer present in the current version:

1) getAuthenticationHeader – This method supported use of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 web services, which no longer exist.

2) getServerUrl – This method was replaced by getClientUrl.

3) isOutlookClient -This method was replaced by client.getClient

4) isOutlookOnline – This method was replaced by client.getClientState

Restrict your organization to open in any browser after Roll up 12

I have come to know a requirement that we need to restrict users to login in CRM via other browsers except IE as some of our JS still need up-gradation to support other browser and failing due to and customer record some junk data because of user logged with other browsers and can entered data in fields which are restricted by scripting for users and obviously it breaks some business processes.

I dig for it and found a managed solution on msdn which is worth for this requirement and I personally like it.

Installation of this solution blocks users in your organization from using any browsers other than Internet Explorer 7 or higher. If someone attempts to use any other browser to access the application they will be redirected to an HTML web resource page that explains your organization policy. You can edit this HTML resource content to provide information specific to your organization.

You may want to exclude some users from this policy. For example, you may want to exclude a developer testing scripts to upgrade your organization JavaScript to support other browsers. To exclude a user from this policy, add the Any Browser Allowed security role to the security roles associated with their User record.

here is the link :

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj860463(v=crm.6).aspx

Hope this will help someone !

Unable to See Saved View’s Filters in MS CRM 2011

I have recently encountered  with a  problem with filters on custom views with UR 13. When adding any filters for “Related” records to a view and then saving the view and closing, the filter get save but not visible on UI  when re-opened the view to check for the filter we just added.

As this was not related to any customization we have implemented on application so it seemed a product issue.So we have implemented UR16  and got it resolve. Not sure it has been fixed with UR16 as its not mentioned anywhere documented in hotfixes in UR’s KB but it worked for me and issue has been resolved.

Hope this will help someone who facing same !  \m/

MS CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3

Microsoft release UR 3 for MS CRM 2013 , many things has been fixed with this

for details check out link      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2930480/en-us 

Introduction of Spring Release ’14’ or SP1 of MS CRM 2013

Another Update by Microsoft has been introduce  as Spring Release ‘14’ for CRM Online Customer and name for Update for Onprimise is Service Pack 1, some of the enhancements introduce with this release, which are below:

• New entities added to the data model for social profile and Activities.
• Added to support integrations with social applications (not yet enabled for end users)
• When exporting a Solution you can select the target version of CRM you wish to support and CRM will remove any offending items that would prevent a successful import
• The number of buttons that will display on the form has been increased from 5 to 7
• You can now use the familiar “And” and “Or” groups that you are used to from Advanced Find when defining Conditions in your Workflow rules
• The return of the feature of Duplicate Detection in Real Time that we used to have in CRM 2011 (even with the same confusing UI)
• Now Lync Presence is available in Lookup fields and Activity Feeds
• New for integration scenarios between (only) CRM Online and SharePoint Online.
• Documents are represented as Document records in CRM (new entity) and the SharePoint IFrame is replaced by a Documents sub-grid
• Provisioning tool for creating Sandbox environments by copying a production CRM Online instance
• Sandbox Environments Supports ‘Minimal Copy’ (schema and customizations only) or ‘Full Copy’ (everything)
• Sandbox Environment has Ability to reset and snapshot
• Native integration to Insideview (CRM Online only) for real-time industry information on Contacts and Organizations
• Cases now editable on the Tablet
• Added support for Android Tablet.
• Can now sign out as one user and sign in as another
• Can now reconfigure the App to point to another CRM Organization without having to reinstall
• New Windows 8.1 App (provides the cached offline experience for CRM On Premise customers that was previously not available)

Case Hierarchies

• The ability to associate Cases under a Parent Case.
• Fields can be configured to auto map down.
• Case closure can be configured to cascade down or be prevented until all Child Cases are closed.

• One level of hierarchy only
• Maximum of 100 child Cases

CaseMerging

• The ability to merge 2 or more Cases
• Duplicates are cancelled, child records are re-parented

• Can merge up to 10 at a time through the UI
• Can merge only 2 at a time via SDK

Entitlements

• Next evolution of Service Contracts (pre-purchased Incidents or Hours, decremented automatically)
• Ability to define multiple Entitlements per Customer
• Can specify Entitlements per Channel
• Can associate Contacts and Products

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

• Define “First Response”, “Case Resolution” and “Follow Up” SLAs
• Define Warning timing and Failure deadlines
• Define automated actions to occur at Warning and Failure points
• Define customer service schedules (e.g. 9 to 5 PST, Mon to Fri) and business holidays for business hours based SLAs
• Uses Workflow engine for execution
• New “Timer Control” can be added to CRM forms to communicate Target SLA to user, with red, amber, green alerting.

Queue Enhancements

• Private Queues, where you get to dictate who can see which queues
• Improved filtering of the Queues lists, so the default queues for each User, Team and BU appear less commonly
• New calculated field on the Queue record indicating the count of items in the Queue (to assist with load balancing)
• More intuitive buttons for end users when interacting with queue items

Case Routing Rules

• Define rules that will route new Cases automatically to Users, Teams or Queues
• Triggered automatically and able  to be run manually

Email to Case

• Configurable rules for automatically generating Cases from inbound Emails as they hit CRM (via Email Router or Server Side Sync)
• Chose when the rule should apply and how the Case fields should be defaulted
• Can be associate to an Email Queue
• Smarts to handle automatic Contact creation (when applicable)
• Smarts to associate follow up emails to an Existing active Case
• Auto-responder logic using email templates

Status Reason Transitions

• The ability to define for each Status Reason value a constrained list of ‘Next’ Status Reasons
• Case and custom entities only

Added support for:

• Windows 8.1
• Internet Explorer 11
• iOS7 Safari on iPad (web application)
• iPad Air using Safari (web application)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (CRM server)
• iPad Air using CRM for Tablets

Hope this help to get  update for MS CRM 2013 . Also Would like to thanks Grath who is doing deep analysis for MS CRM and helps us to get udpate .

Overview of SSIS Concepts

Today I would like to share some SSIS Basic Concepts  to help you create Integration Services packages successfully from the very beginning.As we can use these services with many of datasources but will share my views for MS CRM with SSIS ,  MS gives us a fine capablity for integration with SSIS. Business Intelligence on the Microsoft Application Platform is achieved through combining three Microsoft technologies: SQL Server as the data and analytical engine, SharePoint as the collaboration platform, and Office for the primary user experience. It is possible to use these technologies alone, for example PowerPivot in Excel for self-service analytics of large amounts of data, or just by using the Data Mining components of SQL Server. Nevertheless, the most interesting, and the most complete, enterprise-grade BI solutions are created when the entire platform is used together. Today i am trying to  summarize basic concepts for SSIS.

Those concepts include the following:

• Packages
• Control Flow
• Data Flow
• Connection Managers
• Package Configurations
• Property Expressions
• Data Sources and Data Source Views

A package  presents a unit of work that addresses a business requirement. The package is the Integration Services object that you save, manage, or run. In SQL Server 2005 Integration Services introduces the concepts of control flow and data flow in packages. A Control Flow consists of the tasks and containers. The tasks perform specific types of work such as executing SQL statements or sending email messages, and the containers define repeating subsets of the control flow or group subsets of the control flow to make the package easier to manage. The tasks and containers are usually connected by precedence constraints that specify the sequence in which tasks and containers are executed and the conditions that must be satisfied to run the next task or container in the control flow.A data flow consists of sources that extract data, transformations that modify data, and the destinations that load the data into data stores.

To connect to the data stores, a package uses connection managers. The connection managers are defined when you create the package. From the definition, the Integration Services runtime creates a connection at run time. When you construct a package, you configure properties of the connection managers, control flow and data flow items in the package, as well as the package itself. Frequently, a package must be configured differently for each environment to which you deploy it. For example, the connection string of connection managers may require updating to specify a different server, the location, the location of the data sources it accesses may change, and so forth. Integration Services provides package configurations to support this common scenario. Package configurations make it possible to dynamically update properties at run time. A configuration is a name/value pair that maps a property and a value. The configurations are stored outside the package in XML files, Database Engine tables, variables, or Registry entries. When the package is run, the value from the configuration replaces the value of the mapped-to property within the package. The values of the properties are not changed permanently.

You can set property values of packages and package objects in two different ways: directly by setting the value of each property, or indirectly by using property expressions. An expression, mapped to a property, is called a property expression. You build property expressions by using the operators and functions that the Integration Services expression language provides and variables. When the package is validated, which occurs when you save the package, the evaluation results of the property expressions replace the original values of properties.

A data source  is a connection reference that you create and save outside a package, and then use as a source when adding new connection managers to a package. A data source represents a simple connection to a data store and therefore makes all tables and views in the data store available to the package. A DataSource  is built on a data source. It can contain only selected database objects and it can be extended with calculated columns that are populated by custom expressions, new relationships between tables, and queries. You can also apply a filter to a data source view to specify a subset of the data selected. In Integration Services, data sources and data source views are saved within the package definitions of the packages in which they are used.

More Details can be find on MSDN sites http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174181(v=sql.105).aspx

Retrieve N:N relationship records by Query Expression

Sometimes we have requirement to get records from N: N relationship. So today I would like share how we can get these relationship records by query expression in code. When we create N: N relationship between 2 entities, it creates an intermediate entity (i.e., Relationship Entity) . Below screen shot showing N:N relation between account and marketing list.

for details attribute you can see the database table with same relationship entity name as here is “listmember”

I am taking example of existing  2 entities “Account” and “Marketing List” with N: N association as above screenshot showing . Because an account can be in multiple marketing list or an marketing list can have multiple accounts.

for e.g we have requirment to get all the ‘Marketing list’ which the Account with name “Manoj Chauhan” is associated . for this query code viz:

string entity1 = “account”;

string entity2 = “list”;

string relationshipEntityName = “listmember”;

Private  EntityCollection GetRealtedRecords(string entity1 ,string entity2, string relationshipentityName)

{

QueryExpression query = new QueryExpression(entity1);

query.ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(true);

LinkEntity linkEntity1 = new LinkEntity(entity1, relationshipEntityName, “accountid”, “{Entity 1 Primary field}“, JoinOperator.Inner);

LinkEntity linkEntity2 = new LinkEntity(relationshipEntityName, entity2, “list”, “{Entity 2 Primary field}“, JoinOperator.Inner);

linkEntity1.LinkEntities.Add(linkEntity2);

query.LinkEntities.Add(linkEntity1);

// Add condition to match the accountname with “Manoj Chauhan”

linkEntity2.LinkCriteria = new FilterExpression();

linkEntity2.LinkCriteria.AddCondition(new ConditionExpression(“name”,ConditionOperator.Equal, “Manoj Chauhan”));

EntityCollection recordcollection= service.RetrieveMultiple(query);

return recordcollection ;

}

Hope this help someone !! 🙂