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

Getting related record from a lookup and displaying it as a link in CRM 2011 with OData/JSON

Lookups provide a way to associate a record with a related value. The simplest example is showing the primary contact in the account form. Keeping with this example, what if I want a record in the primary contact to show up in the account form, and be able to open up the record form on clicking the field?

The business case I am going to focus on deals with showing the primary contacts preferred service in the accounts form. I am thus able to view the service record without having to open up the contact form and click on the service lookup.

Using View Layout Replicator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

I have been using the view replicator by tanguy for sometime now. It is a valuble time saver, and very user friendly to boot! If you want to replicate the columns/ formatting in a view to other views, this is a much better option to creating and modifying the properties one view at a time.

Here are the steps to set it up and get it running.

"Assembly must be registered in isolation" error during plugin registration in a non isolation mode

Recently I faced an issue trying to register a plugin assembly in isolation mode "none". Registering it in sandbox mode was not an option as the plugin was accessing external data. The CRM setup was using IFD authentication which really should not be a factor in this case.

The plugin registration tool is available as part of the crm 2011 sdk download in the following path: sdk\tools
\pluginregistration. Once the project is built, you can use the PluginRegistration.exe application to register the assembly, step and image. MSDN has step by step walkthrough of the registration process.

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

Goal Management in CRM 2011 for a custom entity

Goal Management is a completely unique stand alone feature in the new revamped crm 2011. It provides an organization multiple touchstones to monitor the progress of an activity. You can provide roll ups of individual goals to provide progress reports on a department.

In this post I will walk through goal management setup for a custom entity. The custom entity is a stripped down version of the orders OOB entity, with multiple status options.

CRM 2011 import error: managed solution cannot overwrite the EntityMap component

Solutions are a very important feature in crm 2011, with a multitude of uses. One of the most common ways to utilize solutions is to create packaged customizations that can be later distributed. The publisher that is associated with the solution can set the managed properties to control the level of customizable actions the end user can have. For example, you can get to a very granular level of checking if a particular view is end user customizable, or not.

Solutions are "layered" when they are imported, based on the order of import. In this post, I will focus on a particular error during an import of a managed solution.

If the import is done using the UI or with code (like a console or form application), the error will be similar to this message:

A managed solution cannot overwrite the EntityMap component with Id=b925c093-77c6-474e-b7ac
-dae44d569c53 which has an unmanaged base instance.  The most likely scenario for this error is that an unmanaged solution has installed a new unmanaged EntityMap component on the 
target system, and now a managed solution from the same publisher is trying to install 
that same EntityMap component as managed.  This will cause an invalid layering 
of solutions on the target system and is not allowed.