Event Listner

A new tool is available which allows you to view CRM plug-in events as they occur, including all details available from the IPluginExectionContext.

For more information click here.

Tracing and Debugging error in CRM 4.0

If errors in Microsoft CRM occur there can be a user friendly or otherwise limited message presented. To find out what actually is the problem is not difficult you just have to know where to look.

Wether it is an authentication issue or a SoapException 'Server was unable to process request'. This article offers some pointers on where to look for additional details.

Microsoft CRM Date values

CRM support user working in multiple time zones by storing alle date time values as UTC. This way the time can be easily adjusted to the users time zone setting. This article explains this in a bit more detail.

As for date values, some dates such as a birth date can be fixed regardless of time zone. CRM will still adjust these to the time zone, this may show as a full day difference in the interface. This article contains a plugin to allow you to use dates without timezone dependecies in CRM.

CRM 4: Waiting workflows

In CRM 4 workflows can have the status waiting when an they are waiting for an event such as a timer or they will also have this status if an error has occured. To find out which take the following steps.

Translation assistant

With version 4.0 Microsoft CRM the option to have multiple languages in a single interface became available. To translate the various available labels CRM offers an option to export all labels to an excel file.

The problem I found with this file is that it lacks context of the text you are translating. For instance the text "Address 1: Line 1" this appears for each entity, form and view that uses this fields. So if you want to change only one label it will take you a lot of trial and error to find out which field you want to change.

You can download this tool here.

Cross domain remote debugging

When you are developing with a virtual PC which is running in its own domain or want to debug any other system which is in a different domain than you own user remote debuggin will normally fail on authentication errors.

How do you set this up ...

Crm 4.0 Sitemap & ISV.Config Editor

As of CRM 4.0 the sitemap and isv.config file are no longer available on the file system but stored in the database. Which means that for each change you have to export the customization, make your changes and then reimport the customizations file.

This tools is indented to make this easier.

For more information click here.

Plug-ins and Workflows: Extension of Microsoft CRM 4.0

Microsoft CRM 4.0 has several methods to add functionality, to create custom workflow in CRM you have two options plugins and workflows.

Generating an Time table in SQL

In reporting queries it happens often that you need a ruler of some sort for instance a table containing all days between a start and end date. You can generate such tables by using a looping construct but this isn't the strong point of SQL.

Source control server setup

For my source control I use subversion and I found the easiest method to install a fully working subversion server (combined with trac for issue tracking) is to do that on linux. I can setup a clean server from scratch in about an hour including all required configuration. For a windows server I would need that just to install windows and get all the software packages. Best thing is I have a single script to do this, this also includes some scripts to facilitate backups and setting up new subversion/trac repositories.