1. Browse open source icon galleries online for the appropriate icon (preferably in PNG or GIF format)
2. Edit the icon in an image editor to resize it in 3 separate files:
1. For image editing I recommend the free Paint .NET software
2. Small:  16 x 16 pixels
3. Medium:  32 x 32 pixels
4. Large:  66 x 48 pixels
3. Upload the 3 files to a new or existing solution in CRM 2011 as a web resource
4. Open the custom entity in the Settings > Customizations section (or solution)
5. Click on the “Update Icons” button
6. Apply your icon web resources to the custom entity
7. Publish your customizations
8. Clear your browser cache and refresh CRM to see the new icons

I’ve been there and felt your pain.  Rather than using precious consulting time on image editing, I decided to group 22 of my custom open sourced icons in a solution file and share it with you.  Feel free to download it below!

• ESCustomIconGallery_1_0_managed.zip

In the latest Statement of Direction (May 2011) announcement, Microsoft has laid out plans to accelerate the development cycle of Dynamics CRM as well as hints to future significant features, probably most notably multi-browser and cross-platform support.

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Statement of Direction – May 2011 (PDF download link)

Accelerated development cycle

Since its inception in 2003, Microsoft CRM has evolved over five versions into Dynamics CRM 2011, the enterprise-class application and framework it is today.  Over the course of its history the Microsoft CRM development team traditionally released each version in 2-3 year cycles.  Each new major version required customers to plan each major upgrade extensively, at times with a sizable investment.

Per the new announcement, Microsoft has committed to shorter development cycles which will bring new enhancements and features to all Online and On-Premise customers.  This will allow users to enjoy the latest innovations as they are developed, as well as providing minimal impact to existing deployments.

The newly announced development cycle includes:

• Updates: similar to the current Update Rollups, these are enhancements that will be delivered to the Dynamics CRM platform semi-annually at Spring (Q2) and Fall (Q4) of each year.  Updates will not require significant implementation planning like Upgrades.  They will also deliver compatibility for future Server, SQL, .NET and Office versions.
• Upgrades: these are new future versions of Dynamics CRM that will provide the next level of milestone features to the platform.  These releases will likely require more implementation planning from customers than the Updates.  The next scheduled major release is for Spring (Q2) of 2012.

The Evolution of Social Media and Collaboration

The focus of Customer Relationship Management applications should be relationships, and the recent announcement for Dynamics CRM reiterates that emphasis.  Mentioned in the announcement is additional feature support for social media and collaboration tools.

Per the statement of direction, there will be new support for:

• Micro-blogging: encompassing important status updates and notifications regarding business events and actions.
• Business activity feeds: delivering configurable real-time notifications regarding important relationships and significant business events.
• Social intelligence: identification of data patterns and streams to enhance customer service and marketing decision-making.

The Perks of going Microsoft

If your organization is a “Microsoft shop”, there are clear advantages to deploying Dynamics CRM and investing in the other Microsoft technologies besides Office.

While it’s not really new news, Microsoft reiterated its commitment to extend capabilities across Microsoft products.  Its most recent example is the easy-to-deploy integration between Dynamics CRM 2011 and SharePoint 2010.   Other points of native integration for Dynamics CRM already include Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Office, as well as the ability to synchronize with back-office applications such as Dynamics GP. Deploying these investments will provide a new user experience as well as have clear business value.

Not mentioned in the statement is the recent sizable investment in Skype.  There’s a good bet that Microsoft has a plan for Skype integration in future updates to Dynamics CRM.  At this point in time, we can speculate that it could provide an enhanced call center solution.

Dynamics CRM anywhere, anytime, on any device

One of the early pain points that I’ve discovered in my experience with Dynamics CRM is its inability to function seamlessly with other browsers beyond Internet Explorer, and by extension other operating systems such as Mac and Linux.  There are new and persistent expectations with cutting-edge devices such as mobile smartphones and tablets.  While there may be competitive and technology reasons for this historical reliance on Internet Explorer, this limitation is unacceptable for some key users.  Workarounds like the compatible MSCRM Mobile Express solution and mobile apps help, but in the end cannot provide the full user experience native to the IE Web and Outlook Client.

To my great delight, Microsoft announced multi-browser and cross-platform support for the next future release of Dynamics CRM.  Per the statement:

• CRM anywhere: deliver immersive user experiences that match users’ particular context or work “mode” – whether that is on the road or in the office. This facilitates a new agility and productivity in how users respond to different situational requirements.
• Cross-device: provide device-specific application experiences that are natural and intuitive across a range of platforms and form-factors.
• Multi-browser: provide targeted user experiences that work on different web browsers by utilizing HTML5 for structuring and presenting content.

Microsoft naming HTML5 as the vehicle for multi-browser support is noteworthy.  Could this be the new future trend, versus platform-centric apps?

The New York Times article “In a New Web World, No Application Is an Island” addresses this very topic, and is a highly recommended read.  Per the Times article:

Engineers say the technology will make it possible to write Web applications, accessed with a browser, that are as visually rich and lively as the so-called native applications that are now designed to run on a specific device, like an iPad or an Android-based tablet.

HTML5 has shown to be quite promising.  Dynamics CRM is positioning itself to be at the forefront of this new web application technology.

Conclusion

There are clear advantages to combining other Microsoft business technologies with Dynamics CRM, and will only be easier to integrate in the future.   Key pain points in the past (such as multi-browser support) will be addressed, and new social collaboration tools to enhance Dynamics CRM are promised and will be soon forthcoming.

These key initiatives will continue to keep Microsoft Dynamics CRM an innovative and competitive leader in the enterprise CRM market.

Earlier in the year, this company had restructured their staff.  During this process they had disabled the user account of a key former employee that was the owner of all the workflows.

What was the lesson learned?  Disabling the Owner user account of a workflow will disable the workflow jobs as well. Workflows require an active user account to process the jobs. When developing workflows for an organization, make sure all of the published workflows are owned by an administrative account, and not an employee.

Dynamics CRM 4.0 does warn you of this fact while disabling a user (see screenshot below).

Disabling a User in Dynamics CRM 4.0

Unfortunately for my client, all of their workflow activity during the downtime could not be recovered, despite having finally re-enabled the workflows.  Again, as a Dynamics CRM Consultant, be sure to educate your clients of this fact.

"Data, looks like resistance to the Borg is futile to maximizing our sales pipeline."

Arguably, the most noticeable feature in the Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta is the new Dashboard functionality.  It brings to the table such a new level of easy and powerful customization that one could say Microsoft has truly “brought BI to the masses.”

What makes the Dynamics CRM 2011 Dashboards so special?  Let me count the ways:

• Easily create a custom Dashboard on the fly by clicking the New button on the Outlook ribbon or from the web client.
• Keep your custom dashboard for yourself, or share your creation with other colleagues on your team (similar in functionality to Views).
• Easily add CRM Views to the Dashboard.
• Drag in your own bar charts and line charts, add a sales funnel, or add a connected Bing Map so you can see the locations of the customers you’re visiting today.
• Drill-down capability, so you can view individual records.
• Use iFrames to provide a window to other Portals or internal/external websites.
• Use the advanced tools in Dashboard customization to incorporate custom SSRS reports that display data from other systems.

These tools provide all the fodder that the imaginative user and developer will need to design useful Dashboards on-the-fly.

Dashboard Help Section

For those new to managing Dashboards, Microsoft provided a help section that is available upon your first login to Dynamics CRM 2011.  This section can be hidden permanently as soon as you feel you’re familiar with the tools.

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Help section

Creating a New Dashboard in CRM 2011

Upon creation of a new Dashboard, CRM asks for your preferred layout format.  So far so good…

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Layout

In the next Dashboard customization screen, we can add the following resource types:

• Chart
• List
• Web Resource, which can consist of:
  • Web Page (HTML)
  • Style Sheet (CSS)
  • Script (JScript)
  • Data (XML)
  • Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, ICO)
  • Silverlight (XAP)
  • Style Sheet (XSL)
• iFrame

Dynamics CRM 2011: Dashboards Toolbar

In less than five minutes, I instantly built my sample Dashboard by:

• Adding a bar graph of Activities by Priority
• Adding a Grid View of My Accounts
• Adding a JPG image
• Adding the mobile website of Twitter Search for #MSDYNCRM

See the screenshot of my creative (albeit questionably productive) Dashboard below.

Dynamics CRM 2011: My Sample Dashboard

While my sample Dashboard won’t win any productivity awards, it’s my own Dashboard to view, tweak and share with my colleagues.  My next step would be to try and incorporate Bing Maps imaginatively.

As always, the most important step is to take that initial dive, and imagine the possibilities!

]]> http://crmdynamo.com/2010/09/in-dynamics-crm-2011-dashboards-bring-eye-candy-bi-to-the-masses/feed/ 4 http://crmdynamo.com/2010/09/microsoft-dynamics-crms-next-generation-is-here-crm-2011-beta-online-and-on-premise-available-worldwide-today/ http://crmdynamo.com/2010/09/microsoft-dynamics-crms-next-generation-is-here-crm-2011-beta-online-and-on-premise-available-worldwide-today/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:45:35 +0000 Christian http://crmdynamo.com/?p=579

It’s a wonderful day in the #MSDYNCRM world. 

Microsoft promised and delivered today the Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta version, available Online and On-Premise!  Check out http://www.crm2011beta.com for videos and highlights, as well as the official announcement to see for yourself.  If you didn’t attend the “First Look at CRM 2011″ webcast on September 7th, I’d highly recommend you view it.

• If you want to sign up for the CRM 2011 Beta Online, make sure to fill out this form.
• If you want to download the On-Premise bits yourself and install them in house, download the installation files here.
• Be sure to download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta Implementation Guide.
• Make sure you post your questions on the official CRM 2011 Beta Forum.
• At this link you can download the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Software Development Kit (SDK).
• The following product keys are available for this release (found in the readme file).
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Workgroup (5 CAL limit): FF2JM-QX9PG-HXT8M-MMHXG-4MF32
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server (no CAL limit): 4FDTK-3HYV2-D9CCJ-4MF9Q-QJ32X
  • Although the application may display a 90-day trial period, these trial product keys will expire after 270 days.
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional edition is no longer available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

This Beta release is also getting some media attention!  Check out a few interesting articles below.

• “Microsoft aims to sharpen its CRM pitch”, CNET News
• “Microsoft to deliver public betas of CRM 2011 and app store in mid-September”, ZDNet
• “Microsoft begins testing new CRM program”, CNET News

In the next coming months, my pledge to you will be to start highlighting all the new Beta features and tips here at this CRM blog.  Feel free to contact me if you have a special request or question regarding the new Beta, and I’ll be sure to cover it for you. 

You down with VPC? (Yeah you know me)

Microsoft just released an updated version of the April 2009 VPC release, mostly because it’s due to expire very soon.  You’ll probably need PartnerSource or CustomerSource access to download it at the link below.

VPC Re-Release for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Why should you download this version?  First of all, it’s not set to expire until August 2011 which will give you plently of time to play around until CRM 2011 is released.   It’s also a leaner download at about 7 GB.  Last but not least, it includes some new technologies such as Office 2010 and portal accelerators.

Per the download page, this new release (or re-release) has some new updated software:

• Update Rollup 11
• Microsoft Office 2010
• New Portal Accelerators
• New Partner and Customer portal installed using AD so no external network is required
• New Profile Manager Tool which has two profiles for services and URL caching

It also looks like this VPC has the same credentials as in the past releases.  Log in with the following:

ID=contoso\administrator
PW=pass@word1

Enjoy!

You know your users want to push your buttons.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is already user friendly and intuitive.  However, there will be times where you want to nudge the CRM users along the road to productivity by providing a nice shiny button that does what they want.  In this case I want to add a button to a custom entity form, where upon clicking would automatically pop open a new related record.  

 A couple potential  case examples off the top of my head:  

• Button to create a new Phone Call activity, related to an open custom entity record.
• Button to create a new Contact record, related to an open Account record.

Since the button can run JavaScript on demand, you can think outside the box and consider other unique scenarios and possibilities.  

See below for the general procedure to get this published.  I’ll try to make it quick and painless.  

Customize your ISV.config file  

All Dynamics CRM deployments include a default ISV Config file.  However, this default file is typically riddled with developer test examples that can clutter your CRM if you’re not mindful.  On the other hand, it may serve as a useful reference to see some customization possbilities.   

If you want a clean ISV Config file with the button I’m creating, I’ve provided a copy here to download.  It’s up to you! 

ISV-button-template.zip  

To export or back up your current ISV Config file:   

1. Navigate to Settings > Customization > Export Customizations.
2. Export the ISV file to your desktop or local drive.

Exporting your ISV Config file

  Use your favorite XML or text editor program to view and edit your ISV customization file.  I particularly like the free Microsoft XML Notepad 2007 and Notepad ++. The code you want to add will look something like the below, nested in the Entities section. 

      <Entities>
        <Entity name=”new_customentity”>
          <ToolBar ValidForCreate=”0″ ValidForUpdate=”1″>
            <ToolBarSpacer></ToolBarSpacer>
            <Button Icon=”/_imgs/ico_18_debug.gif” JavaScript=”locAddRelatedTo(10016);”>
              <Titles>
                <Title LCID=”1033″ Text=”Create a new related record” />
              </Titles>
              <ToolTips>
                <ToolTip LCID=”1033″ Text=”Create a new related record based on this open record.” />
              </ToolTips>
            </Button>
            <ToolBarSpacer />
          </ToolBar>
        </Entity>
      </Entities> 

  In the above code, we: 

• Referenced where we want this button with the Entity name value.
• Made this button available only when a record is saved by disabling ValidForCreate and enabling ValidForUpdate.
• Added a couple ToolBarSpacer spots for neatness.
• Referenced a icon for it at the Button Icon value.  The debug icon works for me.
• Added Title and ToolTip info to let the users know what it does.
• Added a simple JavaScript line to create a new related record.

To make this JavaScript work for you, you’ll need to find out the related entity’s “Object Type Code”.  It’s really easy.  Simply browse to your CRM deployment’s Metadata Browser, which is typically at this URL format: 

http://{CRM_URL}/{Organization_Name}/sdk/list.aspx

Click on the related entity’s details, and you should see “Object Type Code” number.  Insert that number in the parenthesis for this JavaScript snippet:

locAddRelatedTo({Object_Type_Code})

Follow me here: the locAddRelatedTo function will let the button open a new related CRM record of the entity I specified with the Object Type Code.  Simple as that.

 Once you finished customizing your new ISV Config file, make sure you upload it back to your CRM deployment. 

Last Step!  Enable custom menus and toolbars

If you published your new ISV config file and you still don’t see the changes, this is the reason.

By default, CRM disables the custom menus and toolbars.  This means CRM will simply ignore whatever ISV Config file is out there.

To enable your custom button:  

• Navigate to Settings > Administration> System Settings.
• Click on the Customization tab.
• Add the Clients where you want this customization to appear.  The choices?  Web, Outlook, and Outlook Offline.

Custom Menu Settings

  Thanks to Mitch Milam’s blog for pointing me in the right direction.  

Download link:
Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (KB 970148)
KB Article link:
Microsoft Knowledge Base article 970148: Update Rollup 6 is available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Things are a little different this time around when it comes to compatibility between versions of XML customization backups. This newest Update Rollup is compatible with customization files from Update Rollups versions 2 through 6. The opposite is also true: you can import an Update Rollup 6 customization into depoyments with Update Rollups 2 through 6.

I believe Microsoft is planning on releasing new Update Rollups every two months, so check back regularly!

Update: Mondo had declared itself bankrupt late 2009, but appears to have merged with another Danish MSCRM consulting company called KeyZone.  Here’s the Google translation link.

SPI Accelerator screenshot

A new accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM was released today, and you could say it’s a unique one.  If you go to the CodePlex site, you’ll only be able to download a whitepaper from this page; that’s because this sales methodology is proprietary.  There’s a separate registration page for the actual download.  So, if your firm or client subscribes to the Sales Performance International (SPI) Solution Selling sales methodology, then this one is right up your alley.  Oops, I almost forgot the ®.

What I like about this accelerator is that it incorporates other Microsoft technologies like Silverlight and Windows Workflow Foundation to add value to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  What is not so nice is that it requires a pricey subscription, in comparison to the other free Accelerators.

One option is to deploy it On-Premise.  It’s free for 3 users or less, but as a proprietary sales methodology, you’ll have to start paying to get more users.  This accelerator will be available for On-Demand (hosted by Mondo from Denmark).

Subscription options for this sales methodology:

1. Hosted by Mondo (on-demand), customers pay a license subscription fee per user per month which includes a Mondo hosted subscription to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
2. On-premise customers may download and install the accelerator on their own servers. On-premise customers have two solution options: the basic and professional editions. The Basic edition can be downloaded and deployed at no cost. The Professional edition requires a license to be purchased for each user; this license fee includes a 2-year software assurance (support) package.

To download the free copy of the basic edition, as well as the installation guide and user manual, go to this Mondo.dk link and register.

The SPI "Pain Chain". Ouch!

SPI "Strength of Sale"

This tool will save countless hours of documentation time, and will keep you focused on the real creative development and customization efforts that directly benefit your clients.

The resources you’ll need to get going:

• Download the MSCRM 4.0 Documentation Generator (link to CodePlex download site).
  
• Export the Customizations file (either ZIP or XML) from your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 deployment.
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0 Runtime)
  • This installation is provided in the setup of this tool, but you can also download it directly at this link.
    

As an alternative tool for generating CRM 4.0 Documentation, be sure to check out the CRM 4.o Form Reporter (direct link to the CodePlex site).

Full instructions from the CodePlex site below.

Installation
The add-in will run on Office 2007 Excel (with Visual Studio Tools for Office (3.0)).
Extract the installation files and run Setup.exe – it will attempt to install any prerequisites.
Once the setup completes, Start Excel.
The first time Excel runs with the add-in, you will be presented with a customization installation message – choose “Install.”

Usage
Open the Add-Ins ribbon, press the load button to load your XML, then press the “Forms” button.
Once you’ve created a “Forms” documentation spreadsheet, open a new blank spreadsheet and click the “Scripts” button, and then repeat with the “Picklists” button.

Many thanks to CustomerEffective’s Scott Sewell (and Merijn van Mourik) for sharing this thing of beauty.