Extreme CRM

Great free icons and images

CRMbrenden — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:09:26 +0000

I found a website with no nonsense free icons, they are really clean and professional.

http://icons.mysitemyway.com/

Ever need to debug a web service from the production server rather than Visual Studio?

CRMbrenden — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:29:09 +0000

Ever need to debug a web service from the production server rather than Visual Studio? Well it’s a pain to do so because for security reasons Microsoft disables the parameter inputs and replaces it with this message.

Test

The test form is only available for requests from the local machine.

The solution for this is simple, add the following tags to the section of the web.config.

Now when you load the asmx page it will allow you to enter the required parameters to run your web service.

CRM 4.0, SQL Server 2005, Column and Row Limitaions

CRMbrenden — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:34:05 +0000

Speaking with Microsoft I was told there is a limitation of either 8060 bytes per row or 1024 columns per table and that there is also a limit of 400 bittype/picklist combination.

I,m not sure I belive them so I will do some further research. I’m aware that these limitations existed with SQL Server 2000 but with 2005, 2008 they should not imo.

Microsoft CRM Code Injector for HTTP Handling

CRMbrenden — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:47:26 +0000

A HTTP Handler intercepts HTTP requests as they are preformed for a particular application; in this case it is a Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. Our HTTP Handler performs code injection in the form of JavaScript; there are 5 parts to the project.

1. Web.config setup

2. Base filter classes

3. Element Extension

4. JavaScript logic files

5. CSS extension files

Let’s take a look at what each one of these 5 parts do.

Web.Config setup

By adding an entry to the section of the Web.Config for the CRM application something like \Inetpub\crmroot\Web.Config each time a HTTP request is preformed we can preform logic via a DLL we will build from the Base filter classes and Element Extension logic (Items 2 and 3 above). To configure this entry we would insert a line in the section like the following:

eCRM.Extension is the name of the DLL we will create and eCRM.Customize.ElementExtension is the actual name of the IHttpModule class within our project.

Base filter classes

There are two classes that make up the support for our ElementExtension. The ElementExtension will essentially inject a CSS behavior into the page being processed by the HTTP server (IIS). The first part is BaseFilter.cs an abstract class which is simply a System.IO.Stream, and the second part is ElementInsertFilter.cs which inherits the BaseFilter and does the actual work of inserting the CSS behavior. There isn’t likely any changes that will need to be made to the BaseFilter abstract class, but there might be modifications needed for the ElementInsertFilter. The ElementInsertFilter is basically a map that tells the code injector logic where to inject the CSS link or, in some cases but not our sample here, you might inject HTML after the tag or in a certain

tag etc….

//..find the element

match = new Regex( “”, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase ).Match( this._buffer.ToString() );

if( match.Success )

{

//..insert the stylesheet element just before the element

this._buffer.Insert( match.Index, this._element );

}

In the previous partial code snippet, we instruct our code injector to insert the CSS link just before the closing tag. It would be possible to inject JavaScript directly without using the CSS element. It is also possible to inject HTML. If this were the case you would need to modify the ElementInsertFilter filter with additional logic used to determine where to inject the HTML or JavaScript.

Element Extension

The ElementExtension.cs simply analyzes the HttpContext passed in to determine the file path. In the following structure and in the class in the sample project you will need to add one string constant and one FilePath check per element or page you wish to handle.

//Define a string constant to hold the path and file name of our CSS document.

string sfa_accts_edit = “” + Environment.NewLine;

HttpContext context = ( ( HttpApplication ) sender ).Context;

//If the path is what we are looking for pass the CSS string to the ElementInsertFilter class.

if (context.Request.FilePath.StartsWith(“/sfa/accts/edit.aspx”, System.StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))

{

context.Response.Filter = new ElementInsertFilter(context.Response.Filter, sfa_accts_edit);

}

JavaScript logic files

An HTC is an HTML file that contains script and a set of HTC-specific elements that define a component. We are using HTC files here to store the JavaScript behavior we want our HTTP handler to inject at runtime. You will need to include the component tag at the beginning of your HTC file script.

The component tag tells the page processor that we want the JavaScript code logic to be loaded when the Initialization or Init() event is fired.

We might do a simple onload of the form even like this:

function Init()

{

window.onload=OnDocLoad();

}

In another case we might attach an event to a control on the page like this:

function Init()

{

window.document.forms( “crmForm” ).elements( “customertypecode” ).attachEvent( “onchange”, OnCustomerTypeChange );

}

In both cases, we attach a JavaScript function we have created and attach it to a form or control event. In this example, we are going to hide the built-in CRM help menus so we will attach to the main form onload event or window.onload and call the following function:

function OnDocLoad()

{

var helpMenu = document.getElementById(‘mnu_about’);

helpMenu.style.display = ‘none’;

var helpMenu = document.getElementById(‘mnu_helpUpdates’);

helpMenu.style.display = ‘none’;

var helpMenu = document.getElementById(‘mnu_crmLive’);

helpMenu.style.display = ‘none’;

var helpMenu = document.getElementById(‘mnu_adminGuide’);

helpMenu.style.display = ‘none’;

}

CSS extension files

The CSS file is very simple and has one small, but critical job. It adds a behavior which attaches the HTC file to the page request being handled by the web server (IIS). This is done with just a couple line in the CSS file.

body

{

behavior: url(activities_attachment_edit.htc);

}

As you can see the injector concept is a much better option than modifying CRM base pages.

Regards,

Brenden MVP

Display a CRM 4.0 PickList Display-Value in Reports and Queries

CRMbrenden — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:05:33 +0000

Microsoft CRM 4.0 stores picklist display values within the MetadataSchema in the StringMap table. When creating custom reports or quieries a custom Scaler-Function is needed to show the picklist display vale. To do this I wrote a simple function shown below called MapPickList that can be called in a SQL query to return a picklist displayvalue.

This example shows the CRM Contact table with a custom attribute called ShoeSize

SELECT LastName, FirstName, dbo.MapPickList(‘contact’, ‘ShoeSize’, ShoeSize) AS DisplayValue

FROM Contact

The output would look like this:

LastName FirstName DisplayValue

—————————————————————-

Smith Mark 12.5

Estes Lowell 10

Sue Jones 7

And here is the SQL function.

CREATE FUNCTION MapPickList

(

/******Name of the CRM Entity we are querying******/

@entity varchar(50),

/******Name of the CRM Attribute we are querying******/

@attribute varchar(50),

/******The picklist int value stored by CRM******/

@value int

)

RETURNS varchar(500)

BEGIN

DECLARE @return varchar(500)

SET @return = (SELECT StringMap.Value AS DisplayValue

FROM StringMap INNER JOIN MetadataSchema.Entity ON StringMap.ObjectTypeCode = MetadataSchema.Entity.ObjectTypeCode

WHERE (StringMap.AttributeName Like @attribute) AND (StringMap.AttributeValue = @value) AND (MetadataSchema.Entity.Name Like @entity))

return @return

END

Microsoft CRM 4.0 SSRS 2008 Integration

CRMbrenden — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:16:03 +0000

The following document contains a proposed Microsoft CRM 4.0 SSRS 2008 Integration architecture I worked with Microsoft to create along with a number of roadblock solutions for various errors encountered while attempting to integrate SSRS with Microsoft CRM 4.0. To simplify the integration concepts I have limited the server configuration to 2 servers.

Overview of Microsoft CRM 4.0 integrated with SSRS 2008

Setup CRM Data Connector for SSRS 2008 Scaled Out Deployment

The CRM Data Connector acts as a IFD authentication service for SSRS. The setup wizard is straight forward but there are two potential snags

The first snag is that the Data Connector setup can’t automatically handle a Scaled Out deployment which you almost certainly will be using. To work around this you must run the Data Connector from the command prompt and specify the install-config.xml file and path. The Data Connector install-config.xml file tells the setup program where the instances of SSRS are located. Were you to run the setup program without specifying the install-config.xml file you would get the following error:

Error message in the Environmental Diagnostic wizard when you try to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services: “Unable to validate SQL Server Reporting Services Report Server installation”

Here are the instruction for modifying the install-config.xml and running setup from the command line.

1. Copy all the files in the SrsDataConnector folder on the installation CD to a folder on drive C. For example, copy the files to the following folder:

C:\SrsDataConnector

Note The SrsDataConnector folder is located in the following folder on the installation CD:

drive:\Server\i386

The drive placeholder represents the CD drive.

2. Locate the folder in which you copied the installation files. Right-click the Install-config.xml file, and then open the file in Notepad.

3. Add the following information to the Install-config.xml file:

The reportserverurl tags

The URL for the server that is running SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

For example, if the server that is running Reporting Services has a named instance of Titan, the reportserverurl tags resemble the following example.

http://servername/Reportserver$Titan

If the server that is running SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services has a named instance, modify the instancename tags.

For example, if the server that is running Reporting Services has a named instance of Titan, the instancename tags resemble the following example.

Titan

After you complete steps 3 and 4, click Save on the File menu, and then close the Install-config.xml file.

Open a Command Prompt window, and then locate the folder in which you copied the installation files in step 1.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

C:\SrsDataConnector> SetupSrsDataConnector /CONFIG path of the folder that contains the Install-config.xml file\install-config.xml

The second item to note is that it’s important to choose the “Update installation files”, when the setup wizard first runs. In my experience the process will fail if you don’t choose this option.

For further information visit Microsoft

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947060

Map SSRS2008 Web Service URL to work with a named instance

When you install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 together with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services all on the same server, you may receive the following error message:

“The specified path is not a metabase path.” Platform Error: System.Exception: Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.RSConfigAction failed. —> System.ArgumentException: The specified path is not a metabase path.

This issue occurs when the path of Reporting Services does not exist on the server.

To work around this issue, create a Web site that runs on the same port and the same URL that the Reporting Services server is using. In SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, IIS is not used for accessing reports. However, if Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is installed on the same server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 must find a Web site that has the same URL to bypass the error. To verify the URL of Reporting Services, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Microsoft SQL Server 2008, click Configuration Tools, and then click Reporting Services Configuration Manager.

2. Click connect to connect to your report server instance.

3. Click the Web service URL, and see what the report server Web service URL is. For example, the URL may be http://SQLServername:8181/ReportServer.

In Windows Server 2008, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, and then type inetmgr.

2. Expand the server name, right-click Sites, and then click Add Website.

3. Enter a name for the site, and then select a physical path.

4. Enter the port number of the report server Web service. For example, enter 8181.

5. Click OK.

In Windows Server 2003, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, and then type inetmgr.

2. Expand the server name, right-click Web Sites, click New, and then click Web Site.

3. Enter a description for the site, and then click Next.

4. Enter the port number of the report server Web service. For example, enter 8181, and then click Next.

5. Enter a path for the Web site, and then click Next.

6. On the Permissions page, click Next.

7. Click Finish.

Configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Deployment manager

1. Configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Application to point to the new SQL Server and SQL Server Reporting Services. To do this, follow these steps:

2. On the computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and then click Deployment Manager.

3. Click Organizations.

4. Right-click the organization that you moved to the new computer that is running SQL Server, and then click Disable.

5. Right-click the organization that you disabled, and then click Edit Organization.

6. Type the new name of the SQL Server and the new URL for the SQL Server Reporting Services server.
Note This step publishes the reports that are in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the new computer that is running SQL Server Reporting Services server that you specify.

7. Click Next two times, and then click Apply.

Right-click the organization that you disabled in step 4c, click Enable, and then click Yes.

Use embedded data-sources

Microsoft CRM 4.0 does not support shared data-sources which is basically the default for SSRS2008. Be sure to change any shared data-sources to embedded data-sources as follows:

1. Open the report in Report Designer.

2. On the Data tab, click the lookup button to the right of the Dataset list.

3. Click the lookup button to the right of the Data Source list.

4. Click to clear the Use shared data source reference check box.

5. Click Edit to the right of the Connection box.

6. In the Server name box, type the server name. Then, select the authentication method and the correct database name.

7. Click OK two times.

8. On the File menu, click Save as.

9. Save the report on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, and then add the report.

Rollup 2 is required if you are using stored procedures in your reports

When you attempt to run a report from CRM 4.0 you likely will receive the following error:

“Query execution failed for data set dsNorthwind”.

There are two possible solutions for this. Either apply the hotfix found in the link below or apply Rollup 2 for Microsoft CRM 4.0. Since Rollup 2 for Microsoft CRM 4.0 includes the aforementioned hotfix I recommend this approach. Also to get the hotfix files separate from Rollup 2 you will have to contact Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956852

Microsoft support page for using CRM 4.0 with SSRS 2008 and or SQL 2008 Database engine

CRMbrenden — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:51:51 +0000

Microsoft has begun officially supporting SSRS 2008 for use with CRM 4.0. You can use just reporting services or do a full CRM implementation on the SQL 2008 DB platform. In the near future I will be posting a detailed article on my test results a preferred approach but until then I wanted to get this Microsoft link out which provides fixes for several known issues.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957053

Best of luck!

How to remove the help menu’s from CRM 4.0

CRMbrenden — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:04:25 +0000

The standard Microsoft CRM 4.0 help menu’s offer a lot more than help, they offer upgrade information, links to partners and solution providers and many other options that might not be suitable for many ISV’s or partners creating custom CRM 4.0 applications. Since Microsoft doesn’t provide an option to remove these menus’s I came up with the following solutions. Please consider this is an unsupported modification.

There are two main areas that the help menu’s are presented to the user, the 1st is in the main CRM work area (shown below).

CRM Main Page

To remove or alter this menu we must alter one of the CRM 4.0 base pages, bar_Top.aspx, the default location is \Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\CRMWeb\_root\. Take note your CRMWeb folder might be installed elswhere depending on your virtual directory structure.
Since we will be overloading the menu’s we need to place the new code in a location that executes after the menu elements have been rendered. I recommend just after the closing body tag.

The JavaScript to hide a menu is very simple:
var helpMenu = document.getElementById(‘mnu_helpUpdates’);
helpMenu.style.display = ‘none’;

The code above will hide the Update Help menu. I recommend not making dramatic edits to the base CRM pages, a better approach is to use a global JavaScript file and include it in to the base page bar_Top.aspx.

So far all we have done is remove a menu from the main CRM page, each entity edit page contains it’s own help menu’s. Most of the edit pages can be found at \Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\CRMWeb\sfa\ within the SFA folder the subfolders are named after the standard entity’s for example the Accounts entity’s path is \\dev1\c$\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\CRMWeb\SFA\accts and the pages are almost always named edit.aspx. We can use the same code as before and again I recommend placing the include after the closing body tag.
The good new is you don’t have to handle all your custom entity pages one by one, by editing the edit.aspx page located at \Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\CRMWeb\UserDefined\ all your custom entity pages will be taken care of.
You might be wondering if there is a centtral place that you could place your code to handle all the standard entity pages but I haven’t found such a location that works consitantly across the board.

The other menu ID’s are found here in the completed script:

Good luck!
Brenden

Welcome to ExtremeCRM…

CRMbrenden — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:43:32 +0000

ExtremeCRM provides developers coding examples, insights, concepts and options for developing customizations for Microsoft CRM 4.0. The primary contributor, Brenden Smith is a Microsoft MCP and Microsoft CRM 4.0 senior developer of a leading edge Microsoft partner and ISV.