Active Directory password reset via CRM 2011

A couple of months ago, my colleague Robert Shurtleff (@rgsiii) came to me with an interesting idea about a CRM add on to change AD passwords. After a few emails back and forth thrashing out the design, it was time to make it actually work. In this post, I am going to provide some of the details of a solution to enable a user to change his or her AD password from within CRM.

Branding a CRM 2011 application

The Dynamics CRM 2011 application, along with the XRM framework, enables us to model a varied requirement set with a high degree of customization. But there are instances when CRM is used adjacent with another LOB application, either as sections inside of CRM 2011, or outside of it. In such a case, the user experience should be as streamlined as possible. Dynamics CRM approaches this issue by providing the style sheets that crm uses as part of the sdk (sdk\resources\styleguide), so that other applications can be brought in line with CRM. In situations where other LOB applications take precedent (or their UI cannot be modified), what are the options for the CRM customizer?

Extending CRM 2011 into the social sphere: Using Montage Page editor

The inspiration for this post is a whitepaper from Microsoft titled "The Connected Enterprise". It has a bunch of great ideas on how and why there exists a need to embrace social technologies to drive business needs. There is also a peek into the social tools that Microsoft is building or already built, and possible ways that might benefit your marketing and sales teams using simple storylines.

In this post, I am going to focus on one of those cool tools, and how users could possibly benefit by their integration with CRM 2011.

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:

CRM 2011 Ribbon Workbench - Getting guids from selected records in the grid

For those who need to make changes to the crm 2011 ribbon, I strongly suggest that you run, not walk, and download the ribbon workbench tool from Develop1. It is so far the best utility to make painless modifications to the CRM ribbon, and also has decent write ups and articles to cover most of your needs. In this post, I will walk though a setup which grabs the selected guids from a grid view, using a button created on the entity main page.

Gamification and the CRM (XRM) Platform

The Gartner Group defines gamification as the concept of employing game mechanics to non-game activities such as recruitment, training and health and wellness. They also predict that by 2014, more than 70 percent of global 2,000 organizations will have at least one “gamified” application, which can range from mastering a specific skill or improving one’s health. 

Pretty impressive numbers, is it not? Reading about these emerging trends, I do wonder how our very own CRM 2011 can be applied to create business solutions that cater to those needs. The opportunities for businesses are great – from having more engaged customers, to crowdsourcing innovation or improving employee performance.