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!

Dynamics CRM 2013 - Part III - Service Management SLA's

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, there are a few additional goodies in the CRM Online Spring 2014 release that are currently available to new customers (and existing customers, depending on the roll out schedule). In previous posts, I talked a little bit about automatic Case creation and the queue routing rules. In this post, I will provide a view of the SLA feature in the latest update.

Dynamics CRM 2013 - Part II - Service Queues and Routing

As I mentioned in my earlier post, there are a few additional goodies in the CRM Online Spring 2014 release that are currently available to new customers (and existing customers, depending on the roll out schedule). In this post, we will take a look at the revamped service queues and the routing rules.

Dynamics CRM 2013 - Service Management - Part I

If you are on a Dynamics CRM online subscription, you would have noticed the option to install the latest Spring Release 2014 Update (here are some details on the Spring Wave Training Blitz that is available as a recording for CRM partners). There are quite a few features and improvements in the latest version, but the focus of this post is going to be the enhancements around Service Management and my views on the new features.

Thoughts on Convergence 2014 Day 1 - Part III

In the first part of this series, I talked a little bit about how the Dynamics Business suite fits into Microsoft's overarching plan of delivering innovation to the customer, and also discussed some details on the Dynamics CRM roadmap specifically with the Spring and Autumn updates. The second post was all about the marketing tools available within Dynamics CRM as part of the Spring Update.

In this post, the focus will be on the upcoming enhancements to the Customer Service suite through the Spring Update of Dynamics CRM.

Thoughts on Convergence 2014 Day 1 - Part II

In the first part of this series, I talked a little bit about how the Dynamics Business suite fits into Microsoft's overarching plan of delivering innovation to the customer, and also discussed some details on the Dynamics CRM roadmap specifically with the Spring and Autumn updates. One constant theme of Day 1 of Convergence 2014 was on products delivering amazing customer experience regardless of the channel they use.

Thoughts on Convergence 2014 Day 1 - Part I

This post is Part I of a series where I will be discussing the Keynote speeches and my thoughts/ opinions around the presentations. The posts will have a decidedly Dynamics CRM bent to it (which by the way has 40,000 customers and 4 million users worldwide).

Convergence 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia is the largest Dynamics party of the year for customers and partners associated with Microsoft's Business product suite. The first 3 days are all about keynotes and breakout sessions, with the last day focused on getting all your questions answered by Microsoft's team members or Dynamics user group communities. The are about 12,000 attendees for Convergence this year.

CRM 2011 Queue History Report

While working with a recent prospect, there was a very interesting report that they wanted to recreate in Dynamics CRM. The report would give details of the time the object (in this case incident) spent in each queue. For example, if incident "Incident_xyz" was in queue "A" for 5 minutes, and then was moved to queue B 20 minutes ago, then the report should show the time spend in each queue.

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.

CRM 2011 Point of View - What is the scope of a deactivated View?

Views are a great way to provide the user with data filtered on a very specific criteria that is easily accessible. The view can be a system level view, which means that all users with the right security role can see the view, or the view can be a personal view, visible only to the user (which can then be shared).

In this post, I want to talk a little bit about the system views and what it means to have a view in the deactivated state.

Proxy web service to connect to Dynamics CRM

While Dynamics CRM 2011 webservice endpoints are available for theoretically any client, there seems to be a few challenges while it comes to a Java implementation especially using NTLM/ Kerberos authentication. One easy workaround is to create a custom webservice that can then be hosted in IIS which will act as a prxy between the java client and Dynamics CRM. In this post, I will walk through the creation of one such simple webservice which will create a case in CRM.

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.)

Bulk import and delete of Subject data - A most excellent adventure

The Subject lookup is very unique in Dynamics CRM due to the fact that it is the only lookup that is formatted in an hierarchical tree structure. The typical use, at least in the out of the box arena, is around incidents and knowledge base articles. Recently I was working with a customer who wanted to leverage the Subject lookup, and had a whole bunch of Subjects (both active and inactive) that needed to be imported. Here are a few things I learnt along the way which might prove useful to you!

CRM 2011 SSRS Drill down reports

While the CRM 2011 OOB report wizard will suffice in many cases, there are specific reasons to go the custom SSRS route. In this post, I will talk you through the creation of a drill down report using a summary table.

Requirement:
Create a summary table of the number of incidents categorized by Subject. The incident count should list the incidents, and the user should be able to open the individual incident by clicking on the ticket number

Adding a sever to an existing CRM 2011 intallation

Recently I had a harrowing experience trying to add a front end server to existing install. The existing CRM 2011 setup had UR 12 rollup update applied on the Front End, Back End and SSRS Server. When trying to install the front end role on a new server, I kept getting the following error in the Installation Wizard: "The Product key is not compatible with installed version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM".

CRM 2011 - Pre-Install checklist for IFD/ ADFS setup

While there is a lot of good documentation on the web about the IFD setup for CRM 2011, it is still a bit daunting for a newbie to wade though the deluge. In this post, I will document a few items that need to be in place before the actual ADFS install and configuration can happen. This checklist is especially important if you do not have complete access/ control and are dependent on an external teams assistance.

Many thanks to my colleagues Ash Dupree and Rakaesh Navaneethan for validating the data!

CRM 2011 native Import wizard - Dealing with humongous data files

While using the native CRM 2011 data import tool, the default file size that is acceptable is 8 MB. Yes, that is correct - 8MB. Not much, isn't it? Here are a few options to consider when the data to be imported exceeds the file import size.

CRM 2011 - Migrating Notes while maintaining history information

Notes in Dynamics CRM 2011 typically provide information about the note text, along with details of when the note was created (or modified) and by whom. If we think of how Notes are used, I think we can all agree that the history information (whom and when) is a critical component of the Note record.

The process of importing Notes and Attachments using the Data Import Wizard is pretty straightforward for the most part. The import wizard however does not map all possible attributes available in the system. For example, we cannot set the created by, modified on or modified by data using the import wizard. The only attribute that can be set (overridden) is the created on field. How do we solve this issue to make sure we are migrating Notes correctly? Here is one option to consider.

Adding Standard text to CRM 2011 Notes

The Notes section in the entity record is a easy way to keep track of changes to the record. The user text is automatically saved on "onblur" - meaning that when the focus is moved away from the editable notes pieces the information is saved to the annotation entity. The onblur feature is actually pretty nifty, as some CRM systems require you to save the note by clicking on a "Save" button. Extra clicks? No thanks!

In Notes, lets consider a scenario where the user needs to enter a few lines of canned text each time. A very common case is a set of instructions for the CSR on what information to capture from the customer. Right now, one option is to have a document with the text, and copy and paste the right sections to the Note each time. Does not sound very appetizing, does it? Here is an alternate approach that might be useful!

Convergence 2013 Day 1 - Dynamics CRM and Netbreeze

It has been a long and eventful day at Convergence 2013 so far. The customer stories were a nice way to kick things off, and Kirill Tatarinov, President of Microsoft Business Solutions Division, did a great job of moderating and keeping the flow going.

Specifically with Dynamics CRM, there were some nice demos around Marketing Pilot and the upcoming release which supports Yammer integration. In this post though, I would like to talk a little bit about what I felt was the most exciting news so far - the acquisition of Social analytics company Netbreeze.