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In the previous blog post we showed how a sales manager, Kevin, can use the charts and dashboards features to derive quick insights from his Microsoft Dynamics CRM data. In this blog we show how we can take such analyses to the next level by using the customization capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

Step 1- Understanding when to customize charts and dashboards

Earlier we showed how Kevin can use the chart and dashboard designer to create a quick dashboard that provides insights about Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Orders and Invoices. All the charts we created in that blog had just one level of grouping. This suffices for simple analysis. However, there is a lot more that charts can do! Imagine an account chart that not only shows when the account was modified but also what the current status of the account is, and allows for more control over the presentation properties of the chart.

Additionally the charts that we created earlier were rendered on the dashboard and thus showed aggregate information from all the records contained in their respective views. However, in some cases account managers need to access this information in the context of a specific account.

In this blog we show how such complex charts can be customized, and embedded in forms.

Step 2- Decide which views, charts, forms and dashboards need customization.

Let’s discuss two broad categories of customizations that we will illustrate in this blog. First are charts that group records by 2 criteria – date of modification and current status. Second are charts that customize the account form to show it in the context of a specific account. (Note that any form in CRM can be customized to show charts)

The following table summarizes the information that Kevin would like to track using the dashboard:

Step 3- Create the solution and its components

Note: The chart customizations that we illustrate in this blog can be done on either system or user charts. However forms can be customized only by administrators/customizers.

If the customizations need to be shared with all users in an organization, it is a good idea to create these as part of a solution package and publish the solution. This way the solution can also be reused across different CRM organizations.

Creating a solution in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is quite easy; I created a solution called CRMTrackingDashboard for the purpose of this blog. To begin with we need to add the entities we need into the solution using “Add Existing” feature in the Solutions.

Step 4- Create the views needed to solve your problem

We need to create a new view for each of the components described above. Creating these new views is straightforward. I have created a new view for each of these entities with a filtering criteria that says “Modified On Equals This Month”. All these views were created as part of the CRMTrackingDashboard solution.

Step 5 – Create the Charts needed to solve the problem

Customizing charts to include additional grouping criteria and presentation properties requires XML definitions for these charts. To make the creation and editing of these charts a little easier,, one can always create a basic chart definition using the chart designer, export it to XML, hand edit the additional changes, and import the definition back in.

We will use the charts designer as a starting point for creating a first draft of the account chart definition. To create the above chart for the Accounts entity –

1. Go to Accounts entity in the solution explore

2. Go to the Charts Node

3. Click on New Chart

4. Create a chart by giving grouping criteria as the “Modified on”, and set the date-grouping to day. Set the name of this chart as “Daily Account Status”

5. Export this chart definition using the “Export Chart” feature in Actions menu.

We are now ready to hand edit this charts definition and add the additional grouping criteria.

Since our second grouping criteria is the Status field, we need to add this into the “datadescription” part of the chart definition. The exact criteria that we need to add is –

<attribute groupby="true" alias="groupby_status" name="statecode" />

Having added this into the existing chart definition, the updated chart’s data description looks like the following:

  <datadescription>
    <datadefinition>
      <fetchcollection>
        <fetch mapping="logical" aggregate="true">
          <entity name="account">
            <attribute alias="aggregate_column" name="name" aggregate="count" />
            <attribute groupby="true" alias="groupby_column" name="modifiedon" dategrouping="day" />
            <attribute groupby="true" alias="groupby_status" name="statecode" />
          </entity>
        </fetch>
      </fetchcollection>
      <categorycollection>
        <category>
          <measurecollection>
            <measure alias="aggregate_column" />
          </measurecollection>
        </category>
      </categorycollection>
    </datadefinition>
  </datadescription>

We also need to tweak the presentation a little so that we can specify the exact presentation properties that we would like to use. Here is the presentation description that we would like to use:

<presentationdescription>
    <Chart Palette="None" PaletteCustomColors="97,142,206; 209,98,96; 168,203,104; 142,116,178; 93,186,215; 255,155,83; 148,172,215; 217,148,147; 189,213,151; 173,158,196; 145,201,221; 255,180,138">
      <Series>
        <Series ChartType="StackedColumn" IsValueShownAsLabel="True" Font="{0}, 9.5px" LabelForeColor="59, 59, 59">
          <SmartLabelStyle Enabled="True" />
        </Series>
      </Series>
      <ChartAreas>
        <ChartArea BorderColor="White" BorderDashStyle="Solid">
          <AxisY TitleForeColor="59, 59, 59" TitleFont="{0}, 10.5px" LineColor="165, 172, 181">
            <MajorGrid LineColor="239, 242, 246" />
            <MajorTickMark LineColor="165, 172, 181" />
            <LabelStyle Font="{0}, 10.5px" ForeColor="59, 59, 59" />
          </AxisY>
          <AxisX TitleForeColor="59, 59, 59" TitleFont="{0}, 10.5px" LineColor="165, 172, 181">
            <MajorGrid Enabled="False" />
            <MajorTickMark Enabled="False" />
            <LabelStyle Font="{0}, 10.5px" ForeColor="59, 59, 59" />
          </AxisX>
        </ChartArea>
      </ChartAreas>
      <Legends>
        <Legend Alignment="Center" LegendStyle="Table" Docking="Bottom" Font="{0}, 11px" ShadowColor="0, 0, 0, 0" ForeColor="59,59,59"></Legend>
      </Legends>
      <Titles>
        <Title Alignment="TopLeft" DockingOffset="-3" Font="{0}, 13px" ForeColor="59, 59, 59"></Title>
      </Titles>
    </Chart>
  </presentationdescription>

The hand edited chart definition can be imported back into CRM using the Actions->Import Chart feature

Step 6- Create your dashboard

Now that our views and charts have been created we are now ready to add a dashboard into the solution. Here are the steps –

1. Go to the dashboard node within solutions

2. Click on create new dashboard

The steps for creating a system dashboard are same as the steps for creating a user dashboard, which was described in our previous blog. Hence we will not repeat it here. However note that the customizer can designate one dashboard in the solution as a system default dashboard. The system default dashboard applies to all users in the org. The system default dashboard settings, can be overridden by the user default dashboard settings for each user.

Dashboard Screenshot

Step 7- Customize the Accounts form

WE mentioned earlier that we would also like to show information in the context of an account. In order to do this –

1. Navigate to the Account node in solutions

2. Open the account form using the form editor

3. Insert charts on account – to insert the Orders on the account follow the steps below

    a. Click on the sub-grid icon in the form editor ribbon

    b. Choose entity as Orders

    c. Select “Show Related Records”

    d. Select the view “Orders Modified This Week”

    e. Click on the show chart only checkbox

4. Repeat Step 3 for adding other charts on the dashboard such

Here is the screenshot of the Account form showing charts for Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes, and Orders in the context of that account:

Conclusion

It is evident from the above steps that the charts and dashboards features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 are easy to use and powerful at the same time. While Dashboards can be created by business end users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, there is also room for developers to enhance these dashboards so they meet a wider range of business needs. We hope the steps outlined above will help your organization make good use of these features. We will have more blogs in the future to showcase further analytics related capabilities.

Cheers,

Siddhartha Rai

From the CustomerEffective folks,

I’ve been spending time with CRM 2011 beta for Outlook, and there are a lot of things to love about it.  I’ll be posting a series of blog posts about some of my favorite new features.

One thing that jumps out at you is how much work has gone in to increasing usability, and more tightly integrating CRM functionality into Outlook.  A great example is sales literature and knowledge base articles.

Read more…

Thanks for noticing! 

When you work with lists, you often need to filter them and work with a subset, like customers from Germany or items in Blue location. After you create filters on a list, you can save the filtered list. This is especially useful if you have several filter parameters and you don't want to create the filters every time you start your work. You can come back to the saved filtered list any time you want.

1. To save the filtered list, click the name of the list next to the filter field.
2. Click Save View As.

• Type the name for the view and choose the Activity Group to store the view.
• Click OK.

• Click Yes to restart the application.

 After restart the saved filter appears in the Navigation Pane.

In Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 in new Role Tailored Client we have new feature – we can show lists in “tree view”. We can expand/collapse nodes and make lists more interesting and more visual.

However this new feature isn’t documented very well and every developer needs to collect his own experience. With this article I will try to make this way easierJ

So if we want to see Tree View we need to have:

1.       Table with field type Integer. This field will get us major point – will show is record root or fork or leaf.

a.       Few words about “IndentationColumnName” field; (that how property to indentation field is named on Pages)

                                                              i.      Field could be only type Integer.

                                                            ii.      Allowed values are >=0. I didn’t find upper limit, but because view indentation shift is calculated based on this value then with “big” values filed is indented too far to right that becomes invisible.

                                                          iii.      Root record has “0” indentation. Higher numbers means higher indentation. There could be several “0” records placed on table.

2.       Page type List.

a.       On page designer there must be “Group” & subtype “Repeater” and we need to set on it:

                                                              i.      Property “ShowAsTree” = Yes

                                                            ii.      Property “IndentationColumnName” must be field name we defined in table as indentation field.

b.      Repeater must include fields we want to see in list. First field in list will be indented and will have ‘+-‘ signs for collapse/expand list. Indentation field could be not included to page.

If everything is done (and you have data in the table), then run page. Fortunately for me I have table with some data in it:

Few interesting points I want to have your attention:

• Field “Int” is used for primary key
• Field “Indentation” has indentation value used for Tree View.
• Both fields are not used on page so field “Txt” has text showing which record and what indentation level is.
• There are no relations between primary key and indentation. You see 0 indentation is record 18.

So run page and see:

If we “Expand All” we’ll see:

Wow it works J

Please keep in mind:

• There could be few records with the same indentation.
• If after record ‘A’ is going record ‘B’ with bigger indentation then we can expand record ‘A’.
• View belongs to sorting. I sorted records based on “Indentation” value. So I see “full tree” started from “0 level”. But really “0 level” record is 18 record by primary key, and if change sorting to primary key I will see different tree.

You see now: first record has primary key 0 and indentation level 5, but next record has level 1 so my first record has no possibilities “collapse/expand”. Record 18 with level 0 is in the end of list and only one record is after it, so “my root records from previous view” now can expand/collapse only one record.

And last:

• You can’t insert manually new records to “Tree View”. Please use code if you want to create new records from “Tree view”
• You can delete records manually from “Tree view” one by one. If you will try to delete not expanded record then only this record will be deleted.
• You can edit records in “Tree view”. You can modify even “Indentation level” field, just after modify “Refresh” (F5) and you will see “new view”.
• There were few stability issues in “Tree view ”, so please use possible latest NAV builds
• If you have questions/issues regarding this functionality, please contact our best ever NAV support team J

Gedas Busniauskas
Microsoft Lithuania
Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA

Just a few points about running classic reports from RTC, based on common support scenarios:

RUNMODAL (Not possible)

RTC runs classic reports (reports with no RDL Layout) by starting the report engine from a classic client. However, RTC is not able to run classic reports MODALLY. RUNMODAL as opposed to just RUN means that execution of the  next line of C/AL code waits until the report has completed. Of course RTC reports which DO have a layout can run MODALLY without any problems.

So Report.RUNMODAL on a classic report from RTC does exactly the same as Report.RUN, i.e. RTC will launch the classic report engine but not wait for the report to finish before executing the next line of code. In most cases this doesn't matter. But the challenge is when the next line of code dependeds on the report having completed, for example to email the report, convert it to pdf, write back a result of the report to the database, or something else.

Running batches of classic reports (Improvement)

The good news is that there has been a few small other improvements relating to running classic reports from RTC. When the classic client closes, it updates a few files like the .zup file, and in the case of breakpoints having been used, also NaviBP.xml as described here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd355196.aspx
In case we launched a batch of classic reports, one instance of the classic report engine would start up for each report. And each instance could overwrite each other's files, leading to error messages like this:

You cannot use the file C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming\fin.zup  because it is already in use.

and

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!

Program: C:...

 This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information. 

But with KB 2398170 (build 31587) the behaviour is changed, so that now when the classic client closes the report engine, it willl 1) only try to update the .zup file, and 2) not try to update naviBP.xml at all, avoiding the error messages mentioned above.

 
Licenses (No, it doesn't consume a license)

When you run a classic report from RTC, this does NOT consume a user license. If you watch the Session table while a classic report is running, you will see that a new session has connected, but with "Application Name" = '111'. In this way the system knows not to count it as a normal NAV client, so it will not count as a concurrent session.

Lars Lohndorf-Larsen

Microsoft Dynamics UK

Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA

Hi, I’m Dean Paron, Product Unit Manager for Windows MultiPoint Server and today I’m excited to announce the availability of the Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Beta.

Back in February of 2010, we launched a new product, called Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, which is designed primarily for the education market to help schools increase computing access to more students for a lower total cost. Now, schools around the world are using Windows MultiPoint Server in their classrooms, labs and libraries to give students the experience of using the latest Windows technology that will help prepare them for the workforce. Teachers and students are finding Windows MultiPoint Server to be a great way to collaborate with each other on school projects and experience Windows 7 and the power it brings to help them teach and learn. You can watch an online demo of Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 and listen to customers talk about their experiences here. Education institutions, and other organizations such as non-profits and charities, are taking advantage of the benefits of Windows MultiPoint Server, such as a lower total cost of IT ownership, and easier setup, management and use.

So what’s new with Windows MultiPoint Server 2011? We’ve been listening to customer and partner feedback and here are some of the new things you’ll find:

1. Desktop thumbnails that make it easier for teachers to orchestrate activities across the classroom, see what students are working on, and interact with student sessions.
2. Support for connecting thin clients over the LAN. This allows for virtually unlimited distances between stations.
3. The ability to string multiple MultiPoint Server “pods” and manage them from a unified MultiPoint Manager console. Great for labs and libraries where there are a large number of stations in a single place.
4. Split screen capabilities at each user station. Turn one screen into two separate stations for a new way of collaborative learning between students.
5. An ISV extensibility model based on a common SDK with the next versions of Windows Small Business Server and Windows Home Server, which enables ISVs such as learning and classroom management providers to integrate with MultiPoint Server.
6. Support for domain join to integrate Windows MultiPoint Server with your existing Active Directory infrastructure.

If your organization is struggling with providing enough computers for your users, decreasing technology budgets, limited technical support and outdated hardware and software, I encourage you to check out Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 today and to take a look at the enhancements we are thinking about for through the now available Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 beta.

Regards,

Dean Paron
Product Unit Manager
Windows MultiPoint Server

Download the Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Beta and please send us feedback so we can keep improving!

This week our President Kurt DelBene let the world know of our plans to release Office 365 and I wanted to share my thoughts on the announcement and positive impact it will have on the market, SharePoint customers, and our partners. Today Office, Exchange, Lync and SharePoint provide the productivity backbone for many organizations. With these products, companies are already seeing great results and high ROI. With Office 365 we’re proud to announce the next step in the future of productivity, bringing together these capabilities in an always-up-to-date cloud service.  It provides businesses of all sizes with professional grade productivity solutions at a predictable monthly cost.

To date, SharePoint 2010 is a huge hit with our customers. When I joined the business earlier this year, I was impressed with the passion shown by customers and partners using the product to transform the way their organizations collaborate and share information. We have more than 17,000 customers and 100 million people that rely on SharePoint every day. Now, with SharePoint Online as part of Office 365, millions more will be able to benefit from the power of SharePoint.

With great applications, SharePoint Online helps organizations and professionals create sites to securely share information, insights, and important documents with colleagues, customers, and partners.  

It’s simple to create Office documents and save them directly to SharePoint Online, easy to access your content off-line or on your phone, and quickly share information and insights using familiar tools.

 

And, with Office 365, organizations get the full benefit of Office, Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint because it is designed to work together.

For SharePoint developers and independent software vendors (ISV’s), the opportunities to configure and extend SharePoint Online today include the ability to:

• configure master pages, templates, page layouts, and site columns
• customize the site UI with custom Silverlight controls, navigation or functional controls
• build customized document workflows, using data and documents contained within SharePoint Online
• customize lists and content types
• use Sandbox Solutions to build custom web parts
• design browser based forms using InfoPath forms

Please visit the MSDN SharePoint Online Developer Resource Center to learn more about the opportunities to extend and customize SharePoint Online. 

I know many ISV’s will be wondering how to support some of the rich solutions created for SharePoint 2010, such as those that rely on full-trust code or connect to back-end systems using Business Connectivity services (BCS). Over time we intend to enable many of these features online, such as BCS.  Others like full-trust code require a new approach to run effectively in a highly scalable shared service. As we move towards public availability we will be providing further guidance on how we will be moving the capabilities or providing alternative approaches to support these advanced scenarios online.  

For IT professionals and site administrators, SharePoint Online offers easy ways to plan, set up and manage your SharePoint Online service using the SharePoint Online Administration Center including the ability to:

• set up a new service
• create or delete a site collection
• build extranet sites and invite customers and partners securely
• manage administrators for a site collection
• change storage quota and warning level
• access end user support and training content

Please visit the TechNet SharePoint Online Administration and Planning site for guidance on setting up and managing your SharePoint Online service and stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

The announcement of Office 365 is an important milestone for the SharePoint business and I am looking forward to the opportunity it will bring to many more organizations and professionals who can now benefit from the power of SharePoint. Starting today, we begin testing Office 365 with a few thousand organizations around the world.  Over time, we’ll expand the beta to more organizations as we prepare to launch the service worldwide next year. I encourage you to learn more about SharePoint Online and sign up for the Office 365 beta at office365.com.

-Eric Swift

General Manager
SharePoint Product Management Group

Earlier today, I posted about our Microsoft Office 365 announcement as well as the announcement of the beta for Microsoft Office 365.  In that post I included several links to things like the beta program, Microsoft partner page for Microsoft Office 365, the Microsoft Office 365 website, the Microsoft Office 365 Twitter & Facebook accounts, and more.  (So be sure you read through the earlier post to make not of those resources as well)

Since that post, there have been several other resources that have come online and I thought I would put up a quick post here on the blog with many of these for you:

• Did you miss today’s live announcement broadcast?  No worries, we recorded it!  I’ve included it below so you can watch it here on the blog, or you can also click HERE to go directly to the video.

• Want to see more of what Microsoft Office 365 can bring to you and your clients?  Check out this demo by John Betz, Director of Business Productivity Online Services at Microsoft, as he demos Office 365 across the PC, phone and browser:

• Check out this video, posted by the Office 365 team, highlighting Microsoft Office 365 and showing what Microsoft Office 365 can bring to users everywhere, of all sizes:
  
  
  

  Microsoft Office 365
  
  

• Be sure to keep an eye on the Microsoft Office 365 Team’s You Tube channel to see when they publish more videos in the future
• Are you a Microsoft partner?  Take a look at the post from Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Group, about today’s announcement
• Wondering what Office 365 offers for small business and what pricing plans and options are available?  Check out:
  • Microsoft Office 365 for Small Business page
  • Microsoft Office 365 Pricing and Plans Fact Sheet
• What can Microsoft Office 365 offer to enterprises and what plans are available?  Check out:
  • Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprises page
  • Microsoft Office 365 Pricing and Plans Fact Sheet
• On Microsoft BPOS (Business Online Productivity Suite) and wondering what Microsoft Office 365 means for you?  Check out:
  • Microsoft Office 365 transition center – Includes information about the transition, a transition checklist, a full FAQ about the transition, and more.
• Want to know even more about the Microsoft Office 365 beta program and how you can participate?  Check out:
  • Microsoft Office 365 Beta page
  • Microsoft Office 365 Beta Service Descriptions
• Want to learn more about the various components included in Microsoft Office 365?  Check out:
  • Office Professional Plus page on Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft Exchange Online page on Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft SharePoint Online page on Microsoft Office 365
  • Microsoft Lync Online page on Microsoft Office 365
• What are the system requirements for Microsoft Office 365?
  • Check out the FAQ page, where we have these listed
• Partners, check out the Quickstart Online Services page for:
  • Microsoft Online Services/Office 365 training info
  • Microsoft Online Services/Office 365 Resource Center
  • Microsoft Online Services/Office 365 Community/Blog
  • Microsoft Online Services/Office 365 Resource Wiki
• Did you want to read the press release from today about the announcement?  You can do so HERE.
• Want to see some screenshots of Microsoft Office 365?  Here you go:
  • Microsoft Office 365: IT Management Dashboard
  • Microsoft Office 365: Co-Authoring
  • Microsoft Office 365: Video Editing
  • Microsoft Office 365: Adding a new user
  • Microsoft Office 365: Microsoft Office on Windows Phone 7
• We also have the Microsoft Office 365 FAQ page online that has answers to many questions, broken into the following categories:
  • General
  • Office 365 offerings and versions
  • BPOS customers
  • Purchase information
  • Office 365 Beta
  • Technical
  • Partner
  • Communications
  • I would highly recommend checking this page out

I hope the additional information above, in combination with my earlier Microsoft Office 365 announcement post helps give answer many of your Microsoft Office 365 questions as well as provide you with a good overview of what Microsoft Office 365 is and the opportunity it provides for you and your clients of all sizes.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

MSDN , TechNet, and Expression

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The ability to create custom reports has been one of the top asks for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. When we set about designing a solution, security, ease of use, and performance were one of our top goals along with portability of reports, so that you can use the same RDL for CRM Online and On-premises deployments. In addition, we wanted to have the best authoring environment for Custom Reports. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, we have introduced Fetch-based custom reports that can run in CRM Online as well as On-premise, are secure, have great performance, and leverage the best WYSIWYG environment for authoring.

You will now be able to add company logos to the report, perform conditional formatting to highlight issues, control the format of the report to name a few. Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) by Microsoft SQL Server is the best and most powerful authoring environment for authoring SQL Server Reports. By enabling authoring of CRM Fetch-based reports in BIDS, we tried to address all your concerns. We only ask you to stick to CRM’s Fetch XML to query data out of CRM.

Fetch XML based Custom Reports

Custom reports in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 are your regular RDLs with Fetch XML as the data query language. These are identified by MSCRMFETCH in the DataProvider section in the RDL.

<DataSources>

   <DataSource Name="DataSource1">

      <ConnectionProperties>

         <DataProvider>MSCRMFETCH</DataProvider>

         <ConnectString>http://localhost;AdventureWorksCycle</ConnectString>

         </ConnectionProperties>

      <rd:SecurityType>DataBase</rd:SecurityType>

      <rd:DataSourceID>fd45ed8a-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-deeeaf87dd31</rd:DataSourceID>

   </DataSource>

</DataSources>

Along with the Fetch XML in the CommandText, the below query gets the opportunity details:

<DataSets>

   <DataSet Name="DataSet1">

      <Query>

         <DataSourceName>DataSource1</DataSourceName>

         <CommandText>&lt;fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="false"&gt;

   &lt;entity name="opportunity"&gt;

   &lt;attribute name="name" /&gt;

   &lt;attribute name="customerid" /&gt;

   &lt;attribute name="estimatedvalue" /&gt;

   &lt;attribute name="statuscode" /&gt;

   &lt;attribute name="opportunityid" /&gt;

   &lt;order attribute="name" descending="false" /&gt;

   &lt;/entity&gt;

   &lt;/fetch&gt;</CommandText>

         <rd:UseGenericDesigner>true</rd:UseGenericDesigner>

      </Query>

      <Fields>

         <!-- Omitted RDL -->

      </Fields>

   </DataSet>

</DataSets>

The rest of the RDL is same as any other SQL report which means you can leverage full capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services to render your CRM data as a scorecard, Sales Funnel or Bing Map. We will look at an example later in the post.

Execution of Fetch-Based Custom Reports

To be able to run these Fetch-based reports, we have a runtime component , custom data processing extension (DPE) that resides on and is invoked by the SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) on encountering MSCRMFETCH in the DataProvider attribute (as mentioned above). SSRS passes the command text to the DPE to execute. DPE executes the query in the context of the user performing the action and provides the data back. This is then formatted as per the RDL by SSRS before being presented to the user.

Authoring of Fetch-Based Custom Reports

To enable WYSIWYG authoring in BIDS, we have written a custom plugin for Business Intelligence Development Studio that allows users to specify the Fetch XML query and provide the metadata for authoring. It also enables live preview right in the BIDS environment without having to upload the report to CRM. Once you are happy with the report, you can upload it to CRM as an RDL (with embedded Fetch). You only need BIDS and Report Authoring Extension to be installed.

Download Now

The runtime component that resides in SSRS is known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting Extensions (English Beta bits available here as part of CRM Server). The authoring component, a plug-in for BIDS, is known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Fetch Authoring Extension (English Beta bits available here). Please note: BIDS being a 32-bit environment, the Fetch Authoring Extension is also available in 32-bit only. For purposes of Beta, the Fetch Authoring Extension is known as Fetch Extension.

Other Enhancements

In addition to enabling Fetch-based reports, we have made reports Solutions aware. That is, reports can now be packaged into a Solution and deployed effortlessly to several organizations. A Report Wizard-generated report can be transported via solutions to different orgs and can still be edited via Report Wizard.

The Report Wizard now generates Fetch XML based reports. You can now download these report RDLs to act as a starting point for your Fetch-based Reports.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting Extensions now installs both Fetch data processing extension and SQL data processing extension (aka srs dataconnector) on SSRS. Both the data processing extensions are a mandatory install.

For On-premises deployments, the SQL-based reports will continue to be supported along with scheduled reports and delivery mechanisms like email.

There are two ways of writing a custom Fetch-based Report; we will look at both of them here.

Authoring a Fetch-based Report

Customize a Report Wizard report

If CRM Report Wizard satisfies your reporting needs, but you need to change some formatting, like adding a company logo or perform conditional formatting, you can follow these steps:

1. Create a report in Microsoft Dynamics CRM using the Report Wizard for Opportunities that shows Key fields like Topic, Potential Customer, Estimated Revenue, Estimated Close Data, Probability etc (refer this CRM 4 help topic for more help).

2. While still in the Report Wizard,

    a. Click ‘Run Report’ on the Action toolbar to verify the contents.

    b. On the Actions toolbar, click ‘Download Report’, and save the RDL to your machine.

3. Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Fetch Authoring Extension, if needed.

4. Launch Business Intelligence Development Studio.

5. Create a new Report Server Project.

6. In Solution Explorer, right-click the Reports folder, click ‘Add’, and then click ‘Add Existing Item’.

7. Select the RDL that you downloaded in Step 2.b.

8. Double-click the RDL in Solution Explorer and navigate to ‘Report Data’ window on left

9. Expand the ‘Data Sources’ node and right-click the CRM node.

10. Click ‘Data Source Properties’.

11. In the Data Source Properties dialog, click ‘Credentials’.

12. Select ‘Use this user name and password’, and specify your CRM User name and password. Click ‘OK’.

(For Online customers, the user name would be of format ‘example@hotmail.com’. For On-premises customer, the user name would be of format ‘domain\LoginId’)

Note: On-premises users may skip this step if CRM is installed in same domain as ‘Use Windows Authentication’ is selected by default.

13. Now, navigate to the ‘Preview’ tab. If your credentials are correct, you should see the report preview similar to the one shown below:

Note: If you do not have any data in CRM, You can always enable Sample Data by going to Settings…Data Management…Sample Data and Selecting ‘Install Sample Data’. It takes a few minutes to populate the sample data in the CRM system. You can remove the Sample Data by same route.

Now, let’s add a company logo and some conditional formatting to the report.

14. To add a company logo, click the ‘Toolbox’ tab, and click ‘Image’.

15. Click on the Report where you would like to add the Image.

16. In the Image dialog, click Import to select the company logo (image can be JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF).

17. Click Ok. Adjust the image size by dragging the side bands.

18. Let’s say, you want to highlight all opportunities having probability > 80%. To do that, select the row in the Design Mode (click the Design tab).

19. Press F4 to view the row properties. ( via Menu ‘View’…’Properties Window’)

This should open the properties window (usually in the lower-right corner of Visual Studio).

20. Find the BackgroundColor property, click the down arrow, and click ‘Expression’.

21. Type the following in expression

=IIF(Fields!closeprobability.Value > 80 ,"Green","Transparent")

22. Click OK.

23. To see the report preview, click the Preview tab. Depending on your data, your will see opportunities with probability > 80 in a green background color.

24. Save your project.

25. Now upload the RDL to CRM. Select the RDL in Solution Explorer, and from the Properties window, copy the ‘Full Path’.

26. Navigate to CRM. Select the report you had created in Step 1, and click ‘Edit’ on the Ribbon menu.

27. In the Report Wizard, change Report Type to ‘Existing File’, and then click ‘Browse’.

28. In the File dialog, paste the full path (copied in step 25), and click ‘Open’.

29. In the Report Wizard, on the Action toolbar, click ‘Save’ to upload the new RDL.

CRM will confirm the action as shown below (you can also upload the report as a new report, if needed)

30. Click Ok.

31. Now, let’s run the report by clicking ‘Run Report’. You should see the newly added Logo as well as the conditional formatting.

The report is now available for use.

Create custom Fetch-based reports

The steps in the earlier section demonstrated how you can take a Report Wizard report, enhance it in Business Intelligence Development Studio, and upload it back to CRM. What if you wanted to create a report from scratch in BIDS?

The initial steps vary a little. Let’s use the same example.

First you need a Fetch XML query that will retrieve the data for the report.

1. Navigate to CRM Advanced Find, and specify a query.

2. You can pick the individual columns by selecting ‘Edit Columns’

3. After you are satisfied with your query, click ‘Download Fetch XML’.

4. Save the Fetch XML to your local drive.

5. Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Fetch Extension, if needed.

6. Launch Business Intelligence Development Studio.

7. Create a new Report Server Project.

8. In Solution Explorer, right-click Reports folder, and click ‘Add New Report’.

The Report Wizard will launch.

9. Click Next on the first page.

10. In the ‘Select the Data Source’ page, specify a name for the data source, select ‘Microsoft Dynamics CRM Fetch’ as Type, and type in the connection string.

Connection String should be in the following format:

CRM Server URL;[Org Unique Name];[Home Realm URL]

Only the CRM Server URL is mandatory. If Org Name is not specified and the user belongs to multiple orgs, then the first org returned by CRM is used. For most users, you will not need to worry about Home Realm. Home Realm URL is the Identity Provider used by your organization and is needed when your organization uses Federation for identity management. Contact your network administrator to know the URL.

For CRM Online, You will need to specify your Live ID. And, if you belong to more than one org, you will need to specify your Org Name.

11. Next, click ‘Credentials’, and select ‘Use a specific user name and password’.

12. Click OK. Click Next.

13. In the ‘Design the Query’ dialog, paste the contents of Fetch XML query you had saved in Step 4.

(Optionally, you can see the results of query by going to Query Builder, and clicking ‘Run’)

14. Click Next.

15. On the Select Report Type page, with tabular choice selected, click Next.

16. On the Design Table page, select the fields to show in the details.

Note: Attributes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM appear more than once in results. attributeName is formatted value and attributeNameValue is the value of the fields. For e.g estimatedvalue will be $10,000.00 and estimatedvalueValue will be numeric 10000.0000

17. Click ‘Finish >>|’.

18. Give a name to the report, and click Finish.

19. Click the Preview tab to view the report.

You can format the report before uploading it to CRM. The steps remain the same as explained in earlier example.

We just saw how easy it is to create a Fetch-based report via the Report Wizard or a new custom report using BIDS. You can also leverage native capabilities offered by BIDS to render scorecards, maps, sales funnels etc.

Note: In case you are experiencing issues with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta, please leverage the Beta Forums.

Please let us know, in comments, what topics you would like to see about Reporting in the future blogs.

Cheers,

Abhijit Gore

Big news today as the wraps were taken off the newly announced Office 365 online apps for everybody! 

You can learn more and sign up for the Beta here!

With the release of NAV 2009 R2, we have endeavoured to prioritise features that many customers and partners have requested and this includes the ability to integrate NAV with CRM.

The approach we have chosen to provide integration between NAV and CRM is to use an existing solution called the Connector for Microsoft Dynamics. This solution enables the integration of NAV 2009 R2 with CRM 4.0 online or on premise.

As part of R2, we will provide out of the box support for synchronising common data such as customer, contact, sales order, and invoice, while also providing a means to enable synchronisation between any other standard or custom entities or fields that support specific business processes.

Let's take a typical scenario where integration between CRM and NAV can really support a business process:

The marketing manager uses CRM to manage her campaigns, opportunities and leads. When the leads are qualified they can be converted into a CRM Account. With integration enabled, this account subsequently becomes a customer in NAV. It's now possible for the sales team or customer service representatives to create orders in either CRM or NAV depending on their business process. The sales order will be integrated to NAV where the planning, payment processes, and shipping are handled, taking advantage of the core strengths of NAV.

When R2 ships we will be providing as standard, integrations between the following entities:

The Connector for Microsoft Dynamics uses web services to read and write data from CRM and NAV. It has two adapters for our solution that are designed to integrate with NAV 2009 R2 and with CRM 4.0. During configuration of the adapters, it is possible to specify which entities you want to integrate, which companies will be integrated, etc. so once the adapters are configured you can see a company-to-company integration with all the entities that you plan to integrate between the two systems.

The entities are synchronised through the use of maps which indicate which field in NAV relates to which field in CRM. For example, Customer Name in the Customer table in NAV may relate to the Customer Name in the Account entity in CRM. The systems can be kept in synch on a schedule that works for each entity. So for example, it might be that you want to synchronise your customer information from NAV to CRM every hour but you may only want to synchronise item data from NAV to create products in CRM on a weekly basis.

When the Connector runs, changes made to data in NAV that have been identified as data that will be integrated will trigger a field to be updated with a date/time stamp indicating that a change was made. The Connector can then query this date and look for changes via the web services since the last time the integration ran and write those changes to the destination system.

To view a recorded version of the Hot Topic session about Integrating Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 with CRM 4.0, see the Partner Learning Center.

- Samantha Scott

If you look closely at any successful company you will find productivity is the engine fueling growth. When business leaders think about improving the effectiveness of their people, they look to remove barriers that constrain knowledge sharing and empower confident decision making. In order to do this, organizations need technology solutions that are cost-effective, and deliver the latest innovations.

That’s why I am so excited about today’s announcement.  Because I know that Microsoft Dynamics customers and partners will benefit from business productivity gains realized through the powerful combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365. This all-in-one cloud service will enable companies of all types easy access to familiar solutions that are complementary--designed and built to work together. The result is that our customers and partners realize true impact with a solution that delivers great value, increased efficiency in the work they do and more effective collaboration between workers.

Read more from Microsoft VP Michael Park

Today in San Francisco, with customers and partners, Microsoft is very happy to announce Microsoft Office 365, which brings with it a transformational moment for Microsoft and the solutions we provide to companies around the world, as well as outlining a new frontier for our Microsoft Office business. According to Kurt DelBene, President of the Office Division, “Microsoft Office 365 is the best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service.” Microsoft Office 365 brings the full power of Microsoft’s business productivity platform to organizations of all types and sizes and will define productivity in the cloud for the next generation.

Microsoft Office 365, which replaces Business Online Productivity Suite (BPOS), Office Live Small Business, and Live@edu, enables customers and partners to bring together Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Lync, and Microsoft Office in an always-up-to-date cloud service offering, 24 hours per day, 365 days per week. This symbolizes our commitment to deliver the industry’s most complete cloud service for customers of all sizes and Microsoft Office 365 is tailored to meet our customers’ unique needs, including offerings for professionals and small businesses, enterprises and educational institutions. In addition, Microsoft Office 365 also provides a new way to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software, on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Microsoft Office 365 provides solutions for users of all sizes and here are the three main options available with Microsoft Office 365:

• Office 365 for small businesses includes: Office Web Apps, Exchange SharePoint, Lync, and an external Web site for $6 per user per month. It is designed specifically for smaller businesses and professionals who are looking for cloud-based productivity tools without the IT hassles.
• Customers who want Exchange, SharePoint and Lync Online, they would pay $10 per user per month. Existing BPOS customer get new capabilities at the same price.
• For full Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software, Office Web Apps, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, 24/7 phone support, advanced administration controls, on-premises use rights and more, an enterprise will pay roughly $24 per user per month.

What this means for customers is, with Microsoft Office 365, customers of all sizes now have the power to think big and be small, to be big and act fast. For instance:

• Whether you are a self-employed real estate agent, a local city government, or a multi-national corporation, you will be able to get enterprise-grade productivity solutions with just the capabilities you want and at a price that makes sense for the value you get.
• Maybe you are a local cupcake shop owner. With Microsoft Office 365, you can have world-class IT infrastructure and twenty football fields of data center capacity at your fingertips!
• With Microsoft Office 365, customers will also get the very latest in productivity every 90 days as we update Microsoft Office 365.

Not only does Microsoft Office 365 open up significant new offerings for customers everywhere, Microsoft Office 365 also provides new and additional revenue opportunities for our partners around the world by taking the foundation and investment our Microsoft Online Service partners have already made in a cloud practice and building upon it.

For our partners, Microsoft Office 365 provides:

• Customer segment specific offers to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes, with cost-effective prices starting at $6 per user per month.
• Inclusion of Microsoft Office which enables familiar connection point to initiate cloud conversations.
• Increased opportunities to customize and develop on Microsoft Office 365 and provide a complete customer solution.
• SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync are huge hits with enterprises today. With Microsoft Office 365, millions of small and mid-sized businesses can experience these solutions – many for the first time. This provides an opportunity to reach the 73 million small and mid-sized businesses globally with Microsoft Office 365.
• New platform capabilities to increase deployment and migration as well as continuous management of customer accounts.
• Increased functionality that allows partners to build more sophisticated solutions to meet customer needs.
• Enablement of rich hybrid scenario solutions for customers that want to leverage the cloud for some users and on-premise solutions for others.
• Cost savings: Because we deliver cloud services at scale, customers are cutting costs by 10-50% at the same time, mostly from hardware, power, and upgrade costs.

To further paint the picture of the large opportunity that Microsoft Office 365 brings to our various partner types, let’s take a look at how Microsoft Office 365 translates into opportunity for some specific partner types:

• For our Hosting partners: By joining the Microsoft Online Solution Provider (MOSPA) program, the new small business offering in Microsoft Office 365 increases their ability to reach the 73 million small and mid-sized businesses globally with Microsoft Office 365. In addition, the Microsoft Office 365 service raises awareness of the value of hosted services in general, which will increase deal flow and activity for their Hosted Exchange, SharePoint and Lync offerings.
• For our Systems Integrators & Value-Added Resellers: Microsoft Office 365 brings more value to the cloud, and they can meet more of their customers’ IT needs – now including voice mail, archiving, extranets, desktop productivity and more. In addition to increased deal velocity, expanded reach, and recurring revenue with Microsoft Office 365, they have new opportunities to build complex solutions based on SharePoint Online’s new enhanced capabilities such as Sandbox capabilities, improved workflows and extranet access. Plus, the new platform capabilities increase opportunities for them to augment their deployment and migration business with managed services centered around helping customers configure, customize and manage their solutions.
• For our Large Account Resellers: The introduction of the updated Enterprise Agreement today, which enables customers with new or future Enterprise Agreements to acquire Microsoft Office 365 through an update to the Enterprise Agreement, provides substantial opportunities to lead with the cloud and Microsoft Office 365 as a way of consuming the future of productivity. The flexibility of the updated Enterprise Agreement will unlock new opportunities for expanded reach into new customers and increased licenses per customer.
• For our ISV partners: The new platform capabilities provided by Microsoft Office 365 increase opportunities for them to build applications and solutions on this platform that can reach customers throughout the world.
• For our Telcos & Syndication Partners: The small business offering presents expanded opportunities in target markets as well as the additional richness and familiarity of Office.
• For our Distributor partners: Distributors can expand their reach in the small and midmarket through the expansion of their reseller base with new cloud partners.

Now many of you may be wondering when you will be able to take advantage of Microsoft Office 365. Here is some information on the Microsoft Office 365 rollout and availability timeline:

• Microsoft Office 365 will be available worldwide in 2011
• Today we are announcing the Microsoft Office 365 beta program with a few thousand organizations in thirteen regions around the world. Over time, we will expand the beta to more organizations
• Interested in participating in the Microsoft Office 365 beta program? Sign up for the Microsoft Office 365 beta and learn more at http://www.Office365.com (Link should be live around 12:00 noon PDT)
• Microsoft Office 365 will expand to include Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in 2011
• Microsoft Office 365 for education will debut in 2011

Want to learn more? Be sure to check out these resources today where more information will be coming moving forward:

• Microsoft Office 365 website
• Microsoft Office 365 on Microsoft Partner Portal
• Follow Microsoft Office 365 on Twitter: (@Office365) to see the latest Microsoft Office 365 information coming from the team
• Join the Office365 conversations on Twitter by including the #Office365 hashtag in your tweets
• Watch the conversations on Twitter by tracking the #Office365 hashtag
• Stay informed through the Microsoft Office 365 blog and hear what other partners are saying about their Microsoft Office 365 business.
• Become a fan of Office 365 on Facebook
• Large Account Resellers can visit the MPN Licensing website to start understanding the updated Enterprise Agreement, and can join a webcast next week to hear from subject matter experts about the updated Enterprise Agreement. They will be invited by their Partner Account Managers.
• Go to http://www.quickstartonlineservices.com to learn more about getting started with Microsoft Online Services.
• Build your BPOS Learning Plan 
• As always, I will continue to strive to bring you continued information here on my blog as well as through my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
  

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

MSDN , TechNet, and Expression

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Many of you are familiar with DemoMate from Impresys, a great tools for capturing and presenting software demonstrations.  Microsoft has been working with Impresys to give partners a better tool to deliver comprehensive demonstrations of Dynamics CRM.

For the CRM 2011 launch we will be providing “bite-sized” demos via DemoMate for different functional areas of CRM 2011.  There is so much new stuff to like in this release it’s important for you, our partners, to get familiar with all the new capabilities and features of the software.  Hopefully, you’ll find these nine recorded click-thru demos helpful in wrapping your heads around all the great improvements.

http://bit.ly/bcnj1G

There are also some links to help you as a partner set up your very own “Sneak Peek” events to showcase Dynamics CRM 2011.  Check it out!!

Luv, luv, luv this resource, CRMUG’s Town Hall:

Today’s guest blogger is CRM MVP Frank Lee  from Workopia. Here he talks about Importing Outlook Contacts.

I often get asked what is the best way to import existing Microsoft Outlook Contacts to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  If you are using Microsoft CRM Online then one of the best options is to use the built-in “Add Contacts Wizard”.  Here is the link to the How To: Importing Outlook Contacts into Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online using Add Contacts Wizard article written by one of our consultants detailing the steps and our deployment approach.

Also, here are some useful links that I often reference regarding the built-in integration between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

• CRM-Outlook Field Mappings
• Propagating Deletes on Items Synched between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Outlook
• Synchronizing CRM Contacts I do NOT own to my Outlook
• Duplicate Detection in Outlook

Enjoy!

Frank Lee

I was recently on-site at a large Dynamics NAV customer attempting to help them get through a number of significant performance issues they encountered on their two previous failed attempts to upgrade from NAV 3.70 to NAV 5.00 SP1. In summary, they had in excess of 100 concurrent users running relatively well on NAV 3.70 with a high transaction volume. When they attempted to go live on the upgraded NAV 5.00 SP1 version they could barely get 10 users in the system without completely deadlocking each other and it was, for the lack of better term, unusable. During the previous two attempts to upgrade the partner had deployed the NAV Application Benchmark tool and coded in all the customer business cases and custom functionality to allow them to do their scalability testing (Very Cool!!). This is where I came in.

The first thing the partner and I did was run a 30-user mixed workload test for 10 minutes on the upgraded code just to see where we were at. During this test we received over 1100 SQL deadlocks. There were so many it was difficult to even categorize where they were coming from. We reviewed the C/AL code for each of the profiles we were using and with client monitor trying to track down issues with the locking order of the tables between these processes. Sounds easy, but it's not and took a considerable amount of time. As we were scanning through the code I happened to look over the shoulder of one of the partners who had the code up on his screen for one of the processes only reports we were using and I noticed a comment in the code that caught my attention.

            //CI-Perf 1.01 140206 CI-HJS 1.00

What first caught my attention was the word "Perf." I was very interest to know what performance modifications had been made to the code. The second thing that caught my attention was the date "140206," which means this performance enhancement dated back to 2006, when they were running NAV 3.70. Further inspection of the code revealed that several of these enhancements were to correct locking order bugs in the standard code and localization code for the 3.70 version. These changes were absolutely necessary on 3.70 to be able to achieve any type of scalability but on 5.00 SP1 they were fixing issues which no longer existed, causing several locking order violations in very key NAV processes and causing a huge number of deadlocks. We went through all the code and "unwound" these locking order changes and re-ran the benchmark tests*. Eventually we ended in a 100-user mixed workload test for 2 hours that produced > 30 deadlocks and these were on reservation entry and no. series, and we also achieved a very high transaction volume. 

The moral of the story is when you do code upgrades from version to version, especially when you have a large gap of versions in between, be very careful what C/AL performance optimizations you bring forward from the old version to the new, and evaluate each one to make sure it is still necessary or it could end up having the absolute opposite effect on the newer version and causing performance issues.

Thanks go out the partner who helped me work through all these issue while I was on-site!

*There were other changes made with executable versions and SQL and database configuration that I will not detail here.

Michael De Voe

Senior Premier Field Engineer

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Certified Master - SQL Server 2008

In this blog you will find the source code in order to implement a client add-in based project with Windows Media Player. You would have a wide range of possibilities to use this simple add-in and enlarge this project on your own.

If you want to know more about client add-ins you can refer to MSDN link:

Extending the RoleTailored Client Using Control Add-ins in Microsoft Dynamics 2009 SP1

Step by step creation of the NavMP (NAV Media Player) add-in:

 (always remember the 'DodgeBall' rules: Develop, Sign, Place, Register, and Develop)

1. DEVELOP your add-in (in Visual Studio)
2. Strong SIGN and Build
3. PLACE DLLs into Add-ins folder
4. REGISTER the add-in in Table 2000000069, Client Add-in
5. DEVELOP your C\AL code (in Object Designer)

My ingredients:

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional
• Windows 7 Enterprise
• Windows Media player 12

DodgeBall rule 1: DEVELOP your add-In (in Visual Studio)

A. Create a New Class project

1. Open Visual Studio (in this example I am using Visual Studio 2010)
2. Create a New Project (CTRL+SHIFT+N) with these parameters:

•  
  • Visual C# - Windows
  • Class library
  • .NET Framework 3.5
  • Name: NavMP
  • Location: C:\TMP (or whatever location you like)
  • Solution Name: NavMP
  • Create directory for solution

B. Create a Strong Name Key (SNK)

1. Go to Project > Properties (NavMP Properties...)
2. From the Project Properties form go to the Signing tab
3. Tick the Sign the assembly option
4. Create a New SNK (e.g. NavMP.snk)

C. Add a Windows Form to the class project and modify its properties

1. In the main menu click on "Project" > "Add New Item" (Ctrl + Shift + A)
2. Select "Windows Form"
3. Click "Add"
4. In this way, Visual Studio has added a brand new Windows Form to your project and inherit all the necessary references.

• The brand new Form should be added to your project. And you just simply need to change the Form properties as reported below:

D. Add a Media Player object  to the class project and modify its properties

1. Normally, a Media Player object is not present as an item in the Toolbox. In order to add it you need to have Media Player installed in your machine. Then, you can just follow the next steps or simply refer to this useful How To video: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/bb798025.aspx
2. Go to the Toolbox and scroll down to the last available space ("General" group)
3. Click on General > Right-click in the blank area > Select "Choose Items"

• In the "Choose Toolbox Items" form > Select tab "COM Components" > check on "Windows Media Player" and click OK

• Now the Windows Media Player item should be added to your toolbox

• Select the Windows Media Player item and drop it into the Form created before

• Right click on the Windows Media Player control added and click on "Properties"
• Change the Windows Media Player properties as reported in the screens below and click OK

• Change the Windows Media Player control item properties added to the Form

If you want to know more about the player object visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd564034(v=VS.85).aspx.

E. Add remaining References to the project

1. In the Solution Explorer window select "Reference", right-click "Add Reference"
2. Add a reference to Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.UI.Extensibility

F. Develop (add code to) your NavMP project

1. Locate your Form1.cs file in the Solution Explorer
2. Right-click > View Designer (Shift+F7)

• Replace the C# code with the one written below (or copy that from the image)

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.ComponentModel;

using System.Data;

using System.Drawing;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace NavMP

{

    public partial class Form1 : Form

    {

        public Form1()

        {

            InitializeComponent();

        }

        private void NavMediaPlayer_Enter(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            string MoviePath = @"C:\TMP\Presentation.avi";

            NavMediaPlayer.settings.autoStart = false;

            NavMediaPlayer.URL = MoviePath;

        }

    }

} 

• Now, you need to add some code also in the Class
• Right-click on the form and select "View Designer" (Ctrl + F7)
• Select the Media Player control
• Right-click on it and select "View Code" (F7)

• Replace the C# code with the one written below (or copy that from the image)

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.ComponentModel;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.UI.Extensibility;

using Microsoft.Dynamics.Framework.UI.Extensibility.WinForms;

using System.Windows.Forms;

using System.Drawing;

namespace NavMP

{

    // WinFormsControlAddInBase

    [ControlAddInExport("Cronus.DynamicsNAV.NMediaPlayer")]

    [Description("Let this Add-in Media Play")]

    public class TestMPClass : StringControlAddInBase

    {

        // Form

        protected override Control CreateControl()

        {

            Form1 MPForm = new Form1();

            MPForm.TopLevel = false;

            MPForm.Visible = true;

            return MPForm;

        }

    }

}

DodgeBall rule 2 : Strong SIGN and build

1. Now it is all set up, you are ready to build your client add-in. In the main menu, go to "Build" > "Build NavMP". (This is automatically strong signed as per rule 1 point B.)

DodgeBall rule 3 : PLACE DLLs into Add-In folder

1. Locate/copy/paste NavMP.dll, AxInterop.WMPLib.dll and Interop.WMPLib.dll (should be in your \NavMP\NavMP\bin\Debug folder) in the Add-ins folder of a machine where the RoleTailored client has been installed (typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\60\RoleTailored Client\Add-ins).

DodgeBall rule 4 : REGISTER the Add-in in Table 2000000069 Client Add-in

1. Launch the Visual Studio Command Prompt (VSCP)
2. In the VSCP:

Sn -T "C:\TMP\NavMP\NavMP\bin\Debug\NavMP.dll"

 dfcb4863cf7c4cb0 is the PKT (Public Key Token) needed to register the AddIn into NAV.

(You will probably have another value, this is just an example)

• Open Classic Client
• Open Object Designer (SHIFT+F12)
• Select Table object (ALT+B)
• Run Table 2000000069 Client Add-in
• Insert a new line with these values:

• Field	Value
  Control Add-in Name	Cronus.DynamicsNAV.NMediaPlayer
  Public Key Token	dfcb4863cf7c4cb0 (this is an example)
  Version	1.0.0.0
  Description	Let this Add-in Media Play

DodgeBall rule 5 : DEVELOP your C/AL code

1. Copy/paste the Txt format code written below in a new Notepad object or download the Txt file from the bottom of this blog

OBJECT Page 50100 Nav Media Player

{

  OBJECT-PROPERTIES

  {

    Date=;

    Time=;

    Modified=Yes;

    Version List=;

  }

  PROPERTIES

  {

    SourceTable=Table18;

    DataCaptionExpr=Text10000000;

    PageType=CardPart;

  }

  CONTROLS

  {

    { 1101100000;0;Container;

                ContainerType=ContentArea }

    { 1101100001;1;Field  ;

                ControlAddIn=[Cronus.DynamicsNAV.NMediaPlayer;PublicKeyToken=dfcb4863cf7c4cb0] }

  }

  CODE

  {

    VAR

      Text10000000@1101100000 : TextConst 'ENU=LET NAV Play !';

    BEGIN

    {

      WARNING ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

      YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE PublicKeyToken WITH THE ONE ASSIGNED TO YOUR OBJECT !!!

      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    }

    END.

  }

}

• Import the txt object
• Compile the txt object newly created (Page 50100 Nav Media Player)
• IMPORTANT: Create an AVI file called Presentation.avi in your C:\Tmp directory (create the directory as well, where needed)
• Run Page 50100 Nav Media Player
• Enjoy it!!!

This simple client add-in project may be used in, e.g.

• Customer general presentations
• Stream MP3 files
• ... and many more

This simple client add-in project may be enlarged, e.g.

• It could be possible to enlarge the project and bound this to a field in order to play whatever file in a share (no hardcoded c:\tmp\Presentation.avi)
• ... and many more

These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. You assume all risk for your use.

Duilio Tacconi (dtacconi)

Microsoft Dynamics Italy

Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA

Since the initial 5.0 release, so many patches were released by Microsoft that took care of Outlook Synchronization feature, that one could imagine that you are lost. This blog posting tells you what is required for Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 and Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1.

Baseline Implementation for Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 systems:

1. Dynamics NAV NAS of build 26084 or 30488
2. Client PC of build 26084 or 30488, Dynamics NAV CSIDE Client of build 26084 or 30488, Office 2007 SP2 plus August 2010 Rollup patch for Office 2007 SP2 and Outlook Add-In of build 29763 (KB974523) and build 30991 (KB983614)

974523 Error message when you synchronize multiple contact records in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 to Microsoft Office Outlook: "Access to path EntryIdStorage was denied"
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;974523

983614 "The related item for the synchronized Outlook item is not found in the specified folders" error message when you synchronize meetings from Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 Service Pack 1 to Microsoft Outlook
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;983614

3. ensure Text Constant Text120 of CU5300 is set to Links and not to a localized translated value

Correction if text constant Text120 of CU5300 is not set to Links:

• go to Tools / Object Designer
• select Codeunit
• select Codeunit5300 Outlook Synch. Setup Mgt.
• press Design
• select View / C/AL Globals
• select Text Constants
• select Text120
• replace the translated value to the word Links
• save and compile Codeunit 5300

Now reset the default entities to default values:

• go to Administration, Application Setup, Microsoft Office Outlook Integration
• select Outlook Synch. User Setup
• select everything and press F4
• confirm the deletion
• go to Administration, Application Setup, Microsoft Office Outlook Integration
• select Outlook Synch. Entities
• select Code and press F5
• select CONT_SP Microsoft Dynamics NAV Salespeople
• select Synch. Entity button and select Reset to Defaults…
• repeat steps 8 and 9 for all other entities in order CONT_COMP, CONT_PERS, TASK and APP
  
  Results of this correction for APP entity:
  
  
  
  
  
  Results of this correction for TASK entity:
  
  
  
  

NOTE: the whitepaper is wrong around this topic. We used to recommend to update the Outlook Collection for APP and TASK entity manually and then select Links from the lookup. This actually destroys the references as shown in the second screenshot (Outlook Synch. Entity APP 10000 – Outlook Synch. Fields) and fourth screenshot (Outlook Synch. Entity Element Task 30000 – Outlook Synch Fields).

4. apply a performance update preventing the system to do a full table scan:

2288271 A time-out error occurs when the Outlook Synchronization process is run from Microsoft Office Outlook to synchronize with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2288271

5. apply a hot fix that solves an issue with attendee validation:

2291055 "Contact No. '[Contact_number]' does not exist" error message when you perform an Outlook synchronization to synchronize with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2291055

6. before performing a Full Synchronization for the first time, switch the Synch. Direction for APP and TASK entity to Dynamics NAV to Outlook
7. verify Table13 Salesperson/Purchaser do not list any E-mail addresses for the Outlook Synch users
8. on the NAS server, log on as the user that is configured to start up the NAS Server service and verify the Regional Settings matches the language of the release of Dynamics NAV you are working with

9. verify the correct fin.stx and cronus.flf file exists in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\Application Server folder

Copy fin.stx from %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\CSIDE Client\language
Copy cronus.flf from %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\CSIDE Client

Follow the official whitepaper on page 55 (see extract below) for the other files: 
https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/releases/NAV50OutlookInt

10. for the first Outlook Synch user, only add CONT_SP entity and register CONT_SP entity in the Change Log via Setup button Register in Change Log Setup
11. configure the Outlook Add-In and perform a Full Synchronization, populate the E-mail addresses for the synchronized contacts and perform a normal Synchronization to update Table13 Salesperson/Purchaser with correct E-mail addresses taken out of the Exchange Global Addresses
12. continue and finish the setup of the Outlook Synchronization User Setup for all other users
13. for each added line in the Outlook Synch User Setup, register the entities in the Change Log via Setup button and then select Register in Change Log Setup
14. ensure the Outlook Add-In is configured with the following settings:

• do not use Schedule automatic synchronization every x minutes
• ensure Show synchronization progress is enabled
• ensure Show synchronization summary is enabled

15. ensure the Outlook Synch users are aware the synchronization should not be stopped in between a Full Synchronization or normal Synchronization to prevent duplication of contacts

Baseline Implementation for Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 systems:

1. Dynamics NAV NAS of build 29626 or Dynamics NAV NST of build 29626
2. Client PC of build 29626, Dynamics NAV CSIDE Client of build 26084 or Role Tailored Client of build 29626, Office 2007 SP2 plus August 2010 Rollup patch for Office 2007 SP2 and Outlook Add-In of build 29626 plus mapihelper.dll of build 29958

975339 You cannot synchronize meetings and tasks as expected between Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Office Outlook
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;975339

3. ensure Text Constant Text120 of CU5300 is set to Links and not to a localized translated value

4. apply a performance update preventing the system to do a full table scan:

2288271 A time-out error occurs when the Outlook Synchronization process is run from Microsoft Office Outlook to synchronize with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2288271

5. apply a hot fix that solves an issue with attendee validation:

2291055 "Contact No. '[Contact_number]' does not exist" error message when you perform an Outlook synchronization to synchronize with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1
https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2291055

6. before performing a Full Synchronization for the first time, switch the Synch. Direction for APP and TASK entity to Dynamics NAV to Outlook
7. verify Table13 Salesperson/Purchaser do not list any E-mail addresses for the Outlook Synch users
8. on the NAS server, log on as the user that is configured to start up the NAS Server service and verify the Regional Settings matches the language of the release of Dynamics NAV you are working with
9. verify the correct fin.stx and cronius.flf file exists in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\Application Server folder
10. if working with NST, then start up the Role Tailored Client and change language to match the language of the release of Dynamics NAV you are working with
11. for the first Outlook Synch user, only add CONT_SP entity and register CONT_SP entity in the Change Log via Setup button Register in Change Log Setup
12. configure the Outlook Add-In and perform a Full Synchronization, populate the E-mail addresses for the synchronized contacts and perform a normal Synchronization to update Table13 Salesperson/Purchaser with correct E-mail addresses taken out of the Exchange Global Addresses
13. continue and finish the setup of the Outlook Synchronization User Setup for all other users
14. for each added line in the Outlook Synch User Setup, register the entities in the Change Log via Setup button and then select Register in Change Log Setup
15. ensure the Outlook Add-In is configured with the following settings:

• do not use Schedule automatic synchronization every x minutes
• ensure Show synchronization progress is enabled
• ensure Show synchronization summary is enabled

16. ensure the Outlook Synch users are aware the synchronization should not be stopped in between a Full Synchronization or normal Synchronization to prevent duplication of contacts

System requirements of Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1, Dynamics NAV 2009 and Dynamics NAV 2009 SP1 still lists Office 2003 SP3 as a minimum requirement. CSS confirms this but also acknowledges that some filter settings in localized releases of Office 2003 SP3 won’t work while these do work in Office 2007 SP2 and later releases of Office. That is why I would suggest to at least bring your Office release up to Office 2007 plus August 2010 Rollup patch for Office 2007 SP2!

Truly hopes this helps to clear the confusion.

Regards,

Marco Mels
CSS EMEA

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

At the moment we see an incoming volume of support cases regarding Outlook Synchronization and core features of Terminal Server. That would be a good subject for a new blog. Partners would like to setup roaming profiles, mandatory profiles and maybe even setup Network Load Balancing so that the end user does not know to what Terminal Server they are logging on to. Let me shed some light of the difficulties we have encountered with this while analyzing if this scenario can be setup without too much troubles.

The Outlook Add-In settings are stored in the following folder:

As the folder path already suggested, the settings files are stored in the local part of the user profile. By default of the operating system, this part of the user profile does not roam. To workaround this issue, you could use a Group Policy where you configure the ExcludeProfileDirs registry or you configure a logon script in which you explicitly set this registry key on the clients PC or within the RDP-session. The local settings part of the user profile will then roam along with the user profile to the network server where all the roaming user profiles are stored.

More information about this key and the corresponding Group Policy can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-nl/library/cc728399(WS.10).aspx

Many Terminal Servers administrators also want to configure a specific Group Policy Object called: Delete cached copies of roaming profiles. More information can be found here: 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc958989.aspx

This policy may be used in combination with a Terminal Server farm where the user is load balanced across the several available Terminal Servers.

However, in Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 and later releases of Dynamics the files that are stored in the OutlookSynch folder are encrypted with an an encryption key that is stored in the user profile as well.

The files can be viewed with notepad and should contain a text value XML_ENC_OL_KEY.

If there are problems with this key, then the following error message may show up:

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: Bad Data.

   at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException.ThrowCryptogaphicException(Int32 hr)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.Utils._DecryptKey(SafeKeyHandle hPubKey, Byte[] key, Int32 dwFlags)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.RSACryptoServiceProvider.Decrypt(Byte[] rgb, Boolean fOAEP)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.RSAPKCS1KeyExchangeDeformatter.DecryptKeyExchange(Byte[] rgbIn)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.EncryptedXml.DecryptKey(Byte[] keyData, RSA rsa, Boolean useOAEP)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.EncryptedXml.DecryptEncryptedKey(EncryptedKey encryptedKey)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.EncryptedXml.GetDecryptionKey(EncryptedData encryptedData, String symmetricAlgorithmUri)
   at System.Security.Cryptography.Xml.EncryptedXml.DecryptDocument()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.DataSetEncryption.Decrypt(String encryptedDataSet)
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.PersistentStorage.<LoadSynchronizationEntityFilterDS>b__2(DataSet newSet, FileStream reader)
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.PersistentStorage.LoadDS(DataSet newSet, String setName, ReadDelegate specialRead)
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.PersistentStorage.LoadSynchronizationEntityFilterDS()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.SettingsForm.LoadFolderControls()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.SettingsForm.LoadSettings()
   at Microsoft.Dynamics.NAV.OLSync.NAVSyncAddIn.SettingsForm.SettingsForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

From development:
If you experience it works on one machine but not on the other please check this setting on both machines- it might be as simple as the key not being copied. Only one file should exist with the above text value and it should be exactly the same file. If you find a difference I suggest you log the user off from all the machines, delete the outlook integration settings + machine key and recreate it by setting up the synchronization again.  If you're working on a "large sync data" user you can try, copying the key from a working machine to the non working machine or by moving keys out of the folder so there's only one.

Currently it's not possible to disable encryption.

From CSS perspective:
Since it is not possible to disable encryption at this moment, we now suggest to move the Outlook Synch users to a specific Organizational Unit where you exclude them from having roaming profiles / mandatory profiles, etc. The user profile should be stored locally. There is too much work to do to correct a failure in the encryption of the files that are stored in the \OutlookSynch folder.

Regards,

Marco Mels
CSS EMEA

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

Governance is a key component to ensuring the success of your SharePoint 2010 deployment, and one we frequently get asked about it as we travel to conferences and events. Represented by a set of established processes, procedures, and stakeholders, a well designed and implemented governance plan promotes adoption, ensures participation, and maximizes ROI.  By using the governance techniques, best practices, and recommendations available below, you can align your policies for using SharePoint 2010 with your culture and goals while still enabling teams and individuals to effectively collaborate and share information.

Resources

Resource Center (Governance in SharePoint Server 2010)

The Governance Resource Center provides documentation, references, and solutions to help IT Professionals plan and prepare to govern SharePoint 2010 environments.  The Governance Resource Center aligns to three (3) specific areas:

1.       IT Governance

2.       Information Management

3.       Application Management

Resource Center (ALM Resource Center | SharePoint 2010)

The ALM Resource Center provides documentation, resources, references, and solutions to help Developers with the coordination of all aspects of software engineering.

Whitepaper (SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning)

The SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning whitepaper targets the business value of governance and provides guidance for the necessary governance planning and implementation of SharePoint Server 2010.

Whitepaper (Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010)

This document focuses on the product and technology aspects of SharePoint governance – the technical implementation. It provides high-level guidance on the many configuration options SharePoint provides to enable you to manage the environment for the benefit of all.

Whitepaper (SharePoint Server 2010 Operations Framework and Checklists)

This document details the operational processes, tasks, and tools that are required to operate and maintain a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environment. It explains how the management of SharePoint Server 2010 fits in with the overall Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) model.

Publication (Essential SharePoint 2010: Overview, Governance, and Planning (Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)

Essential SharePoint 2010 provides information derived from a business value perspective that documents and illustrates how to plan and implement SharePoint 2010-based solutions to maximize business results.

Virtual Lab (Configuring Tenant Administration on SharePoint Server 2010)

After completing this lab, you will be better able to create a new Tenant Administration site collection, manage site collections through Tenant Administration, and create a partitioned service application.

Virtual Lab (Monitoring SharePoint 2010)

The objective of this lab is to provide a basic introduction to using Service Level Monitoring to monitor services provided by SharePoint Server 2010. By the end of this lab you will be better able to create a Service Level Object, generate a Report of SharePoint Services Availability, and configure a Service Level Dashboard.

Solutions

Active Directory Domain Services Markers

Active Directory Domain Services Markers can be used to prevent and report on SharePoint installations in your organization.

Quotas

Quotas are used to specify limits to the amount of storage that can be used by a site collection and establish resource limits on sandboxed solutions.

Locks

Locks are used to prevent users from from adding content to or accessing site collections.

Self-Service Site Creation

Self-Service Site Creation is used to allow or prevent  users from creating site collections on demand.

For a comprehensive list of governance features see also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262287.aspx.

Today the Microsoft Dynamics team kicked off Convergence 2010 Europe from Twickenham Stadium in London.  The opening keynote at the event was delivered by Kirill Tatarinov in which he demonstrated the advancements in the new versions of Microsoft Dynamic CRM and ERP products and how they work together to help customers create a Dynamic Business. 

At the event today we also made some news announcements related to the next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.  I caught up with Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management Group, to tell us the latest happenings with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the news being announced today. Apologies in advance for the amateur videography, but here you go.  The full press release issued today can be found here.

Best,

Bill Patterson

Convergence Europe kicked off this morning and a lot of our CRM team peeps and MVPs are there. This was the first official report I’ve seen so far:

LONDON — Oct. 14, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) opens Convergence 2010 Europe today in London with a keynote address from Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president, Microsoft Business Solutions. Throughout the three-city event that also includes Prague and The Hague, Oct. 14–21, Tatarinov will share how the company is delivering on its Dynamic Business vision by providing customer-driven innovations.

As part of his keynote address, Tatarinov announced forthcoming promotional pricing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. He also discussed the expansion of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail into new markets, the availability of an ERP two-tier connector and partner productivity enhancements for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2.

Read more…

You asked for it and you’ve got it!  Ever since the original announcement at the beginning of 2010 that Microsoft would be expanding the list of qualifying products for the 50%* upfront discount through our Open Value Subscription program to include versions that are two versions old (N-2), the excitement has been great!  As you may recall, this promotion was originally slated to come to an end back in July of 2010; however, with all of the fantastic excitement around it, we extended the promotion to run through the month of September. 

Well, since September is now behind us (hard to believe how fast the year is going, isn’t it?), a question that I’ve been getting is, “So is it too late to still use the N-2 promotion?”  I am happy to let all of you know that we are continuing this offer throughout the remainder of 2010!  That’s right, you can now get the 50%* up-front discount when moving from qualifying N-1 or N-2 Office and Windows products to the latest versions of these Microsoft products (Windows 7 Professional and Office Professional Plus 2010).

Before you ask, here are the answers to some of the questions I get on this:

Question: What are the N-2 products that qualify? 

• Answer: If you own any of these products, you qualify for this promotion:
  • Office Professional Plus Edition 2010
  • Office Professional Edition 2010
  • Office Enterprise Edition 2007
  • Office Professional Plus Edition 2007
  • Office Ultimate Edition 2007
  • Office 2007 Professional Edition
  • Office 2003 Professional Edition
  • Office Small Business Edition 2007  (or Professional edition)
  • Office 2003 Small Business Edition (or Professional edition)
  • Office Standard 2007
  • Office Standard 2003
  • Windows 7 Professional
  • Windows Vista Business
  • Windows XP Professional

Question: Wait, I thought Office XP was a qualifying product when you launched this promotion in January.  Doesn’t Office XP still count?

• Answer: No, and here is why: What qualifies for the Office Up-to-date 50%* discount (UTD) now that Office 2010 is out?

Question: How does this promotion & discount work?

• Answer: Funny you should ask: How the Microsoft 50%* Up-to-date discount works and other answers.

Question: Where can I find out more about this promotion if I am not familiar with it already?

• Answer: I would suggest starting with the links below:
  • Big Announcement! 50% Off Up-To-Date (UTD) Discount Extended to Office XP and Windows XP owners worldwide!
  • How the Microsoft 50%* Up-to-date discount works and other answers.
  • Microsoft 50%* off N-2 discount promotion extended through September 30, 2010

Question: Does the client have to have Volume Licenses of Office or Windows to qualify?

• Answer: Nope.  If they have OEM, Retail box, or Volume Licenses of any of the qualifying versions listed above, then they can participate in this promotion.

If you are a Microsoft partner, be sure to let your clients who are still running the older versions of Windows and Office know about this promotion and how you can help them take advantage of it prior to the end of the year.  If you are a business owner, be sure to ask your Microsoft partner about this promotion and how you too can take advantage of it to save the 50%* off your up-front payment.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

MSDN , TechNet, and Expression

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http://nyti.ms/af4rY5

It’s  just a matter of time before organizations all over the world realize they have a far better option for CRM in the cloud than Salesforce.com.

You can make many customizations to the RoleTailored client Action Pane: You can create your own grouping of key tasks. You can add the actions and tasks you use most to your pages. You can combine those tasks in groups. And, you can change the size of icons so that the most important ones pop out!

The Action Pane is a part of all RoleTailored pages, including list places, journals, and cards.

1. To start customizing the Action Pane, click Customize .

2.Click Customize Action Pane.

3. To add a new Action Pane group, click Add to the right of Groups list.

4. In the Name field, enter the name of your new actions group and click OK.

5. Use Move Up, Move Down and Rename buttons to change the position and name of the group.

6. To add a new action to a group, select the group you want to add the action to.

7. Click Add to the right of Actions list.

8. Browse to the action and click OK.

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for every action you want to add.

10. To change the size of an action icon, click Change Size. If small, the icon will increase in size. If large, the icon will decrease in size. Use Move Up and Move Down to change the position of the action.

11. Click OK to close the Customize window.

The following illustration shows a customized Action Pane for a sales order. It has an new action group, Approvals, two added tasks, and an icon with a largesize.

For more information about usability and the RoleTailored client, see the blog post Useful, Usable, and Desirable.

Yesterday, as part of our routine monthly security update cycle, Microsoft released 16 new security updates to address identified vulnerabilities.  If you were following my Twitter feed yesterday, you probably saw a few announcements I made about this.  For those of you not yet following my Twitter feed or who may have missed the information shared yesterday, I wanted to put a quick post up here on the blog to let you know about this, as well as how you can be updated on these in the future and some other security resources available to you.

As mentioned above, Microsoft has an ongoing monthly security update cycle that you should be aware of and utilizing.  When we release these monthly  updates, we also hold a webcast to discuss that month’s update and what you should know about it.  For October, 2010, you can see the full Microsoft Security Bulletin HERE.  We will be conducting our monthly security update webcast this morning at 11:00 AM Pacific Time and you can register to addend this webcast HERE.

Here is a list of the security updates that we released in the October update:

• MS10-071 - addresses vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer (KB 2360131)
• MS10-072 - addresses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Server Software (KB 2412048)
• MS10-073 - addresses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows (KB 981957)
• MS10-074 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2387149)
• MS10-075 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2281679)
• MS10-076 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 982132)
• MS10-077 - addresses a vulnerability in .NET Framework (KB 2160841)
• MS10-078 - addresses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows (KB 2279986)
• MS10-079 - addresses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office (KB 2293194)
• MS10-080 - addresses vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office (KB 2293211)
• MS10-081 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2296011)
• MS10-082 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Media Player (KB 2378111)
• MS10-083 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2405882)
• MS10-084 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2360937)
• MS10-085 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2207566)
• MS10-086 - addresses a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows (KB 2294255)

If you are not yet receiving the Microsoft Security Bulletins, you should be sure to take advantage of the following:

1. Microsoft Security Bulleting Advance Notification - This advance notification is intended to help our customers plan for effective deployment of security updates, and includes information about the number of new security updates being released, the software affected, severity levels of vulnerabilities, and information about any detection tools relevant to the updates.
2. Register for Microsoft Technical Security Notifications – Microsoft offers these alerts in multiple offerings and delivery methods:
   • Basic Alerts - Microsoft's free monthly Security Notification Service provides links to security-related software updates and notification of re-released Microsoft Security Bulletins. The goal of this service is to provide accurate information you can use to protect your computers and systems from malicious attacks.
   • Comprehensive Alerts - The free Comprehensive alerts serve as an incremental supplement to the Basic Alerts. It provides advance notification of upcoming security bulletins, security advisories, and timely notification of any minor changes to previously released Microsoft Security Bulletins or Advisories.
   • Security Advisories Alerts - Microsoft Security Advisories are a way for Microsoft to communicate security information to customers about issues that may not be classified as vulnerabilities and may not require a security bulletin. Each advisory will be accompanied with a unique Microsoft Knowledge Base Article number for reference to provide additional information about the changes.
   • Microsoft Security Response Center Blog Alerts - The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog provides a real-time way for the MSRC to communicate with customers. Topics include day-to-day, "behind the scenes" information to help customers understand Microsoft security response efforts; updates during the early stages of security incidents; and regular postings for the bulletin release cycle.

Something else that you may not be aware of that you should know about is that Microsoft offers no cost technical support for support calls that are associated with security updates. 

• Customers in the U.S. and Canada can receive technical support from Security Support or 1-866-PCSAFETY.
• International customers can receive support from their local Microsoft subsidiaries.  For more information about how to contact Microsoft for support issues, visit International Help and Support.

Another important step that you can take in ensuring your PCs are kept up to date from a securities perspective is to turn on Automatic Updates in Windows.  learn about automatic updating, see Update your PC automatically.  If you do not have automatic updating turned on, or to check whether you need the update, go to Microsoft Update. Microsoft Update is an online tool that will scan your computer and provide you a report about what updates your computer needs.

Also, if you are a small business, be sure to utilize the FREE Microsoft Security Essentials which is now available to you from Microsoft to provide no-cost protection from viruses, spyware and other malicious threats. 

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

MSDN , TechNet, and Expression

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 has several new features as part of the C/SIDE development environment. After several years (and releases) of building a strong new platform, we are able to refocus our efforts onto making fantastic developer focused features for C/AL developers. You can expect this trend to continue with even more in NAV "7" and further but without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to some of your newest friends...

1. CTRL+F12

Also known as Go-To-Definition, I'm sure you'll become intimately familiar with the keyboard shortcut rather than use the feature name! Go-To-Definition (or GTD to those of us too busy to spell things out properly) enables you to jump to code and open designers with an easy shortcut. GTD works on code context, which means that if you're on a Table variable and you do CTRL+F12 then the Table Designer will spring open and you can easily review field information or check properties. COOL!

And if you're on a system trigger (like VALIDATE) and there is code in the Validate trigger, then CTRL+F12 will take you to that method! Awesome!

Lastly, and by now this won't be much of a surprise, if you're on a user-defined function then pressing CTRL+F12 will take you to that code. Kapow!

GTD doesn't work for rec or currform/currreport yet but we have room and time for improvements. Let us know if you'd like GTD to take you somewhere else in the app!

And if you don't like shortcut keys, you can also access Go-To-Definition via right-click or through the View menu!

Figure 1 - using Go-To-Definition on a Table variable will open Table Designer. Using it on a function will jump to the code for that function.

2. Lock/Unlock of Application Objects

Have you ever lost work because the developer sitting next to you modified the object you were currently working on? We can't restore your lost work but we can do something about losing more work in the future. Check out the two new fields in the Object Designer - Locked and Locked By. Now you can 'reserve' or place a lock on an application object and any subsequent developers will now get a 'read only' version of that application object. This means that other developers can still see the code but they can't save and overwrite your work.

To make sure that no one loses work, a 'read only' object can still be saved and compiled, but you can't overwrite the original ID.

Look for the client setting in Tools->Options called "Auto lock on Design" to make the feature activate automatically when you open an object.

Figure 2 - Two users, userA and userB are working in the same database. UserA can see that userB has already locked codeunits 80 and 81 and is trying to lock Codeunit 82.

 3. Page Designer Improvements

We've tweaked a couple of parts in Page Designer. Firstly, we completed the New Page Wizard so that it will now also offer you to pick factboxes for your pages. This was quite an oversight as factboxes make pages much more valuable than forms as you can include much more related information in them. Next, we changed the default naming of factboxes so that in the page you'll no longer see name and ID as <control20061721008> but instead see a much more readable name like <OutlookPart>. Nice!

Figure 3 - FactBox picker in the New Page Wizard.

 4. Structure Highlighting

Finding pages a bit hard to read? Need a microscope to see what's indented and what's not? We agree that it's hard to see where the structure is in pages and so we've introduced Structure Highlighting. Now any record (row) that is a container will be in bold. It's a simple change but it makes a huge difference to the readability of the pages. The bold lines break up the groups and the readability of the page is dramatically increased.

Figure 4 - Structure Highlighting. Showing a simple example on a small page here because it's hard to include a large page. However, with the container lines highlighted, the overall structure of the page is more readable. And if the page had more containers (FastTab groups, Repeater sections), then they would stand out quite prominently.

Recently Microsoft hosted a Hot Topic session that included the improvements discussed in this post. It is called  "Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 Hot Topic: What's New for Developers." A recorded version of the session can be seen at the Partner Learning Center. 

We hope you enjoy the new features and, as ever, if you have suggestions for improvement you're welcome to get in touch (either in comments, directly to me in email: sglasson@microsoft.com, or using the MSConnect feedback tool).

Thank you!

Stuart 

The Global Readiness Tour materials are available now on PartnerSource for your review and downloading pleasure.

https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/training/trainingmaterials/crm2011launchppts

Donovan Follette and Paul Stubbs, two of my favorite colleagues in DPE have launched a new show on Channel9 called the SharePoint Sideshow talking about Office and SharePoint development. Pilot episode (the very first episode) was broadcast on inter-tubes last week and is already a hit with developers! Be sure to check it out as we’ll have some CRM action on the show down the lane. Here is brief description of the show from Paul.

Today we are proud to launch a new show on Channel 9 called the SharePoint Sideshow. The show will discuss topics around SharePoint, Office and Information Worker Productivity. We will bring in experts from the Microsoft product team and others to deliver insider content for developers. This is a show for you in the SharePoint and Office community so we will deliver on topics that are top of mind at the time and try to help you navigate the vast amount of information out there in a concise and approachable format.

Do checkout the pilot and don’t forget to subscribe to the show’s feed.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 EP introduced the asp.net web framework. In the prior versions, the web user interface logic was defined entirely in X++. Asp.net framework has lots of great benefits , the big ones being AJAX capabilities, rich out of the box controls and the power of .net and asp.net for customization, extensibility, performance and reliability.

Here are the topic related to migrating existing X++ web forms to asp.net EP user controls.

1. Use the SysEPWebFormConverter to move the Web form datasources to the dataset and the user control. For simple cases, it should automate everything.

2. Refer to the migrating code pattern document and move the code as needed to the dataset X++ methods or to C# in user control as suggested by this document

3. Refer to the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 EP dev cook book for general development tips-n-tricks

For troubleshooting and to prevent duplication of contacts and to-do’s in Dynamics NAV, CSS sometimes request you to clear the contents from the main Calendar, Contacts and main Tasks folders before the next Full Synchronization. As a result of this, the synchronized to-do’s may not show up or may show up as closed entries. For the Contacts folders assigned to the Outlook Synchronization, this is not a problem. After the next Full Synchronization, the contacts show up again. For the to-do’s, this may become an issue.

To prevent this, we now recommend before a Full Synchronization attempt, to switch the Synch. Direction for the APP and TASK entity from Bidirectional to Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Outlook. The Outlook Synch User Setup may look like this.

If there are many items to synchronize during a Full Synchronization, it is a best practice to limit the data to be synchronized all at once and perform a couple of Full Synchronization attempts instead. A filter or condition for TASK and APP entity could look like this:

NOTE: this filter ensures that only to-do’s that have a starting date of 01/01/09 till 31/12/09 for the TASK and APP entity are synchronized for the salesperson with code MME. After the Full Synchronization, you could update the filter for TASK and APP entity again to synchronize the other to-dos’:

After that, you could remove the Starting Date criteria so that to-do’s that have a starting date outside the filter range, will be synchronized as well.

NOTE: of course, you need set the initial Starting Date to match the first created to-do in Dynamics NAV or the first created to-do you actually want to be synchronized to Outlook. After that you need to ensure you precisely define the filter criteria. E.g.: if there are 1000 to-do’s in 2009, then you could split these up so that to-do’s will be synchronized per quarter of the year. This means, you will end up with four times a Full Synchronization in stead of one long running synchronization attempt.

So, what to do if the Calendar and Tasks folders in Outlook already contain calendar items and task items that either should not be synchronized to Dynamics NAV or should be synchronized to Dynamics NAV thus should not be deleted prior to the Full Synchronization attempt. Following up CSS requests to clear the Outlook Synchronization folders would destroy data that is important for the business or for the end users. For this, you could easily use the filter settings in the Outlook Add-In.

The following defined filter criteria could be used as an example:

This filter will ensure that created calendar items and created tasks items in Outlook will not be synchronized if they match the defined filter criteria. That taken into account, after a Full Synchronization and after switching the Synch Direction to bidirectional, synchronized to-do’s will show up in Outlook, but they won’t be synchronized to Dynamics NAV if they are updated in Outlook because they match the defined filter criteria. If a synchronized to-do is modified in Outlook, the end user will have to assign a category to the calendar or task entry. At that point, the updated calendar entry or task entry will be updated to Dynamics NAV after a normal Synchronization.

CSS also noticed that after upgrading from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010, the defined Outlook Synchronization folders for the contact entities may no longer have the checkbox enabled for Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book. This generates errors when trying to synchronize to-do’s from Dynamics NAV to Outlook when attendees are assigned to the to-do. A created calendar item (Meeting Request) in Outlook could not be populated with a synchronized contact from Dynamics NAV because the Address Book is not shown. To populate this checkbox again, right click on the defined Outlook Synch contacts folders for Company contacts, Person contacts and Salesperson contacts as shown in the example below.

Last but not least when working with Tasks and Appointment in an Exchange Server environment, CSS required you to initially create the Salespersons in Dynamics NAV without the E-mail address. After the initial Full Synchronization, the synchronized contact in the Outlook Synchronization folder defined for the Salespersons contact, needs to be populated with the E-mail address taken from the Exchange Global Address Book and then synchronized back to Dynamics NAV. It is a good practice to use one user account for this, synchronize all the salespersons all at once, perform a Full Synchronization, update them all at once and then perform  a normal Synchronization to update table 13. In the first screenshot, you can see I am using the Administrator account for that. For all other Outlook Synch Users, this procedure is no longer necessary because the correct information is already in Dynamics NAV.

Regards,

Marco Mels
CSS EMEA

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

With Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2 it is time to drill into the new features we have for you in the reporting area.

Enhanced connection with Visual Studio when editing layout (RDLC)

a. Easy refresh of dataset in Visual Studio

In NAV 2009 SP1 you had to close down Visual Studio when you made any modifications to the dataset (Section designer). With NAV 2009 R2 you can keep both the NAV Report designer and Visual Studio Layout designer open.

To see this feature in action

1. Open a report in design mode and select “View/Layout”

2. With both Report Designer and Visual Studio window, open add new field to the dataset (Section Designer)

3. Now, to activate the refresh action you need to both save and compile. Only saving, or only compiling the report, will not activate the dataset refresh action in Visual Studio.

4. Navigate back to Visual Studio and you will see this message:

5. Select “Yes” to accept the Refresh

6. Lastly, right click ”Result” under ”DataSet”, and select Refresh

Or

Select the Refresh Button

7. You will now see your new added item to the dataset, and you can now add this to your layout.

b. Better protection when closing Report Layout in Visual Studio

In NAV 2009 SP1, it was possible to accidentally close down the Report Designer in NAV and thereby leaving Visual Studio with the Layout open in an unsaved state. With NAV 2009 R2 it is no longer possible to close down the Report Designer in NAV without closing Visual Studio first.

To see this feature in action:

1. Open a report in design mode and select “View/Layout”

2. With both Report Designer and Visual Studio window open, try closing the NAV Report Designer window. You will see this message:

c. Better protection when opening report layout for design in Visual Studio

In NAV 2009 SP1 it was possible to accidentally open several version of the same report layout in Visual Studio. This can easily cause confusion, so with NAV 2009 R2 it is no longer possible to open several versions of the layout in a report.

To see this feature in action:

1. Open a report in design mode and select “View/Layout”

2. With both Report Designer and Visual Studio window open select “View/Layout” again and you will see this message:

Printer Selections now available in Role Tailored client

In NAV 2009 SP1 the only way to define which reports should be printed to which printers was in the Printer Selections form as Printer Selections did not work from Role Tailored client. So you had to have the Classic client installed to configure the Printer Selections in NAV 2009 SP1. You could of also have use the workaround described here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nav-reporting/archive/2009/10/19/printer-selections-in-role-tailored-client.aspx

With NAV 2009 R2 we now have Printer Selections working from Role Tailored client.

To see this feature in action:

1. Open Role Tailored client and type “Printer” in the search box

2. Select Printer Selections and you get this page:

3. To edit the list or create a new select “New” and you will be able create a new or edit what you already have defined:

New action images for PDF

You might have seen my blog post on how to send an e-mail with a report attached as a PDF file.
If you have not seen this here is the link: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nav/archive/2009/10/08/send-email-with-pdf-attachment-in-nav-2009.aspx

In NAV 2009 R2 we have some new icons which we can use.

So if you want to send an e-mail with a report attached as a PDF file in NAV 2009 R2, you might want to consider using the image called: “SendAsPDF”

And if you want to save a report as a PDF file from RoleTailored client, you might want to use the image called:” SaveAsPDF”

And yes it would be great if guys one day could add your own icons to the RoleTailored client. Hopefully we will have this feature in a future version of NAV.

This is what I had to share today; I hope you appreciate the new reporting features which will be available in NAV 2009 R2. And as always I’m happy to get feedback about reporting features you would like for us to implement in future releases. So use the Contact Form to write directly to the core reporting team or use MS Connect to give suggestions:https://connect.microsoft.com/dynamicssuggestions

Thanks,
Claus Lundstrøm, Program Manager, Microsoft Dynamics NAV

When you start a classic report from RTC (a report with no layout defined), it starts the report engine from the classic client. It can happen that after updating RTC, you end up with a version of RTC which is not compatible with the default classic client. In this case you will typically get this error message when trying to run the report:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Classic client was opened from an untrustworthy component. Contact your system administrator.

Or if you have a test machine with multiple versions of RTC and classic you may want to start the classic client from another folder.

RTC finds the location of Finsql.exe in this place in registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\

So if you have any of the issues above, make sure that the classic client in this folder matches the version of RTC.

Lars Lohndorf-Larsen

Microsoft Dynamics UK

Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) EMEA

Hopefully this kind of positive press for Windows Phone 7 will become common but it’s nice to see something other than the normal Apple fanboi bashing of Microsoft, especially in a mobile device article.

http://yhoo.it/d2qpmW

In just a couple weeks, a number of CRM MVPs will be traveling to Orlando for the annual CRMUG Summit.  Summit is the largest, independent gathering of Dynamics CRM users this year, and will be happening 10/26-10/28, with optional pre- and post-conference training classes.  It takes a terrific team effort from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community, and we’re especially grateful this year for the terrific support from the MVP community. 

We’d like to recognize the following CRM MVPs who be leading key breakout sessions and training classes this year:

· Donna Edwards

· Joel Lindstrom

· Larry Lentz

· Mitch Milam

· Scott Sewell

See you in Orlando!

Mark Rhodes

CRMUG Program Director

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Shawn Sullivan from Commercial Technical Support]

Folder redirection is used to centrally store a user’s documents in a network location that would otherwise be located only on their individual client machine. In SBS environments, administrators use folder redirection as a convenient method to store this information on the server to be included in the normal SBS backup rotation.

Both SBS 2003 and SBS 2008 use Group Policy to accomplish this; however they differ significantly in their method. While SBS 2003 links a folder redirection GPO at the domain level and applies to all authenticated users, SBS 2008 links its GPO at the SBSUsers Organization Unit and includes only the specific users you assign to it through the SBS console.

Below is the SBS 2003 Small Business Server Folder Redirection GPO. This is created when you configure folder redirection in the Server Management Console and is deleted when you disable it.

Below is the SBS 2008 Small Business Server Folder Redirection Policy GPO. This is created during SBS integrated setup and is never removed.

In an SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 migration scenario, both of these GPOs will be present after the installation of SBS 2008 if folder redirection was previously enabled. As part of the post-migration steps, you will add the desired users to the Windows SBS Folder Redirection Accounts, force group policy update on all clients, and then remove the GPO created by SBS 2003 that is linked at the domain level. Users who are members of the new group will have their data automatically moved from the SBS 2003 machine to the SBS 2008 machine upon their next login. Those users who are not participating in folder redirection will have their data moved back to their local client machine upon their next login. If you attempt to move the data manually or if both SBS servers are not online during this entire process, then you will run into failures (see troubleshooting section below).

Adding Users whose folders will be redirected

There are two locations where you can accomplish this. The first place is under Shared Folders and Websites > Shared Folders > Redirect folder for user accounts to the server

The second is under Users and Groups > Users > Redirect folders for user accounts to the server

Both locations launch the same window where you can choose which folders to redirect (Desktop, Documents, and Start Menu) and for which user accounts. When you do this, the user account is made a member of the Windows SBS Folder Redirection Accounts:

You may receive an informational message reminding you that it may take a few logins to complete the entire redirection process, especially if you are migrating folder redirection settings from SBS 2003:

GPO settings detail

The GPO consists of the following settings:

• A Desktop, My Documents, and Start Menu will be created under \\SERVERNAME\RedirectedFolders\%USERNAME%\, depending on the selections you made above. This share is physically located in C:\Users\FolderRedirections by default, but can be moved using the Move Users’ Redirected Documents Data wizard
  
• The contents of Desktop, Documents, and/or Start Menu, if selected for redirection, will be moved to the new location and the user account will have exclusive rights to this directory. Not even the domain administrator will have permissions to other user’s folders without first taking ownership of it.
  
• The “Also apply redirection policy to Windows 2000, Windows 2000 server, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems” is enabled for each folder. This is purely to enable these operating systems to read the configuration file from SYSVOL to apply folder redirection. This is explained in detail in KB 947025.
  
• A user’s Music, Pictures, and Videos folders will be redirected as subfolders under \\SERVERNAME\RedirectedFolders\%USERNAME%\My Documents. This exists for backwards compatibility with Windows 2000, 2003, and XP since these operating systems store those folders under “My Documents”. For instance, this allows a user to login to a Win7 and an XP machine and maintain the same folder structure on the server. Without this feature, the redirection to the server would not work.

Troubleshooting Folder Redirection problems

The top causes of folder redirection failure are incorrect permissions on the network share, Group Policy deployment failure, and problems with Offline Files.

Permission Issues

Permission issues usually originate from manually moving the user’s folder from one location to another, or if the administrator takes ownership of the user’s folder to gain access to the contents. To prevent the first scenario from occurring, use the Move Users’ Redirected Documents Data wizard . A typical error you will receive on the client machine will be something like this:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Folder Redirection
Event Category: None
Event ID: 102
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: Domain\User
Computer: Computername
Description: Failed to perform redirection of folder My Documents. The files for the redirected folder could not be moved to the new location. The folder is configured to be redirected to \\ servername \ sharename \%username%. Files were being moved from C:\Documents and Settings\ user \My Documents to \\ servername \ sharename \ user . The following error occurred: The security descriptor structure is invalid.

If you suspect that you are in this situation, verify the following:

• The redirected user account must have at least Read, Traverse folder, List folder, Read attributes, and Read extended attributes on the actual share \\SERVERNAME\RedirectedFolders. If you cannot open this share from the client machine because you get an “Access Denied”, folder redirection will not work.
  
• The redirected user account must have Full control and be the Owner of their personal folder \\SERVERNAME\RedirectedFolders\%USERNAME%\. If not, the GPO will fail to apply to that user upon login.

Group Policy deployment issues

There are numerous potential causes to Group Policy deployment failures, use the checklist below to identify the most common:

• Users must be able to login to the domain from their client machines.
  
• The server must be able to successfully apply group policy to itself and user/computer accounts.
  
• Shares must be fully accessible from the server itself and the client.

Note: These first three bullet points are usually caused by network configuration error of the client, server, or both. For the server, run the SBS BPA to identify these issues. On the client, make sure the interface it’s using to communicate with the server has a valid IP address with the correct subnet mask and that it’s using the SBS server as it’s only DNS server.

• Ensure that the correct GPO is applying the Folder Redirection settings. We often see situations where Folder Redirection settings have been incorrectly applied on another GPO at some point in time, usually on the Default Domain or Default Domain Controllers Policy and usually with the wrong settings. Use the Group Policy Results wizard to determine which GPO is applying the settings for the user account in question.
  
• Ensure the settings in the Small Business Server Folder Redirection GPO are correct according to the “GPO settings detail” section above.
  
• When migrating from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008, follow the previously mentioned post-migration steps carefully to avoid any confusion in the settings deployed to the client. If the client cannot reach the original network location on the source server before the process is complete, this will fail.

Offline Files

There are certain circumstances that will result in Offline Files preventing the client from reaching network shares on the server. One such issue that we run into frequently is documented in the following KB article:

274789 The Folder Redirection Feature Does Not Function

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;274789

Usually the resolution to these cases is to reset the Offline File cache on the client and logging off and back onto the domain.

I’m luvin’ the series of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 created by the team program managers. We’ve tied them to the posts once or twice a week on the CRM Team Blog too. So if you haven’t been to the CRM site on YouTube since I rolled it out this Summer, take a minute to check it out. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement. And do sign up to get pings as we drop new videos on the site.

As I’ve said before, more and more of your competitors are using YouTube.com to present short videos of what their companies offer. Since it is free to use that way, maybe it’s time to invest some time into creating your company’s YouTube portal?

In this Channel9 video I chat with Sergei Dreizin, CEO of Akvelon.

Akvelon has built a highly-configurable global search add-in for CRM and in this video Sergei shows a demo of their search product working with CRM 2011. Akvelon’s Global Search supports searching data across multiple entities, contents of attachment, displays related entities for many-to-many (N:N)relationships and searching by lookup fields. It also has the ability to search custom entities and fields which will come in very handy for xRM implementations. Behind the scenes, the add-in uses a combination of index based search, live queries and cached results.

CRM Global Search with Akvelon

For more details about Akvelon’s Global Search, check out the video and Akvelon’s website http://www.akvelon.com/products/Dynamics%20CRM%20Global%20Search/default.aspx.

I keep telling my friends that the new technology adoption and creation curve is so steep that we can’t even possibly imagine what will be available next year, let alone in ten years. So when I saw Microsoft’s LightSpace I thought, this is a proto-type, what will it be in a year or two.

Can the room really be the computer? It boggles the mind.