CRM 4.0 – Outlook client hotfixes

Here is the list of issues resolved by the cumulative hotfix KB950088:

1.    Outlook hangs during initialization

2.    With E-mail Auto Promotion Enabled, Outlook may not close cleanly/properly

3.    Contacts with birthdays earlier than 1/1/1970 causes Outlook to crash

4.    Items in Shared Calendars will report Sync Issues

5.    Cannot Promote an E-mail where the name of the attached file contains a ‘&’ symbol

6.    Selecting Dismiss on Outlook Calendar reminder for Service Activity causes record to change Status Reason back to default value for that record

7.    OWA Sent Emails Get Stuck in Outlook Draft Folder When Outlook Is Open And CRMADDIN is Enabled

8.    Microsoft Outlook stops responding when you open, close, reply to, or forward e-mail messages in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook

9.    CRM Outlook client and/or Desktop Client hangs in presence of other Outlook add-ins

10. Phone call activity due time is changed after the activity is snoozed or dismissed

Details available here on the CRM Team Blog.

HTH,

Nithya

Reading values into the CRM form from an IFRAME

Hi,

I had recently blogged on the CRM Team Blog about Passing CRM Form values to an IFrame.
This post provides a simple code snippet to do the reverse – read a value from an IFRAME into the CRM form. Let’s say the target page of the IFRAME is an HTML page containing a text field and I want to populate a field on the CRM form with the value in this text field.

My customized CRM form looks like this:

Customized CRM Form with IFRAME

I want to read Sample Value which is in IFRAME_Custom and populate this value into the custom attribute Temp val on save of the CRM form. I place the following code snippet in the CRM form’s onSave event:

crmForm.all.new_tempval.DataValue = crmForm.all.IFRAME_custom.contentWindow.document.all.inputval1.value;

Replace with your field names, Save, Publish and that’s it!

HTH,
Nithya

‘This message has not yet been submitted for delivery’

Does the above sound familiar? This message is displayed on emails with status ‘Pending Send’ in CRM 4.0 when you try sending an email using the web client.

After trying several things (changing the polling interval, checking the exchange router configuration, restarting the router service a few hundred times), I realised that there probably was a step I was missing. Finally realised this had to do with the E-mail configuration setup in the user record in CRM. Selected the option ‘E-mail router’ for both incoming and outgoing.

Then I checked the email router configuration manager was displaying the list of CRM users on selecting a server and clicking ‘Load Data’. Finally, published the configuration.

Emails are now being sent out in a matter of seconds! Can’t believe I spent so much time figuring this one out.

P.S. There’s so much to learn in CRM 4.0 [ and to unlearn from 3.0 ]

MS CRM 4.0 Certification Exams

The certification exams for version 4.0 are out (in English) starting today!

The exams are:

30-631: Customization and Configuration for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 
30-632: Applications for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
30-633: Installation and Deployment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Log onto PartnerSource for details.

Do write in if you manage to crack any or all of them. Good luck!

Cheers,
Niths

Setting field values from a lookup

Here is how the value of a lookup field can be retrieved and populated into a textfield:

crmForm.all.textfield.DataValue=crmForm.all.lookupfield.DataValue[0].name;

Titan time!

Titan’s here! Download the 90-day trial from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?DisplayLang=en&nr=20&productId=835909D0-A755-41FF-93CD-F5207C609EF5&sortCriteria=date and have a looksie!

Any questions? Check out the implementation guide or write in!

Take care!

I’m an MVP!

Doesn’t the title say it all?!! Well, I have just been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award for CRM!

What makes this special is that i didn’t expect it at all! Must start preparing my acceptance speech/post!

Cheers,

Niths

Outlook Client : Some issues and resolutions

Hello! It’s been a while since i blogged last. Have been caught up with some unexpected developments at work!Given below are some of the typical errors I’ve come across while implementing the Outlook client (3.0) and the resolutions:

1. While installing the Outlook Client plug-in, an error message saying “The CRM server could not be contacted.” is displayed. Try adding the URL of the CRM server to the list of Trusted Sites in Internet Explorer on the client machine and run the installation again.
2. Another problem that occurs frequently is when you disconnect from the server without going offline. Then client has an issue sometimes, when you try connecting to the server. To resolve this, set the RCOffline key in the registry to 1 (offline). FYI, the value of this parameter, when the client is online, is 0.
3. After installation, an error message saying something to the effect that the server could not be contacted is displayed. Go the COM Add-ins and remove the MSCRM add-in. Save and close and exit Outlook. Login again and include the Add-in.
4. The list of records available in the web client are not displayed when you login through the Outlook client. To make the list of records available, you need to set up the Local Data Groups in the Outlook client. Click on the CRM menu and select Local Data. Here you can configure what records you want to sync between the CRM server and Outlook. You also have the option of activating and de-activating data groups. Refer to this link for more info : http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/sales/localdatagroup.mspx

Note: It would be nice if we had an option to set up the Local Data for a set of users instead of configuring these in each client. If you know of a tool/someone working on this, please let me know!Do remember to keep checking the KB for any hotfixes/resolutions!HTH,Niths 

Setting a field’s requirement level

Here are three ways to set the Requirement Level of an attribute:

1. Customizations -> Customize entity -> > -> Attributes -> > ->Required Level -> Here you can set it to Business Required, Business Recommended or No Constraint.

2. Using crmForm.SetFieldReqLevel(“>”, 0/1/2);
3. Using crmForm.all.>_c.className=’req’;
crmForm.all.>_c.setAttribute(“req/rec/none”, “0/1/2″);

HTH,
Niths

MSCRM 3.0 Installation – Speed Bumps!

Hi,

I had to install CRM on one of our servers last week and it turned out to be quite an adventure! The environment was CRM 3.0 with SQL 2005 and VS.NET 2005. Here is one of the issues i faced with the installation:

1. The User Manager option was not showing up in the Deployment Manager. An error saying “The Server is not responding. This might happen if it is currently unavailable or does not exist…etc…” was being thrown.

To resolve this, check the version of .NET Framework being used by the CRM website. Run the IIS Manager and navigate to the ASP.NET tab on the CRM website properties.Specify the Framework to be used as 1.1.4322. For Reports, use Framework 2.0. Do remember to register the ASP.NET Frameworks you are going to use by executing aspnet regis. Do and IISRESET and you’re good to go!

More in my next post!

HTH,
Niths