Jonas Deibe - Dynamics CRM, C#, JS : CRM 4.0

New SDK available

Jonas Deibe — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:21:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82E632A7-FAF9-41E0-8EC1-A2662AAE9DFB&displaylang=en Downloading . . .

or Online http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb928212.aspx

Buy vs Build

Jonas Deibe — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:19:00 GMT

Buy versus build judge yourself! I would think xRM as a way of accelerate application development.

Costs

Benefits

Buy (xRM)

Locked to vendor

Locked to vender schedules

Customizations to fill GAPs (if any)

Licenses

Configuration more than development

Faster go to market

Use vender enhancements

“Standard”

Shop GAP’s as modules or vertical solutions

Build (.Net or any other langauges)

Expensive

Longer delivery cycles

Harder to rapidly change

Innovation

Tailor application bit by bit

Re-use existing infrastructure

Better control over developer process

Checkout the introduction to xRM for some inspiration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yru5CkANOKA

Mission-critical workload of 50,000 concurrent users

Jonas Deibe — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:56:00 GMT

Feels great! Checkout press release on http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jun09/06-03IntelMSBenchmarkPR.mspx

All business transactions were based on extensive customer research and defined using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Performance and Stress Testing Toolkit.

CRM developer toolkit v1

Jonas Deibe — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:47:00 GMT

A new toolkit to make customizations to CRM 4.0 has been released. Download bits from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/E2DevTkt

View All CRM Entities - Displays a listing of CRM entities that are dynamically available from the CRM Explorer within Visual Studio 2008
Create and Update CRM Entities - Allows for creating new entities and updating existing entities from within the CRM Explorer experience
Create a Wrapper Class - Provides the ability to auto-generate wrapper classes for entities, which exposes the CRM entities and their corresponding attributes as classes and properties respectively to enable development of code to interact with the entities
Generate Plug-in Code - Enumerates the available Plug-ins for an entity and generates the code necessary to jumpstart the plug-in development process
Integrate the Build and Deploy Process - Simplifies the process of building and deploying a CRM solution
Deploy Across Multiple Servers - Assists in deployment and maintenance of Windows installer packages across multiple environments

The E2 team would also like to encourage Toolkit users to submit comments, suggestions, or other general thoughts about extending Toolkit functionality to better support the efforts of developers in planning, developing, customizing, and maintaining on-premise deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. To initiate or participate in Toolkit discussions, In Code Gallery, please see visit the Toolkit Discussions tab at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/E2DevTkt/Thread/List.aspx

My current suggestion list looks something like this

Suggestions for more features
Automatics SDK generation (.chm or other formats)
Plug-in registration (automatic)
Entity relations ship generation (similar as the SDK app to generate Visio ERD schema)
CRM settings from visual studio add-in (link or properties)
All possible deployments (CRM online, partner hosted)
Storage of Javascript customizations and automatic process to remove blank CHARS ect in file to minimize size (minimizer)
Storage for database tunings (custom index ect)
Storage for modified or custom SSRS reports

TR8 in Seattle

Jonas Deibe — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:11:00 GMT

If you are attending the Microsoft technical readiness (TechReady) conference this week in Seattle please drop by on my session. I’ll be speaking about field experience in making CRM and Performance Point Work for Management.

MSDY313 - Field Experience in Making CRM and Performance Point Work for Management
Session Day/Time: 2/5/2009 12:45-14:00
Room: (Sheraton) Metropolitan A

Tips for faster and better performance on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Jonas Deibe — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:51:00 GMT

There are many different factors that affect performance when implementing a CRM system; the hardware, network, infrastructure, business processes, system configuration, ect. Finding those bottlenecks and identifying their actual causes can take a lot of time and might not be an easy task.

In this post, I’ll show what to look for based on my experience from global and local CRM implementations.

Latency

When deploying MS CRM in a WAN environment, a major consideration is the distance between the server(s) and the clients in the solution. As the distance increases, the delay, or latency, associated with each round trip can also increase.

For example, for a connection between a user located in London and a server located in Stockholm, the associated round trip time is 15ms, but were the user located in China, the connection to the sever in Stockholm would require approximately 300ms.

Because downloading a CRM page can consist of multiple roundtrips, the latency associated with a particular connection can directly affect CRM performance. For the example above, a CRM page required 10 round trips to load, the user in London would see the page in less than 0.150 seconds (ten times 15ms), while the user in China would have to wait for 3 seconds (10 times 300ms).

As a result, the fewer the round trips between the client and the server, the better CRM performs.

What is the best way to account for latency during solution design? My experience indicates that during the early phases of a project, it is critical to identify any potential areas of the solution that that might require extra roundtrips. Then, if possible, limit or build smarter functionality for those areas. Try only to render what’s in context or what the user needs at the moment. Perhaps have a verification triggered manually rather than during each onload of the CRM form?

Question every requirement and think about how that specific function might have impact on performance. Using third party tools such as WAN accelerators has been successfully implemented as noted in the Optimizing and Maintaining Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 documentation. The use of caching on the client is also a trick and make sure all static files are marked correctly in the IIS. Crunching and removal of white spaces improve performance in jscript added to forms. There are multiple tools out there to be used and could be part of the build process. Usage of the offline client might also improve performance if the client is used in offline mode and later background synchronized back to the server.

I hope that IE 8 will support more ports open during the load of pages. Currently IE can only have 2 ports open per domain. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 does not support the possibility split files on separated domain to have IE open more ports and then load files more in parallel.

Adding IIS fronts closer to end-users but still having a centralized SQL server does not show any better performance from my experience, rather surprising the performance was worse using that approach. What’s doing great results are adding custom indexes to DB and I would recommend using the different DBA tools available and monitor where to add new indexes.

Centralized vs. De-centralized Topology

When deploying MS CRM in a WAN environment, you can opt for a centralized or decentralized topology. A centralized approach Using a de-centralized (federated) The two types of typology are described and compared in the following table:

Topology	Description	Pros	Cons
Centralized	CRM servers consolidated in a central location	A fully centralized infrastructure is easier to manage and maintain; consolidating resources carries lower TCO and procurement costs.	Query performance suffers from long distance access; retrieving data from remote locations significantly impacts processing speed and data latency
De-centralized	Local CRM servers are distributed around the globe	Users benefit from considerably faster query and reporting; local adoption of the solution at management level will typically be easier	Considerably higher procurement, operations, and maintenance costs; much greater difficulty in maintaining alignment of local solutions to a standard. Data volumes transferred to local implementations have high, concentrated impact on the network

Hardware Planning

What about hardware then? When planning for hardware selection, I consider the following points.

§ Number of transactions per hour – Total average number on key entities used to support business process.

§ Number of concurrent users – In global implementation user amount might be high but not all working in the system at the same time. Take advantage of the time zones. Don’t forget that outlook client talks to the servers regularly depending how you setup your synchronization.

§ Amount of customizations – Workflows, plug-ins do we need to have dedicated SDK servers? In CRM 4.0 you can separate as shown in the following table:

Services	CRM Application Server	CRM Platform Server
Web Application Server	ü
Help Content Service	ü
SDK Service		ü
Asynchronous Service		ü
Discovery Service		ü
Deployment Service		ü

§ Availability and failover – Clustering on SQL, farm on application and web fronts. Don’t forget Reporting Server! The more you secure uptime on your system -the more servers but better sleep and happier users

§ Central vs de-centralized – De centralized requires more hardware as noted above

Figure 1: Sample of suggested server topology, this is just one example, and depending on the scenario, another topology might work better.
Customer environments are unique and each implementation requires analysis and consideration of the variables in specific scenario.

Additional Information

Optimizing and Maintaining Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ba826cee-eddf-4d6e-842d-27fd654ed893&displaylang=en

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Performance and Scalability White Papers
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5852B14A-394C-4898-8374-CAF5E6479EB0&displaylang=en

Support for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957054

Planning a Deployment Topology (SSRS)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157293.aspx

Hosted CRM movie

Jonas Deibe — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:10:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I was invited for a recording about hosted CRM. The movie is part of an education package giving partners an overview of some of Microsoft’s products and solutions. Peter Alvmo, Daniel Akenine and MVP Mikael Nyström were recording movies as well. Topic's are all from benefits by using Vista to Cload services. See all movies here

Happy Peter doing the CRM overview recording

The result could be viewed here.. and it’s in Swedish. I will in a later post add my CRM samples included in the demo.

CRM, Performance Point and MOSS (CRM+PPS+MOSS)

Jonas Deibe — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Extending CRM with BI capacity has been on the radar for a while and with the new BI accelerators this will be an easy customization. The same applies to CRM and MOSS integrations. Since I have spent some time in this very interesting area I tough why not share some parts (screen captures). My goals was to build an application with Sales support (CRM) extend it with document management/collaboration (WSS/MOSS) and analyses, drilldown reporting plus dashboards (PPS)
The end application would be fully integrated and user navigation will be from the CRM client. Since its all installed on-premise authentication is single sign on (SSO). One very important goal is to let the end user not to know what underlying product she is using, it just doesn’t matter as long it works and supports the end-users business/processes.

The first step to do is to install the software. I use two servers and a client in my lab.
• Installation domain controller and Exchange (Server1)
• Installation SQL Server, AS for OLAP’s, Reporting Service (default port 80), CRM server (port 5555), MOSS Server (random port NOT default web 80), Performance Point Server (Monitoring), Visual studio (Server2)
• Installation of Client with Office package, Visual Studio (Client)

The installation process might take some time so don’t expect to install it all on an afternoon.
Details on how-to configure each product is not in scope of the blogs post (might be a later post)

The end result is a very powerfull application; below you see some screen shoots

CRM Webclient, Sharepoint site and PPS webparts rendering Dashboards from OLAP cube

Sharepoint Document Library. Context menu about to open workflows on current document.

Drill down to product from opportunities, all depending how the cube has been designed

PerformancePoint Monitoring SDK
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb848116.aspx

Working with Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175367.aspx

MOSS Developer center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905503.aspx

CRM 4.0 sdk
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa477293.aspx

Building a new demo disc on Windows 2008 Server

Jonas Deibe — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Today was a good day to rebuild my CRM 4.0 demo discs. I started up with downloading latest version of OS (windows 2008 server), to be honest is my first time installing w2008. The installation was super smooth and we have added very nice features to simplify server configuration. I simple checked my role and added extra features needed for my purpose. NOTE! For CRM application server to work properly please read KB950100 before you finish configuration of server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950100

After installation I mapped my Visual Studio 2008 disc and started installation… in the end I have created two new servers and one Vista client (you don’t necessary need to split AD, exchange from CRM server for this demo/sandbox purpose)

1. Windows 2008 AD Server, Exchange

2. Windows 2008 CRM application server (Visual Studio 2008, SQL, All CRM services)

3. Vista CRM client (Office 2007)

Next step is to install IE8 beta 2 on the client but thats another post..

Demo online

Jonas Deibe — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:16:00 GMT

Great place to find cool and usefull solutions

http://www.democrmonline.com/

Reading the right CRM blogs?

Jonas Deibe — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:18:00 GMT

Ben has created a list of useful resource for the CRM community. if you are not listed and active blogger please ping Ben

http://blogs.msdn.com/benriga/archive/2008/05/28/reading-the-right-crm-blogs.aspx

Lambda expressions and anonymous methods on Metadata service in CRM 4.0

Jonas Deibe — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:44:00 GMT

In C# 3.0 Microsoft has added lambda expression. This is not a new feature in computer languages originally designed on a conceptualized level way back in time by an American called Alonzo Church.

Lamda expressions provide shorthand syntax for algorithms.

I have played around with this and below is a simple example where I retrieve all entities from the CRM metadata service. I call my filter method and provide my delegate with the filter expression. I have also an example on using anonym’s method, in previous versions before 2.0 you had to write a named method and pass that name where the delegate was required. The syntax for C# operator is => and lambda expression. Example is simple and I'm only using one param1 (filter) and checks if entity is customizable.

static void Main(string[] args)

{

//Login and retrive all entities from metadataservice (change name to your org)

RetrieveAllEntitiesResponse allEntitiesResponse = Metadata.RetriveAll("mydemo");

//Lambda expression

EntityMetadata[] filterEntities = Common.FilterMetadata(allEntitiesResponse,

filter => (filter.IsCustomizable.Value == true)

);

//Anonymous method

EntityMetadata[] filterEntities = Common.FilterMetadata(allEntitiesResponse,

delegate(EntityMetadata filter)

{

return (filter.IsCustomizable.Value == false);

});

//Write result to console

int total = 0;

foreach (EntityMetadata item in filterEntities)

{

Console.WriteLine(item.SchemaName);

total++;

}

Console.WriteLine("Return of record(s) {0}", total);

Console.ReadKey();

}

If your filter is complex you might consider to create a named method. I have attached Visual Studio 2008 project for you to play around with.

Lambda on MSDN

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Playing around with filters on queues using a plug-in (C#)

Jonas Deibe — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:09:00 GMT

Quite common I get questions regarding modifications on queues. What can be changed in the main GUI and how do I only display queues in context of the actual logged in user. The main GUI is not possible to change since it's none customized page but the content is possible to change by modifying the queue filters. Another possibility is of course to build your own aspx page to render the GUI and using SDK web services to render the information stored in the queues. This is the most advanced and code required solution I would say. I will focus on the simple and pluggable version!

The solution is simple and easy to plug-in using a simple .NET assembly. The trick is to register it on multiple retrieve on queue entity and from there replace the filter expression. I have seen a earlier blog post about this from my UK colleague Simon Hutson but that was based on none supported messages and the code was in VB.NET

Once I have registered plug-in I verify it's functionality by debugging my assembly. Above I'm just about to remove the existing filter expression and replace it with my own filter.

The final result logged in as a CRM administrator. If I'm logged in as service support engineer belonging to business unit C I would not see the second line support queue since it's associated to another business unit B.

Logged in as Admin in a business unit above B and C

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

CRM Online

Jonas Deibe — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Today CRM Online is available as service from Microsoft. Yes the name has changed from Dynamics CRM Live to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (Not to confuse too much on the existing www.live.com platform targeting more the consumer and smaller business) The product code base is more or less the same as the on-premise version and you can still access the rich web service interface even if you implementation is on CRM online. Of course you can add your own custom entities, attributes and relationships to extend the already out-of-the-box functionality. Checkout Extensibility Features CRM Online vs. On-Premise in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for all the details http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc299424.aspx

Check it out at http://crm.dynamics.com/

Press release http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/apr08/04-22DynamicsCRMOnlinePR.mspx

CRM Online technology overview http://crm.dynamics.com/technology/index.html

Authentication explained from custom .NET code http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc151051.aspx

Cache Tool source code

Jonas Deibe — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Console.WriteLine("Cache tool source code as attachment...");

Visual Studio 2005 project