Dynamics CRM 2013 SP1 - Enterprise Case Management features for On-Premise

My earlier posts on Service Management Spring release were on the online version of Dynamics CRM, as at the time of the first post Service Pack 1 was not available for on-premise installs. Since then, Service Pack 1 has been released for public consumption, and I was very excited to install the same on my own VirtualBox VM. After the SP1 install and the server reboot, I was all set to continue messing around with the Service management features, except that I could not find the darn "Service Management" section under settings. Follow along as I will explain how make the new section available for use!

In Place Upgrade - CRM 2011 to CRM 2013

Now that the latest and greatest version of Dynamics CRM has been released, I was ready to get hands on with the new features. Since I had my own VM (details on building a VirtualBox VM here) to mess around with, I planned on doing an in place upgrade. Please note that this is not the recommended approach especially in production environments. A new install of CRM 2013 or a migration upgrade would be the best options for stage/ prod setups.

Here are the steps to follow for an in place upgrade from CRM 2011 to CRM 2013.

Manually Uninstall Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server

I recently had a very weird experience installing Dynamics CRM 2011 server front end role. The front end server would start the install process and make the connection to the sql server. Midway through the install the sql connection was getting terminated, resulting in the following error:

Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Common.Update.DBUpdateAction failed.
A transport-level error has occurred when receiving results from the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - The semaphore timeout period has expired.)

MS Dynamics CRM 2011 installation checklist and tips

While there is a wealth of information in the installation and planning guide for CRM 2011, it is always good to have a high level checklist of items, along with possible issues and workarounds, when dealing with a multi server install. Here I have attempted to document some of the critical items to have in place before we attempt the install.

Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is now available for download. As you might know, update rollup 10 had performance enhancements for retrieving multiple queries and for the Quick Find search. Some salient points from the announcement are listed below:

Solution Packager - Enable Source Control for Solutions in CRM 2011

The concept of solutions was introduced in CRM 2011, for the express purpose of having an easy way to combine all the customizations in a packaged format. While this has greatly improved life for people who customize CRM on a daily basis, there are still issues around enabling robust source control for a unmanaged or managed solution.

The solution is available to us in a .zip format, and source control will not be able to track changes in the files within the .zip. This might not be a problem with only one Consultant on a project, but when we have a team of folks working together, tracking changes is not for the faint of heart.

The solution packager is an excellent tool to solve the source control issues. In simple terms, the tool fragments the .zip file into multiple files, with the individual components in specific folders/files, thus enabling granular tracking of changes to components. The solution packager can also be used to convert the fragmented files back into a .zip file, thus reversing the process.

CRM 2011 Activity Feed - Updates from UR9

The focus of this post is the new enhancements to Activity feed feature in CRM 2011. The official build is not available yet, but the beta build is out since yesterday. Here are the details on how to get your hands on the CRM 2011 UR9 beta build. For more details on Activity feeds, please refer to my earlier post.

Setup and Configuration:
As before (Update Rollup 5 activity feed solution), after downloading the rollup update and importing the activity feed solution , under Settings/ System, you will see 2 new nav links named "Activity Feed Configuration" and "Activity Feed Rules".

CRM 2011 UR9: Cross browser compatibility known issues

Here is a compilation of the known issues  from the readme, regarding the cross browser functionality available in the latest Update Rollup R9 CPT build. More details about the beta build and how to access it is available on the MSDN blog.

I would also suggest this write up by Scott Sewell where he talks about some of the best practices to follow to try avoiding breaking your code!

Update Rollup 8 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Update Rollup 8 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is now available. The KB article page is not loading up as I write this post, so the details are from a blog post by Dynamics CRM in the field folks.

UPDATE: The KB article page is working now!

Some salient points from the announcement are listed below:

Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is now available. For online customers, Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will be applied to production servers in early April 2012.

Some salient points from the announcement are listed below:

Feature addition
Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 introduces a new feature that is called Read Optimized Forms. By using this feature, an organization can let users decide whether they want to view records using a form that is optimized to load quickly. The read-optimized form improves productivity for users who primarily consume data instead of editing records. It also helps prevent users from unintentional editing field values.

Dynamics CRM 2011 R9 update

By now most of us with knowledge of the roadmap know the details of the R8 update coming in Q2 2012. The key new capabilities are under the following basic categories: Mobility, Browser flexibility, Enhanced Social capabilities, Industry Solution Templates, SQL Server 2012 and Certifications.

For more details, you can read the Release Preview Guide from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM website below:
http://crmpublish.blob.core.windows.net/docs/ReleasePreviewGuide.pdf


I was reading this interesting article in zdnet that goes a bit further than R8 and actually starts speculating on what might be available in the R9 release later this year.

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/whats-on-tap-for-microsofts-dynamics-crm-r9-update-later-this-year/11975

Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

The Update Rollup 6 for CRM 2011 has been released from Microsoft. The initial release was done about 10 days ago, but due to some issues they were pulled. The exact reasons are unclear, and since the update rollup cannot be removed, I hope you did not install the erroneous version the day it came out! But in case you did, the new Update could be installed on top of the old Rollup 6.

The new release so far seems good - no issues during the update and as far as I noticed, no issues after the update! The link for downloading the update is as follows:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28712