EMEA Dynamics CRM Support

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Training Blitz Day for Partners

dannyf2 — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:10:44 GMT

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partners, you are invited to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Training Blitz Day!

Experience an online, free 4-hour training blitz on the upcoming version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM which is launching in the second half of calendar year 2013. During this training, we will showcase the incredible innovation coming in this next release including the new user experience complete with guided processes, the mobile sales application for Windows 8 tablets and iPad, as well as the embedded social capabilities.

Come discover how we are making business personal with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Best Regards

Dynamics CRM Support Team

Dynamics CRM 2011 Online default Reports not editable

dannyf2 — Thu, 30 May 2013 12:58:45 GMT

In CRM 2011 Online the available out of the box reports are not customizable and users are able to download the *.*RDL Files although after editing it in SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligent Development Studio, you won’t be able to upload then back into CRM Online. You are unable to create sub reports for an already existing report on CRM 2011 Online.

This is because RDL Sandboxing is enabled for CRM Online. This will allow you to upload into CRM 2011 Online only FetchXml Reports, and you will be unable to upload any SQL query based SSRS reports on CRM 2011 Online.

The allowed namespaces, types, and members included into these FetchXML reports are found in the following article:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh547428.aspx

The following Information and article are very helpful for beginning with FetchXML Reporting on CRM Online:

a. On CRM Online you can’t edit the default reports which you can download as *.*RDL files from within the reports entity

b. RDL Sandboxing is enabled; the following features are disabled for RDL files in the CRM Online Environment:

• Custom code in the <Code> element of a report definition

• RDL backward compatibility mode for SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services custom report items

• Named parameters in expressions such as DateFormat or NameSpace

• For more details please read the following KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2600639/en-us

c. Please check out the following blog articles which are describing the following topics regarding FetchXML Reports:

i. Getting Started with CRM 2011 Online Fetch XML Reporting:

http://garethtuckercrm.com/2011/03/24/fetch-xml-reports-for-crm-2011-online

ii. Images in your CRM reports – Photos with FetchXML Reports:

http://www.powerobjects.com/blog/2011/09/21/images-in-your-crm-reports-powerphoto-with-fetchxml-reports

Best Regards

EMEA Dynamics CRM Support Team

Installing CRM 2011 on Windows Server 2012

dannyf2 — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:43:43 GMT

With the release of CRM 2011 Update Rollup 13 installation on Windows Server 2012 is now supported. There are a few prerequisites that are different to 2008R2 so the information below should enable you to have an error free setup.

In Windows Server 2012 ensure that you enable the following Features and Roles. In 2012 the installations of both have been combined into one handy wizard:

Server Manager – Manage – Add Roles and Features

· File and Storage Services

· Web Server (IIS)

· .Net Framework 3.5 Features

· .NET Framework 4.5 Features

· Windows Search Service

To install CRM on Windows 2012 you will need to download the CRM setup from the Microsoft Download website; the iso image cannot be used as it does not already contain the slipstreamed UR6 package.

Copy this installation package to a temporary folder. Here I’ll be using C:\crm_install\

To complete the CRM server installation on Windows 2012 a Self-Healing Setup (SHS) update is also needed. If the Server has an active internet connection and Windows Update enabled this can be downloaded at runtime.

If not then you can download the SHS package and configure the installation. Add the “Setup Update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2011” and complete the basket to download.

The download contains all of the languages of the SHS and so you need to select the one that matches the base language of your CRM installation.

Extract the cab file for your language and inside you will find a ‘.msp’ package. Copy this to your c:\crm_install folder.

The final setup component you need is a setup config file. This ensures the crm installation process locates and uses the SHS you have downloaded. In the config file you need to specify the directory of your language specify SHS.

For full information you can review technet but I’ve included a simple example below:

<Patch update="true">c:\crm_install\Server_KB2434455_amd64_1033.msp</Patch>

</Server>

</CRMSetup>

Save this file as config.xml in the C:\crm_install directory. You should now have everything you need to start the installation process

As you’ll be installing using the config file you’ll need to complete the installation using Command Prompt.

First up navigate to the crm_install folder and extract the installation package:

Create a new ‘server’ folder in the crm_install directory when prompted by the extraction wizard. After that is completed you will see a “the extraction is complete” popup.

Navigate to this ‘server’ folder to run the SetupServer.exe and provide the config file details so that the SHS is used.

The checking for update step should show “Setup has finished downloading the update” to confirm that the setup has picked the SHS up correctly from the config file.

After this step the installation process is the same as on Windows 2008R2 and you should see a nice green screen on your system checks.

Best Regards

EMEA Dynamics CRM Support Team

"Worksheet Setting" error in Microsoft Excel when opening an XML file exported from Dynamics CRM 2011.

dannyf2 — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:03:51 GMT

Scenario:

1. Export the records from a view or the results from an advanced find query using the option to “Make this data available for re-importing by including required column headings”.

2. When opening the generated XML file, the following error pops up:

3. Looking in the Excel log file, the following error can be found:

XML ERROR in Worksheet Setting

REASON: Bad Value

FILE: C:\Users\<user name>\Desktop\For Re-import - My Active Accounts.xml

GROUP: DataValidation

TAG: Value

VALUE: "Address 1 "City"”

Cause:

The error is caused by an invalid character (the quotation mark) in the Description of the field address1city: Address 1 "City".

I have manually modified this field’s description, as an example.

Resolution:

Customize the entity and remove the quotation mark from the field description and export again to Excel.

Best Regards

EMEA Dynamics CRM Support Team

Dynamics CRM 2011 Incorrect money values in charts

dannyf2 — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:55:37 GMT

Under some circumstances you might see incorrectly looking money values in charts.

Example: your organization has custom currencies and records using those. Additionally, your Personal Options define a custom currency as Default Currency for your user.

In this situation the charts convert custom currency values into the base currency using the precision and rate setting of the custom currency, to be able to sum them. Then this value gets converted a second time into the user’s personal display currency (Personal Options).

During this calculation currency precision with 2 decimals result in rounding that makes small differences in the displayed values in the charts.

Resolution:

To have the correct value in the chart, change the currency precision to 4 decimals.

Custom currency fields need to have “Currency Precision” set as precision to follow the same logic.

In existing records you will need to reset the currency (change it to another currency and then back) to see the change.

If you have wrong values in closed records (e. g. Orders and Quotes) you will need to set the status of these records to Draft and then to Active using an on-demand workflow in order to be able to reset the currency.

Best Regards

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Team

Toolbar is missing within the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Outlook Client

dannyf2 — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:00:21 GMT

Symptom

CRM toolbar is not visible even after configuration is completed. Below is error message that we got from diagnostic tool.
Microsoft.Crm.Outlook.Diagnostics.WarningDiagnosticCheckException: You recently used a different Outlook profile than the one the Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-in has been configured for. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-in will be enabled only for the profile it was configured for. at Microsoft.Crm.Outlook.Diagnostics.OutlookProfileDiagnosticCheck.Execute(BackgroundWorker backgroundWorker) at Microsoft.Crm.Outlook.Diagnostics.DiagnosticCheck.DeepExecute(BackgroundWorker backgroundWorker)

Cause

Customer is running CRM 4.0 and Outlook 2007 (both 32bit) on a 64bit machine.
After installing MS Project 2010 (32bit) + some MUI components (see additional components that got installed)

the following registry key gets added in the TypeLib section:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\9.4]
"PrimaryInteropAssemblyName"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71E9BCE111E9429C"

Resolution

Uninstalling MS Project 2010 on the affected machines (+ the related components that are added during the install. E.g. MUI)
or
Manually remove the regkey that was added during the MS Project 2010 installation (part of the additional components)
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\9.4]
"PrimaryInteropAssemblyName"="Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71E9BCE111E9429C"

Best Regards

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Support Team

Diagnostic Automation Tools

dannyf2 — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:13:25 GMT

In our continued drive to improve your support experience, Microsoft Customer Services and Support has been building powerful automated diagnostic capabilities. Our diagnostic ecosystem directly impacts Self-Help, Proactive, and Assisted Support; working in a continuous cycle of improvement to identify and resolve more problems, more efficiently.

Diagnostic packages are a key part of the ecosystem. They enable us to easily capture important troubleshooting data from your impacted systems, whilst also checking for common configuration errors. The collected data can be further analysed by automated systems, which look for a vast array of different problems, using signatures and rules defined by our engineers. The power of automated heuristic analysis can uncover other hidden issues, perhaps even outside the scope of the current investigation.

Other tools integrated into the ecosystem assist our engineers to more quickly resolve problems that are not automatically identified. As new problems are resolved, their solutions are incorporated into our ecosystem as rules that can automatically identify and help resolve future problems. By re-using applicable rules in System Center Advisor (Microsoft’s new platform for proactively monitoring computers); and also in the diagnostic tools offered in Microsoft Premier Online and FixIt Center Pro, we are continuously improving your support experience with Microsoft, whether it be via proactive tools, self-help, or when being assisted by a support engineer.

More about Diagnostic Packages

Our diagnostic packages collect relevant data (configuration, log files, traces etc) for specific categories of problems, and also check for a number of known configuration issues at the same time. There are over 100 packages in the growing catalogue, each targeting specific problems and products. A smaller subset of packages is offered for self-help; in Microsoft Premier Online for Premier customers, and in FixIt Centre Pro for customers using Online Assisted Support.

As show in figure 2, when a new service request (SR) is raised for engineer-assisted support, an appropriate package will be selected and offered automatically. The package is chosen from the impacted product and technology or component (known as Support Topic) recorded in the SR; and instructions for running the package will be sent in email to the contact for the SR. At any time whilst troubleshooting the problem, the support engineer can also provide you another diagnostic package to run.

The email from Microsoft Customer Support Service containing a request to run a diagnostic package contains a link to a Microsoft public web page where you can choose to start the diagnostic on the current machine, or create a package for execution on another machine. After the diagnostic has run, any detected problems will be shown, and you can choose to view a report with more detailed results. You can also elect to upload the collected data seamlessly to Microsoft, where it will be linked to your SR and made immediately available to the assigned support engineer. As described earlier, the data will also be inspected by our advanced automation systems, which look for additional problems using a vast collection of problem signatures and rules. Any problems found will be reported to the assigned support engineer for consideration within the scope of the support engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Microsoft sending a diagnostic package request for every new SR?

This enhancement to our problem resolution processes enables customers to quickly and easily provide information most relevant to the technology area for the logged incident. Automatically requesting a diagnostic package to run at service request creation time gives Microsoft Support Engineers the opportunity to assist our customers in a timely manner, and start making troubleshooting decisions as early as possible in the service request lifetime.

Please note that nothing is automatically executed – customer approval and interaction is required to launch the package on selected systems. At the end of the collection process you can review the captured information before agreeing to upload it to Microsoft to assist in troubleshooting the case.

How does it work?

Diagnostic packages are based on the Windows Troubleshooting Platform (WTP), which is included in Windows Vista and later. WTP packages are offered in the Action Centre (accessed in Control Panel or the Taskbar) to self-diagnosis and fix common problems, such as Aero not working. WTP packages consist of PowerShell scripts and XML control files that together detect and optionally remedy certain misconfigurations. Diagnostic packages extend WTP to provide a controlled delivery of the package, and a seamless way to upload collected diagnostic data to Microsoft. Since diagnostic packages are effectively WTP packages, they are also written in PowerShell, and require Powershell, .Net Framework 2.0 and MSXML 6 to run. Diagnostic packages are contained in a FixIt-branded wrapper (also called MATS) that can install PowerShell if needed (.Net and MSXML will need to be installed manually if not present). The FixIt wrapper also facilitates offline execution and seamless uploading of collected results, should you elect to send the collected data to Microsoft.

What will it do to my systems?

Diagnostic packages do not run any updates or make any changes to your systems without your consent. The contained PowerShell scripts will collect diagnostic data such as log files, registry settings, event logs and other configuration-specific data. They will also check for specific issues, such as missing or incorrect registry settings, and list any issues found in a report that you can view at the end of the execution. As an example the SharePoint diagnostic package detects a small set of well–defined common SharePoint misconfigurations, and offers an opportunity to correct them if possible. Each diagnostic package has an accompanying KB article that lists what data is collected, and what potential issues are detected.

What if the diagnostic package breaks something on one of my systems?

Diagnostic packages do not run any updates or make any changes to the systems without customer confirmation. In the unlikely event of issues with the collection of logs, this can be discussed with the Microsoft Support Engineer as the case progresses.

My environment is really complex. How do you choose which systems to run diagnostic packages on?

If it is not clear which machines should be included in the log collection process, please discuss further with your assigned Microsoft Support Engineer.

Will the collected data contain PII (Personally Identifiable Information)?

Yes, collected data may include configuration, traces and system logs that may contain certain types of PII such as user names, machine names, and IP addresses. Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use many different security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the information that we collect on computer systems with limited access, and located in controlled facilities. When we transmit highly confidential information over the Internet, we protect it by using encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. Please read the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement for additional information on Microsoft's commitment to protecting your privacy: http://privacy.microsoft.com/

Is my data secure? What will Microsoft do with this data?

As above, Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your information. Uploaded diagnostic data will be stored on computer systems with limited access and located in controlled facilities, and will only be used to find a resolution to the issue raised in the SR. As such it will be analysed by our diagnostic systems, and made available to your assigned support engineer to allow them to troubleshoot your reported issue. In compliance with case data handling and retention policies, case-related data files will be deleted from diagnostic servers within 5 days of SR closure, or within 30 days for self-help scenarios. In case your diagnostic data was copied to an engineer’s secure workstation for analysis, our policy mandates that it will be deleted within 90 days of SR closure. Please read the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement for additional information on Microsoft's commitment to protecting your privacy: http://privacy.microsoft.com/

What will happen to the results of the diagnostics?

After the diagnostic package is run, customers can view a report of collected files that would be uploaded, and also a report showing results of the diagnostic, for example which tests passed or failed. If customers choose to upload the collected data and report, these will be held on secure servers that are accessed by Microsoft Support Engineers working on the relevant incident.

Who do I talk to if I have any further questions?

Please talk to your Technical Account Manager if you have any further questions or concerns. Below are links to other resources that may answer

Information about the Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services and Support Diagnostic Platform
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2598970

About Windows Troubleshooting Platform
About WTP (on MSDN.microsoft.com)

Sample KB for the SDP package

Dynamics AX
Microsoft Dynamics AX Inventory Collection Diagnostic
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2754201

Microsoft Dynamics AX AOS Diagnostic
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2416076

Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Baseline Information Collector
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2310074

Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Baseline Diagnostic
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2278575

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Three-Tier Diagnostic
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2821764

Best Regards
Microsoft Dynamics EMEA Diagnostics Team

.Net repair tool

dannyf2 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:27:14 GMT

Dynamics CRM 2011 is based on the .NET framework, so if the framework is broken it could affect CRM. Here is a link to the .NET repair tool:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30135

Best Regards

Dynamics CRM Team

Dynamics CRM 2011 Missing privileges for Security Role triggering errors in Sales Entities view

dannyf2 — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:25:28 GMT

Issue:

You cannot view Sales Entities within the organization – following error message is displayed:

“An error occurred. Please wait a few moments and try again. If the problem persists, contact a system administrator”.

Cause:

Privilege (Principal user (Id=2a73fc21-ed42-e211-b205-984be16d8e52, type=8) is missing prvReadmsdyn_wallsavedqueryusersettings privilege (Id=32200693-74cf-47a0-acc7-4f6f8549907a), ErrorCode: -2147220960); MessageProcessor fail to process message 'RetrieveMultiple' for 'msdyn_wallsavedqueryusersettings'.

Resolution:

According to the following article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh547441.aspx

Custom Entities Tab

The following table lists the privileges shown in the security role editor custom entities tab. Note that there will be one row added for each custom entity.

Entity

Privilege documentation

Create

Read

Write

Filter*

msdyn_wallsavedqueryusersettings (Wall View) Entity Privileges

prvCreatemsdyn_wallsavedqueryusersettings

prvReadmsdyn_ wallsavedqueryusersettings

prvWritemsdyn_ wallsavedqueryusersettings

*Appears if the Activity Feeds solution is installed. This solution is always installed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

To enable these privileges in CRM 2011, check the following steps:

Go to Settings --> Administration --> Security Roles --> the customer's Sales customized role (i.e. Sales Manager, Sales etc.)

Go to Customer Entities tab --> grant User or Organization (green bullet) access --> Under Read column select Filter and Wall View

Save & Close

For more information on Security Models, please visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309524.aspx

Best Regards

Dynamics CRM Team

How to replace event.returnValue after installing UR12 for Dynamics CRM 2011

dannyf2 — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:21:03 GMT

If you are using the event.returnValue function in a custom script, after upgrading to UR12, this method could throw a script error.

Cause:

From the article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh771584.aspx

Update Rollup 12 and the December 2012 Service Update support additional browsers by generating HTML that supports W3C standards. This requires removing dependencies on HTML components (HTC) that are specific to Internet Explorer.

The crmForm API that was used to access form elements in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 will continue to provide backward compatibility only for Internet Explorer. If you have code that uses the crmForm API, or any unsupported internal methods that interact with form objects that used HTC components, you must select to Include HTC support in CRM Forms on the Customization tab of System Settings . Using this setting will not allow newer versions of Internet Explorer to provide the best performance possible. Internet Explorer 10 does not support HTC components. The option to continue support for HTC will be removed in the next major release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. At that time the crmForm API will no longer be supported. Before that time you should upgrade your form scripts to use Xrm.Page . For more information, see Upgrade Scripts to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

Resolution:

If you need a quick solution, and you only use Internet Explorer to access the CRM 2011 webpage, you can turn on HTC support in the system settings of the organization.

HTC is only supported with IE so if you want to use other browsers, you will need to upgrade your code to use the preventDefault() function.

Please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg509060.aspx

We recommend that you use the context.getEventArgs.preventDefault() function to cancel the form save. Of course, to access the context, you need to enable the OnSave event handler to pass the execution context as the first parameter to the OnSave event handler.

For example:

function Contact_OnSave(Context) {

//-------------------SAI CODE---------------//

// Set Phone number to us Format

if (Xrm.Page.getAttribute('igrn_leadsource') != null && Xrm.Page.getAttribute('igrn_leadsource').getValue() == "754340020") {

alert('Lead Source is Required and Cannot be None');

Context.getEventArgs.preventDefault();

}

var firstname = Xrm.Page.getAttribute('firstname').getValue();

var lastname = Xrm.Page.getAttribute('lastname').getValue();

NameValidation(firstname, lastname);

Best Regards

Dynamics CRM Team