March 2007 - Posts
Yesterday while teaching a CRM class in Chicagoland, the students were complaininig that when they created Advanced Finds in CRM, they had to 'share' them for others to be able to use them. At first I thought they were talking about entity Views which are public by default and sharing them actually restricts their access. But no, they were talking about the Advanced Finds they had saved.
Seems this is a permissions issue. Seems the default permission for the Security Roles provided by CRM is User for Saved View. This means that folks can only view the Advance Find saved views that they personally create, or those shared with them by others. If you increase the permission to something higher, then they would be able to view others' saved views without them having to be shared. This seemed to delight the class as this is a pain point for thme. Caveat - I haven't experimented with this so try at your own risk.
Well, ever since I 'fixed' my problem with Outlook Over the Internet and certificates, I've had problems. When I would try to access RWW using https://mail.company.com/remote, I would receive certificate errors saying the certificate wasn't trusted. After much investigation and head scratching, I added the certificate for mail.company.com to the Trusted certs for a number of accounts including the Web Publishing service, ISA services, etc. Well, that made the 'certificate error' go away, but then I got a 'target principal name' error. I worried and worked over this for some time and finally decided to burn a PSS incident to resolve it. They did so in about 1 minute (once I finally got on-line with the support guy-takes a while to do that!).
Seems I should NOT have changed the Default web site certificate FROM publishing.company.local. That is what ISA expects to use to be able to communicate to the SBS SSL web sites like Remote (RWW) and Exchange (OWA). My PSS guy changed the cert on the Default web site back to publishing.company.local and reran the CEICW. After that everything worked great! So simple, so effective! Thanks, PSS!
Today I was attempting to configure a new SBS client for using Outlook Over the Internet. The first step is to load the SSL certificate used by the server. To do so, from each client workstation (laptop), one brings up https://mail.company.com/remote. The first time you do this, you will get a security screen telling you there are some problems with the certificate. Normally, all that is needed is to view the certificate and then install it. Then the next time you go to https://mail.company.com/remote, you get right in. That is because the certificate is issued to mail.company.com. However, this morning the certificate was actually issued to publishing.company.local! Going back to https://mail.company.com/remote would still produce the security screen and require approval because the name on the certificate (publising.company.local) doesn't match the name in your request (mail.company.com). This won't work for Outlook over the Internet!
So, I go to the CEICW (Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard) on the SBS To Do List and rerun it to be sure the certificate it generates is for mail.company.com. Same results. I do this several times (I know it means I'm crazy hoping for different results by doing the same thing over & over). Actually I try different approaches but they all end up with the publishing.company.local certificate. Frustration! I looked at /Remote in the IIS Manager and there seemed no way to delete or change the certificate.
Then I had a conversation with an associate, Glen Carter of Carter Computer Consulting. We brain stormed it a bit and he suggested I check with the Default web site and see what its security settings were. Here I found that I COULD edit the certificate. By looking at the properties of the Default web site and going to the Directory Security tab, I found the Server Certificate button available (it was not available under /Remote). From here I was able to follow the wizard and replace the certificate. I found in my choices the many certificates I had created when running the CEICW. Now I was able to configure my client's notebook to use Outlook Over the Internet. My only concern is that while examining my own set up, I find that the certificate on /Remote is publishing.lentzcomputer.local! I think ISA is in between. I'll likely have to do a bit more reconfiguring for my client before all is right.
Well today was my last day at the Summit. Actually there is a half day of deep dives scheduled at the Microsoft campus tomorrow but there is no way I can go and catch my 11:30 flight.
Today we went to the Microsoft campus in Redmond. They bussed us over. The trip took about 45 minutes to an hour. Sleet greeted us as we disembarked our busses. A bit of breakfast at the Microsoft Convention Center and then back on the busses to the Deep Dive sessions throughout the campus. The CRM folks were grouped with the Small Business Server MVPs since all our product team was still down in San Diego for Convergence.
The SBS Deep Dive was actually on the next release of SBS, code named Cougar. We had very active discussions between the team and the MVPs with a lot of suggestions and opinions being given by the MVPs. The product team seemed to greatly value the exchange. I was impressed by how NON-defensive they were when responding to questions. These guys know their stuff and are working very hard to produce a quality product that will be well accepted in the marketplace. Today was well worthwhile. I wish I could be here tomorrow morning for the CRM Titan deep dive. Unfortunately I can't relay any of the features, etc. that were discussed as it was all Microsoft Confidential. But I think Cougar will be a great product when it is released.
After the Deep Dives there were the Product Group Dinners on campus. I ate, socialized a bit, and then headed back to the hotel. Off to the airport in the morning for the trip home. A few more photos are at www.LentzComputer.net.
Today started off with the Keynote by Bill Gates. It was very intersting to hear not only his view of the future, but his reminissence on the history of computing. One attendee managed to get to a microphone to ask Bill if he'd autograph his copy of the original Altair Basic, the first product produced by Microsoft and written by Bill himself. Bill Gates, of course, did autograph it.
I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Wittemann, CRM MVP. We've exchanged e-mail for some time so it was good to meet him in person. Curt Spanburgh, CRM MVP, was there from San Diego. I had met him at Convergence last year. New CRM MVPs Mitch Milam, Dallas, and Michael Hoehme from Germany were there as well. I met Mitch last year at Convergence and was pleased to meet Michael. I'm still looking for Aaron Elder who is supposed to be here. Of course Anne Stanton, CRM MVP, has been here since last week for the SBS deep dives.
Tonight was the Attendee Party. It was held at the Museum of Flight. It was quite some affair. The Museum is really cool. If you are ever in Seattle, and have any interest in aviation, or just in neat stuff, you must go see it.
I have been taking pictures and posting them to my web site at www.LentzComputer.net. The MVP Summit 2007 pictures can be accessed via the link on the left of the 'home page'. To Dana, Jennifer, and Amber, your pictures are there!
Tomorrow is my last Summit day. The entire day, and night, will be at the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Unfortunately the CRM team comes back to the Summit from Convergence on Thursday, as I fly out. Maybe next year. That will be April 14, 2008.
Apparently Microsoft has just released Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003. This sounds great except if you are running SBS 2003. Apparently you should read http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932600 before you install SP2 on SBS to understand some ramifications.
Also, if you have installed Internet Explorer 7 on your SBS 2003 server, you must uninstall IE 7 before installing SP2. Once SP2 is installed, you can reinstall IE7. That's in the Release Notes for the service pack along with a bunch of other stuff.
Thanks to Susan Bradley for posting this.
Well, actually I believe Microsoft calls this Day 1, but it's MY second day.
This morning was pretty much free time. Registration started around noon. Several of us hooked up (via very fast response e-mail) for breakfast at a little place a few blocks from the hotel. It was an International affair with MVPs from 5 countries and 3 continents. And there were only 7 of us :-)
This afternoon, in addition to registration, the Windows Home Server group put on an afternoon of deep dive into this new product. Looks like it will be a neat product but I'm trying to figure out how, as a computer guy focusing on small BUSINESSES, I can incorporate it into my business. The feeling seemed to be a bit mixed amonst the attendees. Andy Goodman, SBS MVP, plans to use it for the homes of his clients'. We'll see how it goes. Looks like it's targeted for set up by Best Buy and their Geek Squad. Really simple and easy to do.
This evening was the regional dinners. I obviously went to the one for the Americas. It was a large gathering (I went by the Asia/Pacific Rim one on the way out and it was much smaller, but still big). The food and company were great.
There was an after party in our hotel (Marie has a suite on the top floor!) which was well attended by the SBS crowd. It was a nice gathering. Tomorrow Bill Gates kicks it off as the keynote. Should be good!
Today I traveled to Seattle to attend my first MVP Summit. Microsoft holds these roughly every 18 or so months. The last one was in October 2005, before I was first awarded the MVP in January of 2006. Microsoft invites all the MVPs, from all products, from all over the world, to Seattle/Redmond. It is a chance for the MVPs to meet and connect not only with each other, but with the product groups at Microsoft. It is also an opportunity for the Microsoft product group folks to meet and connect with the MVPs who are a valuable resource.
Today was mainly a travel day. I won't bore you with the particulars of the flight except to say that I met a couple of MVPs for Houston who were on my flight. It was interesting to chat with MVPs from areas other than CRM and SBS.
The main event was the SBS Rockbottom Party at the Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Seattle. It was hosted by the existing SBS MVPs with new MVPs, myself included, at their first Summit as their guests. Thanks, guys! It was really a nice affair with lots of folks from the SBS product group as well as MVPs. It was of course mainly SBS MVPs but Anne Stanton and I represented the CRM faction and Amy Babinchak, ISA MVP, was in the swing. It was great to reconnect with MVPs I''ve met before, like Les Connor and Dean Calvert, as well as Andy Goodman, but also meet a bunch of folks like Steve Teiger from Israel with whom I shared e-mail but not met in person before.
Wayne Small's birthday was celebrated with a nice cake and singing, both American and Aussie style, of Happy Birthday. Wayne of course is an SBS MVP from Australia and one of the real movers and shakers.
Jeff Middleton was the instigator of the bash and probably the largest contributor to the finances. Thanks, Jeff! It was great.
Tomorrow I join the SBS folks for a deep dive into the new Windows Home Server. Then our regional dinners. I think I'll go to the Americas dinner.
The Microsoft CRM Team has just released a number of tools to help partners demonstrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to their prospects in various scenarios. Here is the notice I just received:
Hello CRM Team and Enthusiasts:
I am proud to announce the availability of four “Pre-Sales Technical Demonstration Download Packs” on MSDownloads.
Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Sales Professionals
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=195858d8-d780-44e0-9cb5-bb33033ded59&displaylang=en
This download pack is intended to provide basic resources and teach you the basics of how to talk to Sales Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Sales features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Marketing Professionals
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=370bad7e-0abd-4a20-8ff5-2e6bb1445beb&displaylang=en
This download pack is intended provide basic resources and to teach you the basics of how to talk to Marketing Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Marketing features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Service Professionals
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4ac7da03-6c3c-469b-b63d-efb6a2e5a010&displaylang=en
This download pack is intended to provide basic resources and teach you the basics of how to talk to Customer service Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Customer service features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
Installing and Configuring Virtual PC Images for demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1e1a6ad6-333b-48b9-a7ae-b5825fb3096a&displaylang=en
This download pack is intended to provide basic resources and teach you how to install and configure Virtual PC and the images necessary to demonstrate Microsoft CRM 3.0. This video is intended to teach you the basics of how to prepare to give an effective, efficient overview of the features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
Each Download Pack contains the following:
Instructional Video:
This video includes an overview of the pain points of the respective audiences, why these groups may be looking for a solution in CRM, how to speak to your audience intelligently about their challenges and how Microsoft CRM can be a great solution for many of their challenges. In these videos, I also discuss some key points to touch on when presenting to each of these groups, a brief demo overview with value proposition statements for each of the features shown, some links to additional resources to help you get started and a full-length step-by-step demo walkthrough.
A demonstration script that follows the same demo scenario used in the video with screenshots, talking points, “day in the life” narration suggestions and useful information on ways to show true value in Microsoft CRM.
A partner-ready PowerPoint Deck with 24 slides and extensive speaker notes.
Other useful documentation including release notes, how to use the download pack, links to system requirements and additional resources.
Thanks very much to everyone who helped make these videos a possibility, particularly Srinivas Penumaka, Michael Rich, Ned Kandzor, Jonathan Farmer, Kam Baker, John Butzen and Jeff Natzinger.
Rob Norton
Technical Product Manager
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
As you should know by now, Congress (US), in its infinite wisdom(?), decided to change when Daylight Savings Time starts and ends. The change goes into effect THIS year. Actually NEXT weekend! Normally DST in the US starts the first Sunday in April. This and subsequent years, it begins 3 weeks earlier, the second Sunday in March. That's 2:00 AM March 11, 2007. It will end a week later in the Fall.
Microsoft has posted a rash of patches, fixes, recommendations, and so forth. They are summed up, in a way, by a Microsoft PressPass article of an interview with Microsoft VP Rich Kaplan. This makes it sound much easier than I think it's going to be. It seems that once you apply certain patches, it changes things. Then you have to apply other changes to change the changes. There are patches, tools, etc. for Exchange, Outlook, CRM, and so on. This is going to get very confusing! Microsoft has numerous sites concerning the problem, making it all the more confusing. The update for MS CRM was just released this morning, March 3, 2007! I have not yet had a chance to evaluate it but I have downloaded the many files involved. What to do?
As part of the recent Vista/Exchange/Office launch here in San Antonio this week, I was fortunate to be included in a special CIO luncheon. DST came up as a topic. One of our Microsoft hosts offered what I think will be the most comprehensive advice for the issue: Users should review their calendars, especially for the 'delta dates' (those between March 11 and April 1), and include in the text of any appointment or other time sensitive item, a comment as to when the item is to occur. So, if you create an Appointment in Outlook or CRM or GoldMine or whatever, add to the subject line the actual time it is to occur. That way, even if the time on your calendar is 10 AM, but the text says 9 AM, you'll know it's at 9 AM.
Microsoft has included an update for DST in the Windows Update, KB931836. This should be applied to your servers and your workstations. This will reset your system time to account for the new Daylight Savings Time. However, it appears to have some consequences. For instance, tonight I was looking at my schedule to fly to the MVP Summit in Seattle. I leave on March 11th (sound familiar - most of the world's MVPs will be at Summit the week this all occurs, others {CRM and other Dynamics MVPs} will be at Convergence in San Diego instead). My airline online schedule has the ability to add to my Outlook calendar. I did and it put it in an hour LATER. If I followed what it said on my calendar, I'd be an hour late for my flight!
Yup! This is gonna be fun (NOT!!!).