Customer Effective Blog

Preventing Characters from being Entered in a Form Field

With CRM, we use a couple of different methods to perform data entry validation before a record is saved to the database: either form javascript, a pre-event plug-in, or some combination of both.

For data validation in “real-time” (ie, you want the validation to occur when the actual data is entered, rather than when the entire record is saved), form javascript is the way to go. Most javascript validation is perform in a field’s OnChange event, however you can utilize other events.

CRM 4.0 Publish Report for External Use Puts Default Filter In Report

The other day I was working on a few custom SSRS reports for a client. They need these reports viewable both inside and outside of CRM. Sounds easy enough. After I built the first report I logged in to CRM and went to create/upload it as an existing file. The file uploads great and I was able to relate the report to similar record types and choose where the reports would be available. The report works great!

Here comes the part where I got stumped. When I went to publish the report for external use and went to test the report on our report server, the data returned was incomplete. For some reason the report kept returning me a smaller portion of the data without me choosing any parameters. I was worried that the filtered views were not working correctly when I published the report externally. They worked fine in CRM? So for the next hour I did everything by profiling the database when the report runs to changing permissions in SSRS to try and be able to view all the records for the report. I then started testing the report that was in CRM and noticed every time I went to run my new report it had a default filter of modified on 30 days. Could that be the issue? So as a test I decided to remove the report from SSRS and then remove the default filter in CRM for the report. Once the filter was removed and the report was saved I published it back for external use and went back to the report server to test. Ding Ding Ding! The report returned all the data now. Microsoft probably does this to prevent the database from returning too many records when the report is ran and just copies the default filter over to SSRS when it publishes it.

So for a potential gotcha that you might have in publishing report for external use, make sure to remove the default filter Microsoft puts on all uploaded RDL files in CRM, unless you want a filter added to your external report.

New Testimonial Video from CECRM - "What do you like about Microsoft Dynamics CRM"

This video is a collection of testimonials from our 2009 Customer Effective CRM User Conference.  We asked our attendees a simple but important question - "What do you like about Microsoft Dynamics CRM"  We love the answers and we hear these types of responses all the time including the most common reply "Outlook integration". 

Video Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hNuW6C_MDk