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July 2009
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July 17, 2009
Date Only fields display different dates for users in different Time Zones
If you have CRM users in multiple time zones and happen to use “Date Only” fields in CRM, such as for Birthdays, Contract Dates, etc. –You may want to ensure that a date set by a user in one time zone is displayed correctly to users in time zones west of them.
When a Date Only field is populated, CRM actually still stores the date with a time of midnight in the users’s local time zone.
When a user in New York saves the date 1/1/2010 in CRM, it is stored as Midnight, January 1st Eastern Time. – However when a user in Los Angeles views the record, the date time is adjusted to display in Pacific Time and the LA user sees 12/31/2009!
This is because [1/1/2010 00:00:00 AM] in New York is the same moment as [12/31/2009 09:00:00 PM] in Los Angeles.
To adjust for this apparent discrepancy, I set the unseen time portion of a date-only value to Noon local time. – By doing so, users in other time zones will see the same date displayed in CRM.
For Example If I wanted to ensure that the Birthday of a Contact if set by a user in New York will be displayed correctly for a user in Los Angeles, I add the following script to the ‘on-change’ event of the contacts’ birthday to set the time value of the date to Noon.
When the user updates the birthdate field, the time portion is set to noon allowing other users to see the same date – even after it’s adjusted to their own time zone.
(By the way, the timezone effect isn't apparent if the user in in the western timezone sets the date field, since Midnight Tuesday in LA is still also Tuesday in New York. (Tuesday 3AM Eastern Time) )
VERY IMPORTANT for users in world wide deployments: This tip is for implementations where all users are within 12 hours of each other and all on the same side of the International Date Line. (e.g. all users are in US or all in Europe, etc.) Because any given moment of the day is recognized as 2 different dates around the world, no date/time setting will allow users in every time zone to see the same date when that date is adjusted to their local time zone. – In cases where you need a consistent date displayed in a world-wide deployment, use a text field – even though you will lose CRM’s time comparison features in Advanced Find, you are able to control the displayed date for all users.
Scott Sewell
July 15, 2009
Introduction to XRM Video From WPC
This is a video that premiered at Worldwide Partner Conference. It does a great job of answering the question “What is XRM?”
July 14, 2009
July 10, 2009
Restrict Access to Direct E-mail in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, when you open the Account or Contacts entity, you will see an e-mail button on the toolbar on top of the view. This button allows you to select a group of contacts or accounts via a view or advanced find, and send them an e-mail. This functionality can be a very useful way to communicate with a large number of people with a minimal amount of effort. But it can also be dangerous, as a user can fairly e-mail every contact or account in your database, so you probably will want to restrict access to direct email to only those users who need to have access.
But restricting access to direct e-mail is not a very obvious process. There is no permission in CRM security roles for “Direct E-Mail” or “Bulk E-mail.” There is a permission for E-mail; however, you won’t want to restrict users from creating e-mails—if you do, they will not be able to track their e-mail communications in CRM, which is a major reason to use CRM in the first place.
The answer lies in the way that Direct E-mail works. Direct E-mail is dependent on templates—you can’t just hit bulk e-mail and type a message. You have to first create an e-mail template, and then select that template from the Direct E-mail form.
So if you wish to restrict Direct E-mail functionality from a group of users, the following process will help:
1. In CRM go to Settings—> Administration—> Security Roles
2. Open the Security role of the group of users for which you wish to restrict Direct E-mail functionality
3. Click the Core Records tab
4. Remove permissions for E-mail templates
5. Save and close the Security Role.
Now when the users with this role log in to CRM, they will no longer see the Direct E-mail button on the toolbar
Want to learn more about CRM bulk e-mail options? Check out this fantastic post written by Jim Steger on the CRM Online blog.
July 06, 2009
Tagging Microsoft Dynamics CRM Contacts
A Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 user asked recently how to tag or categorize his CRM Contacts. He wanted to have a list of tags such as golf, baseball, accounting, etc with which he could easily tag users and organize them based on category. The categories will also be useful as classifications to use in building marketing lists.
This is pretty easy to do using basic Microsoft CRM customization.
1. Create a custom entity called “Category.” I set it as Organization owned, as no one will be owning a particular category. Set the display area to “Settings.” The form will contain just the name field—this is ok, that’s all we need. Click Save and Close.
2. Create another custom entity called “Contact Category. Again, select Organization ownership rather than user owned. Click the Primary Attribute tab, and set the primary attribute requirement level to “No Constraint.” Click Save (not save and close).
3. From the Contact Category entity customization, click N:1 Relationships. Select Contact as the Primary Entity. Under Relationship Attribute enter “Contact” as the Display Name. Under Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity select “Use Custom Label” for Display Option and enter “Categories” as the Custom Label. We do this because we want the navigation bar link from a contact record to say “Categories.” Save and Close.
4. From the Contact Category entity customization, click N:1 Relationships. Under Relationship Attribute enter “Category” as the Display Name. Under Navigation Pane Item for Primary Entity select “Use Custom Label” for Display Option and enter “Contacts” as the Custom Label. We do this because we want the navigation bar link from a Catogory record to say “Contacts.” Save and Close.
5. From the Contact Category entity customization, click Forms and Views and double click on the form customization link. Remove the Name field from the form and add the Contact and Category fields created by the newly added relationships. You will also want to be sure to modify the Contact Category associated view to display the contact and category fields. Click Save and Close.
6. Publish the Contact, Category, and Contact Category entities. Refresh your browser.
7. In Microsoft CRM, click Settings and select the “Categories” entity from the navigation bar. By default it will appear on the bottom of the list. You can change its position in the list—see Organizing Settings Navigation Bar for more details. Add categories to the list by creating new Category records. Use the Save and New button to efficiently add multiple categories.
8. Now you will be able to easily tag your contacts. From a Contact record, click the side navigation bar link for Categories and add a category to the contact.
9. So say that John Smith has a new interest, Vegetable Gardening, which is not part of the list? CRM 4.0 makes it easy to add values on the fly. When you click “New Contact Category” from the John Smith record, when you click the lookup for Category, click the “New” button on the lookup form and define your new category. This will add the category to the list and add the category to the John Smith record.
10. So now that we have tagged our contacts, how do we find the contacts are tagged “Fishing?”
We can navigate to Settings—> Categories and open the record for the desired category. By clicking the side navigation link for contacts, you will see a list of all contacts that are tagged with “Fishing.”
You could also do an advanced find to get all contacts where related category entity Category equals “Fishing.”
Changing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Numerical Formats
Let’s say you want to change the number format that Microsoft CRM uses. Instead of showing 123,456, you would like to use a space instead of a comma, and make it 123 456.
In CRM, click Settings—> administration—> System Settings and go to the Formats tab.
From here, you can change the default format and customize the settings to change the delimiter. However, after you make this change, you will notice that the numbers are still formatted the same way they were before you made the change.
The reason is that the System settings format options set the default format; however, the format is actually a user setting. A change to the format in System Settings will affect any new users that are added, but it will not change any existing users format preferences. This is actually a good thing, as users can have the number formatted as they like them, even if it is different from the organization default.
For existing users, you will need to go to the personal options, either by clicking Personalize Workplace in the web client or by clicking CRM—>Options in the Outlook client. From the format tab you will be able to set the formatting options for the user.
Lesson Learned
It is important to set the desired number format prior to adding users, especially if it is different from the default for your region. Otherwise, you will find yourself spending a lot of time making the change user by user.
Customer Effective Senior Consultant Scott Sewell Named Microsoft CRM MVP
Microsoft has named Customer Effective Senior Consultant Scott Sewell Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for his outstanding contributions to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community. Scott was recognized for his exceptional work in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Forum, and other contributions such as the CRM 4.0 Documentation Generator and work on the Extended Sales Forecasting Accelerator.
The Microsoft MVP Award Program recognizes outstanding members of technical communities for their community participation and willingness to help others. Given annually to a select group of exceptional technical community leaders, the MVP Award celebrates the most active Microsoft community members from around the world who provide invaluable online and offline expertise that makes a difference in technical communities that feature Microsoft products.
There are a total of 33 Microsoft CRM MVPs worldwide. Scott joins the Customer Effective MVP ranks, with Joel Lindstrom, CRM MVP, and Bill Ryan, Mobile Products MVP.
Congratulations, Scott, for your achievement
July 04, 2009
Where did my default start page settings go?
A user called me last week with a problem. They were wanting to set the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web client to open to a Wunderbar area other than the default workplace. In CRM, when you click “Personalize Workplace,” typically the first option is to set the default Wunderbar pane and tab. So, for example, if you have a user who is a Marketing Manager, you can have Microsoft CRM 4.0 open directly to the Marketing area Campaign tab.
The user’s problem was that when they went to the CRM Personal Options, they did not have the option to set the default pane—the top option that they saw was to set the number of records shown per page.
It turns out that this user was running CRM for Outlook at the time. The Personal Options form is shared between CRM web client and CRM for Outlook. The default pane option does not apply to CRM for Outlook, as the folders are managed through Outlook.
When a user is logged on to CRM for Outlook, if you go to the personal options form, the default start page option will be hidden, even if you launch it through the web client.
The answer is to log out of CRM for Outlook—right click on the Dynamics icon in the system tray by your Windows clock, and click “sign out.” Now when you go to the Personal Options you will see the default start page options.
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