Thank you all for reading my blog and following it.

This New Year, I have made a change to my blog and it is now https://dynamicsofdynamicscrm.com

You don’t need to do anything but next time you hit my blog just will see this URL.

Happy New Year and Happy CRMing!

Recently I have been reading on Internet of Things.

I saw a great series on Internet of Things which garnered my interest into this area.

What is it?

Internet of things

noun

a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data.

Ok, so it basically means connect the physical objects of the world to internet.

So, once you connect those things up, you can visualize them on Dashboards, report on them, do automatic processing Workflows and send notifications/etc.

Sounds similar?

Here is a use case which might get you thinking even into the direction I am headed.

A Farming research organisation wants to combine real-time sensor data from soil moisture, weather, pesticide usage, alerts and notices,

and growing conditions from farming sites into a consolidated cloud based dashboard and notification provider system in a cloud based

subscription model.

I think XRM has the right mix to do this, isn’t it?

XRM can be used to connect data from the sensors to put up into various “Sensor” Entities and then report or send out automatic notifications.

What more, this data can be leveraged via AZURE services across heterogeneous system interconnecting all information and analytics it can bring.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

I will also cover CRM 2016 features in a Video cast. It is totally free! You can read more here: https://dynamicsofdynamicscrm.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2016-capabilities-videocast/

Thinking of going to the cloud, many customers have lot more data to be moved from their existing systems to Dynamics CRM 2016 online.

The question of storage is one of the most frequent question been asked.

In this quick post, I am trying to explain the current storage options available for Dynamics CRM online.

By default any CRM tenancy has 5 GB available across all instances, it might be combination of multiple sandbox and production instances in one instance.

After you consume this space, you can by additional space:

This is possible to be bought as subscription in multiples of 1 GB. There is a maximum limit to this also: 995 GB.

For more details refer to CRM Online Pricing Guide.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

I will also cover CRM 2016 features in a Video cast. It is totally free! You can read more here: https://dynamicsofdynamicscrm.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2016-capabilities-videocast/

{CRM 2016 Tips} Programmability scenarios in Dynamics CRM 2016

My other posts on CRM 2016 are concentrated on feature related aspects on Dynamics CRM. This one is more concentrated on the technical architecture side of the house. If you are functional professional on CRM, I have still tried to explain in very non-technical fashion the new capabilities of the framework which can help you in your Sales pitch.

CRM 2016 has introduced not only great integrations and features but additions to the way you can connect with your CRM application.

Below diagram referred from MSDN tells about the layering of different offering available with Dynamics CRM 2016.

Major Components are described below:

· Extending on Server: Extending on server is possible via .net assemblies for Plugins and Workflows. An example of such automation is when some emails have to be sent to all members of a team when an Opportunity is won. To implement this, we can extend the Dynamics CRM functionality by the use of Plugins or workflows. SDK assemblies are available which can let you generate code which can achieve this nature of Business process automations.

· .Net Client : In case you want to develop some .net application to connect to Dynamics CRM and achieve some other desktop applications for instance developed on WPF, etc. you can extend using .Net Client features either by using XRM.Tooling or SDK assembly provided with SDK.

· Web API: The Web API was introduced with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 and it provides a development experience that can be used across a wide variety of programming languages, platforms, and devices. The Web API implements the OData (Open Data Protocol) v4. OData is an OASIS standard for building and consuming RESTfulAPIs over rich data sources.

· Extending in Application: This can be achieved to extend client side features, validations etc by using Web Resources, Form scripting and Ribbon commands in javascript/etc.

I will also cover CRM 2016 features in a Video cast. It is totally free! You can read more here: https://dynamicsofdynamicscrm.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2016-capabilities-videocast/

 

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

Hello All,

You are invited to the following event:

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS CRM 2016 CAPABILITIES VIDEOCAST

Event to be held at the following time and date:

Tuesday, 12 January 2016 from19:00 to 20:00 (GMT)

Attend Event

CRM 2016 was release in December 2015. This Videocast will highlight the capabilities and key areas such as:

• Productivity – Capabilities in CRM 2016 are seamlessly embedded into productivity tools, including Office 365. In CRM 2016, we’ve enhanced the CRM app for Outlook, delivered templates for our immersive Excel experience, simplified the creation of personalized sales documents in Word and enabled seamless access to contextual CRM documents across SharePoint, Office 365 Groups and OneDrive for Business.
• Mobility – CRM 2016 features full offline mobile capabilities for phones and tablets, the ability to create task-based mobile apps, Mobile Application Management with Microsoft Intune and next generation Cortana integration that surfaces CRM data for key sales activities, accounts and deals, and mobile marketing with SMS capabilities available with Dynamics Marketing in four countries.
• Unified Service – CRM 2016 delivers a single, unified solution for Customer Service across self-service, agent assisted service and field service. Building on the integration of Parature knowledge management in spring 2015, we now have a new role driven agent experience with the Interactive Service Hub, native Knowledge Management, surveys to capture voice of the customer and field service capabilities with our recent acquisition of FieldOne.

Share this event on Facebook and Twitter
We hope you can make it.

Best Regards,
Deepesh Somani

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

CRM 2016 is packed with new features. One of the gems is controls for Phones and Tablets.

Here is a look at few controls in Part 2 of this series:

First have a look at how the Controls appear in tablet which I am going to cover in this post:

· Bullet Graph Control

· Linear Gauge Control

· Radial Knob Control

Here is a demo video for the controls on Tablet:

Below is how to for Bullet Graph control.

Go to Form Editor, some numeric or currency field and Change Properties.

Select Controls tab (Similar steps for other controls):

Linear Gauge

Radial Knob:

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

CRM 2016 is packed with new features. One of the gems is controls for Phones and Tablets.

Here is a look at few controls in Part 1 of this series:

First have a look at how the Controls appear in tablet which I am going to cover in this post:

· Website Preview Control

· Arc Knob Control

· Linear Slider Control

Here is a demo video for the controls on Tablet:

Below is how to for website Preview control.

Go to Form Editor, Website field and Change Properties. Select Controls tab( Similar steps for other controls):

Below is how to for Arc Knob control:

For Annual revenue field on Account entity as example:

Below is how to Linear Slider Control:

For Number of Employees on Account entity as example:

In next Parts I will cover more types.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

Recently in our project we were getting the following error, whenever users will try and open the record will be given

Record is unavailable pop-up.

Unhandled Exception: System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[[Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.OrganizationServiceFault, Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk, Version=7.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35]]: System.Web.HttpUnhandledException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: #F8833B04Detail:
<OrganizationServiceFault xmlns:i=”www.w3.org/…/XMLSchema-instance” xmlns=”schemas.microsoft.com/…/Contracts“>
  <ErrorCode>-2147220970</ErrorCode>
  <ErrorDetails xmlns:d2p1=”schemas.datacontract.org/…/System.Collections.Generic” />
  <Message>System.Web.HttpUnhandledException: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has experienced an error. Reference number for administrators or support: #F8833B04</Message>
  <Timestamp>2015-09-14T01:36:28.2122414Z</Timestamp>
  <InnerFault>
    <ErrorCode>-2147220969</ErrorCode>
    <ErrorDetails xmlns:d3p1=”schemas.datacontract.org/…/System.Collections.Generic” />
    <Message>account With Id = 4f8cc581-0ab9-e211-9e1e-005056b30010 Does Not Exist</Message>
    <Timestamp>2015-09-14T01:36:28.2122414Z</Timestamp>
    <InnerFault i:nil=”true” />
    <TraceText i:nil=”true” />
  </InnerFault>
  <TraceText i:nil=”true” />
</OrganizationServiceFault>

Resolution: We noticed that we had implemented a Job in multi-threaded mode running on the set of entities.

Turning it to single thread solved the issue.

Secondly, clearing cache and re-logging into the system also helped resolve the issue.

My last post was quite appreciated on OneDrive for Business integration with Dynamics CRM 2016.

In this post, I am going to put light on DELVE integration with Dynamics CRM 2016.

What is Office Delve?

Delve helps you discover the information that’s likely to be most interesting to you right now – across Office 365.

You don’t have to remember the title of a document or where it’s stored.

Delve shows you documents no matter where they’re stored in OneDrive for Business or in Sites in Office 365.

Delve also lets you view your colleagues’ profiles, or edit your own. Your profile is like an electronic business card you share inside your organization.

Delve never changes any permissions, so you’ll only see documents that you already have access to.

Other people will not see your private documents. Learn more about privacy.

System administrators can enable Delve as follows.

Prerequisite to have Server side integration with SharePoint online is already covered for me in my current organisation.

1. Click Settings > Document Management > Office Graph Integration Settings

2. Click Enable Office Graph integration to enable it, and then click Next.

3. Click Finish.

Next Step is to spin a DELVE DASHBOARD:

Choosing a standard 3 column layout:

Notice there is a special type of Delve component available:

Rest I added some lists, when I save and open the Dashboard:

There are no trending documents!!

Ok, here is how it works:

Cool idea!

In case you are wondering, I got to this menu by just Clicking Open Delve link.

Here is a recent document I stored in OneDrive for Business in my last post,

linked to a record in Dynamics CRM appearing on my profile in Delve, Wow:

So, once you have some trending documents in your Office 365 suite, they will start appearing in your dashboard.

Great stuff Microsoft Dynamics Product team.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!

I cleared MB2 706 exam today. It was my free second shot in 2 days, first shot missed by 4 questions. Reason for that –

First of all the word Online in the exam name mislead me. I thought this was how to administer CRM using Office 365 and deploying services.

It wasn’t so. I believe the course content on Partner source and even training is not enough to have a crack at this exam.

I believe this is more realistic explanation for the sections.

Not breaking NDA, I would suggest to go deep into each content topic (Online is just 15-20% of it).

Give special work on all this, else it will prove the most difficult exam to clear.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!