InitializationFailure whilst trying to connect to a CRM 2011 using the Office 365 Portal.

I recently tried connecting to a new crm demo in BIDS, one which was setup using the office 365 portal. I connect this way for lots of customers so didnt expect an issues, although what actually happened was I received the following error message.

IntializationFailure
 ----------------------------
 An authentication error occurred while connecting to server "https://disco.crm4.dynamics.com/XRMServices/2011/Discovery.svc". Make sure that the connection string and credentials are correct, and try again.

Through lots of investigation I found that in order to connect using the new Portal accounts and not the WLID's before you need to install the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant for IT Professionals RTW which you can find here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28177

Thank you Microsoft for making this so easy to find!

CRM 2011 Dashboard Chart Labels

In order to hide the labels in crm charts you need to  edit the chart xml. Here's how

Export the Chart
Create a copy of the chart xml and edit it.
Where it says IsValueShownAsLabel="True" change it to false
Save the xml
Import the chart back into CRM and Replace the existing one.

Then the chart will appear without the labels on.

How to retrieve all attributes using FetchXML in CRM 2011

Sometimes you might be querying a hidden entity in CRM, or you simply dont want to have to go into CRM to check field names.

Therefore to return all attributes in a fetchxml query you can simply add <all-attribues/> where you would usually list them and it will return them all.

Example:

<fetch version="1.0" output-format="xml-platform" mapping="logical" distinct="false">
<entity name="listmember">
<all-attributes/>
</entity>
</fetch>

How to create a drill through Link from a SSRS Report in CRM 2011 Online

How to create a drill through Link from a SSRS Report in CRM 2011 Online

Steps:

1.    Create a Report Parameter called CRM_URL, Make it hidden and with a default value of https://YOURCRMORGANISATION.crm4.dynamics.com/main.aspx?

2.    View the Text Box Properties of the cell you wish to add the link to, go to the Action tab, then select Go To Url, then expression and add in

=Parameters!CRM_URL.Value & "?ID={" &
Fields!customeridValue.Value.ToString() &"}&OTC=2"

          Replace customerid with your value, keep the Value part as this is the GUID of the record.

OTC = 2 is contact, so change this to 1 for account, 3 for opportunity. To find the other OTC codes go to the entity in question, open a record and in the URL you will see etc=3, this number is the OTC (Object Type Code).

3.  Save and Publish the report into CRM

Enjoy!

SSRS Report - UTC / UK Time Issue

I came accross an issue recently, I created a SSRS Report from scratch and set the locationisation to en-GB which displays the dates etc in a dd/mm/yyyy format. This presented me with a problem, when connecting to a crm online server it likes the format to be in utc so when I passed 01/08/2011 (1st August 2011) it thought i was passing 08/01/2011 (8th January 2011).

The solution it seems was to edit the rdl file in notepad and change the query parameter, which once I found out where/how was a 10 second job.

The steps were:

Find the location of the Report in question
Right click on the report and select Open with
Choose Notepad
Do a find for <QUeryParamater>

Original Code:<QueryParameters>
 <QueryParameter Name="@StartDate">
        <Value>=Parameters!StartDate.Value</Value>
</QueryParameter>

New Code:<QueryParameters>
 <QueryParameter Name="@StartDate">
        <Value>=Format(Parameters!StartDate.Value,"MM-dd-yyyy")</Value>
</QueryParameter>

Notice the change in the Value, this simply formats the value into a mm-dd-yyyy format and then your away.

Enjoy