CRM 2011 Data Import/ Export using Cozy Roc SSIS library

A CRM system is only as good as the data in it. Along with entering data using the UI, there are multiple needs around a CRM supported data import application. For MS Dynamics Crm2011, there are a quite a few options available, like the native CRM Import wizard, Scribe or SSIS applications like Cozy Roc.

In this post I am going to walk through a very basic crm import/ export using the CozyRoc SSIS+ library. CozyRoc SSIS+ library includes Dynamics CRM adapters with support for all three deployment types: Premise, Hosted and Live. A SQL Server license is required to use the library.

MS Dynamics CRM 2011 Activity Feeds and Yammer.

The news is hot off the press - Microsoft has agreed to buy Yammer for $1.2 billion. Yammer is one of the more mature enterprise social networks available on the market right now. There is already some speculation of how Microsoft is going to use (or misuse) this great tool, but the focus of this post is a little different. I am going to try and see how the existing activity feeds functionality stacks up against the Yammer platform. I understand it might be a little unfair to compare an eight month old feature will a full fledged platform, but my goal is not to beat up on a work in progress feature but to get excited about Yammer, and see what it can bring to our implementations.

No Code solution to populate Two Options values when creating a record from a CRM 2011 dialog

The inspiration for this post is a similarly titled blog on msdn from @devkeydet.

Is is an excellent read, and shows the power and ease of using custom workflows. I am going to provide a solution for the same scenario which uses the existing process (workflow) UI, but without any custom coding.

The business case is pretty straightforward. Here is the scenario from the blog post in its entirety:

“I have an entity with a field of type ‘Two Options’ that I would like to populate within a ‘Create Record’ activity in a CRM 2011 dialog.   The ‘Two Options’ type in CRM 2011 is a boolean.  The ‘Prompt and Response’ activity in a CRM 2011 dialog only gives me options for Text/Integer/Float. Because of this, I can’t set the value of the answer to the field in the entity  within ‘Set Properties’ because the types don’t match.”

Here are the steps to achieve the same result without the custom code workflow:

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: