A Freaky Microsoft Dynamics CRM Blog : SQL Server Reporting Services

CRM 4.0 Reporting with Barry Givens and Phil Richardson

mennotk — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:45:00 GMT

Maybe you've seen this on other blogs, but I liked it too much not to blog about it. A cool webcast where two Program Manager Leads, Barry and Phil, walk through the end-user features but also show how you can take reports so much further by pulling them into Visual Studio Report Designer.

Like I said in of my last posts, I wont be surprised if Phil ends up in Hollywood. Take a look at the webcast here: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=360703

Error: 0x80048298

mennotk — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:50:00 GMT

I have seen some weird error codes when installing or configuring Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, but there is.......(read more)

SQL Server 2005 SP2 and Microsoft CRM?

mennotk — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Expanding the rubberband....Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2a just got released. You can obtain the Service Pack here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913089 Why would I announce this on a Microsoft CRM related blog? Well since the new Service Pack has a lot of improvements that could be useful when working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, Office 2007 and Vista. So assuming you are working with our latest version (V3C) on a Vista Machine with Office 2007 I personally would recommend to upgrade your SQL Server 2005 with SP2a, but keep in mind that it is not officially supported yet by the product(team).

SQL Server 2005 SP2a has improvements for Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Replication and much more...you can see the full list here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/b/5/2b5e5d37-9b17-423d-bc8f-b11ecd4195b4/WhatsNewSQL2005SP2.htm

There are even more goodies that you could download and explore....

Download SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies allows you to take advantage of SQL Server 2005 SP2 report processing and management capabilities in SharePoint. The download provides a Report Viewer web part, web application pages, and support for using standard Windows SharePoint Services.

•	Download SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies

Download SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007

SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007 allow you take advantage of SQL Server 2005 predictive analytics in Office Excel 2007 and Office Visio 2007. The download includes Table Analysis Tools for Excel, Data Mining Client for Excel, and Data Mining Templates for Visio.

•	Download SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft Office 2007

Update: Changed SP2 to SP2a and made a note that SP2(a) is officially not supported by the product(team).

Microsoft CRM 3.0 Report Scheduling Wizard (Localized)

mennotk — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:24:00 GMT

Since I am Dutch, I tend to spend some attention to localized thingies. So today I saw this great email announcing that the Microsoft CRM 3.0 Report Scheduling Wizard is available for download in the following languages......

German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Brazilian and Swedish

NOTE: Language version still to come (eta June 19th) include:
Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Norwegian, Turkish, Greek, Portuguese and Finnish

See the below link for more details;
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a101d4d9-6463-4a45-899b-3c3ee979c4d0

Happy downloading!

Microsoft CRM and changing your SQL Reporting Server

mennotk — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:50:00 GMT

What procedure to follow if you split up your Reporting Server from your SQL Server....

You start with adjusting the reporting registerkey on the Microsoft CRM server into the new address. After this you want to reinstall the Reports on the new Reporting Server, to achieve this you need to run a command called publishreports.exe.

This command should be typed in a CMD box, to do this, go to Start-Run-CMD on the CRM server. The command will look like the following:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft CRM\Reports>publishreports.exe "Your Org" "Domain\ReportingGroup {GUID}" "NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService"

You will need to enter your Organization Name exactly how it was installed in CRM.
You will also need to enter your Domain\ReportingGroup {GUID}. The GUID can be found in Active Directory Users and Computers. You should see a ReportingGroup under the CRM Folder.

You should be able to use PublishReports.exe (with the publish.config and RDL file(s)) to publish all the reports including custom. The custom reports are also meant to leverage against advanced find in CRM.

"You might run into trust for delegation issues...pay attention to my follow up postings about this subject."

Reports.config has invalid schema

mennotk — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:01:00 GMT

After installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and wanting to use the reports it gives you an error: Reports.config has invalid schema. I have seen this problem to much lately and i will give you some possible steps to resolve. There is a KB article as well: 914079

It has to do with the fact that .NET 2.0 is installed prior to installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Steps to Resolve:

Step 1. Register .NET 1.1

a. Click Start, click Run, and then type in CMD to open a command prompt window
from the Microsoft CRM Server.

b. Change directories to get to the directory
C:\WINNT\Microsoft.Net\Framework\V1.1.4322 (where WINNT = your default Windows
system directory and V1.1.4322 = the current version of Microsoft.Net Framework
that is installed). Note You may want to use Windows Explorer to see the directory structure before typing the following change directory commands.To switch to this directory directly, type the following command: CD c:\winnt\Microsoft.Net\Framework\V1.1.4322

c. Once in the Microsoft.Net Framework directory, run the following command:
aspnet_regiis.exe -r Note You will need to wait anywhere from a minute to a few minutes for this command to complete and return the cursor to the command prompt window.

Step 2

Confirm that the CRM website is using .NET 1.1 in IIS Manager. Right Click on the website and go to properties. Click on the ASP.NET tab. Verify that 1.1.4322 is selected. This should be .NET 1.1 SP1 or later.

Step 3

Switch the SRS Virtual Directories to use .NET 2.0

On the SRS Website Locate the Reports Virtual Directory. Right Click on the virtual directory and go to properties. Click on the ASP.NET tab. Verify that 2.0 is selected. Once this is done reboot the server.

Help! A new CRM report....

mennotk — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:03:00 GMT

Today i will posting something technical, since my last post was even described as pr0n..Yeah I also can't believe it..maybe it's jealousy....

I often see people having problems publishing/load new reports into Microsoft CRM.
They will get errors such as:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
Microsoft.Crm.Reporting.SRSReport.convertDataSource(CrmContext context) +115
Microsoft.Crm.Reporting.SRSReport..ctor(String name, String description, String xmlContent, String showin, String relatedentity, String category, CrmContext context, String filename, String origFilter) +136
Microsoft.Crm.Reports.ReportCache.CreateSRSReport(String name, String description, String template, String showin, String relatedEntity, String category, String filename, Boolean isNewReport, String defaultFilter) +100
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Platform.Report.InternalCreate(String xml) +629
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Platform.Entity.Create() +109
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Forms.AppForm.RaiseDataEvent(FormEventId eventId) +404
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Forms.EndUserForm.Initialize(Entity entity) +56
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Forms.EndUserForm.Execute(Entity entity) +13
Microsoft.Crm.Web.Tools.ReportProperty.ReportPropertyPage.ConfigureForm() +202
Microsoft.Crm.Application.Controls.AppPage.OnPreRender(EventArgs e) +30
System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +62
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +1499

The steps below describe the way how to solve it when you are using Visual Studio 2005, i bet 2003 works kinda similair.

1. Create a new Report Project in Visual Studio 2005

2. Right click on Reports, choose to add Existing Item

3. Double Click on the report to open it.

4. Click on the Data (top tab) above the open report file.

5. Click the "..." button just to the right of Dataset to open Dataset Properties.

6. Click on the "..." button to the right of the Data Source drop down list.

7. Clear the "Use shared data source reference" option.

8. Click on the "Edit..." button to the right of Connection string.

9. Enter the correct SRS Server Name, enter the authentication method, and choose the correct database name.

10. Click OK, this will change the source for the entire report.

11. Click OK to the Visual Studio window again.

12. Choose, File, Save <Report> as...

13. Save the report on the CRM Server and try to upload it again. This time it should load.

Form Based Quotes Orders and Invoices

mennotk — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:44:00 GMT

I just got this information about new reports.

There are a new set of Quote, Order and Invoice reports in the download section that one can publish in CRM and expose through the individual forms. These reports are a better alternative than the Print Preview offered by the stock CRM package and the nice thing is that the reports are context sensitive and are visible and run from the QOI forms! Additionally, if your customer resides in another locale where the number format is different, these report allow you to change the number format on the fly! Install doc included.

Get them here..

Microsoft SQL Reporting Services (SSRS)

mennotk — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:34:00 GMT

You might think what is this item about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services doing on a Blog about Microsoft CRM 3.0? Since SSRS is the reporting engine we use in Microsoft CRM 3.0 i want to explain how you can install SSRS on a WLBS enviroment with a 64-bit SQL 2000 database.

You would assume it's next next finish, well your wrong on this one. If you would do next next finish you would get an error like:

This edition of the Reporting Server Database is not supported on the edition of SQL Server 2000 you have chosen, Please choose another SQL Server that matches the requirements.

To solve it in short:

- Install a 32-bit SQL 2000 server.
- Install SSRS on the first WLBS server and use the 32-bit SQL Server.
- Install SSRS on the second WLBS server.
- Apply SP2 on both servers and reboot
- Export the keys as backup.
- Move the databases to the 64-bit database.
- Specify the new databaseserver on the SRSS which was installed on the WLBS servers.

But as i said this was the short version and it took me a while to figure this out and to find this great article that explain this workaround in a much better way.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B840714