February 2007 - Posts
Well, today was the Microsoft Vista/Office 2007/Exchange 2007 launch event in San Antonio. It was a SELL OUT! Thanks to Charles Van Heusen, Microsoft presenter and friend to Alamo PC SBS SIG, we were able to attend the morning sessions. I had thought we had registered for them but didn't have any confirmations.
So, we attended the Small Business track in the morning. We arrived a bit late but it was a good primer on Office. My wife, our CSO, is not a technical person, but I could see her eyes light up as features were shown and she occassionally commented, "I want to try that".
Somehow I received an invitation to the CIO Luncheon and they were kind enough to allow our CSO to attend as well. There appeared to be no agenda, but there were some good discussions on the upcoming Daylight Savings Time issue and other topics.
The afternoon sessions we attended was the Partner Track. This was Charles' session. He gave us some great insights on how to leverage and deploy Vista and Office. The Business Desktop Deployment looks like an great tool for deploying Vista and Office in small and large environments.
The SBS family of MVPs, which includes MVPs from other products but that have a strong connection to SBS, have started playing around with Microsoft's new Groove. Anne Stanton, CRM MVP (www.crmlady.com), has set up a 'workspace' for us to play around in. It's really 'Groovy'! Groove allows for chatting amongst those on-line, but also provides for sharing other data. For instance there is a calendar for meetings which we are using to schedule stuff for the upcoming MVP Summit, a sketch pad where we're having fun screwing up each others' pictures, numerous file folders where document can be stored and shared and collaborated upon, and even an InfoPath area where those with InfoPath 2007 can add information using that tool. And there's a bunch more!
We're just starting to scratch the surface. This looks like it could be a great tool! Check it out at http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/ and scroll down for Groove.
For more information about Groove go to http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidGrooveC103?clid=en-us
Now you're Grooving!
On a recent new CRM customer installation, each Outlook client installed fine and worked fine. And then, once the user started actually using the system and had applied new Microsoft Updates, they started complaining that Outlook was crashing all the time! The user would receive a notice that "Microsoft Office Outlook has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." and would then ask to send an error report to Microsoft. This was happening on ALL the desktops and the one laptop. I posted a query to my MVP buddies and Aaron Elder directed me to his blog at http://www.invokesystems.com/cs/blogs/mscrm/archive/2007/01/31/242.aspx which had a great description of the problem and a link to the fix.
The fix of course is a Hotfix, one which you must call Microsoft Customer Support to obtain. I tried calling last night but they have banker hours (I used to be a banker, and the hours suck, but are better than IT hours). So, I called again today and was given the hotfix. They were very helpful, perhaps almost, but not quite, too helpful. They sent me the link and I tried to access it. Didn't work (had an extra ')' at the end). So they directed me to further support. Before that support had a chance to come on line, I figured out the extra ')', hung up, and moved on.
The hotfix is about 7.5 MB and contains several files. The text file has instructions, but they are in the order of 'install the hotfix' and that's it. No, I don't mean instructions on HOW to install it, just the instruction telling me TO install it. Whee! Being the bright, cleaver MVP that I am, I kinda figured it out. Well sorta. Some expansion of the instructions would have actually been helpful.
Among the files included in the hotfix (you get an self-extracting .exe) is one that included 'server' in its name. So, I figures, I'll run this on the server. However, before I do so, I heed the warning of the MS Customer Support lady to back up the data. I do so and then I run it. Seems to work fine. Then I move to the first client workstation.
The hotfix package contains THREE client files. One is an .exe and the other two are .msp. The .msps are Windows Installer Update Packages. They are both small. One contains the word 'desktop' and the other 'laptop'. The .exe just says 'client'. So, which one should I use. Being on a desktop client, I decide to see what happens, in lieu of any actually guidance from the package, if I try the 'desktop' jobbie first. It starts off and then errors. I click the only response and the install continues and eventually reports that I need to reboot the workstation.
RINNNNGGGGG!!! I get a call from Microsoft Customer Support CRM folks asking me how the hotfix install is going. Remember I hung up before I actually talked to anyone about the install. I was impressed. Curtis asked how it was going. He answered my questions about the various client install files. Seems the 'client' .exe file is for use with the RTM version of the Outlook client. If you are up to date and running the V3C client, then you need to use the approrpiate .msp package. So, having selected to install the 'desktop' .msp was the right choice. He was surprised that I had received an error message and instructions to reboot. He told me that what I should have received was an install box or two saying it was starting the installation and then they would 'disappear'. He told me I should verify the installation by rebooting and then bringing up Add/Remove Programs, click the Show Updates (I NEVER noticed that before!), and then checking the hotfix was listed. I did, it was.
On to the other workstations. They worked more like Curtis had predicted. I started the install, it popped up a box for a little, and then the box disappeared. There was never any confirmation that the installation was completed nor that I needed to reboot. But, after waiting a minute or so, reboot I did, and verify I did. And the customer is no longer experiencing Outlook crashing.
To sum: If you experience the problem of Outlook crashing, check out MS knowledge base article 931270. If that fits your situation, call Microsoft support, between the hours of 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific (US) time, and ask for the hotfix. When you get it, back up your CRM data, run the Server update on the server. Then on each client, run the appropriate client update. Be sure to reboot the client once you've run it.
Recently I set up a new CRM system for a client. The owner's desktop worked fine. He could access the CRM web client and the Outlook client without issue. But we hadn't migrated his data yet so he wasn't using it. Then we migrate the data and get ready to go live and suddendly he starts getting an error when he attempts to launch CRM from the web client (and the Outlook client doesn't work either), "Unsupported XML Parser Version". The message states that CRM must have XML Parser version 4.0, SP2 or higher and provides a link. Following the link, I download and install XML Parser version 6.0! No joy. I then try 4.0 SP2 and then again no joy. I do a lot of head scratching and Google searching. Then I stumbled upon a posting by Matt Perkins. In it he stated he'd had the same problem and had tried installing XML Parser 4.0 SP2, also with no joy. However, he said he had resolved the problem by installing XML Parser 3.0, SP5 instead! With much doubt, I decided to give it a try. Lo and behold, it worked! Who'd have thought? You can find XML Parser 3.0 SP5 here.
Well, I've gotten the basic Account and Contact info and even some Notes and activities successfully migrated. I've added PickList items in CRM for the drop down fields in GoldMine and mapped them. However I seem to be running into a major road block of sorts.
One of the important aspects of any Contact Management or CRM system is Appointments. I suspect my client would like to have the appointments he's already scheduled in GoldMine to appear in his new CRM system. However, I can find absolutely no provision for migrating Appointments, at least not in the Data Migration Framework. There is a spreadsheet included in the DMF which details what fields and tables are involved in migrating each aspect of the GoldMine data. There is a tab for Phone Calls, another for Faxes, Letters, and Tasks, but none for Appointments. Likewise, there are tables in the CDF for all these activities, but not for Appointments! I may be missing something but at this point it looks like it can't be done. Or at least not without modifying the CDF extensively. But even then, if it's not part of the migration wizard, we'd still be out of luck.
There is one possible solution, however. And this one may turn out to be a lot easier than trying to figure out the mapping for Appointments. GoldMine has the ability to synchronize with Outlook! It's not perfect and I've had problems with it in the past. But it may be the way around this. For each user, we can perform a GoldMine to Outlook synchronization which will synch appointments, tasks, etc. over to Outlook. It will also synch Contacts which may be a problem since we have already migrated Contacts using DMF. Once the Appointments are in Outlook, then the user can click 'Track in CRM' for those appointments that should be tracked. And Outlook is the main calendar for CRM anyway.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Tonight I was able to migrate GoldMine Account and Contact data into my client's CRM database. Unfortunately, Notes and Activities did not make it. I'll have to do a bit more head scratching on that front.
One of the things that hung me up was the OwningUser field. When doing the DTS transforms, Scurvy Jake's blog inserted '18' as the OwningUser. I blindly used this in my initial trials on my VPC. Nothing migrated. Then, somehow, I found the appropriate OwningUser for my VPC test system was '2' which related to the user I had assigned to myself. With a '2' for OwningUser, the migration happened. So, I used '2' when trying to migrate on my client's system. Didn't work. Not really sure if that was the problem, but it made be search for the appropriate OwningUser value nonetheless. I beat my head against the wall. I hate it when I find something and then can't find it again! So, I've searched and searched. And then... I found it! It's actually in the cdf_mscrm database that the Data Migration Framework creates. It's there AFTER your initialize the database which is one of the early steps in the DMF. The value is found in the cdf_SystemUser table, SystemUserId field. Pick the one for the user you want to be the owner of all the records you import from GoldMine. If you need to assign different users to different GoldMine records, you're on your own. But at least now you know where to find the OwningUser value for the transforms.
Well, it's been a while since I've blogged. It's not that there hasn't been anything to blog, there's been plenty. But I've been busy, and a bit lazy.
Recently I've been burning the mid-night oil working on migrating data from GoldMine to CRM. This has been a big road block for me so I decided to try to bust through it. I know that Scribe Software has a great product and comes highly recommended. But, it's a 45 day license for about $500. That's OK as most times once you've migrated, you've migrated. The kicker for me as a sole practioner is the $1,200 fee to join their dealer program plus the training. The training is a good thing but even if it's included in the $1,200, would require travel and time away from billable hours.
Microsoft has included a tool for migrating from various other systems to CRM, including GoldMine. I figured, as an MVP, I at least ought to try to learn this. I can always move to Scribe if need be. The tool is Data Migration Framework and can be downloaded from here. The tool comes with some spreadsheets for a few systems including GoldMine. These spreadsheets outline where the data is in these systems. This is nice. the DMF walks you through a process to migrate data. However, the most important step, populating the intermediate database, cdf_mscrm, is pretty much left up to the user. To populate this, one uses SQL Data Transformation Services, DTS. To do so, one must be well versed in DTS. The DMF gives no guidance here. I Googled for info on DMF and GoldMine and found little to no useful information. Even the CRM 'back channel' did not respond to my requests for assistance and guidance. I did find ONE posting however that was my salvation. This was a procedure written for migrating GoldMine to CRM 1.2 back in 2005. It is really quite a good tutorial and procedure for the process. He includes very detailed instructions and rationale for each step in the process. Of course I did have to make some adjustments for 3.0 and to account for doing it on my systems as opposed to his data. This wonderful post has the unlikely title of Scurvy Jake's Pirate Blog (rated arrrrrrrrrrrr)! The posting I used is http://bogomip.net/blog/migrating-goldmine-to-microsoft-crm/.
I am still working through the process and trying to smooth out the rough edges. But the basic migration appears to work. I will blog more and probably write an article once I've gotten it down a bit better, and successfully migrated my client's GoldMine to CRM.