May 2006 - Posts
Often, when I attempt to send an e-mail from Outlook that is tracked in CRM,
I receive the error:
An error occurred promoting this item to Microsoft CRM. The Microsoft CRM
server could not be contacted or the user has insufficient permissions to
perform this action. Do you want to send the e-mail? If you click Yes, the
e-mail will be sent out, but no corresponding activity will be created in
Microsoft CRM.
Working with Partner Managed Newsgroups support, it seems that there is a problem with promoting (that means getting e-mails to track in CRM) when there are graphics in the message that don't display properly. I have (had) a logo (Cert Partner) that would often not display properly. It would just show the wonderful red X. I removed this from my signature block and the problem seems to have disappeared. Yea!
Recently I invested in a couple of 1 GB RAM sticks for my CRM SBE server, giving me a total of 3 GB. I felt I got some benefit from it, but not as much as I had figured. Then more recently I happened to be trying to relieve some memory use on the server so I could run a test VPC briefly. I noticed that I had 4 SQL server instances running. This is as expected with the default instance which CRM uses, SharePoint, SBS Monitoring, and ISA 2004. One of these I noticed was using 1.2 GB! Must be my CRM. Since I didn't need CRM while I was running my VPC, I stopped that instance of SQL. Nope! The 1.2 GB was still there. Well, must be SharePoint. Stopped it. Nope. Tried SBS Monitoring. The pesky 1.2 GB SQL process just continued to stare me in the face! Finally I stopped the ISA instance, MSFW. Wham! the 1.2 GB was released. I was astonished. So, I brought up SQL Enterprise Manager, right-clicked on <server>\MSFW and selected Properties. From the SQL Server Properties dialog box, I selected Memory. There I found that the MSFW instance had no restraint on memory useage, the default. I then selected the Dynamically configure SQL server memory and slid the slider back to around 260 MB. That may still be too much but I don't know how much is really appropriate. But it's a lot less than 1.2 GB! So now I'm happy.
Well, I thought I was until the other day I happened to check on the RAM for my default instance of SQL which CRM uses. I figured it was set to dynamically use all the RAM it could get. Not so. I found it was set to some relatively small value somewhere in the 250 MB range. Ouch. I slid the slider back up to allow it to use up to 2 GB. Afterall, that's why I bought the extra RAM.
So, maybe when you have nothing better to do and you're tinkering around your server, you just might want to check on how your SQL server instances are using memory. It might surprise you.
Imagine that! As I said in my last blog of a few minutes ago, I just reinstalled the CRM Laptop Client on my laptop. Then I ran the 'Go Offline' in order to sync up the notebook with the main database so when I go offline for real, it won't take so long. Once I was offline, I noticed the SQL Server Service Manager that shows up in the System Tray was showing the CRM MSDE SQL instance was running (green arrow). Once I went back on-line, I notice that the CRM MSDE SQL instance in now stopped (red square). It makes sense, but I'd never noticed that before. I'm used to seeing the red square. Not sure if this has any bearing on some problems I've encountered from time to time, but it's something for me to keep in mind, and keep and eye out for. I just learned something new today :-)
Well, I haven't blogged for a while, but not because I've not been doing anything. Just haven't blogged :-(
I have been working with Partner Managed Newsgroups on a couple of issues, but no solutions yet. One issue I have is that I cannot add new users to my CRM system. When I run the wizard to add a user, all seems to go well until the end when it tells me the user, which was selected from the list of Active Directory users, doesn't exist in Active Directory! Working with the MS support folks in the newsgroups, it seems there is likely a mismatch between all the GUIDs that specify the users, the 4 CRM security groups and such in Active Directory, and those in my CRM SQL database. Nothing like stirring up the guts of the system, including translating ADSIEdit keys into GUIDs, comparing them to AD GUIDs, and GUIDs in SQL. I will likely have to use a support incident to resolve this one. But I've asked for a 10,000 foot view of the process and perhaps, being a highly trained MCDBA (big grin, ala Rush), I can figure it out myself. Ah, the power of a good backup!
The other unsolved problem I'm having is that most often when I attempt to reply to a message in Outlook and try to track it in CRM, I get an error that I don't have the permissions, or some other error is preventing the system from 'promoting' the message to CRM. The last thing recommended to me was to reinstall the CRM Laptop Client. That didn't help.
But were still working on these and will eventually figure them out. Ain't this fun? :-) Will post as these are resolved.
This past Thursday was the San Antonio Manufactures Association (SAMA) annual Trade Show. As always, I was 'in charge of' Registration. I say it with little quotes because the SAMA Admin, Debbie, is great and lined up all the volunteers, etc. But at the last minute, of course, I came up with a brilliant idea. Why not use CardScan (www.cardscan.com) to capture all attendee information for the show. Since my official duty post was the registration booth (we don't have advanced registration) and everyone coming to the show would pass by, what better way to capture the info, real time.
But, I didn't come up with my great idea until the weekend before the show. I started a conversation with the folks at CardScan which culminated with a phone call on Wednesday morning, which we finally connected at 9:44 AM with a cut off for overnight shipping at 9:50! I received my CardScan scanner and software at 9:45 AM the next day, the morning of the show!! I loaded the software and tried it out. Oops! Problem. I call their tech support, explaining that I have to be at the show in less than a hour. After taking my registration info (ugh, but necessary), they quickly solved my problem. Then I prepared to go to the show. Oops, another question. I call again. 'Didn't I just speak with you?' They answered my question quickly and accurately. Off to the show.
I arrive and set up my laptop at the registration desk with the scanner sitting up on the counter. I quickly show a few of the volunteers at the booth how to scan cards and what the 'drill' is. They are delighted. The whole booth is energized to be sure that everyone entering the show is asked for their business card so it can be scanned and then entered into the big rotating drum used for the prize drawings (over $1,000 in cash!). I was interested to see over the course of the day that the various shifts showed each other how to scan the cards, being sure that everyone's card was scanned. It was so easy! Didn't seem to matter whether they entered the cards top first or bottom first or lengthwise. The scanner handled it. Those that didn't have a business card were asked to fill out an info slip, a little bigger than a business card. These had to be entered lengthwise since they were too wide for the scanner otherwise. The scanner handled those fine. All in all we scanned over 400 cards that day, in about 6 hours. It was a quick process.
After the show, I took the CardScan database and went home. That night I spent several hours entering the info from the paper slips for those that didn't have a card. The scanner was great at capturing the image of the card but not the data. I had to enter all that info manually. But, it was MUCH easier than it would have been trying to enter the data from those slips of paper. The image was displayed on my screen just below where I needed to enter it. I also had to verify the info from all the other business cards. Some were great, many needed minor changes, some were more challenged. It was interesting to see how various business cards were recognized. I spent a few hours cleaning up the database. It could have been less but this was the first time I had used the software. I think next time it will go even faster as I learned how it works as I went along. Overall, it was a heck of a lot faster than entering the data by hand from the cards themselves!
Next I had to do something with the data. Naturally I transferred it to Microsoft CRM. When transferring cards, you have two choices; Leads or Contacts. Leads is the appropriate entity for this kind of data. But CardScan lets you transfer directly into a Contact as well. To do so, you must specify the Account, if any, the contact is to be associated with. Transferring the CardScan data to Microsoft CRM took about 40 minutes, about 10 Leads per minute. Included in the transfer was the image of the business card! This is kept as a Note for the Lead. This has been handy when going back and verifying info. Once I had the data in CRM, I used the bulk edit function to add the 'Topic' (SAMA Trade Show 2006) so I will know where the Lead came from and the lead source and venue. I was able to edit all the Leads pretty much all at once.
My next step was to send an e-mail to each Lead (attendee) thanking them for attending the trade show. It included their name and their company name. Other personal information could have been easily included as well. But this was sufficient. Sending this thank yous was a good way to verify the e-mail adddresses provided. There were a number of 'bounced' e-mails. Many of these were caused by errors in the e-mail address. The 'dot' before the 'com' was sometimes dropped and other simple errors. Actually, considering the number of cards entered, the number of bounces was minimal. I easily fixed those and resent the thank you e-mails.
Once I had pretty much verified the e-mails, which also helped me correct a few other errors, I had a 'clean' database. Then I used the Advanced Find feature of MS CRM along with a custom 'View' that I created which included all of the appropriate contact fields (name, company, address, etc) to provide a listing of all the Leads from the show. Then, using the export to Microsoft Excel feature of MS CRM, I was able to export all this attendee info to an Excel spreadsheet which I was then able to e-mail to SAMA. Now SAMA will have a record of the attendees, including their e-mail, fax, and other info for use in promoting future trade shows, etc.
All in all, I was quite impressed with CardScan. It's going to make future business card data entry a snap.
I've been trying to figure out how to get the CRM SBE to route incoming faxes as advertised. Somehow, CRM seemed to totally ignore my incoming faxes. I tried a number of things. The documentation I found said that it was pretty much automatic. Not true! I finally stumbled upon the 'little secret'. Seems there is a somewhat hidden 'Enable' that needs to be set.
To enable CRM Fax Routing in SBS 2003, go to Server Management, click on Fax (local) in the Navigation Pane. Then select Manage Fax Jobs. From the Fax Console, click on the Tools menu and select Fax Service Manager... Then expand Devices and Providers, then Devices, then your modem entry. Under the modem entry you will find Incoming Methods. In the right hand pane you should see 'Route to Microsoft CRM'. Right click on this item and if you see 'Enable' as an available choice (not greyed out), select it. to enable routing to Microsoft CRM. That's it!
There are likely other ways to find this setting, but this is how I found it. This now gives CRM SBE the ability to route faxes to the recepient(s) addressed in the fax cover page. This could be a big deal for firms that are still fax centric. Now folks won't have to look through stacks of junk faxes to find ones addressed to them. Nor will we any longer require a poor admin to receive all faxes in his/her mailbox and forward them as appropriate. Faxes not addressed to a recognized CRM user will be routed to the Fax Queue for all to see. Those addressed to a CRM user will go to the users 'In Progress' queue. Plus of course you can still route fax to the other SBS methods like to a printer, your SharePoint Companyweb Incoming Faxes, a folder, or still e-mail to that poor admin.
As I ended my last post, I found some errors in my Database Maintenance Plan. Checking the errors produced a commonality; the database must be in single user mode. Apparently the processes attempt to put the databases in single user mode when they try to do a repair. If the databases are in use at the time, it won't be able to do so and an error results. Checking with my good buddy Mr. Google, I found Microsoft article 290622 which explained the issue. I have now set the Database Maintenance Plan to not Attempt to repair any minor problems found during the Integrity Checking process.
Having made the changes I then re-ran each previously failed job. To do so, I went to Management/SQL Server Agent/Jobs, right clicked on each failed job in turn, and selected Start Job. I then highlighted 'Job' again in the Navigation Pane and clicked on the refresh button every so often to see that the job was executing and when it finished. Now I have all blue in my jobs listing.
We typically focus our CRM attention to the CRM application. But underlying the application is the SQL databases that house our CRM data. The two main databases are <organization_Name>_MSCRM and <organization_Name>_METABASE. And of course there's the ReportServer database that SQL Reporting Services uses. These databases deserve a little of our Tender Loving Care as well.
One of the first things I do when I set up any SQL database that has data I might be fond of is to set up a Database Maintenance Plan. This is really simple to do. Open up SQL Enterprise Manager, drill down into the SQL server that hosts your CRM databases, open the Management folder in the Navigation Pane and you will see a selection for Database Maintenance Plans. Clicking on this will show you a list of existing Database Maintenance Plans. If you see some, then you likely already know how to do this. If not, right-click on Database Maintenance Plans in the Navigation Pane and select New Maintenance Plan. This starts a wizard that will walk you through the process so I won't do so here. What you get is a job that automatically runs at the intervals you specify that will check over your database, remove unused space, reindex it and create a backup of your data.
To me, the backups are very important. I know, you backup up your server every night. But I've found the SQL data backups to be very handy. I generally set it to maintain the last 7 days of backups. That gives me a way to go back, and with relatively little effort, restore my data back in time. I've had to do this over the years more than once when a database such as my old GoldMine data, would get messed up because I did something stupid. Now YOU would never do anything stupid with your data, but what about your users? In the days of using tape backup, restoring from an on-line SQL backup was a heck of a lot easier too. Of course all those SQL backups get backed to your system backup on an daily basis as well which gives a little more depth to your backup protection.
Once you've set up your Database Maintenance Plan, be sure to check on it every once in a while to be sure it's working properly. This article was prompted by my discovering my Database Maintenance Plan needed a little TLC. You can check on the status of your Database Maintenance Plan in a number of ways. First, you can configure the plan with notifications that will send you an e-mail if there is a problem. You can also browse your Event Viewer logs periodically. Or you can be a bit more proactive and look at the status in Enterprise Manager. To do so, go back to your Management folder on your CRM SQL server and open SQL Server Agent. Here you will see 3 additional items. Jobs is the one you're interested in. Opening this you will see the various SQL jobs that the Database Maintenance Plan created for you. You will also see a few that CRM creates. We can discuss those a bit later. What you want to see if a bunch of small square icons with blue circles in them indicating all is well. What you don't want to see is a bunch of red circles with Xs in them indicating you have a problem. If you'll excuse me now, I see a couple of new red circles in mine that need a little more TLC.
Well, now that I've gotten SQL Reporting Services installed for my CRM, I'm now back to trying to install CRM 3.0 Mobile. Frankly, CRM 3.0 Mobile isn't as critical to me as it was in the previous version. With CRM 1.2, CRM Mobile was pretty much the only way I could use my Pocket PC to record my daily (billable) activities and have it replicated into CRM. It was especially useful when I needed to create activities on my PPC. Fortunately with CRM 3.0 and its much tighter integration with Outlook, appointments, etc. that I access, create, or whatever, on my Pocket PC (Pocket Outlook) carryover to my CRM. It's great. But, I need to at least check out CRM 3.0 Mobile.
I downloaded the Mobile code when it first came out and, if you look back in my early April posts, you'll see I attempted to install it at that time. Unfortunately trying to resolve some of the issues I experienced caused me to experience even more 'experiences' culminating in many reinstalls and my finally getting SRS to work.
Well, cutting to the chase, as we say in South Texas, I tried to run the CRM 3.0 Mobile install. When I first ran setup.exe, I was presented with the Microsoft CRM 3.0 Mobile Setup screen and I select the Small Business Server 2003 install option. That whirrrssss for a little and then tells me "Setup was interrupted before Microsoft CRM Mobile could be installed. To restart installation, restart Setup.exe.' That's helpful! Not much in the Event Viewer logs either.
I queried the Partner Managed newsgroups and was informed that at this point they do not support CRM 3.0 Mobile. An e-mail chat with Marie McFadden, Microsoft manager of the Partner Managed newsgroups, bascially confirms that because of the complexity of this very new application, it is not appropriate for newsgroup support. Don't blame 'em. I'd hate to have to troubleshoot an established application via a newsgroup much less a brand new one with a lot of 'issues'.
Susan Bradley, SBS Diva and MVP, sent me a link to a 'prerequisite' for installing CRM 3.0 Mobile on systems where either it had been upgraded from 1.2 (as mine was) or was a 'custom' install (as mine was as well). The link was:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=651ca844-d04d-4728-a058-7032624fdb02&displaylang=en
Well, I downloaded it and ran the resultant .exe. Got an error: "There is no such object on the server." Needless to say, Google didn't provide much insight.
So... that's where I stand in my quest for CRM 3.0 Mobile. I'll continue to try to figure this out and will chronicle my experience.
One of the big problems with CRM 3.0 SBE installation has been getting Microsoft SQL Reporting Services to play pretty. I have just posted an article here that chronicles my experience resolving this issue. Many thanks to Microsoft's Marie McFadden and the folks who man the Microsoft Partner Managed Newsgroup for all the help they gave me on this. I have also posted this on my web site at www.LentzComputer.net. Look in the Experiences in CRM document library.
Next, on to installing CRM 3.0 Mobile!