Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

RELEASE: ALM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CRM Solution Lifecycle Management

crmblog — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:48:00 GMT

On behalf of CRM Content Publishing, I am pleased to announce the release of the white paper, ALM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CRM Solution Lifecycle Management, which is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center at:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39044

As Microsoft Dynamics CRM continues pushing towards the enterprise space, it becomes increasingly important to support the requirements of the enterprise—not only through the product but also in terms of functionality, scale, resilience, and security. From an implementation perspective, enterprises expect to be able to manage their application lifecycle by using structured, repeatable processes that are predictable and well documented. While a number of approaches have been articulated through various channels and from a variety of sources to date, a definitive and full lifecycle approach has not been concisely communicated by Microsoft. Many customers, partners, and consultants are reaching out for best practice advice and guidance in this area, and it is Microsoft’s responsibility to deliver on this expectation. This paper provides a coherent, end-to-end approach to development, including version control, build, and release management of enterprise business solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

This document is the result of an effort by Microsoft Consulting Services through the OneTAP Program, which is aligned with Product Group TAP/RDP programs. When a product is launched, Microsoft has the opportunity to demonstrate for customers a “One Microsoft” execution from product development through testing, deployment, and training, which helps to ensure the best customer experience possible. To further this goal, Microsoft relies on a functional enterprise readiness ecosystem that leverages and consolidates the guidelines and best practices that are derived from these customer engagements and reproduces them in a consistent and timely manner. Through complete execution of the OneTAP program, Services works with the Product Groups to achieve product signoff for enterprise readiness.

I’d especially like to recognize the efforts of authors Phil Hand, Balazs Toreki, and Jürgen Leitz, and of Roger Gilchrist and the broader Dynamics CRM community for contributing to and reviewing this paper to help ensure its completeness and technical accuracy.

Regards,

Jim Toland

Dynamics CRM 2011 IG Update V5.9 May 2013

crmblog — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:59:00 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Implementation Guide (IG) update 9 (5.9.0) is now live on TechNet and is also available on the Microsoft Download Center in Word, compiled Help file (CHM), and PDF (recommended for small screens and tablets) formats.

Below are a few of the additions and updates you’ll find in this update.

New and updated topics	Description of changes
Enable tracing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router	New topic that explains how to enable tracing for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router.
Supported Windows Server 2012 editions	Added information for support with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011 running on Windows Server 2012.
How to upgrade a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server application to Windows Server 2012	Instructions to upgrade an existing computer that is running a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 application to Windows Server 2012.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Maintenance Jobs	Information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 maintenance jobs that are executed by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Asynchronous Processing Service (maintenance) service.
Running Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook on computers that have multiple versions of Outlook installed	New subtopic that explains the behavior when you run Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook on a computer that has multiple versions of Microsoft Office installed.
User credentials are required when you run the Configuration Wizard Sample Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook XML configuration file for configuration	New subtopic that explains how user credentials are required when you use the Configuration Wizard to configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Outlook for a silent deployment. Expanded the script sample to include cmdkey for adding user credentials to the Windows Vault.

Cheers,

Matt Peart—Senior Technical Writer—Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Using Power View in Excel 2013 to Analyze CRM Data

crmblog — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:42:00 GMT

Now that Power View is built into Excel 2013, business users can easily perform advanced analytics of their real time CRM data in either an online or on-premise deployment. You can use the Export to Excel feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to export CRM data, and then you can create a matrix, bar chart, data map, etc. with a few simple clicks. In addition, you don’t need to work in the IT department to perform these steps, as this functionality is designed to be run by the end user.

Note: This procedure reflects the use of Excel 2013 with Microsoft Dynamics. When performing this procedure, please ensure your Account list view contains records have valid values for Relationship Type, Industry, Country, and Territory and that these columns are contained within your list view.

To use Power View with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to perform BI Analytics on CRM data, perform the following steps.

Note: The steps below are shown in the Outlook client but can also be performed for static exports within Internet Explorer.

1. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, view the list of Accounts.

Note: It is preferable to use a view that is already configured to display the Relationship Type, Industry, Country, and Territory fields. While you can add them to the view during the Dynamic Export process, the example will flow better if these fields area already exposed within the view.

2. On the Ribbon bar, click Export to Excel.

3. In the Export Data to Excel dialog box, select Static Worksheet, and then click Export.

4. In the File Download dialog box, click Open to open the file in Excel.

Important: If you receive the prompt below, click Yes to proceed.

In the body of the worksheet, you should now see the data from the list view.

5. Save the file in the latest Excel Workbook (.xlsx file) format.

Note: Power View controls cannot be inserted into an .xml file, but you can insert them in an Excel workbook.

Now we need to select all records from the CRM query.

6. With your mouse, select all data values in Excel.

7. On the Ribbon bar, on the Home tab, in the Styles section, select Format as Table, and then select a table style option.

With the table created, we can begin to insert our power View controls.

8. On the Ribbon bar, on the Insert tab, click Power View.

Note: If the Microsoft Excel Add-ins dialog box appears, click Enable.

This will add a worksheet named Power View1 to the Excel workbook.

Now let’s restrict the columns displayed on the Power View1 worksheet.

9. In the top-right corner of the screen, under Power View Fields, deselect all check boxes except for the ones associated with the following fields:

Client Name
Industry
Relationship Type

10. On the Ribbon bar, on the Design tab, click Table, and then from the drop-down list, select Matrix.

11. On the right, under Drag fields between areas below, configure text box titles and associated fields as follows:

∑ Values - Client Name (displays as # Count of Client Name)
ROWS - Country / Region
COLUMNS - Relationship Type

12. Resize the matrix so that is occupies the left half of the window, as shown in the following graphic:

Now let’s create a chart.

13. On the Power Vew1 worksheet, select the matrix and then copy and paste it (using the keyboard copy [Ctrl + C] and paste [Ctrl + V] functions) to the right of the existing matrix.

The worksheet now contains side-by-side copies of the same matrix.

14. Select the matrix on the right-hand side, on the Design tab, click Bar Chart, and then from the drop-down list, select Stacked Bar.

15. Resize the chart control, under AXIS remove Country/Region, and then add Territory.

After completing this step, the window should appear similarly to the following graphic:

Note: You can now filter on the matrix values by clicking on the bar sections in the chart.

16. Click on the chart bar representing Latin America.

The matrix on the left is updated to display only the selected data, which in this case is that for Latin America.

17. Click the white space of the chart to turn off the filter and show all values.

Now let’s create a Bing Map in a separate Power View worksheet.

18. Switch to the Accounts worksheet and if necessary, select that the table you created in steps 6 and 7.

Note: If the Insert Power View dialog box appears, select Create a Power View sheet, and then click OK.

A new Power View worksheet is inserted in the workbook.

Now let’s restrict the columns displayed on the Power View2 worksheet.

19. In the top-right corner of the screen, under Power View Fields, deselect all check boxes except for the ones associated with
the following fields:

Client Name
Industry
Relationship Type

20. On the Ribbon bar, on the Design tab, click Table, and then from the drop-down list, select Card.

21. Resize the card so that is occupies the left third of the window, as shown in the following graphic:

Now let’s create a map.

22. On the Power View2 worksheet, select the card, copy and paste it (using the keyboard copy [Ctrl + C] and paste [Ctrl + V] functions) to the right of the existing card, and then resize it so that it occupies two-thirds of the window.

The worksheet now contains side-by-side copies of the same card.

23. With the right card selected, on the Ribbon bar, on the Design tab, click Map.

24. With the Map control selected, on the right, under Drag fields between areas below, configure text box titles and associated fields as follows:

∑ Size - Client Name (displays as # Count of Client Name)
LOCATIONS - Country / Region
COLOR - Relationship Type

When finished, the window should appear similarly to the following graphic:

Note: You can now filter on the card values by clicking on pie charts of the specific countries within the map.

25. Click on the pie chart for Germany.

The card on the left is updated with values only for the selected data, in this case that for Germany.

26. Click the white space of the map to reset the filter to all values.

Summary
As you can see, the Power View functionality built into Excel 2013 enables business users to easily perform advanced analytics of their CRM data, whether they are working in a cloud-based or on-premises deployment.

Jack Bender, Solution Architect
Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Creating and Publishing a Web Portal to an Azure Cloud Service

crmblog — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:57:00 GMT

Hello all:

At Convergence a few weeks ago I presented some CRM demos and this article will be the first in detailing how those demos were created and how you can mirror the functionality in your CRM Online deployment.

This first article will cover the creation and publishing of a Web Portal published to an Azure Cloud Service that can be used to capture simple lead information and subsequently create Leads in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The creation of the portal involves just a few steps:

Creating an Azure Account
Creating an Azure Web Site
Developing your web portal in Visual Studio using C#
Publishing your web portal to the Azure web site

Note that it does not matter if you decide to create the site first and then create the Azure portal or vice versa, in this article we will first create the Azure account and web site, and then the web site. So let’s get started!

First, sign up for a free trial on Azure and fill out the necessary fields to create a new Azure account. Note that if you or your company has an MSDN subscription you can also access Azure via MSDN subscription benefits. Once on the page shown below (direct URL: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/) click the “Try it Free’ button and complete the sign up process.

The next step is to create the Azure web site which will host your new portal. From the Azure main page, click the link for the “Management Portal.”

Once you reach the management portal page, on the left-hand navigation bar click “Web Sites” and then click “New”.

A new page will appear with some information that needs to be filled out to create a new web site.

Click “Quick Create”
Enter a name for your new web site, the new URL will be <yoursitename>.azurewebsites.net. I am using crmblogportal for this example.
Click “Create Web Site”

When Azure finishes creating the site, you’ll see a page like this one showing the site(s) you have created. Click the link for the site you just created.

We need to get the publishing profile for our new site so we can upload our portal from Visual Studio, so on this page, in the middle section with the title “Publish your App”, click the link “Download the publish profile” and when prompted save the file to your desktop (or anywhere on your hard drive as long as you remember where!). The file will be named <yoursitename>.azurewebsites.net.PublishSettings.

And that’s it. Your new Azure web site is set up and ready for you to upload whatever you create to it. The next steps involve creating the portal site itself in Visual Studio.

For the next steps we need to build a web site in Visual Studio so if you have Visual Studio installed, fire it up. If not and you have a personal or corporate MSDN subscription, you can download it there, or you can download and install Visual Studio Express from http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-products.

Lastly, we’ll need the CRM SDK, so download and install the SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24004.

For the Convergence demo we needed a site that allowed a user to register on a web form, and then that web form created a new lead in CRM. I will use this site in this example, but note you can create any site in Visual Studio that you wish.

When Visual Studio Starts, select File->New Project->and then on the left under “Templates” click “Visual C#” and then click “Web” and then select the “ASP.NET Web Forms Application” template.

This template generates a web site with a lot of the portal functionality already there, so saves a lot of work if it meets your needs. In the Solution Explorer view, expand the “Account” folder and double-click the “Register.aspx” file to open it in the editor. Note that this page is generated by Visual Studio and uses a control called the “CreateUserWizard” which has some great built-in functionality, but is also somewhere difficult to modify. For this reason I created a new page for the Convergence demo, so right-click on the “Account” folder, and in the Context Menu that appears select “Add->New Item”. On the left-hand panel be sure that “Web” is selected under “Visual C#”, and in the list in the middle, select “Web Form using Master Page”. Name the new page “NewUser.aspx”, click “Add” and then on the confirmation dialog, select “Site.Master”.

Right-click on “NewUser.aspx”, select “Set as Start page”, and then press F5 to run the site, and you’ll see we have a very simple page but that the style of the site is applied so we have a good starting point.

The first step is to change the image that says “Your Logo here” to a logo of your choosing, I’ll use the Dynamics CRM logo.

Close the browser window, and then in Visual Studio on the right-side in Solution Explorer, right-click the Images folder and select “Add->Existing Item”, and then in the file browser window browse to your logo image file, and double-click on the file to add it to the Images folder of your project. Now, because we are working with a Master site page template, we cannot edit the log on the NewUser.aspx page, we have to make the change on the Site.Master page, so in Solution Explorer double-click Site.Master to open it in the editor. Click the “Source” button in the editor window, and then in the code find the line that says

it should be at line 43 or thereabouts. Change this line to:

Where “crm_logo.png” is whatever image file you used, and of course you can change the URL too! Note that Visual Studio might add

id="A1"

to the line, if so, delete that.

Save the project and press F5 to run it, and you should see the changed logo. Click on it and the Dynamics CRM site will open.

Close the browser.

We are now ready for the next step, which is to add the controls we need to build the New User input form. We’ll keep it very simple and just use 2 fields. In “Solution Explorer”, double-click “NewUser.aspx” to open the form in the editor, and insert the code pasted below in between these lines (should be lines 6 and 7):

<asp:Content ID="Content3" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
<PASTE CODE HERE>
</asp:Content>

Paste this code:

<ContentTemplate>
<p class="validation-summary-errors">
<asp:Literal runat="server" ID="ErrorMessage" />
</p>
<fieldset>
<legend>Registration Form</legend>
<ol>
    <li>
    <asp:Label ID="Label3" runat="server" AssociatedControlID="FullName">Full Name</asp:Label>
    <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="FullName" />
    <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator3" runat="server" ControlToValidate="FullName"
    CssClass="field-validation-error" ErrorMessage="The Full Name field is required." />
</li>
<li>
<asp:Label ID="Label4" runat="server" AssociatedControlID="MobilePhone">Mobile Phone</asp:Label>
<asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="MobilePhone" />
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator4" runat="server" ControlToValidate="MobilePhone"
CssClass="field-validation-error" Display="Dynamic" ErrorMessage="The Mobile Phone field is required." />
</li>
</ol>
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Register" OnClick="Button1_Click" />
</fieldset>
</ContentTemplate>

We now need to add the Event handler for the Register Button click event, so save the project, then click the “Design” button and double-click the button “Register” to add the event handler. Note that we’ll add the code later to create the lead in CRM, for now just adding the event handler is all we need to do. Save the project, press F5 to run the page, and you should see a page similar to this:

Our page is shaping up, but it still doesn’t do anything to create a lead in CRM. We’ll wire up that functionality in a bit, but right now we need to create a “Thank you” page to display to the user when registration is complete. As we did with the NewUser.aspx page, right-click on the Account folder, and select “Add->New Item”, and then on the left-hand panel be sure that “Web” is selected under “Visual C#”, and in the list, be sure “Web Form using Master Page” is selected. Name the new page “Thankyou.aspx”, click “Add” and then on the confirmation dialog, select “Site.Master”. Double click on “Thankyou.aspx” to open it in the editor, and then in between the 3^rd content tags:

<asp:Content ID="Content3" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
</asp:Content>

Paste the following code:

<ContentTemplate>
<fieldset>
<legend>Thank you!!</legend>
</fieldset>
<p>
<h1>Thank you for registering!!</h1>
</p>
</ContentTemplate>

Save the project.

Now we’ll write the code that does the work of creating the new lead in CRM. First, we need to add a few references from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK, so in the Solution Explorer view, right-click “References” and select “Add Reference”. Click “Browse” on the dialog that appears, and then browse to the folder where you installed the CRM SDK, and then browse to the “sdk\bin folder”. Hold the <ctrl> key, select the following files to add, and click “Add”.

Microsoft.xrm.sdk.dll
Microsoft.xrm.portal.dll
Microsoft.xrm.client.dll
Microsoft.crm.sdk.proxy.dll

You also need to add a reference to Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll which is not part of the SDK download, but is likely on your PC already (do a search for it). If not, you can download it here: Download Microsoft.IdentityModel dll

Add the reference the same way you added the SDK references.

We next need to add a reference to several Assemblies from the .NET Framework, so in the Reference Manager window select “Assemblies” from the left-hand navigation, and then select:

System.DirectoryServices
System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement
System.Runtime.Serialization
System.Security
System.ServiceModel

Click OK and all the references will be added.

Next, we need to add some of the helper classes that come with the SDK to enable authentication to CRM Online. Right-click on the Account folder, and select “Add->Existing Item”. Browse to the folder where you installed the SDK, and browse to “\sdk\samplecode\cs\helpercode” and add the following files:

Crmservicehelper.cs
Deviceidmanager.cs
Myorganizationcrmsdktypes.cs

Next we need to add a line to the web.config (not the Web.config file in the Account folder, but the one under the Project itself) file for our connection string, so double-click web.config to open it. In the <connectionStrings> section, add the following lines:

<add name="Server=CRM Online, organization=your org, user=user name" connectionString="Url=https://yourorg.crm.dynamics.com; Username=username; Password=password;"/>

Where:
your org = your organization name
user = the user name for your org
UserName = full user name
password = the user password

So for example, the org I used for Convergence Demos was called Convergence1 and the username was admin, so my connection string was (with <password> replaced by the actual password for my user account):

Next we need to add the code to the NewUser.aspx.cs file, so right-click on NewUser.aspx and select “View Code”. Add the following using statements:

using Microsoft.AspNet.Membership.OpenAuth;

using System.Configuration;
using System.ServiceModel;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Messages;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Query;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Xrm.Client.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Xrm.Client;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Client.Services;

Then, just below the lines:

public partial class NewUser : System.Web.UI.Page
{

add these lines:

#region Class Level Members
private Guid _leadId;
private OrganizationService _orgService;
public String connectionString;
#endregion Class Level Members

So at this point, the entire NewUser.aspx.cs file should look like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using Microsoft.AspNet.Membership.OpenAuth;

using System.Configuration;
using System.ServiceModel;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Messages;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Query;

// These namespaces are found in the Microsoft.Xrm.Client.dll assembly
// located in the SDK\bin folder of the SDK download.
using Microsoft.Xrm.Client;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Client.Services;

namespace CrmBlogPortal.Account
{
public partial class NewUser : System.Web.UI.Page
{
   #region Class Level Members
    private Guid _leadId;
    private OrganizationService _orgService;
    public String connectionString;
    #endregion Class Level Members

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}
}
}

Save and build the project to be sure there are no errors. We also need to add some methods from the SDK for processing authentications. Just after the Button1_Click method, paste the following code. So where this method appears in the file:

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}

// Paste the code here!!

Code:

    #region Private Methods
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets web service connection information from the app.config file.
    /// If there is more than one available, the user is prompted to select
    /// the desired connection configuration by name.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>A string containing web service connection configuration information.</returns>
    private static String GetServiceConfiguration()
    {
      // Get available connection strings from app.config.
      int count = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings.Count;

      // Create a filter list of connection strings so that we have a list of valid
      // connection strings for Microsoft Dynamics CRM only.
      List<KeyValuePair<String, String>> filteredConnectionStrings =
          new List<KeyValuePair<String, String>>();

      for (int a = 0; a < count; a++)
      {
        if (isValidConnectionString(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[a].ConnectionString))
          filteredConnectionStrings.Add
              (new KeyValuePair<string, string>
                  (ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[a].Name,
                  ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[a].ConnectionString));
      }

       // No valid connections strings found. Write out and error message.
      if (filteredConnectionStrings.Count == 0)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("An app.config file containing at least one valid Microsoft Dynamics CRM " +
            "connection string configuration must exist in the run-time folder.");
        Console.WriteLine("\nThere are several commented out example connection strings in " +
            "the provided app.config file. Uncomment one of them and modify the string according" +
            "to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation. Then re-run the sample.");
        return null;
      }

       // If one valid connection string is found, use that.
      if (filteredConnectionStrings.Count == 1)
      {
        return filteredConnectionStrings[0].Value;
      }

      // If more than one valid connection string is found, let the user decide which to use.
      if (filteredConnectionStrings.Count > 1)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("The following connections are available:");
        Console.WriteLine("------------------------------------------------");

        for (int i = 0; i < filteredConnectionStrings.Count; i++)
        {
          Console.Write("\n({0}) {1}\t",
          i + 1, filteredConnectionStrings[i].Key);
        }

Console.WriteLine();

        Console.Write("\nType the number of the connection to use (1-{0}) [{0}] : ",
            filteredConnectionStrings.Count);
        String input = Console.ReadLine();
        int configNumber;
        if (input == String.Empty) input = filteredConnectionStrings.Count.ToString();
        if (!Int32.TryParse(input, out configNumber) || configNumber > count ||
            configNumber == 0)
        {
          Console.WriteLine("Option not valid.");
          return null;
        }

return filteredConnectionStrings[configNumber - 1].Value;

}
return null;

}

     /// <summary>
    /// Verifies if a connection string is valid for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>True for a valid string, otherwise False.</returns>
    private static Boolean isValidConnectionString(String connectionString)
    {
      // At a minimum, a connection string must contain one of these arguments.
      if (connectionString.Contains("Url=") ||
          connectionString.Contains("Server=") ||
          connectionString.Contains("ServiceUri="))
        return true;
      return false;
    }
    #endregion Private Methods

Save and build the project.

We’re almost there! The next step is to add the code to the Button1_Click method that actually creates the new Lead in CRM from the information entered on the web form. Replace the method:

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}

With this:

    protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      try
      {
        // Obtain connection configuration information for the Microsoft Dynamics
        // CRM organization web service.
        connectionString = GetServiceConfiguration();

// Establish a connection to the organization web service using CrmConnection.
Microsoft.Xrm.Client.CrmConnection connection = CrmConnection.Parse(connectionString);

        // Obtain an organization service proxy.
        // The using statement assures that the service proxy will be properly disposed.
        using (_orgService = new OrganizationService(connection))
        {
          // Obtain information about the logged on user from the web service.
          Guid userid = ((WhoAmIResponse)_orgService.Execute(new WhoAmIRequest())).UserId;
          SystemUser systemUser = (SystemUser)_orgService.Retrieve("systemuser", userid,
              new ColumnSet(new string[] { "firstname", "lastname" }));

          // Retrieve the version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
          RetrieveVersionRequest versionRequest = new RetrieveVersionRequest();
          RetrieveVersionResponse versionResponse =
              (RetrieveVersionResponse)_orgService.Execute(versionRequest);

          //This code grabs the data entered in the Full Name text field,
          //and splits it into first name and
          //last name. The input is expected in format <FirstName> <LastName>
          string strFullName = FullName.Text;
          string delimStr = " ";
          char[] delimiter2 = delimStr.ToCharArray();
          string[] nameSplit = null;
          nameSplit = strFullName.Split(delimiter2);

           //This is the Code that creates the new lead
          Lead newLead = new Lead
          {
            Subject = "New lead from Convergence",
            LastName = nameSplit[1].ToString(),
            FirstName = nameSplit[0].ToString(),
            MobilePhone = MobilePhone.Text.ToString()
          };

_leadId = _orgService.Create(newLead);

// Change this line to point at your web site
Response.Redirect(http://<yourwebsite>.azurewebsites.net/Account/Thankyou.aspx);

}
}

         // Catch any service fault exceptions that Microsoft Dynamics CRM throws.
      catch (FaultException<Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.OrganizationServiceFault>)
      {
        // You can handle an exception here or pass it back to the calling method.
        throw;
      }
    }

Note, in the Response.Redirect line, be sure to change the URL to point at your web site.

That should complete our web site and we can test it locally by saving, and then pressing F5 to run the site. Enter values for the Name (be sure to enter a First Name and a Last Name separated by a space) and the mobile phone, and then click “Register”. The “Thank you” page will display.

And then if we go to our CRM instance we can see the new lead created by the web page.

And opening the Lead shows that the information from the web form was populated in the Lead:

The last step before we publish the web site is to change the “Register” link on the home page to point at our new Newuser.aspx page. Double-click Site.Master to open it, and then find this line:

<li><a id="registerLink" runat="server" href="~/Account/Register">Register</a></li>

Change this line to this:

<li><a id="registerLink" runat="server" href="~/Account/NewUser.aspx">Register</a></li>

Save the project and the last step is to publish our new site to the Azure web portal. In Visual Studio right-click the project, and then select Publish.

When the dialog shown below appears, click “Import” and browse to the location where you saved the publish settings file, it is named:

<yoursite>.azurewebsites.net.PublishSettings

And select the file, then click Next.

Click Next on this screen:

And click Next again:

And then click Publish.

When the publishing process completes, Visual Studio will display Success messages as shown here:

And then your newly published site will open in a browser, click the “Register” link to open your NewUser.aspx page.

When the NewUser.aspx page opens, fill in some data and then click the “Register” button.

And the “Thank you” page should display.

To confirm our page works, open up your CRM instance and confirm your new lead is there:

This example, while simple, has demonstrated:

Setting up an Azure account
Setting up Azure web sites
Creating web site projects in Visual Studio
Connecting web forms to Dynamics CRM Online
Publishing web projects to Azure web sites

Now that you have the basics in place you can modify the web project whatever way you need to in order to meet your business objectives.

The full Visual Studio project code can be downloaded at CrmBlogPortal Source.

John Straumann
Senior Technical Product Manager
Dynamics CRM Product Marketing Group

How to build and run the Dynamics CRM SDK samples on Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8

crmblog — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:27:00 GMT

Have you built a new Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 computer or virtual machine only to find out that the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 SDK managed code samples no longer compile? You may get build errors similar to the following:

'Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.WSTrust.RequestSecurityTokenResponse' does not contain a definition for... Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "Microsoft.IdentityModel"

At run time, you would see this error:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException was unhandled by user code HResult=-2147024894 Message=Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.IdentityModel, ...

This is a known problem and has to do with changes in Windows Identity Foundation (WIF). When Microsoft updated WIF 3.5 to the latest WIF 4.5 there was a change in the identity namespace name, and various method changes that are used by the Dynamics CRM SDK samples.

The good news is that there are easy fixes you can apply to build the SDK samples. On your Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8 computer, run a Command Prompt window or PowerShell window as administrator. Next, enter the following command to enable WIF 3.5.

dism /online /enable-feature:windows-identity-foundation

Similarly, you can disable WIF 3.5 using the following command.

dism /online /disable-feature:windows-identity-foundation

Notice that you are not downloading and installing the WIF 3.5 SDK as was documented in the 2011 SDK. Those instructions do not apply to Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.

After you do this, most of the managed code samples in the SDK should compile and run.

However, the Windows Azure code samples located in the SampleCode\CS|VB\Azure folder of the SDK download need a little attention of their own. After you install the required Azure SDK 1.8 or later on your computer or VM as instructed by the SDK documentation, you must remove and re-add the Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll assembly reference in each listener application's project. The Windows Azure samples should now build. The QueuedListener sample will compile with warnings because it uses the now obsolete .NET classes. The provided PersistentQueueListener sample is an updated version of that same sample.

If you want to read about the changes in the identity namespace from WIF 3.5 to WIF 4.5 and the identity coding changes that will be required to move your Dynamics CRM SDK-based application code to .NET 4.5 at some future time, see Guidelines for Migrating an Application Built Using WIF 3.5 to WIF 4.5.

Peter Hecke

Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK team

Visit the New Developer Center!

crmblog — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 21:36:00 GMT

Hopefully by now you have come across the redesigned developer center on MSDN that we launched for Convergence. If not, please visit!

This redesign fits into our overall documentation strategy providing three distinct web sites for our key audiences:

For Developers: Developer Center – new and improved!
For Customers: Customer Center – formerly the Resource Center
For Administrators, IT Professionals: IT Pro Center – this site will match the modern look in the future

Here’s what it looks like:

Things to notice:

Task specific links to get you into the documentation you need for a specific task, with the most commonly used represented in tiles.
Easy links to download the SDK package and developer training kit.
A dedicated search page to find content in the SDK.
Pages dedicated to walkthroughs, sample code and videos.
A list of links in the lower right corner that take you to other useful web sites.

Thanks to Saurabh Kudesia for doing most of the implementation of this new site, with Jim Daly assisting, particularly on the Search page.

Enjoy!

Amy Langlois

Sr Content Publishing Mgr, Technical Audiences

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Update Rollup 13 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

crmblog — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:37:00 GMT

The CRM 2011 Update Rollup 13 (UR13) release is now available on the Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37133. UR13 will be available on Microsoft Update on April 9th.

The CRM 2011 Update Rollup 13 release adds support for Windows Server 2012. Upgrade instructions can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn167638.aspx. To install CRM 2011 on Windows Server 2012, a setup update is also required. Thus, it is necessary to wait for availability on Microsoft Update. The CRM 2011 Report Authoring Extension component has been updated to support SQL Server Data Tools and Visual Studio 2010. More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27823. The release also contains a set of fixes to address customer issues.

Cheers,

Matt Brown

Where Did the CRM Resource Center Go?

crmblog — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:36:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

I manage the Dynamics CRM Resource Center (recently renamed the Customer Center), and I've noticed some questions about how users should get to the site and access help from within the CRM application. While the product's site map no longer includes a direct link to the Customer Center, there are still two easy ways to get to the valuable content that the site provides.

First, you can always click the question-mark icon that appears on every screen:

In addition, on the File menu, you can point to Help and then click Help on This Page:

When you get to the appropriate Help topic, in the upper left-hand corner of the page there is a ‘CRM Customer Center Home’ link that always takes you to the homepage.

If you haven’t visited the site recently, you’ll definitely want to take a look. We’ve redesigned the site to better reflect the way that you work and provide quick access to the content you want the most:

Here you can find answers by using Search -- which helpfully pulls in information from a variety of great sources (Help, Communities, and Support sites) -- or you can browse topics and videos that are categorized either by subject category or by role.

We’re constantly working to improve the site and the content that it provides based on feedback from our users, so please let us know if you have suggestions or questions. We have some great ideas in store – so let us know what you think, what’s working and what we can do better. Just click the Customer Center Site Feedback link at the bottom of any page in the Customer Center. We’re listening!

Jackie Smith, Senior Content Publishing Manager
CRM Content Publishing Team

CRM Documentation Strategy

crmblog — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:56:00 GMT

Convergence begins this weekend and we would like to take this opportunity to help you find the information you need for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Amy Lanfear and Amy Langlois will be offering an interactive session called “Finding Help When & Where You Need It: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Documentation, Resources & Communities”. This session will be held Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 3:30 PM. We would love to see you!

At Convergence, we’ll be handing out a reference guide to all the resources we provide. Here is a download: Dynamics CRM Help & Resources Data Sheet

Finding Help When You Need It: A Guide to Online Resources

Where can you find our content?

We know that Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many sites and that searching for and locating documentation and resources can be a challenge.

The goal of this datasheet is to help you navigate our websites and in-product help, and to understand when to use each resource.

Websites

Our websites are organized to support the customer lifecycle. Each phase is supported by a different set of sites.

Site	Evaluate	Implement	Customize	Train	Help & Support
CRM Pre-Sales	ü
CRM IT Pro Center	ü	ü		ü
CRM Developer Center	ü		ü
CRM Resource Center					ü
Dynamics CustomerSource* PartnerSource*				ü	ü
Microsoft Learning				ü
Online Communities		ü	ü	ü	ü

*Requires service plan enrollment (included with subscription to CRM Online)

Resources for Evaluation & Purchase

When you are evaluating Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

CRM Pre-Sales – The primary site for evaluating and purchasing Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It provides information about the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, customer references, opportunities to view the product in action, and information about how to buy the product.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 Trial Guide – This guide is intended for administrators and technical decision makers in your company who want to gain experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Office 365 to evaluate their benefits for your company.

Resources for Planning, Deployment & Administration

When you are ready to deploy, upgrade or administer Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Deployment and Administration Guide – This guide is designed for administrators who need to plan and implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in their organizations. The guide also provides information to help users achieve a smooth startup with the system.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Implementation Guide – This guide contains comprehensive information about how to plan, install, and maintain on-premises deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Where applicable, it also contains information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Enterprise Planning Guide – This document is designed to help readers understand the key compliance and security considerations associated with planning for a deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in environments that may include enterprise directory integration services such as directory synchronization and single sign-on.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM IT Pro Center – The place to go for all administration and implementation documentation. The IT Pro documentation can be found in the TechNet library: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj992623.aspx

Resources for Using Dynamics CRM

When you are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customer Center – (Formerly the Resource Center) Here you’ll find videos, Help topics, new feature descriptions, and more info to help you maximize your efficiency and build your business.
In-product Help – Every page of the CRM application has a question mark in the upper right corner. Click it for context-specific topics or links to the full Resource Center.

Resources for Customization & Development

When you are ready to customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Center – The place to go for information and sample code for customizers, developers and report writers. You’ll find the SDK download package, introductory and in-depth articles, overview and reference documentation, entity model diagrams, and much more. The SDK documentation can be found in the MSDN library: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309408.aspx
Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK Download Package – This download contains all the same documentation found in the MSDN library, as well as hundreds of code samples in both C# and Visual Basic .NET, tools for registering plug-ins, and a design guide to help you create solutions that match the look of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

CustomerSource* and Microsoft Learning - Training Resource Sites

Resources that both your partner and in-house development team can use.

CustomerSource*: www.customersource.com
PartnerSource*: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource

*Requires service plan enrollment

How To Find Content

Use Bing® and other search engines to find publicly-available content. Be sure to include the words CRM Online or CRM 2011 in your search in order to find the most relevant information.
Note that CustomerSource and PartnerSource are not indexed by external search engines—you must be on the sites to search them.

How to Send Feedback to Microsoft

You can use the Microsoft Connect site to send feedback about Microsoft Dynamics products. You can also use the feedback link found at the bottom of documentation topics to send feedback about the information presented in the topic.

Blogs

CRM Team Blog – Provides news direct from the CRM engineering team.http://blogs.msdn.com/crm
CRM Online Service – Provides news about the CRM Online service.
CRM Support blog – Provides insights, tips and techniques from the support team.
Community.Dynamics.com – Hosts blogs by various people outside of the engineering team, and forums that answer your questions.

CRM on Social Media

http://facebook.com/
Search for "Microsoft Dynamics CRM".
http://linkedin.com/
In the group directory, search for "Microsoft CRM".
http://youtube.com/
Search for "Microsoft Dynamics CRM".
http://twitter.com/MSDynamicsCRM

Customizations in the December 2012 Service Update

crmblog — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 20:00:00 GMT

With the December 2012 Service Update, we introduced a modern application experience focusing on a clean user experience and great visual appeal.

Highlights:

New forms focused on the data that matters
Seamless inline edits
Integrated business processes to guide end users to get their job done
Eliminated popups

This is great, but you might wonder what these forms are for—and how extensible these forms and processes are: the answers may come as a surprise to you if you’re a long time user of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We’ve intentionally limited extensibility for this first release of this new experience. There’s a lot of reasons why we needed to do this. What’s important to understand now is what you can do with the new experience now, within the constraints we’ve put in place. Don’t worry though, we know the extensibility is needed and we’ll be addressing the key needs here in the next release.

To give you the understanding you need, I’ll explain what can be done with these new forms and I will talk about extensibility for each control individually.

Command Bar
Header Fields
Business Processes
Collaboration Control
Lookup
Subgrid
Inline Edit Controls
New Form Controls
Bing Map Control
Form Events
Client SDK
Web Resources
Summary

Command Bar

While the ribbon provided a great deal of capability and ability to surface many commands, we found that it introduced more complexity than many of our users needed. With this update, we have gone back to the simpler command bar

In the December 2012 Service Update

The command bar has a fixed set of commands for each entity
State- and permission-aware: It will not render the command if you don’t have the right permissions and will know to toggle between states(e.g., activate/deactivate)
Command bar cannot be extended. All the ribbon extensions that you would have done apply only to the ribbon in the classic mode and will not be honored in the new form.
Command bar is not solution-aware.

Header Fields

The fields in the header are displayed differently in the December 2012 Service Update forms.

Since these are fields in the form, they are customizable via Form editor
The new forms will render 4 fields at the maximum. It takes the first 4 fields in the header and renders them. If you have more than 1 row in the header, you will have to switch to classic mode to view those rows and fields
Since these are fields in the form, they are solution-aware

Business Processes

We introduced this new concept called Business Processes that helps guide end users through the most effective way to get things done in the UI. We have defined two business processes out of the box:

Sales process – Lead to opportunity close.
Service process – Phone to Case resolution

This control is present in the Lead, Opportunity, and Case entities.

This control renders only in the new form and not in the classic mode.

You cannot view this control in the form editor
The business process is not solution-aware
You cannot create a new process; you can edit the one that we ship.

You can configure a process from the form. Select Configure Process in the command bar in the form and the following UI opens:

You can:

Add, change, and delete stages
Add, change, and delete steps
Arrange the steps and stages
Learn more

Collaboration Control

We have created a custom control that allows the user to quickly see what has been happening with that particular record. This control renders only in the process form. This is permission-aware and shows tabs based on your permissions. This control has three tabs:

Posts( Activity Feeds/Yammer)
Activities
Notes

Posts

The posts tab is the first tab in this control and it shows both the user posts and the auto-posts associated with this particular record. If the org has signed up for an associated Yammer enterprise account, then this shows user posts from Yammer and auto-posts from Activity Feeds.

Activities

The activities tab is the second tab in the collaboration control and it displays the activities associated with this record. You can quickly add a phone call and add a task via this control. With this control, you don’t have to go to the related activities grid just to look at details.

Notes

We have the notes rendered as the third tab in the collaboration control and it displays all the notes attached to the record. You can add a new note, modify or delete and existing note. You can also add attachments to a note – all done inline.

Extensibility

When you view this collaboration control from the Form editor, you will just see the Notes control there. You can add and remove this control from the form editor. When viewed in the classic mode, you will only see the Notes control.

Lookup

We have a new Lookup control which searches inline and allows the user to pick up the record without having to open the Lookup dialog.

The new lookup shows 10 records at the maximum and clicking on “Look Up More Records” opens up the classic Lookup dialog. In the cases entity, the “Find customer” lookup actually pulls up records from both Accounts and Contacts.

Subgrid

The new forms render the sub grid with a lighter look and feel and are optimized for inline editing capability. The add button is integrated with the inline lookup to search or create new records.

Inline edit capability for the role column alone
If you hover over the item in the subgrid, you will see the Delete button and the record can be deleted inline.
Add, modify, and delete are the only commands that are present for this subgrid. You cannot add more commands.
This is a subgrid and hence can be added and removed via the form Editor
This rendering is very specific to the new forms and all subgrids will be rendered in this mode in the new forms.

Inline Edit Controls

This is the new rendering of controls in the new form. It is optimized for consumption and prevents accidental edits. You have to select the control to make it active.

Since these are just fields in the form, they can be viewed via the form editor and are solution-aware. The fields that you add via the form editor will render the old way in the classic mode and will render as inline edit in the new form.

New Form Controls

We’ve introduced some new form controls that let you view a few points of data really quickly for a record, and quickly create a record without loading up the entire form.

Customer Details

Once you pick the customer in the case form, you will notice that it now pulls in information about this customer on the right side of the form.

Inline Create

When a customer calls in for a service request, the Customer Service representative can search for cases using the new lookup, and can now quickly create a case.

This form is neither extensible nor customizable. Although it is a form, it is not exposed anywhere for customers to extend it.

Bing Map Control

We have built a custom Bing Map control to render maps right in the process flow. This control shows up in the new Account, Contact and Lead records, in both new forms and classic forms. In both renderings we will show a link that you can click and jump to Bing Maps.

This control is bound to Address1 and cannot be changed. You cannot remove this control from the form editor, as it will be locked. You can control this with the org-level setting to show or not show this control in forms.

Form Events

Form events are not supported in Process forms. If you have an OnLoad or Onchange or OnSave event, we detect that on form load time and load the classic mode automatically.

Client SDK

The new forms don’t have the entire client SDK loaded but we have exposed a subset of the client SDK in the new forms. The highlighted in green are the objects that are exposed in the new forms.

If you have a strong need for using Javascript to accomplish your business, you can still do so, however, you’ll find that the forms will render in classic mode if you are triggering on the form events.

See Access to the Xrm.Page Object Model for Updated Forms for more information.

Web Resources

The new forms now can render all form-enabled web resources ( HTML, Silverlight, image) but make sure that if you are using any client-side scripting that it falls within the boundaries that we are exposing. If not, there will be script errors. See Sample: Detect When an Object is Available Using Script in a Web Resource and an Updated Form for more information.

Just to make sure that we don’t render all the web resources automatically by mistake, we have introduced a new setting in the Web Resources properties to control the rendering. If you think your web resources are ready to work on the new forms, just check this checkbox in the Web Resources properties window in the Form editor.

Summary

That should give you a pretty good overview of the new forms and processes; what you can and cannot do with them now. Understanding this and knowing that we’re working to make the new forms as extensible and backward compatible with the capabilities “classic forms” will help you prepare for our future releases as we move the new application fully to the new forms experience.

Thanks

Anusha Shankar