Recently I’ve had problems sending e-mail messages to some recipients. Turns out most of these (all?) use GoDaddy. Today I entered a new Lead into my CRM. My workflow automatically sent the Lead my follow up e-mail. It bounced! The Undeliverable message included this information:
smtp.secureserver.net #<smtp.secureserver.net #5.0.0 SMTP; 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content> #SMTP#
My CRM template includes links to my logos so I deleted them and tried again. Once again the message bounced with the same reason. So I tried turning the message into plain text. This time it went right through! After removing the logo links, I still had some formatting in the message, fonts and such. Going to plain text removed the formatting, resulting in an ugly message. But a message that was accepted none the less.
Recently I decided it was about time that I checked out the accelerators for CRM 4.0 that have been released in the past months. You can find the accelerators at http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators. There several of these. I chose the Notifications accelerator to start off with. I’ll not cover what it does, you can see that on the accelerators site. But I’ll tell you about the challenges I had installing them and how I resolved them.
The Notifications accelerator comes with an installation program. Unfortunately it hung on me and never completed. So I went to the manual method. The first parts were pretty easy, copy some files to the proper spots. The last, edit the isv.config, is where my challenge appeared.
isv.config is a file in CRM that can be modified to allow independent software vendors to create buttons and menus in CRM and plug their code in. The accelerators use this method. To access your existing isv.config, you must export it. Do so by going to Settings –> Customizations –> Export Customizations. From the list select ISV Config. Save it somewhere easy to access, like your desktop. The exported file will be in .xml format but will be packaged inside a compressed, .zip, envelope. You’ll have to extract the .xml to work on it. Make a copy of the .zip as you might want to reinstall it if you mess up the original. You can use Notepad to edit it or something more sophisticated like Visual Studio. I chose the later.
Normally the isv.config comes with some sample configurations. You can activate these in System Settings. Go to Settings –> Administration –> System Settings and go to the Customizations tab. Go to ‘Custom menus and toolbars’ and select the client (Web Application, Outlook, and/or Outlook Offline) you want. After you restart CRM, you’ll notice some new stuff, if the sample stuff is in your isv.config. In my case, the isv.config was blank. Here is what my original file looked like:
- <ImportExportXml version="4.0.0.0" languagecode="1033" generatedBy="OnPremise">
<Entities />
<Roles />
<Workflows />
<EntityMaps />
<EntityRelationships />
- <Languages>
<Language>1033</Language>
<Language>3082</Language>
</Languages>
</ImportExportXml>
This file is missing some very important stuff, like ISV stuff. My job was to add the isv.config info that comes with the Notifications accelerator into this isv.config so that it will load into CRM. Here is the info that comes with Notifications:
<Menu>
<!-- RSS Accelerator Menu-->
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="RSS" />
</Titles>
<MenuItem JavaScript="var sFolder = '{#subfolder#}';
if (top.stage.crmGrid == null)
{
window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');
}
else
{
var sViewId = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('viewid');
var sViewType = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('viewtype');
var sOtc = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('otc');
var sUrl;
if(sOtc == '4200' || sOtc == '9100' || sOtc == '4406' || sOtc == '4703' || sOtc == '4700' || sOtc == '4410' || sOtc == '2029' || sOtc == '127')
{
window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');
}
else
{
switch(sViewType)
{
case '1039':
sUrl = '/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rssdata.aspx?q='+sViewId;
break;
case '4230':
sUrl = '/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rssdata.aspx?u='+sViewId;
break;
}
window.open(sUrl);
}
}">
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="Subscribe to Current View" />
</Titles>
</MenuItem>
<MenuItem JavaScript="var sFolder='{#subfolder#}'; window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');">
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="Choose Subscription..." />
</Titles>
</MenuItem>
</Menu>
In order to plug this into our isv.config file, we have to add some other stuff. Took me awhile to figure all that out as I haven’t done much ISV configuring. First we have to add an <IsvConfig> header with opposing </IsvConfig> and some other sections. To make a long story short, here is what I came up with as my final isv.config file:
<ImportExportXml version="4.0.0.0" languagecode="1033" generatedBy="OnPremise">
<Entities>
</Entities>
<Roles>
</Roles>
<Workflows>
</Workflows>
<IsvConfig>
<configuration version="3.0.0000.0">
<Root>
<MenuBar>
<CustomMenus>
<Menu>
<!-- RSS Accelerator Menu-->
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="RSS" />
</Titles>
<MenuItem JavaScript="var sFolder = 'RSS';
if (top.stage.crmGrid == null)
{
window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');
}
else
{
var sViewId = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('viewid');
var sViewType = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('viewtype');
var sOtc = top.stage.crmGrid.GetParameter('otc');
var sUrl;
if(sOtc == '4200' || sOtc == '9100' || sOtc == '4406' || sOtc == '4703' || sOtc == '4700' || sOtc == '4410' || sOtc == '2029' || sOtc == '127')
{
window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');
}
else
{
switch(sViewType)
{
case '1039':
sUrl = '/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rssdata.aspx?q='+sViewId;
break;
case '4230':
sUrl = '/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rssdata.aspx?u='+sViewId;
break;
}
window.open(sUrl);
}
}">
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="Subscribe to Current View" />
</Titles>
</MenuItem>
<MenuItem JavaScript="var sFolder='RSS'; window.showModalDialog('/' + ORG_UNIQUE_NAME + '/isv/' + sFolder + '/rss.aspx','','dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:400px;status:no;resizable:yes');">
<Titles>
<Title LCID="1033" Text="Choose Subscription..." />
</Titles>
</MenuItem>
</Menu>
</CustomMenus>
</MenuBar>
</Root>
</configuration>
</IsvConfig>
<EntityMaps />
<EntityRelationships />
<Languages>
<Language>1033</Language>
<Language>3082</Language>
</Languages>
</ImportExportXml>
Other sections that needed to be added were <Configuration version=3.0.0000.0>, <Root>, <MenuBar>, and <CustomMenus> before the Notifications code. Then the closing items for each in reverse order.
Once the file is complete, put the .xml back into a .zip file and use the Import Customizations to import it back into CRM. You will have to restart CRM, or press F5, for it to take effect.
One other thing. When I tried to run the RSS menu item in my newly config’d CRM, I got a 404 error. I tracked that down to an error in the code. Note in the original code the line:
<MenuItem JavaScript="var sFolder = '{#subfolder#}';
Note the #subfolders# item. This is not defined anywhere so replace it with the appropriate value, which in this case is ‘RSS’. This item appears twice in the Notifications code. This cured my 404 error and the Notifications accelerator now works as advertised on my CRM system.
Have fun!
For the last several weeks I’ve been pretty much heads down migrating my Small Business Server 2003 to SBS 2008. One of the last tasks was to move my MS CRM 4.0 over. The plan was to install SQL 2008 on the new SBS 2008 server, install a TEMP CRM organization and then import CRM data from the original server. in the end it did work, but there were a few bumps on the way.
The first bump was trying to install SQL 2008 on the SBS 2008 server. Naturally I wanted to install it ALL. Well, it wouldn’t let me. It kept complaining about a conflict with SQL 2005 Express. I thought I’d just uninstall the parts it was complaining about but quickly figured that that would also uninstall my Companyweb and my Monitoring. Can’t do that. i eventually figured out that what it was complaining about was the management tools. Leaving those off I was able to install SQL 2008 fine.
Next step was to install my TEMP organization. Seemed to go well until I hit the SQL Reporting Services part. This has always been a stumbling block, especially with SBS installations. It seems that CRM in this case requires using SSL to connect to the SRS, even on the same box. In the past there used to be a check box. I don’t recall ever seeing an SSL check box on this migration. I have a commercial certificate for https://remote.company.net but this didn’t seem to work for my SRS. i eventually resolved the issue by using a self-signed certificate from SBS.
My last step was to import the old CRM organization into the new CRM deployment. To do this I used the SQL Management Studio in my SBS 2003 to backup the MyOrganization_MSCRM database which contains all the pertinent data. The original MSCRM_CONFIG isn’t needed as it is already created in the new deployment. I then transferred the backup to my new server and then would have restored it into my new SQL 2008 server. Would have except for one itty bitty little problem. Remember those pesky SQL management tools I couldn’t install? Guess what I need in order to do the restore of the migrated data into SQL 2008? Yup, those management tools which include SQL 2008 Management Studio. What I had to do was install those on a workstation. I’ll spare you the bumps I encountered doing so as it is not really related to this discussion. Suffice it to say that once I installed them on a workstation, I was able to access the SQL 2008 on the new server and do the restore. Now I had a MyOrganization_MSCRM database on the new server.
The last step was to do the actual import. This is done on the server itself using the Deployment Manager from the Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Dynamics CRM. You must be a Deployment Administrator to do this. By default, the account you use to install CRM is a Deployment Administrator. You may add others if you like. Importing an organization is basically pretty straight forward. From the Deployment Manager, select Organizations from the Navigation (left) pane then Import Organization from the Action (right) pane. Unless you are running the Enterprise Edition which allows multiple organizations, you will receive a warning stating that the current organization will be disabled if you import a new one. Since we only have a TEMP organization, that’s cool. Next you select the SQL server (in my case the SBS 2008 server) and the database which you just restored into SQL. Next you provide the Organization display name (My Organization) and it will fill in the name for you without spaces (MyOrganization). Next enter the SQL Report Server URL. Again, I had to use the SSL URL, https://server.company.local/ReportServer. The last step is to map the users from the old database to the new one. If you have migrated your Active Directory users over to the new server, this should be fairly straight forward. Except… another bump in my bumpy road. Seems that the account used to install CRM and to be the Deployment Administrator for our migration needs to have a CRM user account. SBS 2008 makes you create a new Active Directory account to use as the system administrator instead of using the Built-in Administrator account. So I had to configure a user account for this new Administrator. I also had had a couple of odd accounts I had used in the past that were no longer being used. They had been disabled in CRM and when I migrated I removed the Active Directory user accounts as well. CRM didn’t like this very much at all. Once a user account has been created in CRM, you cannot delete it. You can only disable it. This is by design and appropriate. But put a few more bumps in the road. Eventually I got those user issues ironed out and was able to import my old organization into my new SBS 2008 server.
Be sure to read the CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide before you do the migration. There are a couple of other steps and checks in the IG that I haven’t covered that you’ll need to attend to as well. All in all, my new deployment seems to be doing well. Be sure to reconfigure your CRM Outlook clients to point to the new server.
Using IFRAMES you can add lots of neat stuff to your CRM forms. I recently submitted an article to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team blog describing how to use IFRAMES to display a map of an Account's location on the CRM Account form. You can check it out at http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/04/15/microsoft-dynamics-crm-iframe-magic.aspx.
You may have heard a lot on the news recently about the Confiker virus/worm that is due to 'strike' on April Fools Day, tomorrow. A couple of simple steps could help prevent this.
First, be sure your systems are up to date. Look in the lower right hand corner of your Windows screen, near where the time is displayed. If you see a yellow shield, hover your mouse cursor over it. It may say that updates are waiting to be installed. If so, click on it and install the updates. It is most always a good idea to install these when they are available as they are designed to stop known threats. If you do not see the shield, go to Start -> All Programs and select Windows Update, usually near the top of the list. Follow the instructions to install all critical updates. Do this on all of your workstations and servers.
Second, check to see if you are already infected. The Confiker worm blocks a couple of web sites it doesn't want you to access because they give information about combating it. If you can go to http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jspthemeid=conficker_worm&inid=us_ghp_link_conficker_worm and http://www.mcafee.com you likely aren't infected. While you're on the sites, you might want to read up a bit on Confiker.
If a Conficker infection is suspected, the infected system should be removed from the network. Major anti-virus vendors and Microsoft have released several free tools that can verify the presence of a Conficker infection and remove the worm. Instructions for manually removing a Conficker infection from a system have been published by Microsoft in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962007.
Source: US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA09-088A -- Conficker Worm Targets Microsoft Windows Systems
I just attended/watched the first online meeting of the new XRM Virtual User Group (XRMVIRTUAL.com). There were some unfortunate problems with the audio on the Live Meeting but the presenter, Bryan from Microsoft, handled it well. Otherwise it was quite good and informative and eye opening.
What my main take away was is that XRM isn't just for developers. I had assumed that it was. After all David Yack's book, XRM As a Rapid Development Platform (www.theCRMBook.com), is mainly for developers. But the session opened my eyes that XRM can be a great platform for NON-developers to develop powerful line of business applications quickly and easily. CRM customization allows non-developers to create new database items called Entities with fields or data elements called Attributes. They can easily modify the data entry/display Forms and records search listings called Views, and much more without having to write a single line of code. Pretty cool stuff. Stay tuned and check out the group.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the ability to map fields between entities so when you create a new record, values from the parent can be copied, easing data entry. For instance if you create a new Contact associated with an existing Account, the address and phone fields are copied from the Account to the new Contact record. Picklists however, represent a unique issue when mapped. Picklists are displayed as a list of string values, i.e. the picklist field Color may have the values Red, Green, Blue, & White in the list. But those string values are not maintained in the record. Each string value has an associated numeric value that is actually what is stored in the data. That numeric value points to the proper string in another database table called the String Map. When you map a picklist, only the numeric value is copied. The system depends on the values in the String Map to be the same for each entity. But often they are not. For instance if we had created our Color picklist in the parent entity as Red, Green, Blue and then White, the associated values would be Red = 1, Green = 2, etc. But if in our related entity we added the colors in a different order, say White, Red, Green, and then Blue, then White = 1, Red = 2, etc. So now, if I create a new record and the mapped Color field has a display value of Red, then the new record will display a value of White instead because the numeric value of 1 was copied and 1 = Red in the source but equals White in the target. So we have to be sure our picklists match up. Not a big deal if you have a few items like our short Color field. But what if you have a lot of items in a picklist? You want to be sure that the picklist in both entities is the same. This can be a real labor intensive chore!
A student in a recent CRM 4.0 Customization course I taught was in that predicament. They had a number of picklist fields that they needed to map between entities and doing so manually was a lot of work. He wondered if there was a better way. So I queried the other CRM MVPs to see if any of them had a way or a tool. I found both.
Joel Lindstrom, Customer Effective, http://blog.customereffective.com/blog/joel.xml, offered this suggestion. I'm copying his words for you:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's how I do it, kind of manual, but it works.
Create the picklist in the first entity with all of the values. Create the picklist in the second entity, give it one value. This can be anything you want, like "Larry".
Export the customizations individually for both entities and open entity 1 customizations in notepad or some other editor. Find the picklist and values in the XML. Usually do this by searching for one of the picklist values, then copy everything between the <options>, such as:
<options>
<option value="1">
<labels>
<label description="Simple" languagecode="1033" />
</labels>
</option>
<option value="2">
<labels>
<label description="Notify" languagecode="1033" />
</labels>
</option>
<option value="3">
<labels>
<label description="Data Administrator" languagecode="1033" />
</labels>
</option>
</options>
Then open the customizations for entity 2. Search for "Larry" or whatever you named the picklist value. Paste in the picklist options between the <options> Then import customizations for entity 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't actually tried this yet but I intend to shortly. I need to decide exactly what I want in my picklists first. MVP Matt Parks also offered a similar suggestions so must be a good method.
Microsoft Regional Director David Yack offered another suggestion. In his recent book, "XRM as a Rapid Development Platform", www.TheCRMBook..com, he describes a tool he developed called Attribute Replicator. It's in Chapter 8 of his book and the companion sample code. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet but intend to do so. I'll blog it when I do.
A new user group has been formed for those interested in using Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a development platform for other applications. It's called the XRM Virtual User Group. The group was launched at Convergence last XRM is the term being used for using the MS CRM platform for other applications. It comes from crossing out the C in CRM.
Membership in the XRM Virtual User Group is currently free and I do not believe they have any intentions to charge. It will be a great place to share ideas and accomplishments. The founders of the group are David and Julie Yack. They recently published a book on the subject, XRM as a Development Platform. You can check out, and buy, their book at www.TheCRMBook.com
Joining the XRM Virtual group is easy. Go to their web site at www.XRMVIRTUAL.com and fill out the membership registration form. The system will send you an e-mail which you must respond to to complete the process. Wouldn't want someone else registering for you without your knowing about it.
See you in the group!
Last week was the (almost) annual Microsoft Global MVP Summit. Rather than blog a running report here, I put together a daily log of my impressions and they are posted on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog : Microsoft’s MVP Global Summit 2009.
Are you a Twit? Well, neither was I until I attended the 2009 MVP Global Summit last week. I've know about Twitter (http://twitter.com) for over a year but pretty much dismissed it. But at Summit, it seemed to be an acceptable media. I decided to give it a shot when I heard Steve Ballmer mention it in his remarks to us. Twitter was used to send brief notes about what was going on during Summit. It's being used now at the Microsoft Dynamics annual Convergence conference in New Orleans, keeping every one up to date on what's going on.
Tweeting consists mainly of sending a brief message (140 characters max), mainly about what you're up to, to those who are following your tweets. I'm finding it pretty interesting. There are several CRM oriented tweeters that I am following and getting some interesting insight. I invite you to check it out and create an account at http://twitter.com. You can follow me, CRMLarry, if you like.
If you have a Windows Mobile phone, you may want to use TinyTwitter, a phone app that makes it very easy to read and send Tweets. Get TinyTwitter at www.tinytwitter.com. Access it from your mobile phone and download it directly.
Hope to follow you on Twitter!
This week Microsoft issued a couple of hotfixes for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that really seem to help improve performance. They seem to work fine with the CRM Client for Office Outlook. Give them a try. I think you'll like them.
Update information
To download the updates for Outlook, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
961752 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961752/ ) Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Outlook.msp): February 24, 2009
For full Outlook functionality, you can install the Cumulative Update package that is associated with the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
967688 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967688/ ) Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Outlook-en-us.msp): February 24, 2009"
I downloaded and installed both.
I attended a session on the then in development Windows Home Server during the 2007 MVP Summit. I thought “Why am I here? This doesn’t pertain to a business, just home users. I don’t do homes.” Well, I was wrong. I recently installed 3 Windows Home Servers at one client location. Why? As a backup of their workstations. Their workstations, purchased from their LOB application vendor, have had a tendency to have their hard drives die. Replacing a fully configured hard drive can be a time consuming proposition. Using an imaging program like Acronis or StorageCraft is a bit costly and requires some on going maintenance. Windows Home Server includes a fantastic backup for the connected workstations. We decided to use this. Each Windows Home Server can support up to 10 workstations. They are easy to connect and configure the backups. And quite inexpensive.
One of the owner’s workstation was showing signs of an impending failure. So soon after we installed WHS, we decided it would be a good idea, and test, to replace his hard drive. I did that today. It was really a pretty straight forward process, with a couple of bumps which I’ll describe here. First, the workstation had failed to backup properly to the WHS for the past week. So I tried a manual backup. Fortunately that worked. So I had a very current backup to restore from. Then I physically replaced the hard drive. Next I booted from the WHS Recovery CD that comes with the software package. it whirred a bit then listed some devices that might need drivers, such as the network card and drives. I clicked ‘Continue’ and it tried to find the Windows Home Server. It could not because it didn’t have the drivers for the network card. Great, I thought. Now I have to round up the drivers for the NIC and whatever else. Then I went back to the devices screen and saw a nice little Help link. It told me how I could copy the needed drivers from the backup of that workstation on the WHS server. Cool. I went to another workstation, brought up the WHS console, followed the instructions and copied the Windows Home Server Restore Drivers (or whatever it’s named) folder to a USB jump drive. I went back to the restoring workstation, stuck in the USB drive and tried again. I followed the prompts to scan the USB for the drivers. It found what it needed and proceeded.
Once I connected to the Windows Home Server, it recognized the workstation I should restore. It also gave me the choice to select another workstation. I tried to start the restore. However, since the new drive was unformatted, I had to take care of that first. The restore process gave me the opportunity to prepare the hard drive. There was a button to launch the disk manager. With it I created a partition on the new drive. I wanted to make the new drive the C: drive but it would not let me. The USB Jump drive was still inserted and was occupying the C: drive slot. So I moved the USB to another letter and then created the main drive partition on the C: drive slot. Then I formatted the new drive. This is probably the most time consuming part of the process.
After the format was complete, I was actually able to do the restore. The original drive was 80 GB with about 30 GB used. I was amazed to see that it took less than 20 minutes to completely restore the drive, across a busy network in the middle of the work day. But there was one more bump on the road. Rebooting the workstation resulted in a blinking cursor in the upper left of the screen. It blinked and blinked and blinked, and never even gave me a can’t find boot or anything. I posted my problem to the SBS MVP list and had a number of suggestions. They all centered around using the XP Recovery Console, from the XP installation CD, and issuing a FIX command of some sort. I tried the suggested ones and then tried FIXMBR. THAT did the trick. The system booted and the user later reported that all was working properly as he anxiously got back to his computer.
All in all I am very impressed with the Windows Home Server. It appears extremely simple to use. This simplicity masks the extraordinary things that go on behind the scenes. Although each server will backup as many as 10 workstations, the space on the server is minimal. It currently only takes approximately 114 GB at this point! And each workstation has at least 20 to 30 GB of used space! And there has been a daily backup every evening for the past week plus! Every time I access WHS, I learn something new about it. A nice piece of work!
Yesterday I needed to send (blast) out an e-mail invitation for an event we're hosting this weekend. I decided to use the Mail Merge feature in CRM 4.0. I've used Mail Merge in the past but I seemed to learn a bit this go around. E-mail Merge is now available from the web client as well as from Outlook. In CRM 3.0, you had to use Outlook to do a Mail Merge.
The first step was to
create the template for the message I wanted to send. Luckily another member of our group had already created a very nice looking one so I simply copied it and pasted it into Word. Your masterpiece must be save in the Word XML format. CRM doesn't like it very much at all if you save it in a regular Work format.
Next you need to create an E-mail Merge Template in CRM. There are two routes: First you can go to the CRM item on the Outlook menu and select Options. 
Click on the E-mail Templates tab then click New. The other way would be to go to Settings (CRM -> Go To -> Settings) and select Templates. From there select Mail Merge Templates. Then select New to create your new template.
Most of the new template form is pretty straight forward. Give it a meaningful name, select a language, and select the appropriate entity. 
I was sending to individuals so I selected Contact. Next click the Browse button in the File Attachment section and find your masterpiece saved in Word XML format, then click attach. Note that Ownership is set to Individual. This means that only the user that created the template will be able to use it. The template may later be promoted to Organization ownership so everyone can use it. Clicking Save and Close creates the template and places it with the Mail Merge templates.
The next step is to select the Contact (or whatever) records you want 
to send you E-mail Merge to. Advanced Find comes to mind as a good way to do that. Once you have your list of records, select the Mail Merge button from the Action Toolbar. It looks like a tiny Word icon. This launches the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mail Merge for Microsoft Office Word (whew!) dialog box. In the Select Mail Merge Type, select E-mail (or whatever else you might want). In the Start with a: section select the appropriate
source (Personal Mail Merge Template in our case) and then select the Mail Merge template you recently created. In the Merge: section select the appropriate range of records. If your Advanced Find returned several pages of records you want to send to, select All records on all pages. In the Select Data Fields section be sure that Email is selected if you are sending an e-m
ail blast. When ready click OK to proceed. The next part is a little tricky. The Mail Merge dialog box remains in the forefront and Word opens up behind it. So you have to navigate to Word. Word will display the Mail Merge Recipients list so you can be sure it's got the proper records. Then click OK. Next follow the steps in the Mail Merge Task Pane on the right. In the third step select Electronic mail to do your merge. You can also modify the document, adding CRM fields, etc. and click the Upload Template to CRM to save it. If you click on Electronic mail the Merge to E-mail dialog box will appear. Be sure the TO field shows E_mail and enter an appropriate subject. When you hit OK, the Create Activities windows will appear. From here you can select whether to create CRM activities for each e-mail sent (my choice), or not. You can also select whether to create a Quick Campaign out of your blast. If so, replies will automatically create Campaign Responses so you can track the effectiveness of your e-mail. You can also select whether to include an Unsubscribe link so recipients can opt-out of future blasts from you. Pressing OK completes our merge and the system will send the messages for you. Leave Word open to give it a chance to send them all. If you selected to create a Quick Campaign,you can view that campaign and see when all the messages have been created. When you eventually close Word, it will ask you if you want to stop the current mail merge. It says this even if it has already finished. So give it time then close it.
Using E-mail Merge can be an effective way to get your message out. Each recipient receives their very own, perhaps personalized, message rather than being one of a group of recipients. Plus, you can be quite creative in your message format, unlike other types of CRM e-mail templates.
Microsoft has recently released for beta testing their new desktop (OK, and laptop) operating system, Windows 7. I’ve been running it for a bit over a week on my laptop and really like it. I have had very little problem with it though here are a few issues I’ve encountered:
- The CRM Outlook client functions well for the most part but seems to fail in some areas. For instance, using the Outlook client to look up a record fails. If I go to CRM on the Outlook menu, select Go To and then select say Sales and then Accounts and then try to open an Account, I will receive a blank window instead of the Account record and eventually an error that states “A Microsoft Dymanics CRM window was unable to open, and may have been blocked by a pop-up blocker. Please add this Microsoft Dynamics CRM server to the list of sites your pop-up blocker allows to open new windows<server>” Needless to say, I’ve played with the pop-up blockers, etc. It all seems to work fine in the web client.
- Speaking of the web client, Windows 7 comes with Internet Explorer 8. I had trouble with IE 8 in the earlier beta, at least with CRM. Seems better now and seems to function fine except that I notice underlines, extending into the next column, in certain fields when listing a group of records. Doesn’t cause any problems, just a bit funky.
- I was able to install CardScan 4.1 without a hitch. Only problem is my Win 7 does not recognize the scanner itself. I think the reason is that I chose to run the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and CardScan does not have a driver for 64 bit. I seem to remember a similar problem when I first tried Vista-64.
- Windows 7 doesn’t seem to recover all that well from being hibernated. Seems to have problems networking. Haven’t isolated the issue yet. I just reboot to fix it. But rebooting this machine under Win 7, it seems a lot faster than under Vista.
- When joining my Win 7 to my Small Business Server domain, I attempted to follow the normal procedures of adding the computer in SBS and then running the Connect Computer wizard. The wizard appeared to work at first but then failed at the end. Eventually I had to add the computer to the domain manually. At that point though, the wizards took back over and completed the installation just like a normal Connect Computer addition. Been working fine ever since.
Today, Microsoft announced the SKUs that will be available for Windows 7. Basically the ones to look for are Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. While the announcement seemed to say that those were the main versions, it also went on to list all the other versions. Here is an extract from the announcement:
SKUs for Windows 7:
· The SKU lineup for Windows 7 is: Windows® 7 Starter, Windows® 7 Home Basic (in Emerging Markets only), Windows® 7 Home Premium, Windows® 7 Professional, Windows® 7 Enterprise and Windows® 7 Ultimate.
- For Consumers, we recommend Windows 7 Home Premium for most customers and Windows 7 Professional for customers who want additional features and functionality useful for small business activities.
- For Businesses, we recommend Windows 7 Professional for most customers and Windows 7 Enterprise for medium-to-large business and enterprise customers that choose to license Windows through Software Assurance.
- The features in each version of Windows 7 build upon the one before it. As customers move up from one SKU to the next, from Windows 7 Starter through Windows 7 Ultimate, they gain additional features and lose none.
Personally, I am running the Ultimate version. Over all, I like it. Matter of fact, I had to boot from Vista earlier this evening to use my CardScan and then rebooted back into Windows 7 (I have two separate hard drives i can swap in and out of this notebook) to finish my work this evening and write this blog post.
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