Customer Effective Blog

Fix for Synch Errors after Client Update Rollup 7

Joel Lindstrom — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:52:23 -0500

Some users have experienced problems with Outlook synchronization after installing update rollup 7. This is a side-effect of the new functionality in rollup 7 that allows users to track items on shared Outlook calendars. This delegate functionality works great if you have write access to the shared calendars, but runs into problems if you only have read access to these calendars. When CRM tries to synch outlook and CRM, CRM for outlook tries to update these shared records. If you don’t have write access to the calendars that you share, CRM will be unable to update these records in Outlook, and synch errors will happen.

If you use crm and do not use shared calendars, or if you use crm and use shared calendars, but you have write access to the shared calendars, you won’t have a problem. The problems arise if you have shared calendars and you can’t write to these calendars.

If this applies to you, you can disable the delegate functionality with a registry change (detailed below in steps 8-9). If you have already installed update rollup 7 and are experiencing the problems, you first have to clear out your Outlook Exchange Cache—this is because cached exchange mode caches not just your local Exchange records, but also those of any calendars that you share.

The following process will fix the synch errors:

1. With Outlook open, click Tools -> Account Settings

2. Select your email account and click Change

3. Uncheck the “used cached Exchange Mode” and click next

4. Restart Outlook

5. Manually sync (click crm menu and click synchronize with outlook). If you get any error, click the “ignore all errors” checkbox

6. Open regedit

7. Go to HKEY Current User\software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient

8. Set SyncNoRebuildIdMappingTable value to 0

9. Set DelegateMailboxEnabled to 0 (Create this DWORD value if it is missing).

10. Close regedit

11. Clear the syncerrors folder in Outlook (you will need to hit the “all folders” button on the bottom if you don’t see the sync errors folder.

12. Follow steps 1-3 and recheck the “used cached Exchange Mode” button, then close Outlook.

13. Restart your computer

When your pc boots back up, open Outlook and do a manual sync. You should now not see any errors.

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft CRM,Dynamics CRM,Update Rollup 7,synch errors,synchronization,Outlook

Bulk Deleting Waiting Workflow Instances from Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Joel Lindstrom — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:19:36 -0500

One of the Workflow step options available to users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is the wait condition. This step basically puts a workflow operation on hold until a condition is met—for example, wait until five days after account was created, then send an email to the sales rep (that would be a timeout, by the way). When the workflow condition is met, the workflow will resume.

Consider the following scenario—you create and publish a workflow with a wait condition, then before the workflow wait condition is met, you decide to modify something about that workflow. In the example of the email to the sales rep, say you decide to make some changes to the email text.

It is not sufficient to just unpublish the workflow and modify it—this will change it for workflows that are generated after the change, but will not affect existing waiting workflow instances—a waiting workflow preserves the conditions and steps of the workflow as they were at the time that the workflow instance was created. So when the wait time is up, the sales reps will receive your original email, not the updated text.

The answer is that you need to delete all the existing workflow instances. Go to settings—>System Jobs in CRM, select the waiting workflow instances. Click “More Actions” button and click “Cancel” (you can only delete completed/cancelled workflow instances), then delete the workflow instances.

This is pretty manageable if you have a small-medium number of waiting instances—even if you have 1,000 or more, you can pretty quickly cancel delete them, but you have to do it 250 at a time (since that’s the maximum number you can select from one page of a view).

But what about the extreme examples—for example you import 250,000 accounts, and now have 250,000 waiting workflow instances. I don’t care how patient you are, it is not practical to delete this many waiting workflow instances 250 at a time.

In these extreme situations, you can delete the waiting workflow instances from the CRM SQL database. Before you do this, a disclaimer—deleting from the SQL database is not supported by Microsoft. Be sure to back up your database first. I only recommend doing it in extreme situations (like this) where there are no other practical out of the box solutions. For example, an asynchronous bulk delete job requires custom coding and takes too long to complete in these cases.

Waiting workflow records are stored in the workflowwaitsubscriptionbase, workflowlogbase, and asyncoperationbase tables. When deleting these records, it is important that you do it in the correct order.

The following sql query will bulk delete waiting instances of a specific workflow. Replace (insert name of workflow here) with the name of the workflow that generated the instances.

delete from workflowwaitsubscriptionbase

where asyncoperationid in

(select asyncoperationid from asyncoperationbase where name = '(insert name of workflow here)' and StateCode = 1)

delete from workflowlogbase

where asyncoperationid in

(select asyncoperationid from asyncoperationbase where name = '(insert name of workflow here)' and StateCode = 1)

delete from asyncoperationbase where name = '(insert name of workflow here)' and StateCode = 1

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft CRM,Workflow,delete

New Scribe Training Resources Available

Joel Lindstrom — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:55:42 -0500

I have had a chance to play with some of the new training materials from Scribe Software, and they are very impressive. They use a platform called vBooks, which is a very innovative way of combining text, video and animation to deliver a much more user friendly learning experience. I really wish this had been around when I went through Scribe certification a couple of years ago.

Watch a demo of a Scribe product overview here:

You can also register for a live webinar with Mark Walker, Director of Scribe Technical Resources, who will demonstrate Scribe's new training delivery through the use of vBooks.
Thursday, 12/3/2009 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM EST. Register here.

Microsoft CRM Append Vs. Append To—what’s the difference

Joel Lindstrom — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:16:05 -0500

This is a post I wrote today for the Microsoft CRM Team MSDN Blog.

This post is CRM security 101, but I get asked this question fairly often, so it seems that there is some confusion about what the difference is between “Append” and “Append To” security permissions. I find this confusion comes from the similar sounding names of these permissions, and also because configuration of relationship security requires permissions to be applied to two separate entities—both sides of the relationship.

Let’s take the example of Accounts and Opportunities. In this relationship, “Accounts” is the parent and “Opportunities” is the child. There are multiple Opportunities per Account. Say a user needs to be able to relate Opportunities to Accounts, either through the Potential Customer lookup field on the Opportunity, or through the “Opportunities” navigation bar area on an account.

In this example, a user must have “Append” permissions on Opportunities (child) and “Append To” permissions on Accounts (parent). I think of it this way—I’m APPENDING the opportunity, and I’m APPENDING it TO the account.

The next consideration is what permission level the users should have. As with other permissions in Dynamics CRM, you can grant a role “User,” “Business Unit,” “Parent/Child Business Unit,” and “Organization” level security permissions for both append and append to. It is important to think through what records a user should be able to append, and to which records that user should be able to append those records.

In our example of Accounts and Opportunities, if a user should be able to associate any Opportunity with any Account, you would give that user’s role Organization level Append permissions on Opportunities and Organization level Append To permissions on Accounts. Easy enough. What if you want to give a user permission to associate only opportunities that they own to any account in their business unit? In this case you would give that user’s security role “User” level Append permissions on Opportunities and “Business Unit” level Append To permissions on Accounts.

Now that you have the relationship permissions set, there is one more wrinkle you need to consider. If you want a user to be able to create related records from a parent, the user needs to have write permissions for the parent entity. For example, if you want a user to click the opportunities navigation bar link from an Account and create a related opportunity, that user’s security role will need to have write permission for Accounts. If they don’t, the “new” button won’t be available from the Account. They would be able to go to the Opportunities entity and create a new opportunity and relate it to the Account, but without write permissions on Accounts they will not be able to create related records from an Account.

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft Dynamics CRM,security,append,append to

Tips for installing Scribe Insight on Windows 2008

Joel Lindstrom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:15:12 -0500

Lately have have found myself doing a lot of Scribe work, much of it on Windows Server 2008. I’ve found several suggestions that make the installation of Scribe in Windows 2008 go more smoothly:

1. Install Insight 6.5.2 update. This will fix many of the issues with running Scribe in Windows 2008. Download it here.

2. Turn off UAC. By default, User Account Control is enabled in Windows 2008. During the installation of Scribe Insight or the 6.5.2 update, the installer makes changes to program files and registry settings—things that are protected by UAC. Turning off UAC during the installation will eliminate many of problems. Post installation, UAC can be re-enabled, if you desire to do so.

3. Change the login account used by the Scribe Services. I have seen multiple instances where the Scribe Services won’t run on Windows 2008 under the default windows service. I recommend setting up an AD account with non-expiring password and setting the services to log on as this account. It important to use a non-expiring password for this account, otherwise your integration processes will break when the password changes. You will also need to make sure that this account has database owner rights of the ScribeInternal database.

del.icio.us Tags: Scribe Insight,Windows 2008

Date field lookup cut off in IE8

Joel Lindstrom — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:11:03 -0500

About a month ago, I noticed a problem when a crm record was viewed full-screen if there was a date field in the right hand column of the crm form. The problem was that the calendar lookup went outside of the Internet Explorer Window, so if the form was viewed full screen the calendar control was not usable.

This seemed strange to me, as I knew that I had used right hand date fields in CRM 4 previously, and it had worked. I tested on another machine, this time with IE 7, and the calendar lookup was not cut off.

Internet Explorer 7 Internet Explorer 8

I reported this issue on Microsoft Connect, Microsoft’s official channel for user feedback.

Turns out that it’s not really a bug in CRM, but rather a side effect from some changes in Internet Explorer 8. The CRM team worked with the IE team and came back with a fix for this issue. The fix is to install IE update 974455 and make the following registry change on the client:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl
Create a new Key, and name it as follows:
FEATURE_FORCE_POPUPS_ONTO_MONITOR_KB974537
Within this key, point to New , and then click DWORD Value
Type iexplore.exe for the name of the key
Right-click iexplore.exe , click Modify and then type 1 in the Value data field

Read more about this fix at the UK MSCRM Support Blog.

del.icio.us Tags: troubleshooting,Microsoft CRM,Internet Explorer 8,date fields

Live from the Customer Effective 2009 User Conference

Joel Lindstrom — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:40:46 -0400

Great session with users from different industries discussing their experiences implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 ActiveX Warning After Update Rollup 7

Joel Lindstrom — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:38:59 -0400

As you may already be aware, in update rollup 7, CRM adds a little Outlook icon to the top of the CRM web client that allows users to click and download/install the Outlook client. This is a great enhancement, as it makes it easier for users to get the Outlook client, especially in smaller companies that don’t push out installs via SMS.

One issue we discovered is if the following scenario is true:

1. You have the Outlook client installed

2. You also access the web client

3. The URL that you use to access the web client is different than what Outlook uses. This can be if you are accessing a different organization than the environment that Outlook is configured to use, or if you use a host header (like http://crm) to access the web client.

In this scenario, when you open the CRM web client, you will see an Active X warning on the top of CRM.

There are several work-arounds.

1. Have Outlook users just use CRM for Outlook.

2. Access CRM web client using the server name, not host header

3. Remove the Outlook client install link from the web client. Here’s how you do this:

– Go to registry editor on the CRM server. Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM. Add a DWORD entry called DisableOutlookSetupLink. Assign it a value of 1. This will remove the install CRM for Outlook link, and you will no longer get the Active X warning.

I would recommend structuring your CRM environment in a way that you will avoid this conflict, as this functionality makes deploying the Outlook client much more convenient; however, in some mature implementations it can be difficult to change user behavior, and in those cases, removing the link may be the way to go.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 7

Joel Lindstrom — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:58:37 -0400

Today, along with releasing Windows 7, Microsoft has also released Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Update Rollup 7. Besides including updates fixes for the server and other components, UR 7 also includes a new improved Outlook client. Like Windows 7 is to Vista, Update Rollup 7 is to CRM for Outlook—it does the same thing but does it better, faster, and with less annoyance to users. I’m especially excited about the fast Outlook startup and support for delegated Exchange accounts, so an Assistant can manage appointments for other users. Also, auto update functionality will be usable by a wider number of companies, since updates will no longer require local admin permissions. I’m also excited that it now works with Outlook 2010, so I can start using the Outlook 2010 beta.

Here is a full list of improvements to CRM for Outlook, from our friends at the Microsoft CRM Team blog.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now loads in the background. This enables users to read e-mail messages before Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is fully loaded.
E-mail tagging now runs in the background. This improves Outlook performance, especially for users who have a large number of tracked e-mail messages in their inbox.
CRM Address Book Provider (ABP) run-time storage of in-memory ABP XML has been moved to a Microsoft SQL Server CE in-memory representation. This helps manage CRM address book data more efficiently.
State management logic has been improved. This enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM to handle network, authentication, sleep, and hibernation transitions more efficiently without requiring users to restart Outlook for each transition. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Laptop Client now automatically transitions to offline mode when a remote Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server cannot be contacted (as long as user has gone offline at least once in past). It automatically switches back to online mode when the connection is restored.
Outlook synchronization now runs in the background and has significant performance improvements in terms of numbers of records synchronized per minute.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now supports Outlook delegates. If an Outlook user is a delegate for another Outlook user, the delegate can mark items for tracking in the primary user's inbox. The Exchange Server stores the tracking information until the primary user starts Outlook. At that time, Microsoft Dynamics CRM verifies the data and then synchronizes with Outlook.
Manually synchronizing with Microsoft Dynamics CRM produces item-level failure details. The synchronization code now handles row-level failures in a way that does not cause the entire synchronization process to fail. Also, the synchronization progress dialog box now displays the list of specific record-level failures.
The synchronization process is now optimized to help prevent synchronization failures from damaging the offline database.
The synchronization process has been improved to ensure that changes made to CRM tracked records inside Outlook are propagated to CRM server even when CRM addin is not active (e.g. – via OWA or when addin is in disabled state).

Setup and configuration

Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) has been implemented to improve component download performance.
Configuration Wizard now starts automatically when the user restarts Outlook after Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is installed. An ability to auto-configure CRM for Outlook has been added via use of config.xml file.
The number of Configuration Wizard screens has been reduced and the overall configuration process is simpler.
After Update Rollup 7 is installed, updates will no longer require the user to have Administrator privileges on the client computer.
A download button has been added for CRM Outlook client in application web UI to help users discover the right client for their deployment type. Additional flexibility has been enabled for organizations to modify the download package in a manner that enables them to package CRM configuration information specific to their organization (Please refer to KB 2004601 that will be published shortly)
Silent unattended installations of CRM via SMS has been enabled by adding support for MIF files and removing the need for end users to be logged into the machine during laptop client deployment.

This will be the new baseline for the CRM client—all future updates will require this release, and there will be a new version of the client installer released with this build, so you don’t have to install Rollup on new installs.

del.icio.us Tags: CRM for Outlook

Microsoft Dynamics CRM defined in 30 Seconds

Joel Lindstrom — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:56:02 -0400

Given the Microsoft Dynamics CRM is such a flexible XRM platform that can be adapted and configured to an infinite number of scenarios, it can sometimes be difficult to quickly explain what the platform can do to someone who is not familiar with the idea of CRM. This was a discussion that recently came up in the CRM MVP community. I took a stab at answering the question, as did other MVP’s including Customer Effective’s Scott Sewell. You can read a summary of the responses in this post on the CRM team blog, and incorporate them into your own “elevator speech.”

Make Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workflow More Useful

Joel Lindstrom — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:16:32 -0400

I now have a new favorite Microsoft CRM Accelerator: Business Productivity Workflow Tools accelerator.

In case you aren’t aware of the CRM accelerator program, these are a series of add-ons for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that showcase how CRM can be configured and extended. Some of the accelerators, such as the Extended Sales Forecasting Accelerator, are more conceptual prototype examples of how you could configure your CRM system, but need to be tweaked and adapted to work in your real world CRM environment. Everybody forecasts their sales a bit differently. Other Accelerators, such as the notifications accelerator, are add-ons that add functionality that can be deployed in a real-world environment.

I had overlooked the Business Productivity workflow accelerator when it was originally released, but I finally gave it a try earlier this week. It rocks. It definitely falls into the latter category of add-ons that just about anybody could use as is in their real world environment.

The Business Productivity Workflow Tools accelerator is a group of workflow extensions that make CRM workflow significantly more useful. The following extensions are included:

Math functions—add, subtract, multiply, divide, or find remainder based on calculations of CRM record values. It adds a calculator step that you can use to calculate/aggregate values, and the calculated value can then be called multiple times in subsequent steps.
String functions—concatenate values from the record into a string, which can be called multiple times in subsequent steps.
GUID functions—retrieve the GUID of the record.
URL functions—this is what had me saying “wow.” This allows you to build a URL to the CRM record that triggers the workflow, which you can include in a workflow generated email notification. Without this functionality, CRM e-mail notifications tend to be a dead end. For example, say you have a workflow that notifies a sales rep when a new account has been added to her sales territory—out of the box you can get an email notification with details of the account, but not a link to the account. The URL can specify a friendly text for the URL, such as “click here to view the account.”

Other URL functions include a generic URL, which can incorporate multiple parameters from the CRM record. This is useful when linking to an external system and passing parameters, or linking to a SSRS report. You can also create mailto hyperlinks, which open a new email message to a recipient (click here to send us feedback).

Now to be fair, all of this stuff was already possible in CRM 4.0 using SDK coding and plug-ins. The real power of this accelerator is it makes this functionality accessible to less technical users who can use these functions against whatever entities that they wish, including custom entities.