Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

Today Microsoft has announced that the next major release of CRM will be called Dynamics CRM 2013,  available in fall 2013.

Very exciting news and I’m sure many people are going to be getting very excited over the next few months as more and more information becomes publically available. 

More details can be found on the MS News Centre

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-02DynamicsCRM13PR.aspx

How to add a link to the CRM record from a report

How to add a link to the CRM record from a report

1. Create the table with the data in
2. Select the box you wish to add the link to, right click and choose text box properties
3. Go to Action and select Go To URL
4. Click on the fx icon and type in the following

=Parameters!CRM_URL.Value & "?ID=" & Fields!accountid.Value.ToString & "&LogicalName=account"

5. The example above works for Accounts, just change the Field or Logicalname to your desired entity
6. Create a report parameter called CRM_URL, don't set any values.

The CRM_URL will be completed by CRM online when you run the report.

How To display percentage values as labels on a pie chart

To display percentage values as labels on a pie chart

This may sound simple but its not obvious when you try to do it in SSRS, basically to add the percentage values you need to do this

1. Add a pie chart to your report.

2. Right-click on the pie and select Show Data Labels. The data labels should appear within each slice on the pie chart.

3. Right-click on the labels and select Series Label Properties.

4. Type #PERCENT for the Label data option.

5. (Optional) To specify how many decimal places the label shows, type "#PERCENT{Pn}" where n is the number of decimal places to display. For example, to display no decimal places, type "#PERCENT{P0}".


To display percentage values in the legend of a pie chart

1. Right-click on the pie chart and select Series Properties.

2. In Legend, type #PERCENT for the Custom legend text property.

FetchXML Outer Joins - CRM 2011, Opportunities and Customers.

Joins in fetchxml or the lack of joins can cause big problems in data returned if you do the wrong thing.

The following line of code run from within the context of an opportunity would return all opportunities that also have a Customer selected.

<link-entity name="account" from="accountid" to="customerid" visible="false" alias="accountid">

 
If you want to show all Opportunities regardless of whether a customer has been added or not then you need to add in link-type=”outer” as per below.

<link-entity name="account" from="accountid" to="customerid" visible="false" link-type="outer" alias="accountid">

Hope this helps

How to add a new SubArea to the Sitemap of CRM that links directly to an Activity, i.e (Task, Phone Calls, Appointments etc.)

How to add a new SubArea to the Sitemap of CRM that links directly to an Activity, i.e (Task, Phone Calls, Appointments etc.) 

I find the easiest way to edit a sitemap is to use this editor - http://sitemapeditor.codeplex.com/

It will allow you to connect your CRM, backup the sitemap first and then change/test it.

• To add Tasks to the Navigation area of CRM
• Expand Area (Workplace)
• Expand Group (My Work)
• Add a new SubArea and give it a Title and Description of Task
• Get the GUID of the Task view
• Add a URL of - /_root/homepage.aspx?etn=task&type=task&viewid=%7b2B5F5A5D-2D23-4FE7-AA58-E77995368AE7%7d&viewtype=1039
• Save and Update the Sitemap and test

If you don’t have the Type=Task added then it will default to the main activities window

 

 

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.