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Podcast and Overview: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17

May 8, 2014, 1:26 pm
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Contents:

We're proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 were released on Thursday, May 8th, 2014 to the Microsoft Download Center!  The Update Rollup 17 packages should appear on Microsoft Update in late May, 2014.

Update Rollup 17 Build number:

5.0.9690.4150

Important Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 is compatible with Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 11!

This includes the following supported configurations:

  • The browser application running in Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 or Windows 7
  • Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook when running Office 2013 on Windows 8.1

Update Rollup 17 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Update Rollup 17: KB 2915687

On Monday, May 12th 2014 at 10 AM Pacific Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

  • The release of Update Rollup 17 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
  • New fixes made available In Update Rollup 17
  • Collateral available about Update Rollup 17 and CRM Update Rollups in general

on BlogTalkRadio during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 Podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: You can make our CRM Premier Field Engineering podcasts available on Zune by using the RSS feed below.  In the Zune software, go to Collection -> Podcasts and click on the Add a Podcast button on the lower left, then enter the url for the RSS feed: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pfedynamics.rss. After that, you can adjust the series settings like any other podcast, so you can sync with your smartphone or Zune.

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The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups, visit the "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

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Cumulative Update Rollup Changes

Update Rollup 17 is a collection of fixes for issues reported by customers or found by Microsoft's Engineering Team, plus changes to provide support for related technology components.

Update Rollup 17 news that you need to know because Update Rollups are cumulative, so these significant changes are also in Update Rollup 17!

 UR12 included the "Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 Service Update"  See:

  • Additional cross-browser compatibility provided
    • The December 2012 Service Update component of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 12 introduces additional browser compatibility for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari
  • Indexes added to support the Update Rollup 10 Quick Find Optimizations
    • Update Rollup 12 includes new indexes for the following entities in the Quick Find Search Optimization feature. To fully reap the benefits of the platform changes included in Update Rollup 10, indexing is needed.  The indexes created are listed below:
      • Cases
      • Opportunities
      • Competitors
      • Contact (the Phone Number fields)
      • Business Unit
      • Connection
      • Connection Role
      • KB Article
      • Lead
      • Product
      • Sales Literature
    • These indexes are created during the Update Rollup 12 installation and you may notice that part of the installation will take longer to complete. The reason for this is that the indexes need to be populated and based on the size of your dataset the completion time will vary
  • Enhancements to Activity Feeds
    • The enhancements made to the activity feeds include a new feature called Like/Unlike
    • With this feature, you can express your immediate feedback about a post
    • For more information, see Like/Unlike
  • Updated User Experience for Sales and Customer Service and Product Update Functionality for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
    • The Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 Service Update introduces a variety of new features and functionality, including an updated user experience. For Sales and Customer Service users, the updated user experience provides a new process flow visualization, which appears at the top of the forms, such as the Opportunity , Lead or Case form. The process flow guides users through the various phases of the sales and customer service processes
    • For trials and subscriptions initiated after December 2012, the updated Sales and Customer Service user experience is included by default. Existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers have an option of adding the updated user experience to the Opportunity , Lead and Case forms by installing the Product Updates. This lets Administrators install selected feature updates based upon the specific needs of their organizations. The Product Updates are installed by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web application; they cannot be installed programmatically
    • For more details, see What's New for Developers for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
  • Custom Workflow Activities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
  • Developer Toolkit Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
    • The Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online now supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. The installer can be found in the SDK download in the sdk\tools\developertoolkit\ folder
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Software Development Kit (SDK) updated December 19th, 2013 for Update Rollup 15 (version 5.0.18)
  • Bulk Data Load performance enhancements
    • To support bulk data load scenarios, this release introduces the ExecuteMultipleRequest message. This message supports the execution of multiple message requests using a single web method call. ExecuteMultipleRequest accepts an input collection of message requests, executes each of the message requests in the order they appear in the input collection, and optionally returns a collection of responses containing each message’s response or the error that occurred. Processing requests in bulk results in lower network traffic and higher message processing throughput
    • For more information, see Use ExecuteMultiple to Improve Performance for Bulk Data Load
  • Activity Feeds changes
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activity Feeds provide real-time notifications and quick sharing of information through short updates. These updates appear on your personal wall in the What's New area of the Workplace . Activity Feeds enable you to follow and learn about important activities that take place around people, accounts, contacts, leads, and anything else that you care about
    • Updates can be posted manually by you, or automatically based on predefined system rules through a workflow. Activity Feeds can also be posted to by external applications through the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web services API. Activity Feeds expose Microsoft Lync real-time presence functionality so that you can initiate communication activities such as IM, phone calls, and emails. For more information, see Activity Feeds Entities
  • More performance and stability-related fixes, including fixes to the CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook
  • Contains all hotfixes / updates released in earlier Update Rollups
  • Quick Find performance optimizations and EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization SQL query performance optimizations (originally released in Update Rollup 10)

For Microsoft Dynamics CRM business solutions that include an entity with a large dataset, record retrieval and grid rendering performance can be negatively impacted for users that do not have global access to all records associated with that entity. Code changes to mitigate this behavior first appeared in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, and have been fine-tuned since then.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 10 and later, big advancements have been made to optimize the performance of queries against large datasets by adjusting specific “statistical” settings to address the issue. Should this fail to achieve desired levels of performance, adjust the value associated with EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization (ERMO) setting. You may have heard these changes described at this year's Convergence.

A first step in efforts to optimize the performance of queries against large data sets is to make adjustments to the “statistical” settings that affect the behavior of RetrieveMultiple queries. Although you can configure these settings by modifying the Windows Registry (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM) on the each of the Web servers that is used in a deployment, we recommend that these settings be configured by using the OrgDbOrgSettings, which will ensure that the configuration applies to a specific organization. For additional information about configuring these settings by using the OrgDbOrgSettings, and to download the tool that makes the OrgDbOrgSettings changes you desire, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article titled "OrgDBOrgSettings Tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011" (KB 2691237)

If making adjustments to these settings does not yield satisfactory levels of performance, then consider adjusting the value of the EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization (ERMO) setting. The ERMO setting is commonly used to limit the duration of certain long running queries; specifically, to overcome issues related to local or deep business unit access within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 security roles.

Many more details describing appropriate scenarios for the available settings are already available via the Microsoft Download Center in a revised version of the whitepaper "Optimizing and Maintaining the Performance of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server Infrastructure", in the sections “Optimizing the Performance of Queries against Large Datasets” and “Optimizing the Performance of Quick Find Queries”. The details are also available in the MSDN version of this whitepaper.

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OrgDbOrgSettings Editors:

You're probably familiar with the OrgDbOrgSettings command line tool (mentioned above) released by the CRM Product Group in the "Tools" package that is updated and released with each set of Update Rollup packages.  With it, you configure some .xml and call your .xml with the command line utility described in KB 2691237. However, you may be daunted by configuring this .xml, to the point that you may not use the tool, or use it minimally - not exploring the many options outlined in KB 2691237 that may be of use to you.  Well, the Microsoft Dynamics PFE team now has another option for you!  By popular demand, our esteemed CRM PFE colleague Sean McNellis has developed a tool  - a CRM 2011 / 2013 managed solution - that provides you with an easy-to-use GUI with which you can configure all of the options outlined in the Knowledge Base on a per-tenant basis.  Feel free to download it, install it, and check it out... I sure use it!

This is a FREE downloadable tool - the "Dynamics CRM 2011 Organization Settings Editor".  Check it out; the download page has screenshots and information that will help you make good use of the tool.  Sean has also published a Premier Field Engineering blog: "Azure Mobile + JavaScript + WebResources = Easy Editing of OrgDBOrgSettings in Dynamics CRM 2011!" to share more details on the tool. It is currently updated to include setting for CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 and CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2, and he takes pride in keeping it updated. Thanks, Sean!

Note: there is a code issue with the CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook that was resolved in Update Rollup 16 Client packages.  Do not set either the AddressBookMaterializedViewsEnabled or DisableMapiCaching settings in the Organization entity metadata via the OrgDbOrgSettings tool in the Update Rollup Tools package or the Organizational Settings Editor on Codeplex if you are not running CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 or higher on the Client.  Also, do not set this key prior to the next major release of CRM 2013.

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NOTE REGARDING "Deferring Database Updates when installing CRM 2011 Update Rollups"

My esteemed PFE teammate Sean McNellis published a blog you should be aware of regarding the possibility of deferring the CRM database updates when installing CRM 2011 Update Rollups.  Essentially, Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup executable packages automatically process and update the organization database updates during the installation.  If your deployment has several large tenants or just one very large tenant you may prefer to first install the “binary” updates and worry about applying the database updates after the binary installation of the rollup (on an organization by organization basis). This would put the control and timing of when to update organizations from a SQL perspective in the hands of the administrator, and may make troubleshooting easier.

This feature allows you to separate the installation of the binary updates (DLL’s, executables, etc) from the installation of the database components (updated stored procedures, UDFs (user-defined functions), schema updates, out-of-box index changes, etc). Both updates still need to be completed as part of the update but you can now separately manage and execute those operations. This also allows you to retry database updates if they timeout or do not complete, without jeopardizing the installation binary updates.

I strongly urge you to read the entire blog to see if it applies to your needs.  Thanks again, Sean!

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General Update Rollup Notes:

  • Testing Update Rollups: Best Practices
    • Premier Field Engineering recommends treating Update Rollup 12 (and above) testing like testing a new, major CRM release because of the introduction of new functionality introduced with the December 2012 Service Release. Do all the standard testing like you generally do for all UR’s, but then also all the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release
    • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
      • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
      • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to simulate your production user load in your testing environment, to shake out any performance-related issues early
      • Test using the permissions your end-user roles (most restrictive) have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
      • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and 2013 Custom Code Validation Tool

    • Consider familiarizing yourselves with this tool!
    • The Custom Code Validation tool for CRM 2013 is mostly the same as the Code Validation Tool for CRM 2011 UR12; the 2011 version has been deprecated and is no longer available. We added some additional checks for things that reference the 2007 endpoint or other things that will go away in 2013, so it's best to start removing them now. And, most of the checks in the tool were built into the installer for CRM 2013 as validation checks
    • Note that the URL for the CRM 2011 version of the tool now directs to the CRM 2013 version
    • Use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Custom Code Validation Tool to identify potential issues with custom JavaScript in JavaScript libraries and HTML web resources. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Q2 2012 Service Update and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 9 include significant changes in the web application in order to be able to support a variety of browsers such as Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. When using JavaScript code in Dynamics CRM, it is possible that some code will stop working or cause an error when you upgrade. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Custom Code Validation Tool helps identify potential problems so that a developer can fix them
  • Update Rollup 12+ require Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Update Rollup 6 established a new servicing baseline. This will enable uninstalls of some future CRM 2011 Update Rollups, but this also means that Update Rollup 6 is prerequisite for installation of all future Microsoft CRM 2011 Update Rollups starting with Update Rollup 7
  • A database created with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 or a higher version cannot be imported to a deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 5 or an earlier version. This scenario is not supported.  Best practice is to import databases or customizations between environments that are at the same Update Rollup level
  • As Update Rollup 17 is cumulative, containing all changes released in earlier Update Rollup releases, it also contains the Dynamics CRM Q4 Service Update features released via Update Rollup 6.  Some of these features include:
    • Outlook Client Updates:
      • Dialog Enhancements
      • Data Visualization Enhancements:
        • Chart Designer Enhancements
        • New Chart Types
      • Data Management Enhancements to:
        • Auditing
        • Duplicate Detection
      • Activity Feeds
        • Listening in on important activities in Social Media that take place around the people, accounts, contacts, leads or opportunities that you care about, including a Windows 7.5 phone application: "Business Hub"
        • Update Rollup 5 does not install Activity Feeds:

For more information about the Dynamics CRM Q4 2011 Service Update features, consult:

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Update Rollup 17 packages are available for download via: 

  • The Update Rollup 17 Microsoft Download Center page (released May 8th, 2014)
  • The Microsoft Update Catalog - all packages have a planned release date in late May, 2014
  • The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
    • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
    • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
    • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally.  WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
    • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Update Rollup 17 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
    • Please review my teammate Shawn Dieken's superb (and recently updated) blog posting "How to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 without an Internet Connection" which provides details on how to set up an install on a machine without access to the Internet
    • Please review my former teammate Jon Strand's equally superb blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption

for these CRM components:

NOTE: On Jan. 20th, 2012 these installation files were updated to include CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 (Build 05.00.9690.1992)

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 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 Prerequisites:

  • Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Implementation Guide download or online versions for the various CRM components serviced
  • You must have Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 installed (build 5.0.9690.1992) to apply this Update Rollup

Note regarding Microsoft Dynamics CRM Stack Technology Compatibility:

Do you want to know if certain Service Packs or versions of a Microsoft product are supported with Dynamics CRM? Now we have all of this in one “living" Knowledge Base article: the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.  For example, you can use this KB article to determine the latest Microsoft SQL Server major version and Service Pack that is supported. Microsoft lists new products like Internet Explorer 11+ and Microsoft Windows 8.x as TBD until testing is complete; generally near General Availability (GA) of that product.

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 is the sixteenth (considering that Update Rollup 9 was not released publicly) of a series of cumulative Update Rollups that include fixes for the issues that are or will be documented in the "Master Knowledge Base Articles" for CRM 2011 Update Rollups.  As they are cumulative, Update Rollup 17 contains all fixes shipped via Update Rollups 1-17, including fixes that were never publicly released via Update Rollup 9.

  • A partial import is reported as a failure instead of a partial failure: The record could not be updated because the original record no longer exists in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • With the latest version of the CRM 2011 SDK you cannot use the Workflow activity that is part of the Windows Workflow Activities provided in the Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Workflow.dll in the Workflow Designer
  • ViewID for custom view is not respected when same relationship is added multiple times on form by directly editing the entity FormXML and adding different ViewID for same relationships
  • Quick Find fails with "Invalid Argument" when whole number fields are added as find columns
  • You are not able to navigate as Next Page arrow option disabled in Service Calendar Frame
  • You are not able to edit properties of a SharePoint document on Dynamics CRM when clicking on Actions -> Edit Properties
    • This message is displayed: "You must check out this item before making changes. Do you want to check out this Item now?"
    • Click on OK and then you can see a page to edit the properties of the document but when click on Save button, we receive the message:
      • "The file "File name" is not checked out. you must check out this document before making changes"
  • Recurring Series Expansion job does not complete if Recurring Appointment owner is a team
    When you create service activities and you sync those activities to your Outlook Exchange Mailbox, and you have devices like an iPhone or Windows Phone you will see UNKNOWN:UNKNOWN on the activity parties or invitees on those devices when viewing those service activities
    • This can lead to invitees getting removed from the service activity or becoming duplicated in CRM
  • Any modification to the "Goals with Same Metrics and Time Period" View loses filter on Active records
  • Bulk Edit on Cases shows an incorrect dialog box
  • Poor performance with smart matching when the Email Hash and Activity tables have a large number of records
  • Clicking the mail merge button in the Ribbon bar of the Advanced Find screen opened from the Contacts entity does not display the Mail Merge dialog
  • When adding users to a dynamic list using manage members and having a related entity link in the advanced find query to find members, the query generated doesn't execute because of duplicate table alias
  • When a User does not have permission on a folder created by Dynamics CRM record,
    • The user is redirected to the Parent SharePoint folder
    • They are able to see all folders that belongs to other Dynamics CRM entities on the SharePoint List Component when access should be denied
  • The context sensitive ribbon is not displaying in the Outlook 2011 Client when configured to a CRM 2013 deployment
  • Removing / Adding any field to the form after enabling the option "Automatically expand to use available space" causes the sub grid to shrink or resize to much smaller in size
  • Recurring appointment fails to track with exceptions outside EffectiveRange
  • When you go offline in the CRM 2011 client for Outlook running on UR11 Critical Update or UR 15+ you receive the following error:
    • An error occurred during Offline Synchronization. Try going offline again, or restart Microsoft Outlook
    • Exception happened. The formatter threw an exception while trying to deserialize the message: There was an error while trying to deserialize parameter /:args">/:args">http://<organization>/:args
    • The InnerException message was 'There was an error deserializing the object of type Microsoft.Crm.Application.Outlook.OfflineSync.SyncInfoRequest. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader.’
  • After Update Rollup 12 or greater is applied to the Outlook client, the startup time for Outlook.exe can be significantly impacted if the configured organization contains many customizations
  • Microsoft.Interop.Mapi.MAPINameId.GetHashCode module leads to an Outlook crash
  • Reports cannot be executed once the default filter form the report is removed and the update is saved. The execution fails with the following error on screen:
    • "Reporting Error: The repot cannot be displayed"
  • Outlook start-up time is impacted post Update Rollup 12
  • Outlook Quick Find does not work correctly for custom entities after Update Rollup 12
  • When users have several forms open in the Outlook Client and then open a model dialog such as a Lookup, several of the forms will be forced to the background, losing focus
  • In CRM 2011, the PostFollow(Follow) entity workflow cannot be triggered
  • When creating an activitymimeattachment using the REST endpoint and JavaScript when the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is offline, the user will see an error:
    • "activitymimeattachment With Id = <GUID> Does Not Exist"
  • After applying Update Rollup 16, Solution import fails with overwriting components
  • SharePoint 2010 Integration won't work if Windows6.1-KB2894844-x64 is installed
  • An environment where the SendEmailSynchronously OrgDbOrgSetting set to 1 the message below is presented when forwarding e-mails from Outlook:
    • "A record with these values already exists. A duplicate record cannot be created. Select one or more unique values and try again. Do you want send the e-mail?
    • If you click Yes, the e-mail will be sent out, but no corresponding activity will be created in Microsoft Dynamics CRM."
  • Update to CRM UR16 fails with error: SqlException:
    • Invalid column name 'IsMapiPrivate'
  • When a manually tracked contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is merged with another contact as a subordinate record, that contact can be incorrectly synchronized to Outlook if the Outlook Client is reconfigured
  • After installing Update Rollup 16, CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10
  • N:N relationship records are not replicated offline
  • After installing UR12+, addCustomView method from SDK fails on multi-entity lookups
    • This was previously fixed in UR 10 and UR 11 for CRM 2011
  • SDK OrganizationServiceContext fails to update a related record while in a create transaction
  • Reports cannot be executed once the default filter has been changed
  • A form has multiple tabs which are initially hidden and then made visible programmatically
    • Once the tabs are made visible, the navigation bar containing the links to other related entities moves down and part of it gets off the screen, making the users unable to see or select some links
  • Horizontal scrollbar appears on mouse over the form sections navigation pane
  • Queue emails not being tracked in CRM via the e-mail router
  • When processing async operation jobs, the CrmAsyncService crashes unexpectedly
    • Event Viewer shows that there was a problem deserializing some data to process a job:
    • Exception: System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added
      • at System.Runtime.Serialization.XmlObjectSerializer.ReadObjectHandleExceptions(XmlReaderDelegator reader, Boolean verifyObjectName, DataContractResolver dataContractResolver)
      • at System.Runtime.Serialization.DataContractSerializer.ReadObject(XmlReader reader)
  • Chart is not displayed when a subgrid is placed on the business unit entity
  • When opening and closing service activities in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook, the parent ribbon for the Service Calendar will render a single blank tab
  • Untracking an email you do not own results in the email being deleted from CRM
  • After exporting the results of a Quick Find search to Excel Pivot Table, the resulting file cannot be opened. The following error appears:
    • "[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'AccountBase', database '...._MSCRM', schema 'dbo'."
  • Advanced Find date range with "last-x-fiscal-years" is incorrect when exported to a Dynamic Worksheet
  • Adding an out of the box optionset field for the Connection Entity in a view, causes the view to not load in the CRM Outlook client
  • When a user selects a Service Appointment in the Outlook calendar and they choose to click the Untrack button in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client For Outlook, users will encounter error dialogs such as:
    • Invalid ArgumentItem Name=<SubjectOfServiceActivity>
    • An error has occurred. Try this action again. If the problem continues, check the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community for solutions or contact your organization's Microsoft Dynamics CRM Administrator. Finally, you can contact Microsoft Support.Item Name=<SubjectOfServiceActivity>
  • Cannot change owner on create of Appointment after Update Rollup 16
  • Quick campaigns are not working in Outlook client when Critical Update is installed
  • When you have an HTML web resource on a form, the web resource is removed when clicking the backspace button in Internet Explorer
  • You cannot select "Goals with Same Metrics and Time Period" view for parent goal lookup
  • Spaces used in a Grid URL cause the URL to add additional http:// to the beginning of the URL and renders as http://http://
  • When a form is opened, if a user clicks "Insert Template" before the rest of the form finishes loading, one of the following script errors might occur:
    • <ScriptErrorDetails>
    • <Message>'Mscrm.FormControlInputBehavior.GetBehavior(...)' is null or not an object</Message>
    • <Line>1</Line>
    • <URL>/_static/_controls/emailbody/emailbody.js?ver=-764166174</URL>
      or:
    • <ScriptErrorDetails>
    • <Message>Unable to get property 'Items' of undefined or null reference</Message>
    • <Line>1</Line>
    • <URL>/_static/_controls/emailbody/emailbody.js?ver=-55529662</URL>
      or:
    • <ScriptErrorDetails>
    • <Message>Object expected</Message>
    • <Line>58</Line>
    • <URL>/userdefined/edit.aspx?contactInfo=&etc=4202&pId=%7b0D1757B9-FC47-E311-BF17-
      or:
    • The value of the property 'ApplyTemplate' is null or undefined, not a Function object
  • Audit setting is disabled when changing cascading behavior
  • The AddCustomView method from SDK does not work on a multi-entity lookup as expected
  • When a manually tracked contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is merged with another contact as a subordinate record, that contact can be incorrectly synchronized to Outlook if the Outlook Client is reconfigured
  • When doing a multi-select lookup of an unresolved email address in CC the email address are not properly transferred to the dialog. Subsequently changes to the addresses in the dialog are not copied back to the form and some are removed
  • When you invite multiple CRM users to a meeting in the Outlook client and that meeting is recurring and you do not initially track the meeting, each CRM user could track that meeting resulting in duplicate recurring appointments in CRM for the same meeting causing confusion
    • This can also result in problems with the scheduling engine showing that a resource is not available, when in fact they are not available since the meeting which is blocking is the same meeting attempted to be created
  • Dynamics CRM users are unable to add more than one Document Location when the document location is based on an entity centric structure, like: Account/<accountname>/opportunity/<opportunityname>
    Users attempting to delete the oldest audit log in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 after Update Rollup 12 receive the following error:
    • "You can only delete the oldest audit log"
  • The CRM Outlook client first looks locally for an icon. If the icon does not exist local it makes an asynchronous request to the server and when the response comes back caches it locally for future reference
    • The cache location is *local appdata*/Microsoft\MSCRM\Client\IconCache
      • In this scenario the request made to obtain the custom entity custom 16x16 grid icon doesn't have an orgname in the URL
      • This results in HTTP 401 and 500 errors
  • Recurring Series Expansion job does not complete if Recurring Appointment owner is a team
  • Activity Types change when importing Solutions. As a result a view on the Activity entity that references the custom activity entity stops working
    • Warning message on the filter: This condition had one or more list values that no longer exist in the system
  • After applying Update Rollup 16 in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, users are unable to remove Deployment Administrators if the account exists in a separate domain.
  • After installing Update Rollup 12, there are changes to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 forms that may impact the visually impaired such as lighter colors and the absence of highlighting on items such as the SiteMap and Tab titles
  • When users have several forms open in the Outlook Client and then open a modal dialog such as a Lookup, several of the forms will be forced to the background, losing focus
  • When going online in Outlook, the view duplicates window for the record appears, but the value for lookup and optionset attributes will not be shown in offline record grid
  • Users of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook may experience issues where shared personal views may not show up on entity grids if the views had been shared or unshared previously
  • Fonts with spaces are ignored in CRM reports
  • After installing Update Rollup 10, 11, or 12, file attachments for emails get a contentId appended to them
  • If file name is mywordfile.doc, then the file attachment in CRM will show {cid:somecontentid@somedomain}mywordfile.doc
  • The newly-released SharePoint List Web Part will cause the Document Management functionality to hang on the loading circles when configured on a SharePoint 2010 server
  • If the number of notes on a record exceeds the records per page set in a user personal options, you will not be able to see the additional notes in the control
    • For example, if the records per page is set to 25, and you have 26 notes on the record, you will not be able to see the first note
    • Prior to Update Rollup 12 the Notes Control had "Add a new note..." and "Show more notes" hyperlinks on the notes control.”Show more notes" would allow you to display the next page of notes in the notes control
  • Microsoft.Interop.Mapi.MAPINameId.GetHashCode module leads to Outlook crash
  • Clicking the mail merge button in the Ribbon bar of the Advanced Find screen opened from the Contacts entity does not function
  • When you attempt to deploy a mailbox rule using the forward mailbox rule deployment wizard, with a split deployment for Exchange 2010 where your mailbox servers are not client access servers, you receive an error:
    • Failed to access the default store for the user
  • After Update Rollup 4 of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, exports of fetch based reports to Excel gave users to ability to include an unformatted column of data to allow for calculations in Excel
  • Even though the print preview fits one page, a blank page 2 is printed

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Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

  • Occasionally, updates released via Update Rollups require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups are always cumulative; for example, Update Rollup 16 contains all fixes previously released via Update Rollups 1-15 as well as fixes newly released via Update Rollup 16. So if you install Update Rollup 16 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Update Rollups, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 1-16:
    • Update Rollup 1: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 2 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2535245 RetrieveMultiple optimization for basic depth needed for local and deep depth read privileges in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
      • NOTE: see comments near the beginning of this blog regarding significant rework to EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization released in Update Rollup 10
    • Update Rollup 3: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 4: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 5: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2664150  Steps to clean up the PrincipalObjectAccess table in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 after Update Rollup 6 is applied
    • Update Rollup 7: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 8: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 10 (includes hotfix components of Update Rollup 9): no updates requiring manual configuration to enable, but
      • Note my above comments regarding ERMO (EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization) option configuration via registry keys or (preferred) OrgDbOrgSettings updates
      • This information supercedes the information in KB 2535245, which discusses EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization enhancements shipped in CRM 2011 Update Rollup 2
    • Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2820838 Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router Rule Deployment Wizard does not work in an Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 mixed environment
    • Update Rollup 12 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2820835 Sync the private property from Outlook appointments to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with Update Rollup 12
    • Update Rollup 13: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 14: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 15: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 16: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 17 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually:
      • When you attempt to deploy a mailbox rule using the forward mailbox rule deployment wizard, with a split deployment for Exchange 2010 where your mailbox servers are not client access servers, you receive an error: Failed to access the default store for the user. To enable this fix,
        • On the Email Router machine, add a new String value Key named "CASServerName" in the path HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMEmail, then:
        • Enter the NetBIOS name of one of the Exchange CAS servers

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Mismatched Update Rollup versions within a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment

In a scenario where you may be running many client workstations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Microsoft Office Outlook, a common question is whether it is supported to run mismatched versions. For example, where Update Rollup 5 has been installed on the CRM Server but the Outlook clients are still on Update Rollup 1, or where Update Rollup 1 is on the CRM server but due to updates available to the Outlook client you have decided to install Update Rollup 6 on the clients without installing Update Rollup 4 on the server.

The general rule of thumb is to try to keep the versions in sync as much as possible, and we recommend that you avoid deltas of more than one version between client and server.  So ideally, you would be running Update Rollup 14 server with Update Rollup 13 or 14 on your Outlook client. However, it is permissible (though not recommended as a long-term solution) to run mismatched Update Rollup versions on Outlook client and server, as Microsoft does do some testing of such combinations.

However, regarding the other Update Rollups (for example Rollups for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Email Router or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting Extensions), it is not supported nor recommended to run mismatched versions. A best practice is to update these components at the same time you update your CRM Server.  Do the best you can to keep these Update Rollup versions in sync.

For more information, see the blog posting "User experience while accessing CRM 2011 application servers while Update Rollups are being applied"

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollups or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

 

Greg Nichols
Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRM2011UR17_PFEPodcast.mp3

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Sitemap Issues after CRM 2011 Import into CRM 2013

May 12, 2014, 12:00 am
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I was recently assisting a customer with an import of their CRM 2011 organization into a new CRM 2013 deployment. The import completed successfully and after logging in we noticed that the some of the sitemap links were either broken (no response when clicking on them) or completely missing when compared with a brand new CRM 2013 organization.

Examples of Missing Links: 

  • Email Configuration
  • Dashboards
  • Post Configuration
  • What’s New
  • Post Rule Configuration
  • Activities

 

Examples of what might be missing:

We were able to restore the missing links and fix the broken links by using the SiteMap Editor from the XRM ToolBox. The sitemap links in question were all out of the box and the customer had only added a few customized links within the SubArea element of the sitemap.  The steps for resetting your sitemap to the 2013 defaults are outlined below. Please read the disclaimer below before following these steps.

Disclaimer: The steps below will reset the top 3 elements of your CRM sitemap. If you have added custom sitemap links in the Area>Group>SubArea elements of your sitemap, these changes will be overwritten with the default sitemap values. There is a step below outlining how to backup your pre-existing sitemap in case you do need to perform a restore, but it is not advised to move forward with these steps unless you plan to add back those custom sitemap links manually. As an alternative solution, review the information at the following link to add the new sitemap areas manually after upgrading your organization:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn486920.aspx

 

Steps for Resetting your 2013 SiteMap to the Default Values

1.       Download the XRM Toolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013 found at:  http://xrmtoolbox.codeplex.com/

2.       Once downloaded, extract the package contents

3.       Open File Explorer and browse to the location where you extracted the package

4.       Locate the XrmToolBox.exe file, right-click on the file and click Run as administrator
          
            Note: If your receive an error stating you must first install .NET 4.0, please download and install before continuing to the next step.

5.       Once the application is open, click on the Connect to CRM icon in the upper left-hand corner
          

6.       On the Select connection page, click New Connection
            

7.       Enter the connection information for your CRM deployment and click Get Orgs to populate the Organization dropdown box
          

8.       Select the Organization that contains the broken sitemap from the Organization dropdown box and click OK

9.       Click Yes to confirm you’d like to connect now
          

10.   You should now see your connection listed in the lower-left corner of the ToolBox window

11.   On the ToolBox main menu, scroll down the list of tools and click on SiteMap Editor
         

12.   On the SiteMap Editor tab, click Load SiteMap
        

         You should now see the sitemap listed in the SiteMap dialogue box on the left
         

13.   From the actions menu, click Save SiteMap to export a copy of the pre-existing sitemap for backup purposes
        

14.   Click OK to the SiteMap Saved informational message
        

15.   Now that you have a backup of your sitemap, click the More actions dropdown and click Reset CRM 2013 SiteMap to default
        

16.   Click Yes when asked if you are sure you want to reset the sitemap
        

17. Click Update SiteMap to apply the changes

18.   You should now be able to login to CRM and verify that your sitemap is fully functional


If you have any additional SiteMap tips or tricks you'd like to share with the community, please comment below!

Thanks!
Reed Wolfe
Premier Field Engineer

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PFE Core Library for Dynamics CRM on CodePlex and NuGet

May 13, 2014, 1:00 am
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Last week, we publically released a C# .NET library for Dynamics CRM that's the result of multiple customer and partner advisory engagements. Predictably, for every development question we answer or recommendation we provide, a request for a code sample to illustrate the concept is sure to follow. When authoring code samples for customers and partners, we found ourselves continually writing similar code to connect to and maximize request throughput with Dynamics CRM services regardless of the scenario. We began to consolidate our techniques into a library that we then delivered as a foundational component to our sample solutions. Over time, the patterns in the library evolved and have been further refined. Fast forward to today, we felt that openly sharing the result of our journey, education and mentoring others, will at best offer insight into new techniques or at a minimum validate what you already know and practice.

What is it?

The PFE Dynamics Core library for Dynamics CRM is a managed C# .NET library that can be included in .NET projects needing to directly communicate with Dynamics CRM services. What does the library offer? Primarily two objectives, 1) efficiently authenticate and establish communication channels, and 2) provide an easy interface to parallelize requests for maximum throughput. The former simply builds on techniques and constructs offered in the CRM SDK.  Whereas the latter is a play on the IDiscoveryService and IOrganizationService service operations, where equivalent methods, each accepting a collection of requests, abstract the actual implementation of parallelized processing. To the developer, an operation involving many CRM service requests can be quickly parallelized in a single line of code. Interested in the meat? Check out these two code files: XrmServiceManager.cs and ParallelServiceProxy.cs. You'll also find a few other goodies sprinkled in.

Where can I get it?

If you just want to reference the assembly, we have versions for Dynamics CRM 2013 (v6) and 2011 (v5) available on NuGet.org.  Simply install the appropriate package into your project to get the latest version and be kept up to date on future releases.  We even built in a dependency on the appropriate CRM SDK Core Assemblies package for each version, so adding our package is a one-stop shop for getting connected to CRM. Otherwise, if it is source code that you're after, head on over to our CodePlex project site. In addition to source code, you'll find documentation, release notes, and ability to contribute feedback.

What's next?

First, we have a few minor refinements queued for a 1406.0 build that further optimize our patterns. We also plan to expand the documentation and supplement with some examples of how to use the library. From there we anticipate additional improvements that are driven by upcoming CRM product releases (Leo and beyond). Lastly, we're always looking for notable and repeatable techniques that can benefit the broader community from our day-to-day advisory work, including feedback we receive via the project site, our blog, twitter, etc.

By publishing this library, we hope to drive awareness for best-practices when communicating with Dynamics CRM services, increase the performance of your .NET applications, and possibly eliminate some redundant code in the process. We would love to hear your story about tackling similar challenge, ideas for improvement, or even how our library has directly or indirectly benefited your solution. Comment below, suggest a feature on our CodePlex project site, or contact our team directly!

 

M. Austin Jones

Follow the conversation:
@maustinjones
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

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Supported configurations for the next version of CRM (v7)

May 19, 2014, 12:15 am
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FYI Everyone – the product team released a blog post regarding supportability for the next major release of CRM (A.K.A. “Vega” as termed in the 2013 release preview guide, from a version standpoint it is expected to be v7).

NOTE: This is a summary from the product teams posting – if you have comments or questions feel free to head over and post in the product team’s blog comments section: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2014/05/14/important-information-about-supported-configurations-in-the-next-major-release-for-crm.aspx.  What you’ll find below is a summary of the CRM Team blog post, as well as a few helpful notes around the current version numbers, etc.

 

To level set, right now the versions (as of today 5/19/2014 10/30/2014) are as follows:

CRM 2011 Version 5.0
CRM 2013 Version 6.0 (was referred to as Orion)
CRM 2013 SP1 Version 6.1 (was referred to as Leo)
CRM 2015 Version 7.0 (was referred to as Vega)

 

  • Operation System and DB:
    • Windows Server 2012
    • Windows Server 2012 R2
    • SQL Server 2012
    • SQL 2014 support is still pending for the initial release – keep your eye on the CRM Product Team blog for more information
  • Removed OS and DB support:
    • Small Business Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2
    • SQL 2008 and SQL 2008 R2 are no longer part of the support matrix
    • Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 versions of Remote Desktop Services, and Office 2007
  • Browser Support:
    • Removing support for Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 – *important* these browsers will not be blocked from accessing CRM.  However, because they are no longer part of the support matrix the best experience will be on Internet Explorer 10 or 11 (or any other supported browser version)
  • Endpoints:
    • MSCRM 2007 SOAP Endpoint is now going to be completely removed.  This was replaced in CRM 2011 by a WCF Endpoint, for scripting access there was also a REST endpoint added in CRM 2011.
  • JavaScript:
    • GetServerUrl() is removed – replaced by getClientUrl since CRM 2011 UR12
    • IsOutlookClient() is removed – replaced by client.getClient()
    • IsOutlookOnline() is removed – replaced by client.getClientState()
    • getAuthentication() was deprecated previously and was removed in CRM 2013
  • Forms:
    • ReadOptimized forms are removed (this was a CRM 2011 form type)
    • CRM 2011 Forms are no longer allowed – you will have to update your 2011 forms to 2013 forms before you upgrade to the next version.
    • The associated form types will also be removed from GetFormType()
  • Entities:
    • Product Kits are deprecated in the next version (the next major release after CRM2015 or V7 + 1). 

Make sure to keep these things in mind as you’re planning for your releases and updating your code.  If you’re using any of the deprecated functions or areas it’s worth taking the time to plan today so nothing catches you by surprise.

Thanks!

Sean

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Podcast and Overview: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1

June 1, 2014, 12:07 pm
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Contents:

We're proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 (codename "Leo") were released on Tuesday, May 27th to the Microsoft Download Center!  The Service Pack 1 packages should appear on Microsoft Update in June 2014.

Service Pack 1 Build number:

06.01.0000.0581

IMPORTANT NOTE:

  • Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 cannot be uninstalled from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server to roll back the program to the previous version
    • Therefore, it is very important that you back up your organizational databases, including your customizations, prior to installing Service Pack 1
    • Going back to your previous install version will involve uninstalling / reinstalling CRM 2013, then importing your database backup via Deployment Manager

Service Pack 1 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Service Pack 1: KB 2941390. Going forward, the plan is for the Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM 2013 Update Rollups and Service Packs to be published a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

On Monday, June 2nd at 1:00 PM Pacific Time Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

  • The release of Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
  • New features available in Service Pack 1
  • New fixes made available In Service Pack 1

on BlogTalkRadio during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 Podcast

BlogTalkRadio and Internet Explorer 11 compatibility

If you're having trouble viewing the podcast when using Internet Explorer 11,

  • View the Podcast in Compatibility View
    • in IE 11, select Tools (the upper right "Gear" icon) -> Compatibility View Settings -> add the blogtalkradio.com website, or
  • Use the "New Window" link on the Blogtalkradio page

Note regarding Podcasts: You can make our CRM Premier Field Engineering podcasts available on Zune by using the RSS feed below.  In the Zune software, go to Collection -> Podcasts and click on the Add a Podcast button on the lower left, then enter the url for the RSS feed: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pfedynamics.rss. After that, you can adjust the series settings like any other podcast, so you can sync with your smartphone or Zune.

sdk

The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups and Service Packs, visit the "CRM Update Rollup and Service Pack Collateral Page"

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RAMP UP ON CRM 2013!

Here are some pointers to directly accessible ramp-up resources and some insight into what people are most excited about regarding the release of CRM 2013:

Recommended Ramp-up materials:

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Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 SDK (Software Development Kit)

Includes new assemblies for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1. These assemblies are also compatible with the latest service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

  • In addition to the documentation, this download package includes the assemblies and tools needed for development, helper code for authentication, and Microsoft Visual Studio projects for sample code found in the documentation
  • You can also choose to download the User Interface Integration (UII) solution framework, which includes a deployment guide, development guide and api reference
    • UII uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM for the delivery of configuration data for the Integrated Agent Desktop. It includes development and run-time components. Applications built with UII can provide unified access to customer information across different systems and can aggregate different modes of customer interactions or channels
    • The UII download package also contains developer assets for the Unified Service Desk, which includes default Unified Service Desk configuration data schema file, default style (theme), a sample panel layout, api reference guide, and sample code for the custom controls available in the sample applications. For more information about Unified Service Desk, see Getting Started and the Administration guide
  • The CRM 2013 SP1 SDK includes new tools:
    • Package Deployer
      • Package Deployer is a new tool that enables administrators to deploy packages on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premises) instances
      • A “package” can consist of any or all of the following:
        • One or more CRM solution files
        • Flat files or exported data files from the Configuration Migration tool
        • Custom code that can run while the package is being deployed to the CRM server, or after it’s been deployed
        • HTML content specific to the package that can display at the beginning and end of the deployment process
        • This can be useful to provide a description of the solutions and files that are deployed in the package
    • Configuration Migration Tool
      • The Configuration Migration tool is a new tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Spring ‘14 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 (on-premises) that enables you to move configuration data across Microsoft Dynamics CRM instances and organizations
        • Configuration data is used to define custom functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and is typically stored in custom entities
          • Configuration data is different from the end user data (account, contacts, and so on)
            • A typical example of configuration data is what you define in Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to configure a customized call center agent application
            • The Unified Service Desk entities, along with the configuration data that is stored in the entities, define an agent application
            • For more information about Unified Service Desk, see the Administration Guide for Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Updated SDK tools include:
    • Developer Toolkit
      • The Developer Toolkit is a set of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 integration tools focused on accelerating the development of custom code for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
      • The Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is included in the SDK package at SDK\Tools\DeveloperToolkit
        • The Developer Toolkit supports creation and deployment of plug-ins, custom workflow assemblies, XAML workflows and web resources
        • A developer can write custom code within Visual Studio and deploy the code to an unmanaged solution on a Microsoft Dynamics CRM server
    • Device Registration Tool
    • Metadata Browser
      • You can use the Entity Metadata Browser to view entities and their properties in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • The Entity Metadata Browser is a managed solution available in the downloadable files available in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK at SDK\Tools\MetadataBrowser\
    • Plugin Registration Tool
    • Web Resource Utility
      • Manually creating Web resources one at a time using the customization tools can take a long time when you have to create many files
      • The Web Resource Utility is a WPF application project that you can compile and run to import many Web Resource eligible files from a folder structure with a consistent naming convention based on the folder structure
      • The Web Resource Utility sample project is included with the downloadable files for the SDK at SDK\Tools\WebResourceUtility.
  • Deprecated SDK tools include:

Most Popular Features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013!

  • Flat User Interface (modern look UI)
  • Process driven UI
  • Quick create and quick view forms
  • BingMaps / Skype / Lync integration
  • Social and mobile integration
  • Server side sync

Business Process UI

  • Rich and guided UX to implement end to end business scenarios
  • Reduced number of clicks and pop ups to complete transactions
  • Ability to span the process UI across entities
  • Security modelling and ability to assign processes to security roles
  • Ability of accessing the UI using MoCA clients

The new ‘skin’ of CRM 2013

  • Flat and modern UI avoiding frequent pop ups
  • Inline editing
  • Quick view form enabling parent entity details in child record
  • Form level notifications where errors, warnings and information can be viewed inline in the field
  • Avoiding redundant ribbon buttons thus showing only which is really required
  • Header controls to highlight the most relevant data of the entity
  • BingMaps embedded control

Configuration & Customization

  • Synchronous Workflows will help developers to quickly configure workflow instead of using a plug-in (writing code/deploying)
  • Actions enable multiple operations which are frequently used to be created as single action and can be re-used to minimize Dev cycle
    • Power to create custom actions such as schedule, Escalate and Route Lead are highly beneficial as well
  • Portable Business Logic This easy way avoids lots of scripting for easy validations and enables CRM functional analysts to quick add validations without touching the code base

Yammer Integration

  • Native integration with Yammer and thus enabling social collaboration
  • Private and Public settings to control the activity feed stream

Mobility

  • MoCA (Mobile Client Application) clients and Mobile clients make the long awaited dream a reality
  • Support across expected devices and browsers
  • Availability of process bar and new UI in the tablet clients
  • UI in MoCA clients is highly appreciable, survey shows many of them like the MoCA UI more than the native web UI

General

  • Quick create forms to accelerate the record creation
  • Light weight command bar UI
  • Multi activity support in the collaboration area

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New functionality in CRM 2013 Service Pack 1

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Marketing:

  • Drag and drop visual Campaign Designer
    • Drive customer engagement with effective campaigns. An intuitive visual designer makes it easy for marketers to create multi-channel campaigns integrated with email marketing and social channels so you can generate highly qualified leads
  • Lead lifecycle management
    • Build your sales pipeline with qualified leads using a solution designed to manage the process of lead acquisition, scoring, distribution, and segmentation across marketing and sales
    • Easily import leads to nurture and measure consistently for better results
    • Multi-dimensional scoring allows Marketers to create precise scoring models across multiple elements (e.g. engagement, demographics, behavioral data, etc.)
      • Leads generated last week may or may not be as hot as the Leads generated this week. Recency/frequency based scoring helps Marketers identify the best Leads by changing the scoring based on recency or frequency of engagement
    • Lead performance reporting based on campaign performance and conversion in order to optimize campaign results
  • Homepage
    • Marketers can easily configure a personalized view of their key performance indicators and reports such as leads generated, email effectiveness, landing page opens, and budget performance
    • An easy to use graphical editor allows Marketers to tailor their homepage for their role – view Marketing data graphically in Charts (pie, area, bubble) or in a traditional list view, or aggregate multiple data sources for an end to end view of campaign performance using Power BI
  • Scalable Email Marketing
    • Send highly personalized E-mail messages to drive improved open rates. Personalize the content per sender, recipient, subject & content allowing you to send fewer emails with greater business results via:
      • Open APIs to support emails triggered by third parties applications tracking results within Dynamics Marketing
      • Delivering mass and transactional emails scalable to millions of emails to customers per day
      • Cross campaign rules to prevent email fatigue. Manage and control how many emails a contact can receive in a given time period to improve email performance
  • Power BI for Marketing
    • Visually analyze your data using predefined Power BI reports focusing on financials, lead performance, asset management and email deliverability
    • Obtain a 360 degree view of the Customer by visualizing contact demographics, online behavior, marketing lists and much more using Excel based reporting tools integrating key Marketing and Sales data
    • Demonstrate the impact of your Marketing investments with robust Campaign ROI reporting. Power BI can access your marketing spend and revenue to calculate the return on your marketing investment, or ROMI
  • Improved Sales & Marketing Connector
    • The Dynamics Marketing Connector is new and improved, with easy configuration and a UI for data mapping. Users can configure data mapping to bring in important information on the contact and lead to assist in better lead scoring. Sales gets better quality leads as a result. Rich information means that reporting on lead pipeline and lead conversion is easily accessible in reports
  • Office 365 Procurement
    • Easily try and buy Microsoft Dynamics Marketing through Microsoft Office 365 providing single sign in across all your Office 365 services.

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Sales:

  • CRM tablet app enhancements
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM for tablets: helps you stay connected and productive wherever you are. Use your Windows 8, iPad or Android tablets to stay up to date with your customer info—even when you’re on the go. Arrive prepared for every appointment, and update your notes, tasks, contacts, accounts, and leads while the details are still fresh in your mind. Data is cached for offline viewing so you can still access key data if connectivity is lost
  • Insights: (Insights is available through a strategic partnership with InsideView at no additional cost to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers with Professional licenses in the United States, with broader global rollout coming later in 2014)
    • Insights puts real-time company and contact information from 30,000 sources into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, helping marketing, sales and account management professionals engage more effectively with prospects to win more deals as a result of less time spent researching and more time selling
      • Data
        • Millions of company and contact profiles from around the world
        • Email addresses and phone numbers
        • One-click data sync into CRM
        • Financials, SEC filings, family trees, and industry profiles
      • Insights
        • Breaking news (e.g. funding news, company expansion, leadership changes)
        • Social buzz for target companies (blogs, Facebook, Twitter)
        • Social profiles for decision makers (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
      • Connections
        • Warm introductions through personal and corporate connections
        • Aggregate personal connections from Outlook, LinkedIn, and Facebook
        • Connection sharing (access all co-workers’ connections privately and securely)

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Customer Service:

  • Unified Service Desk (see also the Administration guide)
    • A powerful desktop designed to improve key business metrics such as Average Handling Time, First Call Resolution and Customer Satisfaction by providing agents a unified experience to access all of the tasks and applications across diverse environments required to complete customer interaction processes via any channel; Handle voice, chat, email in a unified experience, automate repetitive tasks using contextual interaction data (e.g. launching applications, performing searches, data entry) and handle multiple customer sessions simultaneously; Customers can easily create agent desktop applications through a configurable interface within Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Enterprise Case Management
    • Deliver world-class case resolution by automating case creation and routing rules, creating failure and warning actions that execute if your Service Level Agreements are not met on time. Ensure you exceed your customers' expectations by easily:
      • Defining and managing service entitlements and SLA’s
      • Creating dynamic routing and queuing rules to ensure you hit your service targets
    • Define and customize enterprise-wide KPI’s (e.g. first response, resolution by, customer sat) and associate processes and rules (e.g. routing, queuing, escalation and notification) to ensure they are met
    • Note: The following Enterprise Case Management features are Opt-In. To Opt-In: go to Settings > Administration and then click Install Product Updates. Installing optional product updates is a one-way process. Once enabled, the features can’t be disabled.
      • Case form
        • With the updated case form, you can now view merged cases, view or add child cases, review entitlements, and even add a Timer to ensure you do not exceed/breach your SLA’s. The timer control can be set-up to show a running counter displaying remaining time by when SLA KPIs need to be met
      • Entitlements
        • Service organizations need to keep track of how much support to provide to all their customers, including the type of support. Now you can create entitlements, which are like contracts that let your service reps know how much support to provide, when a customer has a support request
      • Service Level Agreements
        • Provide excellent service to your customers by using Service Level Agreements (SLA) that track the level of service a customer receives. Create an SLA to track when a customer will receive a response on a support case, how long it takes to close a case, and what happens if the case isn’t closed on time; When you create an SLA, it’s important to also let your service reps know how much time they have to answer and resolve a case. A new Timer control can be added to the case form to show how much time a rep has to perform tasks such as initiate first response or to resolve a case
      • Merge Cases
        • Eliminate redundancies between similar cases by merging them into one case. When a case is merged all of the open case activities, notes, and attachments of the constituent cases will be reparented to the primary case
      • Parent / Child Cases
        • When there is a case where work needs to be done by multiple teams or when one issue effects multiple customers–- now a customer service rep can open a primary case, called the parent case, and then create a secondary case, called the child case
      • Define Status Reasons
        • Status reason transitions are an optional additional level of filtering to define what the status reason value can be changed to for each status reason. Defining a limited list of valid options can make it easier for people to choose the correct next status reason for a record when you have a large number of combinations for valid status reason values
      • Automatic Case Creation
        • When someone sends an email to your support email address, the automatic case create rule converts the email in to a support case. The same happens if someone is talking about your product or service on social media, the issue is captured and converted into a support case
      • Social Care
        • Find out what your customers and others are saying about your product or service on Facebook and Twitter, and resolve emerging issues before they escalate. Download, optimize and quickly start using the new Social Care Sample application to extend your customer service on social channels. Companies who have their owns means of social listening can also customize and extend Social Care Application to create cases, contacts and social profiles from the social posts they are monitoring
      • Service Management
        • Easily manage the configuration of the your Customer Service capabilities
    • CRM tablet application - Case Management
      • Continue to deliver amazing customer experiences even when you are away from the office. The CRM for tablets app has been extended to include Customer Service capabilities optimized for people who are always on the move but want to keep an eye on high priority Cases, monitor Queues or route items across the queues to deliver amazing experiences no matter where they are
    • Multi-channel Care
      • Customers are more connected and better informed than ever before. Organizations are looking for business solutions that can strengthen their ability to connect with customers on their own terms, using whatever device and whatever channel they prefer. Parature offers one of the best cloud-based solutions for customer self-service
        • Parature Portal
          • A 24/7 customer support center that is seamlessly integrated into your organization’s current website. This web-based help center gives your customers easy and convenient access to an intuitive, searchable knowledge base which delivers quick answers to their most-commonly asked service and support questions. If your customers still require personal support after using the knowledge base, they can submit a help ticket, track its progress at their convenience and receive an automatic notification email when an answer is available for them
        • Parature Mobile Self-Service
          • Allow your customers to access answers to frequently asked questions using whatever device they prefer. The responsive design of Parature Portal enables you to increase the reach of your knowledge management efforts and provide consistent and personalized experiences across desktop and mobile devices
        • Parature Facebook Portal
          • Provide businesses and organizations with a 24/7 multi-service channel for customer support on Facebook. Customers and consumers can browse FAQs and updates, or submit a help desk tickets. In addition, you can integrate Parature Live Chat seamlessly to deflect customer complaints and service issue posts on your brand’s Facebook page
        • Parature Real-time Chat
          • Provide your customers with instant and personalized online support with Parature Chat. Empowers your organization with an immediate, seamless transition from a self-service to assisted channel at critical times during the support interaction. Comprehensive rules for escalation, deflection and prioritization ensure a timely response and that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are met
    • Knowledge Management
        • Parature Knowledgebase
          • An intuitive customer self-service solution that provides quick answers to common questions and support issues, plus essential downloads including forms, how-to videos, product manuals, knowledge base information updates and more. Easily add and update information and customize its order and placement to put the most-viewed information in a prominent place.

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Social

  • Microsoft Social Listening
    • Microsoft Social Listening is a powerful new service that your organization can use to monitor social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. Use Microsoft Social Listening to track products, brands, competitors, and campaigns globally and in real time to gain a true understanding of your customers and your business across the social web
      • Listen & Analyze
        • Global sentiment analysis
          • Gain a true understanding of your customers and your business on a global scale across the social web. Native language sentiment analysis means you won’t miss cultural cues
        • Share of voice
          • Track your brand, products, and influencers in 28 languages across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, news channels, blogs, and forums
        • Competitive intelligence
          • See how you stack up against the competition
        • Campaign management
          • Measure social impact on marketing, sales, and service campaigns. Gain insight into what’s working and what isn’t
      • Monitor & Respond
        • Top influencers
          • Identify and connect with the most influential voices in your community
        • Early warning system
          • Gain early insight on problematic issues; stay on top of hot topics
        • Post alerts
          • Notifications on custom key words, competitive conversations, industry info
        • Trend alerts
          • Get notified when posts and publications differ from statistical expectations
  • Social Insights in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • Bring the benefits of social listening to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online experience with Social Insights. Microsoft Social Listening visuals can be added your CRM dashboards and forms. These Social Insights charts and graphs help you identify buzz, trends and sentiment related to things like your customers, campaigns and competitors
      • A Social Dashboard within Microsoft Dynamics CRM presents a global view of the Social Insights that are most relevant for your role
      • Contextually displaying Social Insights within a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record helps sellers stay on top of their customers’ social conversations

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Platform enhancements

Powerful tools allow you to tailor Microsoft Dynamics CRM to meet your unique business requirements. Microsoft Dynamics CRM facilitates the delivery of rapid business value with an agile solution framework that can be easily tailored and configured. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform provides a declarative paradigm that ranges from defining the data model to providing integrated persistence, security, API access, user experience and programming paradigms based on a modern open architecture. This release will introduce several new investments in our platform capabilities to further our commitment to an open, customizable and extensible online service:

  • Server-side Synchronization
    • Stay productive and up to date no matter where you are or what device you’re on. With server-side synchronization, administrators can easily manage the synchronization of email, tasks, appointments and contacts between CRM and Exchange
    • Originally introduced in the Dynamics CRM 2013 / Fall ’13 Release to synchronize emails, tasks, appointments and contacts between Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Exchange on-premises deployments. The server-side synchronization capabilities have been enabled as a cloud service to configure and manage the synchronization of Email, tasks, appointments and contacts between Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Exchange Online. POP3/SMTP3 providers are also supported for sending and synchronization of Email
    • Synchronization using the Email Router and Outlook client will continue to be supported
    • Supported POP3 / SMTP providers include: Gmail, Yahoo
  • SharePoint Integration Enhancements
    • Simplified integration between CRM Online and SharePoint Online managed within Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
    • Customers of Dynamics CRM Online and SharePoint Online will no longer need to install and configure the CRM List Component to enable the Document Management integration
    • An Alert is shown in CRM notifying CRM Administrators when Server-based SharePoint Integration is not enabled (similar to Outlook Client install notification)

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

  • Testing CRM 2013 Update Rollups: Best Practices
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Update Rollups, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
    • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
      • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
      • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment, to shake out any performance-related issues early. The CRM 2011 version is currently being evaluated against CRM 2013, but CRM Premier Field Engineering can help you with using the CRM Performance Toolkit with CRM 2013
      • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
      • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

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Service Pack 1 packages are available for download via: 

  • The Service Pack 1 Microsoft Download Center page - released May 27th, 2014
  • The Microsoft Update Catalog  (packages scheduled for release in June, 2014)
  • The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
    • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
    • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
    • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally.  WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
    • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Service Pack 1 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
    • Please review my former teammate Jon Strand's blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2013 Update Rollups and Service Packs

for these CRM components:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook Client)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Email Router

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Data Connector

  • The SSRS Data Connector is not available as an individual download. It is included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013 download. When you extract the Server package (CRM2013-Server-ENU-amd64.exe /extract:path: extracts the content of the package to the path folder), you’ll find the Data Connector in the SrsDataConnector folder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Language Packs

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 Prerequisites:

  • Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Implementation Guide download for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1: 

Though Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 releases new, important functionality mentioned above, it also contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via CRM 2013 Service Pack 1:

  • When you are using CRM 2013 and not using IFD or claims based authentication, the link created by the Yammer integration will not be correct for path based URLs. The links created for the yammer feed are missing the orgname
  • Add New button missing from lookup forms in the iPpad application for Dynamics CRM
  • When you call the setLabel function to change the label of a control and that control is marked as required, the required asterisk is removed
    • This also occurs if the control is marked as recommended and the label is changed with the setLabel function
    • If you then attempt to set the requirement level after changing the label, the asterisk is shown before the label instead of after
  • When creating a Quick Create Form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 using the Form Editor, the security roles of System Customizer and System Administrator are being applied to the form preventing users without those roles from accessing the forms and in some cases, they are unable to access CRM when there is no fallback form for the user to use
  • Updating an activity using Real-time workflow to update the owner causes an error:
    • “There should be only one owner party for an activity”
  • If an entity that has the Social Pane on the form has its Post Configuration disabled in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and have set the control to default to the Notes tab in the Form Editor, the control will default to the Activities tab
  • Synchronous workflow fails with an error on update:
    • Business Process error: An Unexpected Error occurred
  • When you are using CRM 2013 web client and outlook client and you view an entity record you may experience scripting errors or sub grids on the entity form appear to continuously refresh
    • If you get a script error it will state in the details <Message>Object expected</Message>
  • Unresolved sender email address not showing as unresolved on the email form and Convert to Case does not work
  • When a customer requests a POC of their CRM Online database in order to test their customizations prior to their CRM Online upgrade to 2013 they are not able to import the database into CRM 2013 on premise
    • The import fails with an error stating that some solution components could not be removed
    • This occurs if the customer had opted into the Fall 2013 update to CRM Online
  • When attempting to load activities on the Social Pane in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 that have large amounts of text in the description, users encounter the following error:
    • Error during serialization or deserialization using the JSON JavaScriptSerializer
    • The length of the string exceeds the value set on the maxJsonLength property
  • When you use the Forward mailbox option and server side synchronization for incoming email, the incoming emails too be delivered into CRM from the Forward mailbox will be delivered no matter what the preferences are for the user and queue parties
    • For example, if an email contains a TO party that is a user and that user only accepts emails in reply to CRM emails, they will get all emails no matter if it is not a reply to CRM email
  • When you click the note content of an existing note in the social pane of a CRM form, and then without changing anything on the note, you click anywhere else on the form, the note will be modified. However nothing changed
  • Typing ALT(AltGR)+E to enter a € symbol causes the page to refresh
  • SDK- preventDefault is not working to stop deactivation from Account record
  • When having a subgrid which shows records, if you open one of the records and click Next from the record, it will freeze and then show a script error:
    • Mode: Jscript
    • Source: "src\Application\web\ScriptSharp\_Common\Scripts\Global\Menu\Dialog.cs"
  • Spaces used in a Grid URL cause the URL to add additional http:// to the beginning of the URL and renders as http://http://
  • When opening and closing service activities in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook, the parent ribbon for the Service Calendar will render a single blank tab
  • User Lookup View of Japanese CRM does have Full Name column unlike English CRM 2013
  • The Postfix setting in the Fiscal Year Settings menu cannot be changed from the default blank setting
  • When we import, the import logic creates two values for each entry within the RibbonDifBase. But When we export the application ribbon we do not have any check for this and we export 2 values directly from the DB to the XML
    • This if imported to a new org will create 4 values in the table RibbonDiffBase. If the solution is imported again to the same org causes an error
  • If the setVisible Client API for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SDK is used on the form to hide a section or tab, any validation errors on the form will fail to clear even if the values are valid for the given attribute
  • Added organization enhancements to control potential data interception scenarios within specific incoming email conditions within an intranet deployment
  • In CRM 2013 there was a change to allow users who has Impersonate(actonbehalf) privileges to activate and deactivate the workflows. This also allows users with the appropriate permissions to activate and deactivate workflow owned by other users in the UI
    • When you do this it creates a new line in the workflow base making the user the published this workflow the owner
    • If the workflow is set to the scope of a User, this workflow will only fire for the modifiedby user (the user that published this.)
  • When entering a note description in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 containing numeric characters such as "Lunch @ 2" or "1234567899" may not render correctly
  • Some fields lose data on save and synchronization when focus is not moved from the field when using the CRM Outlook client
  • When using server side sync and configuring users mailbox for email sync, embedded images within emails are not displayed when using the web client to view the tracked email
  • Users are not able to select text on forms or fields that are read-only in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
  • The "like" feature from the Activity Feeds Posts wall is incorrectly translated in Portuguese-Brazilian. It is "Como", instead of "Gostar"
    • If the user clicks "Como", it turns into "Gostar (desfazer)". Translate the "like" feature from the Feeds Wall
    • The word "Como" is displayed on Activities posts wall instead of "Gostar"
  • Consider the scenario where you qualify a lead and specify an existing Account or Contact to avoid the qualification process creating duplicates
    • If the fields parentaccountid or parentcontactid do not exist on the lead form, new Account and Contact records will be created regardless of whether or not existing Account and Contact records were specified in the dialog
  • Convert phone call does not open new opportunity record when requested
  • If using the 2011 Outlook Client with UR15, UR16, or the UR11 Cumulative Update, but have CRM Server version 2013, using Advanced Find can throw an error:
    • Clicking Advanced Find from Dashboards or any sitemap area other than views will generate a Permission Denied/Access Denied Script error
  • User images are not loaded within CRM 2013 if the Display Name and Unique Name of the Organization are not exactly the same
  • Solution import fails with Update Rollup 16 failing when overwriting components
  • If using custom number formats, charts render data points with the correct number format, however, this format is not applied on the x and y axis
  • “Currency not set” when overriding the price and adding new Opportunity product
  • When a manually tracked contact in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is merged with another contact as a subordinate record, that contact can be incorrectly synchronized to Outlook if the Outlook Client is reconfigured
  • JavaScript methods will not trigger when a business required field is changed to be blank.Custom plugin Exception is not thrown in UI
  • After upgrade of CRM 2011 to 2013 or importing CRM 2011 Appointment customization users receive error pop up while saving appointment:
    • There was an error with this fields customized event
    • Field:crmform
    • Event:onsave
    • Error:Object doesn't support property or method 'Form_onsave'
  • In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, users are unable to set a Matching Connection Role to the same Connection Role
  • Querying using OData endpoint returns 500 internal server error in Dynamics CRM 2013
  • Dynamics CRM users are unable to add more than one Document Location when the document location is based on an entity centric structure:
    • For example, Account/<accountname>/opportunity/<opportunityname>
  • Cannot Delete Audit Partitions in CRM 2013
  • Cannot change owner on create of Appointment after installing Update Rollup 16
  • Clicking the mail merge button in the Ribbon bar of the Advanced find screen opened from the Contacts entity doesn't do anything
  • After installing Update Rollup 16, CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10
  • When using the CRM Email Router, attachment file names of incoming emails is created with a GUID appended in it
  • The Save and Close button does not save appointments or recurring appointments they've entered
  • Missing translations labels on exported translations file after merging Entity forms from Dynamics CRM 2011 to Dynamics CRM 2013 Forms
  • When you edit a workflow in CRM Online or CRM 2013 and you have custom workflow activities that can be used in your workflow, or are already used in your workflow, it will take a long time before the form is ready to be edited
    • This may also result in an error and you may not be able to edit your workflow.
  • When you apply conditional formatting to a CRM View in the Outlook Client, you receive an error when changing the sort order and navigating to page 2 of this view:
    • "There was an error displaying the records in this view."

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Support for identical new technologies provided by CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 and Service Pack 1:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 and Service Pack 1 provide support for:

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Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Update Rollups require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups are always cumulative; for example, Update Rollup 2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update Rollup 1 as well as fixes newly released via Update Rollup 2. So if you install Update Rollup 2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Update Rollups, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 1-2:

  • Update Rollup 1: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • Update Rollup 2: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • Service Pack 1: no updates requiring manual configuration, but some new features need to be enabled by a CRM Server Administrator
    • Go to Settings > Administration and then click Install Product Updates

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft will release enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

CRM2013SP1_PFEPodcast.mp3

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CRMUG Regional Conference Session: Optimizing Dynamics CRM Performance

June 19, 2014, 1:35 am
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Last week, my teammate, Walter Grow (@waltergrow), and I had the pleasure of speaking at the Dynamics CRM User Group (CRMUG®) Regional Conference hosted in my home town of Dallas, TX. I always find it rewarding to get out into the CRM community and engage customers and partners – this was no exception! Proving again that our niche of the tech industry is a small world, I unexpectedly reconnected with multiple folks that I worked with on projects in year's past.

At the conference, we delivered a session on Optimizing Dynamics CRM Performance. During our session, we walked through a mix of optimization best-practices from the Dynamics CRM's data tier (SQL) on up to the client tier (browser, Outlook add-in, etc). For each tier, we also provided insights into the tools and metrics that we, Premier Field Engineering (PFE), typically employ on performance investigations. Interested in viewing our session content? Download our slide deck which includes speaker notes (also linked at the bottom of this post).

As a Dynamics CRM customer, if you are unaware of or not involved in your local CRMUG chapter, I urge you to seek it out. Engaging with other customers, partners, and industry experts is a great way to drive value back to your organization and to grow personally. Learn more about how the benefits of joining CRMUG here. Did you miss the Dallas and Minneapolis Regional Conferences? You're in luck! CRMUG Summit 2014 is being held October 14 - 17 in St. Louis, MO. Get more details at http://crmugsummit.com/.

Are you a Microsoft Premier customer and want to know more about how to engage PFE on the topic of Dynamics CRM performance? Here's a quick breakdown of how we can help:

  • Experiencing a lingering performance issue? We offer a performance investigation service to dig deep into the root cause of a known issue and identify the appropriate remediation steps.
  • Interested in general deployment health? We also offer RAP as a Service and code review services that seek to identify potential performance issues based on known best-practices. If you don't know what you're looking for, these services are a great place to start.
  • Curious about future performance and scalability? Engage PFE to perform a performance benchmarking service where we identify typical scenarios and potential workloads, then perform simulations and measure outcomes. The result typically being a combination of performance tuning and architectural planning recommendations.
  • Just have a few questions? Not a problem! We'd be glad to have an informal chat with you and field your questions.

"Hey Austin, I'm not a Premier customer!" Not to worry. Post a comment below, or contact us directly. We would still love to hear from you! Also, be sure to follow our twitter feed (@PFEDynamics) as we routinely provide performance-related tips and tricks.

 

M. Austin Jones

Follow the conversation:
@maustinjones
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

CRMUG Dallas RC - SQL and Application Perf Optimizations Session PUB.pptx

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Tips : Dynamics CRM 2013 Field Level Data Encryption Management

June 30, 2014, 1:00 am
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 (on premise and online) introduces Field-Level Data Encryption, which encrypts several out of the box password fields – it does not apply to custom fields or any non-password fields. You can find more details here. This is great feature, yet you may encounter an issue when you use Import Organization.

1. This feature is enabled by default.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM generates strong random password during creating new organization/upgrading existing organization and use it as an encryption key.

2. The encryption key will not be re-generated during the Import of a CRM Organization.

The key is not re-generated on import as you may have changed the encryption key since creating you’re the CRM Organization, After import you will need to manually re-active the feature by using correct encryption key. However, if you haven’t changed the encryption key, you will not know what the original key value was.

3. You may encounter errors if you don’t activate the feature.

Whether or not you have password data for password fields, CRM always tries to decrypt the field when it needs to. For example, if you open a mailbox record, then CRM tries to decrypt the password field. Therefore, if you didn’t active the feature, CRM fails to decrypt the field and display following error message.

 clip_image002

In case you see the error message, you can resolve the issue by activating the feature. However to active the feature, you need to use HTTPS by default as you put encryption key via browser.

 clip_image004

If your On-Premise environment does not have HTTPS enabled you have 2 options:

[Option 1]
Enable HTTPS by using a certificate, changing IIS bindings, change deployment manager’s properties, etc. This is not a bad thing (and is highly recommended), but it can take time to test and implement.

[Option 2]
Change CRM settings so that you can activate the feature without using HTTPS. To do this, follow the steps below.

a. Download SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40321 and extract it.
b. Open PowerShell on CRM Server.
c. Change directory to SDK folder you extracted and move to SampleCode\PS directory.
d. Run the following command.
> ./setadvancedsettings.ps1 -ConfigurationEntityName Deployment -SettingName DisableSSLCheckForEncryption -SettingValue 1
"If you encounter an error saying you need to change execution policy, please follow the instruction in the error.

SetAdvancedSettings.ps1 is a sample script which lets you update CRM settings easily.

[Option 3]
If you cannot use powershell for any reason, you may need to change the setting by directly updating SQL (not recommended)

a. Open SQL Server Management Studio.
b. Click New Query and select MSCRM_CONFIG database.
c Run the command : UPDATE DeploymentProperties SET BitColumn = 1 WHERE ColumnName = 'DisableSSLCheckForEncryption'
d. IISRESET
e. Put the CRM user who will activate the feature to PrivUserGroup. (You need to remove the user form the group after you active the feature.)
Please refer to following article regarding how to find correct PrivUserGroup in your Active Directory.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2013/04/08/how-to-find-which-active-directory-security-groups-belong-to-your-crm-deployment.aspx

After you have done the steps, log into CRM and navigate to: Settings | Data Management | Data Encryption, and activate the feature. If you are not using HTTPS, the encryption key will be sent over the wire in plain text and unencrypted. For this reason we strongly recommend you to change the key on CRM server or use SSL. Please note that if you already have data stored in any password fields and activate the feature using a new encryption key, you will lose that data and will need to re-enter the data in the password fields.

You won't have any issues if you do not have any data stored for encryption enabled fields, but as best practice, and to avoid having to reset the key, we strongly recommend you to create/backup encryption key in every deployment. Please also refer to following article which explains how to backup the encryption key.

Post-installation and configuration guidelines for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699726.aspx

Copy your organization data encryption key
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f88f7c87-2ee2-42f3-8101-7271f6731cf9#BKMK_copy_your_org_enc_key
 

Thanks for reading!

Ken

Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Japan

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 CSS Style Reference using Browser Developer Tools

July 3, 2014, 4:37 am
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Microsoft Dynamics CRM designers and developers may have noticed that a Style Guide for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 was not released in the CRM 2013 SDK (Software Development Kit), though Style Guides were sometimes released in prior versions of the Dynamics CRM SDK.  However, advancements in current versions of browser developer tools allow you to do many of the things the Style Guides gave you help with... and more!

Developers want to have reusable CSS files (Cascading Style Sheets) that they can reference to achieve the same look and feel as our application. The product does not provide these resources. We also do not support referencing the CSS files used in our application, because these files can change without notice via Update Rollup or Service Pack installations, or major version upgrades, and affect the UI of anyone referencing (reusing) them.

Here we describe a technique which allows you to create a reference page which includes copies of CSS files used in the application. You can then create your own CSS web resources and use them in your custom UI. The goal is that your UI has no dependencies on resources in the application. So, when things in the application change, your UI (User Interface) will not be affected.

If you have access to the application, getting examples of our styles is rather straight forward using the Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer F12 Developer Tools or similar developer tools associated with supported versions of other browsers supported by Microsoft Dynamics CRM, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari:

1.  Select the UI element that you want to emulate using an HTML web resource; for example, let’s consider a lookup dialog: 


 

2.  Press F12 and open your supported browser's Developer Tools (Here, we're using the Internet Explorer 10 Developer Tools)
3.  Using the HTML tab, select the element and choose View > Source > Element source with style: 

 For this particular control, you may need to drill down into the body element of the iFrame:

  • This will open a page that captures all the styles and HTML elements within the selected part of the page
  • You can save this file and view it in your browser: 

This gives you some detail about the styles used in Microsoft Dynamic CRM 2013. Consider it a starting point for creating a web resource with the same look and feel as the Dynamics CRM 2013 UI.

Important suggestions:

  • Do a global find / replace, changing every instance of ‘ms-crm-‘ to ‘my-sdk-‘ (for example; you should use your own naming convention)
    • Then examine the CSS and look for each of the images
  • Do not reference the images on the server
    • Instead, create image web resources that can be referenced by your pages and your CSS web resources
  • You even get some of the scripts used in the page
    • But remember: You should not reference CRM Script files or functions in your web resources
    • Use these to get tips to write your own scripts to make your custom pages work
    • These scripts won’t give you a fully functioning grid control
    • However, they are useful if you want to create such a control or adapt an existing 3rd party control to share the same look and feel

 As long as you separate your HTML web resources from any part of the CRM application, there is nothing within these suggestions that is not supportable:

  • If the Dynamics CRM Product Group changes Dynamics CRM 2013 CSS, images, or other areas in the application, your HTML web resources will still function
  • We are not providing CSS or other resources for you to reuse so that your HTML web resources respond to our changes
    • Therefore, you will still need to maintain them when the application changes

Please let us know what you think of this technique and what other information you need to create user interface elements that blend in well with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM UI.

Enjoy!

Greg Nichols
Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

 

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Using Performance Analyzer for Microsoft Dynamics (DynamicsPerf) in a Development, Test, or QA environment

July 14, 2014, 12:00 am
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I am cross posting this blog post from our AX In the Field blog post where Rod Hanson recommends using Performance Analyzer for Microsoft Dynamics (DynamicsPerf) in development, test or QA environments while load testing prior to moving to production.  This makes a lot of sense and is something I have done with a few of my customers.  Many times customers do not allow time for this testing in their timelines and then later run into performance issues that could have been found and resolved proactively prior to the production release.

Rod also has links to his other DynamicsPerf posts covering Core Installation, Baselines and Documenting at the bottom of this blog post I am cross posting.

If you or your team would like assistance with installing, reviewing or even want a full onsite Hands On Lab, please reach out to your Designated Support Engineer (DSE) or Technical Account Manager (TAM).

Thanks!
Shawn Dieken

Follow the conversation:
@sdieken
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

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Podcast and Overview: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3

July 17, 2014, 5:14 am
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Contents:

We're proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3 were released on Tuesday, July 15th 2014 to the Microsoft Download Center!  The Update Rollup 3 packages should appear on Microsoft Update in August 2014.

Update Rollup 3 Build number:

6.0.0003.0106

Update Rollup 3 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Update Rollup 3: (KB 2930480)

  • Going forward, the plan is for the Master Knowledge Base article for CRM 2013 Update Rollups to be published a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Update Rollup 3 Podcast

On Tuesday, July 21st 2014 Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

  • The release of Update Rollup 3 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
  • New fixes made available In Update Rollup 3

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3 Podcast

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The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups, visit the "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

 

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CRM 2013 Update Rollups - Upgrade path discussion

This CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3 is for CRM 6.0, i.e. CRM 2013 RTM

  • It will install on CRM 2013 RTM, CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1, or CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2
  • It will not install (install will be blocked) on Service Pack 1, which is CRM 6.1
  • UR3 is very likely the last UR for CRM 2013 RTM – the upgrade path from CRM 2013 SP3 is to SP1.  So get ready:
    • You’ll want to plan your move to CRM 2013 Service Pack 1, as that will be the servicing path going forward and will be required to get to the next major Dynamics CRM release (7.0)
      • If you want to get to "Leo", i.e. Service Pack 1, but are relying on fixes that were released in this Update Rollup (Update Rollup 3 for CRM 2013 6.0 (RTM)), you’ll want to wait for Update Rollup 1 for CRM 2013 Service Pack 1
      • It’s tentatively scheduled to release in late August or early September

How the build numbers work:

  • The first CRM 2013 release was build 6.0.0.809, where
    • 6 is the major version number
    • The first 0 is the minor version number, aligning with a Service Pack number
    • The second 0 is the major revision number, aligning with an Update Rollup number
    • 809 is the minor revision number aligning with the final build number we shipped

So,

  • UR1 for CRM 2013 is build 6.0.1.61
  • UR2 for CRM 2013 is build 6.0.2.51
  • UR3 for CRM 2013 is build 6.0.3.106
  • Service Pack 1 for CRM 2013 is build 6.1.0.581
  • Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 for CRM 2013 will be build 6.1.1.<build number>
  • The next major release will be CRM 7.0.0.<build number>

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RAMP UP ON CRM 2013!

As we're just getting started with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, I'll provide some pointers to directly accessible ramp-up resources and some insight into what people are most excited about regarding this new major release:

Recommended Ramp-up materials:

Most Popular Features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013!

  • Flat User Interface (modern look UI)
  • Process driven UI
  • Quick create and quick view forms
  • BingMaps / Skype / Lync integration
  • Social and mobile integration
  • Server side sync

Business Process UI

  • Rich and guided UX to implement end to end business scenarios
  • Reduced number of clicks and pop ups to complete transactions
  • Ability to span the process UI across entities
  • Security modelling and ability to assign processes to security roles
  • Ability of accessing the UI using MoCA clients

The new ‘skin’ of CRM 2013

  • Flat and modern UI avoiding frequent pop ups
  • Inline editing
  • Quick view form enabling parent entity details in child record
  • Form level notifications where errors, warnings and information can be viewed inline in the field
  • Avoiding redundant ribbon buttons thus showing only which is really required
  • Header controls to highlight the most relevant data of the entity
  • BingMaps embedded control

Configuration & Customization

  • Synchronous Workflows will help developers to quickly configure workflow instead of using a plug-in (writing code/deploying)
  • Actions enable multiple operations which are frequently used to be created as single action and can be re-used to minimize Dev cycle
    • Power to create custom actions such as schedule, Escalate and Route Lead are highly beneficial as well
  • Portable Business Logic This easy way avoids lots of scripting for easy validations and enables CRM functional analysts to quick add validations without touching the code base

Yammer Integration

  • Native integration with Yammer and thus enabling social collaboration
  • Private and Public settings to control the activity feed stream

Mobility

  • MoCA (Mobile Client Application) clients and Mobile clients make the long awaited dream a reality
  • Support across expected devices and browsers
  • Availability of process bar and new UI in the tablet clients
  • UI in MoCA clients is highly appreciable, survey shows many of them like the MoCA UI more than the native web UI

General

  • Quick create forms to accelerate the record creation
  • Light weight command bar UI
  • Multi activity support in the collaboration area

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Important CRM 2013 Update Rollup considerations!

A common question I get is “if I either upgrade from CRM 2011 or install the RTM version of CRM 2013 (build 6.0.0000.0809), what is the equivalent CRM 2011 Update Rollup level I have?" The answer is: essentially Update Rollup 14.

Some specific port requests for post-Update Rollup 14 fixes for CRM 2011 were included the original (RTM) release of CRM 2013, and port requests for other post-Update Rollup 14 CRM 2011 fixes can be requested via the normal Support process.

One set of port requests that you may be wondering about are the dramatic changes to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Microsoft Office Outlook

  • They were released via CRM 2011 Update Rollup 15 and the Critical Update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 11 CRM Server and CRM for Outlook Client
  • These post-Update Rollup 14 changes WERE included in the RTM version of CRM 2013, and include:
    • A feature that moves the CRM client-specific workload into its own process so that it no longer shares memory with the Microsoft Office Outlook process
      • This feature is also known as Process Isolation
    • An upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server for Windows CE 4.0 for better memory management, better caching, and connection enhancements
    • Updates to CRM for Outlook configuration files to make the CRM for Outlook SDF files compatible with SQL Server for Windows CE 4.0
    • Materialization of the Address Book Provider to reduce performance issues that are caused by large address books
    • Limits to the amount of active open forms
    • A MAPI Lock time-out
    • Hard coding of a previous registry setting that prevented pinned views from pulling down information to local SQL CE cache

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General Upgrade Rollup Notes:

  • Testing CRM 2013 Update Rollups: Best Practices
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Update Rollups, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
    • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
      • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
      • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment, to shake out any performance-related issues early. The CRM 2011 version is currently being evaluated against CRM 2013
      • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
      • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Custom Code Validation Tool

  • Consider familiarizing yourselves with this tool!
  • The Custom Code Validation tool for CRM 2013 is mostly the same as the Code Validation Tool for CRM 2011 UR12; the 2011 version has been deprecated and is no longer available. We added some additional checks for code that references the 2007 endpoint or other functionality that has been deprecated in CRM in 2013. And, most of the checks in the tool were built into the CRM 2013 Server installer as validation checks
  • Note that the URL for the CRM 2011 version of the tool now directs to the CRM 2013 version
  • Use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Custom Code Validation Tool to identify potential issues with custom JavaScript in JavaScript libraries and HTML web resources. When using JavaScript code in Dynamics CRM, it is possible that some code will stop working or cause an error when you upgrade. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Custom Code Validation Tool helps identify potential problems so that a developer can fix them

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NEW RELEASE REGARDING OrgDbOrgSettings!

You're probably familiar with the OrgDbOrgSettings command line tool (mentioned above) released by the CRM Product Group in the "Tools" package that is updated and released with each set of Update Rollup packages.  With it, you configure some .xml and call your .xml with the command line utility described in KB 2691237. However, you may be daunted by configuring this .xml, to the point that you may not use the tool, or use it minimally - not exploring the many options outlined in KB 2691237 that may be of use to you.  Well, the Microsoft Dynamics PFE team now has another option for you!  By popular demand, our esteemed CRM PFE colleague Sean McNellis has developed a tool  - a CRM 2011 / CRM 2013 managed solution - that provides you with an easy-to-use GUI with which you can configure all of the options outlined in the Knowledge Base on a per-tenant basis.  Feel free to download it, install it, and check it out... I sure use it!

This is a FREE downloadable tool - the "Dynamics CRM 2011 Organization Settings Editor".  Check it out; the download page has screenshots and information that will help you make good use of the tool.  Sean has also published a Premier Field Engineering blog: "Azure Mobile + JavaScript + WebResources = Easy Editing of OrgDBOrgSettings in Dynamics CRM 2011!" to share more details on the tool. It is currently updated with settings for CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 and CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1, and he takes pride in keeping it updated as new Update Rollups are released. Thanks, Sean!

Note: there is a code issue with the CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook that was resolved in Update Rollup 16 Client packages.  Do not set either the AddressBookMaterializedViewsEnabled or DisableMapiCaching settings in the Organization entity metadata via the OrgDbOrgSettings tool in the Update Rollup Tools package or the Organizational Settings Editor on Codeplex if you are not running CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 or higher on the Client.  Also, do not set this key prior to the next major release of CRM 2013.

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Update Rollup 3 packages are or will be available for download via: 

  • The Update Rollup 3 Microsoft Download Center page - released July 15th, 2014
  • The Microsoft Update Catalog  - packages scheduled for release late July, 2014
  • The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
    • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
    • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
    • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally.  WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
    • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Update Rollup 3 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
    • Please review my former teammate Jon Strand's blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2013 Update Rollups

for these CRM components:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook Client)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Email Router

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Data Connector

  • The SSRS Data Connector is not available as an individual download. It is included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013 download. When you extract the Server package (CRM2013-Server-ENU-amd64.exe /extract:path: extracts the content of the package to the path folder), you’ll find the Data Connector in the SrsDataConnector folder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Language Packs

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3 Prerequisites:

  • Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Implementation Guide download for the various CRM components serviced

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Removal (Uninstall) information

  • You can uninstall Update Rollup 3 from a server that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013. However, make sure that you back up your databases before you uninstall Update Rollup 3. For more information, go to the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) website:

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3 is the third of a series of cumulative Update Rollups that include fixes for the issues that are or will be documented in the "Master Knowledge Base Articles" for CRM 2013 Update Rollups.  As they are cumulative, Update Rollup 3 contains all fixes shipped via Update Rollups 1, 2, and 3... you get the idea.

Fixes released via CRM 2013 Update Rollup 3:

  • Unresolved email sender is not displayed correctly on Email form
  • Users attempting to add multiple records to a N:N relationship in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 will experience the following error dialog even though the associations are completed:
    • Duplicate Record: A record with these values already exists. A duplicate record cannot be created. Select one or more unique values and try again
  • Users attempting to insert an email template with an attachment into an email in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 get a dialog:
    • “This template contains attachments. If you want attachments as a part of your email, click Cancel. Save the email, and then re-apply the template. To continue without the attachments, click OK.” even if the email has been saved previously
  • Users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 are not able to create a parental relationship between two custom entities if the related entity has an attribute with the Image data type
  • Duplicate records are created if Save or Save and Close is pressed multiple times
  • Mobile app fails to configure due to metadata inconsistency in CRM views
  • Script error occurs when selecting a party type field in a Business Rule action
  • Users of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Client for Outlook are prompted to enter credentials when downloading attachments
  • 'Add Existing Competitor' button does not work as expected when you add the Out Of Box Competitor N:N relationship to the Opportunity form navigation
  • JavaScript methods will not trigger when a business required field is changed to be blank
  • Custom plugin Exception is not thrown in UI as expected
  • In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, users are unable to set a Matching Connection Role to the same Connection Role
  • When trying to query using OData endpoint, a 500 internal server error occurs in CRM 2013
  • When you are using CRM 2013 and not using IFD or claims based authentication, the link created by the Yammer integration will not be correct for path based URLs
  • Add New button is missing from lookup forms in the IPad application for Dynamics CRM
  • When you call the setLabel function to change the label of a control and that control is marked as required, the required asterisk is removed
    • This also occurs if the control is marked as recommended and the label is changed with the setLabel function
    • If you set the requirement level on a field after changing the label, the asterisk is shown before the label instead of after
  • When creating a Quick Create Form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 using the Form Editor, the security roles of System Customizer and System Administrator are being applied to the form preventing users without those roles from accessing the forms
    • In some cases, they are unable to access CRM when there is no fallback form for the user to use
  • Updating an activity using Real-time workflow to update the owner causes an error:
    • “There should be only one owner party for an activity”
  • If an entity that has the Social Pane on the form has its Post Configuration disabled in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and have set the control to default to the Notes tab in the Form Editor, the control will default to the Activities tab
  • When a customer requests a POC of their CRM Online database in order to test their customizations prior to their CRM Online upgrade to 2013 they are not able to import the database into CRM 2013 on premise
    • The import fails with an error stating that some solution components could not be removed
    • This occurs if the customer had opted into the Fall 2013 update to CRM Online
  • When attempting to load activities on the Social Pane in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 that have large amounts of text in the description, users encounter the following error:
    • “Error during serialization or deserialization using the JSON JavaScriptSerializer. The length of the string exceeds the value set on the maxJsonLength property.”
  • When you use the Forward mailbox option and server side synchronization for incoming email, the incoming emails to be delivered into CRM from the Forward mailbox will be delivered no matter what the preferences are for the user and queue parties
    • If an email contains a TO party that is a user and that user only accepts emails in reply to CRM emails, they will get all emails no matter if it is not a reply to CRM email
  • When you click the note content of an existing note in the social pane of a CRM form, and then without changing anything on the note you click anywhere else on the form, the note will be modified
    • However, nothing changed
  • Missing translation labels on exported translation files after merging Entity forms from Dynamics CRM 2011 to Dynamics CRM 2013 Forms
  • Typing ALT (AltGR) +E to enter a € symbol causes the page to refresh
  • SDK: preventDefault is not working to stop deactivation from Account record
  • Spaces used in a Grid URL cause the URL to add additional http:// to the beginning of the URL and renders as http://http://
  • If you open one of the records from a subgrid and click Next from the record, it will freeze and then show a script error:
    • Mode: JscriptSource: "src\Application\web\ScriptSharp\_Common\Scripts\Global\Menu\Dialog.cs"
  • User Lookup View in Japanese language CRM does have Full Name column unlike English language of CRM 2013
  • If the setVisible Client API for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SDK is used on the form to hide a section or tab, any validation errors on the form will fail to clear even if the values are valid for the given attribute
  • Added organization enhancements to control potential data interception scenarios within specific incoming email conditions within an intranet deployment
  • In CRM 2013, there was a change to allow users who have Impersonation (actonbehalf) privileges to activate and deactivate the workflows. This also allows users with the appropriate permissions to activate and deactivate workflow owned by other users in the UI
    • When you do this, it creates a new line in the WorkflowBase making the user that published this workflow the owner
    • If the workflow is set to the scope of a User, this workflow will only fire for the ModifiedBy user (the user that published this)
  • When entering a note description in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 containing numeric characters such as "Lunch @ 2" or "1234567899" may not render correctly
  • When using server side sync and configuring the user’s mailbox for email sync, embedded images within emails are not displayed when using the web client to view the tracked email
  • The "like" feature from the Activity Feeds Posts wall is incorrectly translated in Portuguese-Brazil
    • It is "Como", instead of "Gostar"
    • If the user clicks "Como", it turns into "Gostar (desfazer)"
  • Convert phone call does not open new Opportunity record when requested
  • When you use the 2011 Outlook Client with UR15, UR16, or the UR11 Cumulative Update, but have CRM Server version 2013, clicking Advanced Find from Dashboards or any sitemap area other than views will generate a Permission Denied / Access Denied Script error
  • User images are not loaded within CRM 2013 if the Display Name and Unique Name of the Organization are not exactly the same
  • “Currency not set” error occurs when overriding the price and adding new Opportunity products
  • Cannot delete Audit Partitions in CRM 2013
  • CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10
  • Mobile application fails to configure due to metadata inconsistency in views
  • "Products in Parent Price List" saved query is using a 'like' operator for OpportunityId filter, which is causing performance issues. It should be using an 'eq' operator instead
  • Using a Silverlight web resource grid formatted as "Use available area (Stretch to Fit)" no longer sizes the grid Height properly
  • The Business Process Error dialog that contains the debug file is not displayed when a profiled plugin is executed on a grid refresh
    • An unhandled exception occurs instead
  • Cannot upgrade solutions with custom activity entities after upgrading from CRM 2011 to CRM 2013
  • Documents view does not work with managed metadata columns
  • When enabling filtering on a view, if the user's screen cannot display all the columns on the page simultaneously, the filtering button covers the drop-down on the last column
  • Users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 receive "An error has occurred. Please return to the home page and try again." error dialogs when deleting more than one product at a time from an Opportunity, Sales Order, Quote, or Invoice record
  • Options sets with no label disappear when trying to change its value
  • Link-entity filter criteria is not shown in UI when a link-entity column is added first
  • Exporting Application ribbon contains duplicate values in XML
  • Unable to save postfix setting of Fiscal Year Setting
  • Aligning the label to center does not work on new forms in CRM 2013
  • Email attachments are not being deleted from the dbo.Attachment table when their parent record is deleted
  • SSL Offloading does not work when CRM is not using Claims / IFD authentication
  • OverriddenCreatedOn* attribute is missing from V3 Custom Entities
  • When you click to create a folder for a record, the SharePoint page is shown instead of the list part grid page
  • Conditional formatting breaks page navigation in view within the CRM Client for Outlook
  • When you select an email that is tracked in CRM, and you have the reading pane viewable for emails, Outlook may hang or become unresponsive
    • Once Outlook returns controls and becomes responsive you notice that the Track in CRM form region for the tracked in CRM email contains a large number of parties on the TO, CC, or BCC
  • When you have more subjects in the subject tree than can be viewed without a scrollbar, the scrollbar is not shown in IE or FireFox
    • The scrollbar is shown correctly in Chrome
  • When you attempt to view html web resources in the CRM web or Outlook client application by opening them from the ribbon, the web resources that are shown are old versions
    • This occurs even after you have published changes to the web resources
    • If you clear temporary internet files the web resources are shown correctly
  • When you create a process step using create, update, or send email step and you put in the body of the email more than 65K characters and then publish and execute, the process step will fail
    • 65K characters can occur due a very long text string or highly stylized HTML content
      • For example, creating HTML content in word and then copying and pasting the HTML content into the content editable email activity body for the create/update/send email step inside the CRM Workflow Designer
  • A 404 error is seen when accessing organization
    • This occurs after deleting thousands of managed optionset values through the SDK or UI without replacing those deleted optionset values with new values
  • Appointments and Service appointments are automatically shared with all principals / users
  • Dashboard Tab ordering is incorrect
  • Searching for a contact in the address book fails raising this error:
    • "The Contacts folder associated with this address list could not be opened; it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft Outlook Help"
  • Outlook displays error if clicking CRM folders before the loading of CRM toolbar
    Cannot renew / copy a Contract when Contract Line item dates are greater than the Contract
  • Custom Plugins registered against the RetrieveMultiple message and specifying "none" as the Primary Entity will fail with a SerializationException due to an unknown Type originating from the plugins that are part of the ActivityFeeds solution
  • Some fields lose data on save and synchronization when focus is not moved from the field when using the CRM client for Outlook
  • "SQL Server error" on Campaign Activity quick find search if including "channeltypecode"
  • Sporadically e-mails sent from Outlook router are sent with a winmail.dat attachment
  • Re-tracking contacts in child contact folder results in duplicate contacts after synchronization
  • Silverlight controls fail to be resized when the user resizes the form making it difficult to access some portions of the Silverlight resource
  • You can access System Settings no matter the security role assigned
  • Users from 1 business unit are able to see records of other business units when entity records between business units are merged and the records are owned by the default teams for the associated business units
  • Summary Filter is not shown when using N:N relationship criteria
  • Export to Excel in Outlook fails with long relationship/entity/field names
  • Mail Merge fails for Office 2013 CRM for Outlook clients when using Cached Mode
  • Currency symbol keeps as the base currency symbol in activities created by a Dialog
  • If the chart pane is enabled on any view for an entity in the Outlook client, and if the user utilizes the "Email a Link" feature and selects the current view, the URL that is generated and then copied to a blank e-mail will contain invalid parameters
    • Clicking on this link then generates a CRM platform error, which indicates that invalid parameters were passed to the request
  • When you attempt to use a service account to impersonate users in Exchange to poll for email to be delivered into CRM using the email router, and that service account does not have a mailbox, the CRM email router will not be able to proceed either with check access or during normal execution
  • When JavaScript references a lookup via the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK and tries to access the EntityType property to see the record type, users with the Read Only license access will receive Undefined, instead of the proper entity name
  • Workflow fails with "The deserializer has no knowledge of any type that maps to this name"
  • With a Decimal Number field with Precision parameter greater than 6, a number beginning with 0.000000 errors on Orders
    • "Error. An error has occurred".
  • There is an error in XML document (1, 1181) when validating MAPI properties through Exchange Web Services
  • When you use the CRM web client or CRM client for Outlook, you notice memory increasing when you use the SharePoint List Web Part for CRM
  • Notes in the Outlook preview section are sorted by modified date instead of created date
  • Users cannot print the whole grid page with Internet Explorer 10
  • When users change the field 'Start Time' (or any other date field) to third Sunday of October, for any year, in the Brasilia time zone, the field is changed to 1/1/1970
  • Users receive ‘not read’ receipts if <DeleteEmails> is true in the Email Router
  • When running an SSRS report and using certain specific locales in personal options in CRM, the report does not contain the correct format as the correct language is not selected based upon the current users locale
  • When you use IE 10 and you attempt to view an email activity using the CRM email activity form, the body of the email is not fully shown
    • This occurs when the email that was viewed was promoted into CRM either by the Outlook client or Email router and the email body was well formed HTML
  • When synchronizing service appointments in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook to CRM, the activity parties on the appointments are being rescheduled even though they may not have changed
    • This can potentially cause workflows or plugins to be invoked unnecessarily on the server producing inconsistent results
  • Unable to view Personal E-mail Templates with EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization = 2
  • You cannot import a solution which contains an out of the box chart where that out of the box chart has been deleted in the destination system
  • Changing the resource on a service activity creates temporary duplicates
  • Service activity tooltip / color not updated for change in status reason
  • Deployment Manager will not open after making the failover to the mirror SQL server
  • Cannot use print preview for draft replied emails with images
  • CRM CLient for Outlook offline reports do not show the parameter pane
  • Unable to configure CRM for Outlook client when TurnOffFetchThrottling is enabled
  • When an error is raised when submitting the merge dialog form, and upon a second attempt to merge the data you change the selection of fields on the dialog, those changes are not submitted to the platform
    • The initial set of fields are used instead of updated
  • When the Deployment Profile is set to Local System on the Email Router and you restart the service, the router hangs and will not send messages
    • When you enable verbose logging, you see that it does not continue checking settings
    • Also, the Email Router Configuration Wizard window either hangs or opens very slowly
  • prvWriteSdkMessageProcessingStep privilege is required to enable some workflows
  • Tracked email not promoted if opened in inspector view from Sent Items
  • Voice mail messages are being rejected by the email router with the error below:
    • Instance validation error: 'OneOff' is not a valid value for MailboxTypeType
      • These emails were tracked fine when the mailboxes were on Exchange 2007
      • However, the issue started occurring post migrating the mailboxes to Exchange 2013
      • Issue is only with the emails that come as part of voice mail messages
        • The rest of the emails will be tracked fine
  • Recurring Appointment "Data Propagation" does not list the Custom attributes
  • Filter in views does not work when Option Set field values containing entries with '&' character
  • Data from related entities missing when exporting to Excel from the CRM for Outlook Client
  • The process of assigning records from one user to another user and changing business units via the SetBusinessSystemUserRequest takes a long time to execute if the original owner owns a large number of records, for example 50K contacts
    • This process can also cause the tempdb log to increase in size and cause problems if you run out of disk space for tempdb
  • Any modification to Duplicate Detection Email Template causes it to become corrupt
  • IME Settings for "Multiple lines of text” fields are not respected
    CRM Client for Outlook throws error message when accessing CRM fields:
    • "An error has occurred"
  • Save & New when editing existing Connection does not populate Connected From
  • When you copy and paste a tracked recurring appointment in the CRM client for Outlook, the copied recurring appointment will become untracked in CRM, however a duplicate will be synchronized to Outlook upon each manual or background synchronization
    • This occurs when the source recurring appointment contains an instance of the recurrence which has been modified or deleted and it is outside of the current effective range
      • For example, an instance of the recurring appointment was canceled many months ago
  • SharePoint folder structure is based on CRM entity Contract
  • When opening and closing forms in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook, users may notice the memory of the WebFormsHost processes climb over time until the application reports it is low on memory
  • When using Outlook 2007 with the option 'Send immediately when connected' unchecked and composing a new mail, it first goes to the Outbox
    • When the CRM add-in is enabled and if we open the e-mail when it is in Outbox just to edit something, or simply to see the content and when we click on Send/Receive after that, the mail does not go out
  • Print Preview on records does not display correctly:
    • The footer overlaps the last tab with content
  • Outlook crashes when you have ShortTel Communicator and CRM Client for Outlook installed
  • Mailmerge fields do not appear in Word; template field definition not applied after template selection
  • When you type text and separate each value you want to resolve by a semi colon in a partylist field, only the first entry you type will persist after the auto resolve completes if each entry would resolve to more than 1 value
  • Create/Read Order/Opportunity should not need extra prvReadOrganization privilege
  • The first tab on the form becomes visible and unexpectedly overrides customization
  • Invalid XML when creating a campaign with special characters in view criteria
  • Consider the scenario where you are creating an e-mail template:
    • During the process copy part of a rich text or HTML formatted document and paste it into the subject line
    • The template creation appears to have a normal subject
    • However, the resulting e-mails from the template contain style tags.
  • Exporting solution does not contain relationship information if changed
  • Shared activities do not show in Outlook offline mode
  • Entity records containing textarea attributes such as Notes on the Reading Pane in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook may cause the client to become unresponsive
  • Calendar panel displays incorrectly on condition control of workflow using Internet Explorer 10
  • Same Ribbon Display Rule in multiple solutions cause extremely slow form load
  • Wait Until conditions are not triggered if watched attribute contains NULL value
  • Script error occurs after creating Custom dashboard for Articles in the CRM Client for Outlook
  • The CRM Client for Outlook fails to load or crashes when client OrgDBOrgSettings are set
  • Changes made to the personal view query is not updating in the CRM Client for Outlook
  • Mail Merge Ribbon button on Entity Record Add tab does not work
  • Form does not close when Custom Activity is Marked as Complete
  • Dynamics CRM users are unable to add more than one Document Location when the document location is based on an entity centric structure
    • For example: Account/<accountname>/opportunity/<opportunityname>
  • Add new button on custom entity form for activity subgrid does not add the new activity once it is saved
  • Forms lose focus when using lookup field in the CRM Client for Outlook
  • Encountering an unexpected error on clicking the related entity created for 1-To-N relationship customized Queue
  • Quick Find fails with "Invalid Argument" when whole number fields are added as find columns
  • SharePoint 2010 Integration won't work if Windows6.1-KB2894844-x64 is installed
  • File attachments for emails get contentId appended to them:
    • If file name is mywordfile.doc, then the file attachment in CRM will show {cid:somecontentid@somedomain}mywordfile.doc
  • When going online in the CRM Client for Outlook, the view duplicates window for the record appears, but the value for lookup and optionset attributes will not be shown in offline record grid
  • Applying CRM updates causes error:
    • SqlException: Invalid column name 'IsMapiPrivate'
  • Custom Icon not showing and web requests fails with 500 error in the CRM Client for Outlook
  • When a report is exported to Excel file, the columns of type 'Decimal Number' are rounded off to an integer and displayed
  • When processing async operation jobs, the CrmAsyncService crashes unexpectedly
    • Event Viewer shows that there was a problem deserializing some data to process a job
  • Recurring appointment fails to track with exceptions outside EffectiveRange
  • When you create service activities and you sync those activities to your Outlook Exchange Mailbox, and you have devices like an iPhone or Windows Phone you will see UNKNOWN:UNKNOWN on the activity parties or invitees on those devices when viewing those service activities
    • This can lead to invitees getting removed from the service activity or becoming duplicated in CRM
  • SDK OrganizationServiceContext fails to update a related record while in a create transaction
  • Running a Report throws error:
    • [ArgumentException: Cannot load resource that matches "ReportViewer_Message_RenderInQuirksMode" identifier. Parameter name: name]
  • Extra criteria is shown in User Interface after adding custom criteria to a view
  • Audit setting is disabled when changing cascading behavior
  • When selecting any entity in the document settings, the corresponding folder is not getting created in the Sharepoint location for an Opportunity record
  • When a User does not have permission on a folder created by Dynamics CRM record, the user is redirected to the Parent SharePoint folder and he is able to see all folders that belongs to other Dynamics CRM entities on the SharePoint List Component
    • Access should be denied
  • The AddCustomView method from SDK does not work on a multi-entity lookup as expected
  • Organization Import takes considerable time to get to user Mapping Table with a database with over 100K CRM users
  • CRM for Outlook Quick Find does not work correctly for custom entities
  • Exports of fetch-based reports to Excel gave users to ability to include an unformatted column of data to allow for calculations in Excel
  • Queue emails not being tracked in CRM via the e-mail router
  • addCustomView method from SDK fails on multi-entity lookups
  • A partial import is not reported as such, but instead has a misleading error:
    • “The record could not be updated because the original record no longer exists in Microsoft Dynamics CRM”
  • Cannot change owner on create of Appointment
  • If the number of notes on a record exceeds the records per page set in a user personal options, you will not be able to see the additional notes in the control
    • For example, if the records per page is set to 25, and you have 26 notes on the record, you will not be able to see the first note
  • Solution import failing when overwriting components:
    • "A managed solution cannot overwrite an attribute component that has an unmanaged base instance…"
  • An unexpected error occurs on data compare for contact ownerid's when importing data
  • Edit Properties function in CRM does not check out the document if Required Checkout is ON
  • Running a Report in Outlook Offline shows error:
    • ‘HTTP 404 not found’
  • A form has multiple tabs which are initially hidden and then made visible programmatically
    • Once the tabs are made visible, the navigation bar containing the links to other related entities moves down and part of it gets off the screen, making the users unable to see or select some links
  • Users may experience issues where shared personal views may not show up on entity grids if the views had been shared or unshared previously
  • Recurring Meeting Requests in Outlook do not check for duplicates
  • Activity Types change when importing Solutions
    • As a result, a view on the Activity entity that references the custom activity entity stops working
    • Warning message on the filter:
      • "This condition had one or more list values that no longer exist in the system"
  • Any modification to the "Goals with Same Metrics and Time Period" View loses filter on Active records
  • Users are unable to remove Deployment Administrators if the account exists in a separate domain
  • The PostFollow (Follow) entity workflow cannot be triggered
  • Forward mailbox rule deployment wizard fails to deploy rules when you have a split deployment for Exchange 2010 where your mailbox servers are not client access servers
  • After exporting the results of a Quick Find search to Excel Pivot Table, the resulting file cannot be opened
    • The following error appears:
      • "[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The SELECT permission was denied on the object 'AccountBase', database '...._MSCRM', schema 'dbo'."
  • When creating an activitymimeattachment using the REST endpoint and JavaScript when the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook is offline, the user will see an error:
    • "activitymimeattachment With Id = <GUID> Does Not Exist"
  • When adding users to a dynamic list using manage members and having a related entity link in the advanced find query to find members, the query that we generate doesn't execute because of a duplicate table alias
  • Error while saving the custom attribute of Recurring Appointment form when attribute type is option set
  • Changes to forms may impact the visually impaired
    • For example, lighter colors and the absence of highlighting on items such as the SiteMap and Tab titles
  • Horizontal scrollbar appears on mouse over the form sections navigation pane
  • High CPU usage when multiple threads are accessing the IsDataConnectorInstalled dictionary
  • Advanced Find date range with "last-x-fiscal-years" is wrong when exported to a Dynamic Worksheet
  • CategoryComment test failed in file 'crm.application.resx' at resource with key 'Crm_Category_Label_Inactive': New resource string is missing the category comment
  • The startup time for Outlook can be significantly impacted if the configured organization contains many customizations
  • The variable sqlstr string should be wider than 256 characters
  • Chart is not displayed when a subgrid is placed on the business unit entity
  • CRM Client for Outlook error:
    • "Outlook's current state: Online - Outlook failed to transition to Offline state"
  • Recurring Series Expansion job does not complete if Recurring Appointment owner is a team
  • SendEmailSynchronously OrgDbOrgSetting set to 1 give duplicate error when forwarding tracked emails
  • Untracking Service Appointments in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook causes synchronization errors
  • Unable to navigate as Next Page arrow option is disabled in Service Calendar Frame
  • Untracking an email you do not own results in the email being deleted from CRM
  • Font with space is ignored in CRM reports
  • N:N relationship records are not replicated offline
  • Reports cannot be executed once the default filter has been changed
  • Error when we click on ‘Click for More Appointments’ in CRM Outlook client Activities:
    • Unhandled Exception
  • Campaign Activity Actual Start Date is not populated even after distribution of the activity
  • Even though the print preview fits one page, a blank page 2 is printed
  • The context sensitive ribbon is not displayed in the CRM Client for Outlook Client when a CRM 2011 client is connected to a CRM 2013 server
  • Removing / adding any field to the form after enabling the option "Automatically expand to use available space" causes the sub grid to shrink or resize to much smaller in size
  • Clicking the mail merge button in the Ribbon bar of the Advanced Find screen opened from the Contacts entity doesn't do anything
  • Unable to delete the content in text fields using Back Space
  • Quick campaigns are not working in the CRM Client for Outlook when the CRM UR11 Critical Update is installed
  • Web Resource removed from form when backspace key hit in IE10
  • Turkish patching fails with a SQL exception
  • Exchange Sync: Appointment Broadcasting: Recurring Appointments: Past instances for the appointments are not getting reflected
  • Script error occurs when clicking "Insert Template" during form load on an email activity:
    • <Message>'Mscrm.FormControlInputBehavior.GetBehavior(...)' is null or not an object</Message>
  • Bulk Edit on Cases shows an incorrect dialog box
  • Precision always changes to 2 for currency column in reports and when the report is exported to Excel
  • Unresolved email not being added to multi-select dialog box
  • The SharePoint List Web Parts will cause the Document Management functionality to consistently hang on the loading circles when configured on a SharePoint 2010 server
  • CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10

 

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Support for new technologies provided by this Update Rollup

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 (and therefore UR3 as well) provided support for:

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Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Update Rollups require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups are always cumulative; for example, Update Rollup 3 contains all fixes previously released via Update Rollup 1 and 2 as well as fixes newly released via Update Rollup 3. So if you install Update Rollup 3 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Update Rollups, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 1-3, should any fixes require manual configuration:

  • Update Rollup 1: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • Update Rollup 2: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • Update Rollup 3: no updates requiring manual configuration

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Mismatched Update Rollup versions within a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment

In a scenario where you may be running many client workstations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 for Microsoft Office Outlook, a common question is whether it is supported to run mismatched versions. For example, where Update Rollup 2 has been installed on the CRM Server but the Outlook clients are still on Update Rollup 1, or where Update Rollup 1 is on the CRM server but due to updates available to the Outlook client you have decided to install Update Rollup 2 on the clients without installing Update Rollup 1 on the server.

The general rule of thumb is to try to keep the versions in sync as much as possible, and deltas of more than one version between client and server are not supported.  So ideally, you would be running Update Rollup 2 (when it is released) on your CRM Servers with Update Rollup 1 or 2 on your Outlook clients. However, it is permissible (though not recommended as a long-term solution) to run mismatched Update Rollup versions on Outlook client and server, as Microsoft does do some testing of such combinations.

However, regarding the other Update Rollups (for example Update Rollups for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Email Router or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SSRS Data Connector), it is not supported nor recommended to run mismatched versions. A best practice is to update these components at the same time you update your CRM Server.  Do the best you can to keep these Update Rollup versions in sync.

For more information, see the blog posting "User experience while accessing CRM 2011 application servers while Update Rollups are being applied", which still applies to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft will release enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

 

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRM2013UR3_PFEPodcast.mp3

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PFE Core Library for Dynamics CRM Documentation and Code Samples

July 21, 2014, 1:00 am
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Documentation. Always promised, rarely delivered. Our recently announced PFE Core Library for Dynamics CRM has proven no different. A shiny new box that when opened was missing its instruction manual. Well, not being one that succumbs to stereotypes, I decided to put Visual Studio aside for a moment and whip together details on what's in the library and how to use it. So, if you haven't been back to our CodePlex site recently, go check out the Documentation area!

The current documentation focuses on two primary areas of the library, the XrmServiceManager classes and ParallelServiceProxy classes. These classes address the basic questions, "How do I connect to CRM?" and "How do I submit a bunch of requests to CRM in parallel?" respectively. Where relevant I've coupled the documentation with highly "sanitized" examples to demonstrate the specific implementation patterns.

For those of you who desire a little more "meat on the bone", I've also provided details on a functional sample application scenario, PfeXrmCoreWalkthroughApp, which takes things a step further in showing how the classes work together. Regarding parallelized CRM requests, this app also provides basic sequential and raw .NET Task Parallel Library (TPL) patterns that can be contrasted with the usage of our library.

Source code for both the documentation examples and the sample application have been uploaded to our source code repository.

As always, be sure to monitor our Release History and Known Issues pages for build-specific updates and details. Lastly, I encourage you to provide us feedback on where we've nailed it, what could be improved, and any areas that require further clarification. Comment below, start a discussion on CodePlex, or contact our team directly. Until then, having done my good documentation deed, I'm back to writing code!

 

M. Austin Jones

Follow the conversation:
@maustinjones
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

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PFE Dynamics Podcast Update

August 11, 2014, 12:00 am
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Recently we made a change in how we are managing and hosting our podcast series, starting with our CRM 2016 Update 1.0 podcast.  I wanted to provide an update since the change will affect anyone who is a current subscriber to our podcast or has their podcast software pointed to our existing feed.

Going forward we will be hosting the podcast on Channel9. More specifically, you can find our podcast page here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/PFE-Dynamics-Podcast

Previous podcasts will continue to be available on our CRM in the Field blog.  And blog articles will link to the Channel9 podcast pages.  And for the really old stuff, you can still find it on BlogTalkRadio.

RSS feeds:

Audio only:  https://s.ch9.ms/Blogs/PFE-Dynamics-Podcast/RSS/mp3

Video:  https://s.ch9.ms/Blogs/PFE-Dynamics-Podcast/RSS

 

Thanks for listening/reading and let us know if you have any feedback on the new format.

Ryan Anderson

 

Follow the conversation:

@lefsaeater
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

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Enable WCF Compression & SSL to Improve CRM 2013 Network Performance

September 2, 2014, 6:49 am
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A while back I published a blog article that showed the performance improvements that can be achieved in CRM 2011 by enabling WCF compression. This specifically applies to the traffic generated by the CRM Outlook client or other applications using the CRM web services. The improvements mentioned back then also hold true for CRM 2013.

In my previous article I explained that IIS compresses many content types, but by default it will not compress WCF responses which have a mimeType of  'application/soap+xml;charset=utf-8'.  Since the WCF traffic is not compressed you may notice there is increased network traffic or performance is degraded when the CRM Outlook clients are brought online.  These type of issues can be mitigated by enabling WCF compression and/or using SSL encryption for CRM. The biggest improvement is achieved by using both WCF Compression and SSL as I show in the following charts.

Below are network statistics from launching the CRM 2013 Outlook client and navigating some default views. I first captured a baseline and then repeated the steps using compression, SSL, and then a combination of SSL and compression.

If using just WCF compression there may be up to a 28% reduction in response size from the server. There should be very little change in the request size as compression only affects server to client traffic.

When only SSL is enabled both the request and response size over the network is reduced by up to 45%.  That brings up the question, “How can enabling SSL help reduce network traffic”? 

By just comparing the traffic side by side in Fiddler you can see that WCF will implement its own encryption if SSL is not present. This results in a large amount of encryption data to be passed with the WCF request and response.

When SSL is introduced WCF no longer implements its own encryption and that extra encryption baggage is no longer passed to/from the server.

Now when both Compression and SSL are enabled there is up to a 94% reduction in the response size.

image

We can see that the total reduction of network traffic is substantial, but if you are working on a local network the difference in response time is hardly noticeable. The biggest performance benefit is for the remote users that are on slower network connection where latency is present. To show this scenario I emulated network latency of 77ms and transfer rates of 192KB/sec. These are performance numbers I often see with real customers working outside the office.

For a user with this type of network speeds it can take close to 16 seconds to fully load the Outlook client and around 5.5 seconds to load a view. If we implement SSL and WCF compression these response times can drop by 44%.

image

This is great data, but the next question is how will this affect server performance now that it has to compress and encrypt the traffic?

In most cases the CRM Servers will have plenty of processing power so the overhead of compression and SSL is hardly noticeable. IIS has safeguards built-in that it will automatically stop compression if CPU ever spikes above 90% and will stay off until CPU drops below 50%. If server performance is a concern then load testing is the best way to fully understand the impact of these settings in your environment.

How to Enable WCF compression.

You may enable compression either by using a command line or by manually modifying the ApplicationHost.config file on the CRM Server. Below are the steps for each process.

Note: You may notice an increase in CPU utilization with compression enabled so be sure to monitor CPU accordingly.

Enable compression using a command line.

a. Open the Command Prompt on the CRM Server.

b. Run the following command:   

%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/httpCompression /+"dynamicTypes.[mimeType='application/soap%u002bxml; charset=utf-8',enabled='true']" /commit:apphost

c. Reset IIS for the setting to take effect.   

Enable compression by manually updating the ApplicationHost.Config

a. On the CRM Server Navigate to: C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\Config\applicationHost.config and open it with notepad.

b. Search for the Section: “<dynamicTypes>” and in that section you should fine an entry that looks like this:
<add mimeType="application/x-javascript" enabled="true" />

c., Below that, add the following line:
<add mimeType="application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8" enabled="true" />

d. Save the file and reset IIS for the setting to take effect.

Note: For additional information about configuring HTTP compression, on TechNet, see the article Configuring HTTP Compression in IIS 7 at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771003(WS.10).aspx

 

Thanks,

Jeremy Morlock
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Premier Field Engineer

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CodePlex : Dynamics CRM QuickFind on Selected View

September 11, 2014, 12:00 am
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Another CodePlex solution from PFE Dynamics team!

QuickFind on Selected View : https://quickfindonselectedview.codeplex.com/

 

Overview

"QuickFind doesn't respect current view? I hear you!"

Thank you for your recent feedback regarding QuickFind functionality in CRM. The QuickFind search functionality (in its current form) does not return records from within the selected view. Instead, it spans its search across all active records within the selected entity. I have therefore written the following project as my answer to this problem.

Project Description
Dynamics CRM solution : Do QuickFind search for selected view.

The purpose of this project is to distribute the QuickFind on Selected View solution and source code to the customer/partner community. I have developed this solution in response to the requests from customers and partners who wanted QuickFind to search under currently selected view. I have used Custom Entity and Plug-in to achieve some scenario but the requirement will vary from project to project, so I publishing this as an open source so that you can decide how to use it in your respective project.

Limitations

There are several known limitations.

- If you do QuickFind right after using Advanced Find, QuickFind may query by using Advanced Find query as that could be last used query. The Plug-in cannot distinguish between View query to Advanced Find query.
- Same limitation applies If you do QuickFind right after you see Related Entity Grid for a record in separate window, QuickFind may query by using Related Entity Grid view
- If you use Multi-Entity Search on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Table client, the search result may be affected by this solution, as it uses QuickFind feature to search the result.

Workaround

- If you think query results are not correct, refresh the view once more, which ensure the selected view definition is stored in last executed query. 

Solution Detail

This solution consists of 3 components.

Custom Entity : Query History
The custom entity stored "Last Executed Query" information. Please note it is not "Last Used View" information.
It has 2 custom fields.

- Entity Name : (1 line text, Length 100) - Stores which entity for the query
- FetchXML : (Multiline text, Length 10,000) - Stores last used FetchXml. (QueryExpression will be converted to FetchXML to store)

Plug-in
Plug-in monitor and investigate query passed to RetrieveMultiple, and decide what to do depending on the query. Please see source code for more detail.
If you want to register more steps, please use the Plugin Registration Tool and register a step as following.

- Register against RetrieveMultiple request (Please do not register against Execute)
- Specify the Entity that you want QuickFind query based on last executed query (Please do not leave primary Entity blank as that affect all entities)
- Specify Calling User to Run in User's Context
- Register to Pre-Operation stage with Synchronous

Security Role
Simple security role which has User level Create/Read/Write privilege to the custom entity.

Important Notes

Please do not use this in Production
Please consider this as just a sample to demonstrate how to achieve the scenario. As scenario and situation varies depending on each environment, please investigate the code and modify accordingly to meet your requirements.
In addition, please implement error handling which suits your system.

Signing Key
Provided sample Visual Studio solution includes self signed certificate with no password. When you do so, please do not forget to update the entity and the field names in the plug-in code.

Managed Solution
I strongly recommend you to create your own solution which includes necessary custom entity with custom field. When you do so, do not forget update entity and field names in plug-in code.

Please try this solution and let us know your feedback!

Ken

Premier Mission Critical/Premier Field Engineer 
Microsoft Japan

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Administering Dynamics CRM

September 15, 2014, 12:00 am
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The following is the first in a series of cross-posts from Ritesh Ranjan’s blog.  Ritesh is one of our CRM Premier Field Engineers out of Norway.  Enjoy and stay tuned for more!

Hello everyone,

Today I am writing about a common scenario which I have noticed during my customer visits lately. This is primarily focused on administering Dynamics CRM. I have tried to include almost every aspect that I could recollect from my customer visits. So, whether you would like to prepare your plan for maintaining Dynamics CRM effectively or define a benchmark based on this, you could use the information listed below.

Happy reading!!

CRM Server Maintenance: 

SQL Server monitoring: 

IIS maintenance: 

 

Also, I would like to include an article written by Shawn on CRM Upgrade Best Practices which should always be considered when planning for an upgrade: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2012/10/10/crm-upgrade-best-practices.aspx

Ritesh

My Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ritesh_ranjan/

LinkedIn: http://lnkd.in/dkV2Brj

Twitter: https://twitter.com/riranj

Microsoft Premier Field Engineer

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Search

Dynamics CRM – Troubleshooting Workflows

September 23, 2014, 12:10 am
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Another cross-post from the blog of Ritesh Ranjan.  Enjoy!

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Business processes are an integral part of any enterprise software application. A business process can be of two types: automated processes that rely solely on communication among applications based on a set of rules, and interactive processes that also rely on people to initiate and run the process, and to make the appropriate decisions during the running of the process.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, a process enables you to create and manage your automated and interactive business processes. While the name has been changed to process, the entity that is used to implement a process is still called workflow. A Microsoft Dynamics CRM process provides many out-of-the-box components that business users and administrators can use to model their business processes. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also offers developers a mechanism to extend and customize the standard behavior of processes to achieve the functionality that their business applications require by allowing them to develop custom components.

Processes are built on top of Windows Workflow Foundation 4. For more information, see Windows Workflow Foundation.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, workflows are now called processes. In addition to this change, there are two categories of processes:

  • Workflows. The automated or asynchronous processes that may require user input to start them. Further, these processes do not require user input to run them to completion. These processes run in the background.
  • Dialogs. The interactive or synchronous processes that require user input to start and run them to completion. When you start the dialog process, a wizard-like interface is presented to you so you can make appropriate selections to run the process.

Today in this blog post I am going to talk about troubleshooting workflows which would not only help in isolating the issue but also fixing it.

Let’s start with issue isolation:

  1. Was it working fine before?
  2. What all recent changes done to the CRM?
  3. Is this an upgraded environment from CRM 4.0 to 2011? If yes, did you follow the KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968520 to clean the AsyncOperationBase table prior to the upgrade? If not, please do it.
  4. What is the update rollup installed? It is always advisable to have the latest update rollup installed.
  5. What is the status of the Async service when workflows are failing?
  6. Are other Asyncservice jobs failing too? For more information on Async Service you can also refer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg328021.aspx .
  7. Do you get to see any error in the event log for Async service? What is that error? Search on that event error in your favorite search engine. I prefer Bing.
  8. Verify the basic configurations of CRM like:
    1. Match the registry entries on the CRM with the deployment. You can verify the settings at HKLM-->Software-->Microsoft-->MSCRM. Validate the keys – Configdb, CRM_Server_InstallDir, ServerUrl, website and websitepath. These values should match with the deployment.
    2. Validate the account under which CRMAppPool is running. Verify the SPNs for CRM. You can also refer this article which talks about verifying SPNs:
      http://rc.crm.dynamics.com/rc/regcont/en_us/op/articles/configurespn.aspx
      http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crm/archive/2009/08/06/configuring-service-principal-names.aspx
    3. Are you able to access http://localhost/MSCRMServices/2007/CrmService.asmx without any authentication prompt? If not please add this URL under Local Intranet.
    4. You can also refer this link which talks about All System jobs are 'waiting' in CRM 4.0: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crmindia/archive/2012/02/29/all-system-jobs-are-_2700_waiting_2700_-in-crm-4.0.aspx
  9. Once you are done with validation from step 8. Time to look at CRM Application.
  10. Login as CRM Administrator and navigate to SettingsàSystem Jobs.
  11. Look at the workflows and their status. Is it in Waiting, Failed, and Waiting for Resources………
  12. Double click on the workflow to open it. You would find a message there, analyze it.
  13. Click on Advance Find and follow the below mentioned steps to understand the error/issue better:
    1. Click on Edit Columns.
    2. Then on Add columns.
    3. Select Error Code, Message and Message Name.
    4. Click on Ok. It will add all the three columns to the view.
    5. Now you will be back on Advance Find Dialog box.
    6. In the Look For, select System Jobs and in Use Saved View, select New.
    7. In the first row make it something System Jobs-->Equals-->Workflow.
    8. Then Status Reason-->Equals-->In Progress, Failed, Pausing, Waiting, Waiting for Resources. Something like this:

Advance Find Window should look like this:

For better management perspective I would recommend saving this view which would help in future as well for managing workflows. You can click on Save as and then you should be able to save the view.

Based on the Error code, Message and Message Name, your troubleshooting would flow. Again search on these errors.

After all the above validations you can open a support ticket with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team to assist on this issue further.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Ritesh

My Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ritesh_ranjan/

LinkedIn: http://lnkd.in/dkV2Brj

Twitter: https://twitter.com/riranj

Microsoft Premier Field Engineer

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Podcast and Overview: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18

September 23, 2014, 6:19 am
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Contents:

We're proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 were released on Wednesday, September 24th, 2014 to the Microsoft Download Center!  The Update Rollup 18 packages should appear on Microsoft Update Q4, 2014.

Update Rollup 18 Build number:

05.00.9690.4374

Note: CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 provides support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1

Important Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 17 and 18 are compatible with Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 11!

This includes the following supported configurations:

  • The browser application running in Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 or Windows 7
  • Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook when running Office 2013 on Windows 8.1

Update Rollup 18 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Update Rollup 18: KB 2958724

Podcast

On Monday, September 29th 2014 Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

  • The release of Update Rollup 18 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
  • New fixes made available In Update Rollup 18

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 Podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: We've recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts.  See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information.

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The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups, visit the "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

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Cumulative Update Rollup Changes

Update Rollup 18 is a collection of fixes for issues reported by customers or found by Microsoft's Engineering Team, plus changes to provide support for related technology components.

Update Rollup 18 news that you need to know because Update Rollups are cumulative, so these significant changes are also in Update Rollup 18!

 UR12 included the "Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 Service Update"  See:

  • Additional cross-browser compatibility provided
    • The December 2012 Service Update component of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 12 introduces additional browser compatibility for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari
  • Indexes added to support the Update Rollup 10 Quick Find Optimizations
    • Update Rollup 12 includes new indexes for the following entities in the Quick Find Search Optimization feature. To fully reap the benefits of the platform changes included in Update Rollup 10, indexing is needed.  The indexes created are listed below:
      • Cases
      • Opportunities
      • Competitors
      • Contact (the Phone Number fields)
      • Business Unit
      • Connection
      • Connection Role
      • KB Article
      • Lead
      • Product
      • Sales Literature
    • These indexes are created during the Update Rollup 12 installation and you may notice that part of the installation will take longer to complete. The reason for this is that the indexes need to be populated and based on the size of your dataset the completion time will vary
  • Enhancements to Activity Feeds
    • The enhancements made to the activity feeds include a new feature called Like/Unlike
    • With this feature, you can express your immediate feedback about a post
    • For more information, see Like/Unlike
  • Updated User Experience for Sales and Customer Service and Product Update Functionality for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
    • The Microsoft Dynamics CRM December 2012 Service Update introduces a variety of new features and functionality, including an updated user experience. For Sales and Customer Service users, the updated user experience provides a new process flow visualization, which appears at the top of the forms, such as the Opportunity , Lead or Case form. The process flow guides users through the various phases of the sales and customer service processes
    • For trials and subscriptions initiated after December 2012, the updated Sales and Customer Service user experience is included by default. Existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers have an option of adding the updated user experience to the Opportunity , Lead and Case forms by installing the Product Updates. This lets Administrators install selected feature updates based upon the specific needs of their organizations. The Product Updates are installed by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web application; they cannot be installed programmatically
    • For more details, see What's New for Developers for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
  • Custom Workflow Activities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
  • Developer Toolkit Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
    • The Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online now supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. The installer can be found in the SDK download in the sdk\tools\developertoolkit\ folder
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Software Development Kit (SDK) updated December 19th, 2013 for Update Rollup 15 (version 5.0.18)
  • Bulk Data Load performance enhancements
    • To support bulk data load scenarios, this release introduces the ExecuteMultipleRequest message. This message supports the execution of multiple message requests using a single web method call. ExecuteMultipleRequest accepts an input collection of message requests, executes each of the message requests in the order they appear in the input collection, and optionally returns a collection of responses containing each message’s response or the error that occurred. Processing requests in bulk results in lower network traffic and higher message processing throughput
    • For more information, see Use ExecuteMultiple to Improve Performance for Bulk Data Load
  • Activity Feeds changes
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activity Feeds provide real-time notifications and quick sharing of information through short updates. These updates appear on your personal wall in the What's New area of the Workplace . Activity Feeds enable you to follow and learn about important activities that take place around people, accounts, contacts, leads, and anything else that you care about
    • Updates can be posted manually by you, or automatically based on predefined system rules through a workflow. Activity Feeds can also be posted to by external applications through the Microsoft Dynamics CRM web services API. Activity Feeds expose Microsoft Lync real-time presence functionality so that you can initiate communication activities such as IM, phone calls, and emails. For more information, see Activity Feeds Entities
  • More performance and stability-related fixes, including fixes to the CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook
  • Contains all hotfixes / updates released in earlier Update Rollups
  • Quick Find performance optimizations and EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization SQL query performance optimizations (originally released in Update Rollup 10)

For Microsoft Dynamics CRM business solutions that include an entity with a large dataset, record retrieval and grid rendering performance can be negatively impacted for users that do not have global access to all records associated with that entity. Code changes to mitigate this behavior first appeared in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, and have been fine-tuned since then.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 10 and later, big advancements have been made to optimize the performance of queries against large datasets by adjusting specific “statistical” settings to address the issue. Should this fail to achieve desired levels of performance, adjust the value associated with EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization (ERMO) setting. You may have heard these changes described at Convergence.

A first step in efforts to optimize the performance of queries against large data sets is to make adjustments to the “statistical” settings that affect the behavior of RetrieveMultiple queries. Although you can configure these settings by modifying the Windows Registry (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM) on the each of the Web servers that is used in a deployment, we recommend that these settings be configured by using the OrgDbOrgSettings, which will ensure that the configuration applies to a specific organization. For additional information about configuring these settings by using the OrgDbOrgSettings, and to download the tool that makes the OrgDbOrgSettings changes you desire, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article titled "OrgDBOrgSettings Tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011" (KB 2691237)

If making adjustments to these settings does not yield satisfactory levels of performance, then consider adjusting the value of the EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization (ERMO) setting. The ERMO setting is commonly used to limit the duration of certain long running queries; specifically, to overcome issues related to local or deep business unit access within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 security roles.

Many more details describing appropriate scenarios for the available settings are already available via the Microsoft Download Center in a revised version of the whitepaper "Optimizing and Maintaining the Performance of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server Infrastructure", in the sections “Optimizing the Performance of Queries against Large Datasets” and “Optimizing the Performance of Quick Find Queries”. The details are also available in the MSDN version of this whitepaper.

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OrgDbOrgSettings Editors:

You're probably familiar with the OrgDbOrgSettings command line tool (mentioned above) released by the CRM Product Group in the "Tools" package that is updated and released with each set of Update Rollup packages.  With it, you configure some .xml and call your .xml with the command line utility described in KB 2691237. However, you may be daunted by configuring this .xml, to the point that you may not use the tool, or use it minimally - not exploring the many options outlined in KB 2691237 that may be of use to you.  Well, the Microsoft Dynamics PFE team now has another option for you!  By popular demand, our esteemed CRM PFE colleague Sean McNellis has developed a tool  - a CRM 2011 / 2013 managed solution - that provides you with an easy-to-use GUI with which you can configure all of the options outlined in the Knowledge Base on a per-tenant basis.  Feel free to download it, install it, and check it out... I sure use it!

This is a FREE downloadable tool - the "Dynamics CRM 2011 Organization Settings Editor".  Check it out; the download page has screenshots and information that will help you make good use of the tool.  Sean has also published a Premier Field Engineering blog: "Azure Mobile + JavaScript + WebResources = Easy Editing of OrgDBOrgSettings in Dynamics CRM 2011!" to share more details on the tool. It is currently updated to include setting for CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 and CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2, and he takes pride in keeping it updated. Thanks, Sean!

Note: there is a code issue with the CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook that was resolved in Update Rollup 16 Client packages.  Do not set either the AddressBookMaterializedViewsEnabled or DisableMapiCaching settings in the Organization entity metadata via the OrgDbOrgSettings tool in the Update Rollup Tools package or the Organizational Settings Editor on Codeplex if you are not running CRM 2011 Update Rollup 16 or higher on the Client.  Also, do not set this key prior to the next major release of CRM 2013.

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NOTE REGARDING "Deferring Database Updates when installing CRM 2011 Update Rollups"

My esteemed PFE teammate Sean McNellis published a blog you should be aware of regarding the possibility of deferring the CRM database updates when installing CRM 2011 Update Rollups.  Essentially, Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup executable packages automatically process and update the organization database updates during the installation.  If your deployment has several large tenants or just one very large tenant you may prefer to first install the “binary” updates and worry about applying the database updates after the binary installation of the rollup (on an organization by organization basis). This would put the control and timing of when to update organizations from a SQL perspective in the hands of the administrator, and may make troubleshooting easier.

This feature allows you to separate the installation of the binary updates (DLL’s, executables, etc) from the installation of the database components (updated stored procedures, UDFs (user-defined functions), schema updates, out-of-box index changes, etc). Both updates still need to be completed as part of the update but you can now separately manage and execute those operations. This also allows you to retry database updates if they timeout or do not complete, without jeopardizing the installation binary updates.

I strongly urge you to read the entire blog to see if it applies to your needs.  Thanks again, Sean!

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General Update Rollup Notes:

  • Testing Update Rollups: Best Practices
    • Premier Field Engineering recommends treating Update Rollup 12 (and above) testing like testing a new, major CRM release because of the introduction of new functionality introduced with the December 2012 Service Release. Do all the standard testing like you generally do for all UR’s, but then also all the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release
    • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
      • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
      • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to simulate your production user load in your testing environment, to shake out any performance-related issues early
      • Test using the permissions your end-user roles (most restrictive) have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
      • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and 2013 Custom Code Validation Tool

    • Consider familiarizing yourselves with this tool!
    • The Custom Code Validation tool for CRM 2013 is mostly the same as the Code Validation Tool for CRM 2011 UR12; the 2011 version has been deprecated and is no longer available. We added some additional checks for things that reference the 2007 endpoint or other things that will go away in 2013, so it's best to start removing them now. And, most of the checks in the tool were built into the installer for CRM 2013 as validation checks
    • Note that the URL for the CRM 2011 version of the tool now directs to the CRM 2013 version
    • Use the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Custom Code Validation Tool to identify potential issues with custom JavaScript in JavaScript libraries and HTML web resources. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Q2 2012 Service Update and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 9 include significant changes in the web application in order to be able to support a variety of browsers such as Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. When using JavaScript code in Dynamics CRM, it is possible that some code will stop working or cause an error when you upgrade. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Custom Code Validation Tool helps identify potential problems so that a developer can fix them
  • Update Rollup 12+ require Microsoft .NET Framework 4
  • Update Rollup 6 established a new servicing baseline. This will enable uninstalls of some future CRM 2011 Update Rollups, but this also means that Update Rollup 6 is prerequisite for installation of all future Microsoft CRM 2011 Update Rollups starting with Update Rollup 7
  • A database created with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 or a higher version cannot be imported to a deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 5 or an earlier version. This scenario is not supported.  Best practice is to import databases or customizations between environments that are at the same Update Rollup level
  • As Update Rollup 18 is cumulative, containing all changes released in earlier Update Rollup releases, it also contains the Dynamics CRM Q4 Service Update features released via Update Rollup 6.  Some of these features include:
    • Outlook Client Updates:
      • Dialog Enhancements
      • Data Visualization Enhancements:
        • Chart Designer Enhancements
        • New Chart Types
      • Data Management Enhancements to:
        • Auditing
        • Duplicate Detection
      • Activity Feeds
        • Listening in on important activities in Social Media that take place around the people, accounts, contacts, leads or opportunities that you care about, including a Windows 7.5 phone application: "Business Hub"
        • Update Rollup 5 does not install Activity Feeds:

For more information about the Dynamics CRM Q4 2011 Service Update features, consult:

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Update Rollup 18 packages are available for download via: 

  • The Update Rollup 18 Microsoft Download Center page (released September 24th, 2014)
  • The Microsoft Update Catalog - all packages have a planned release date in Q4, 2014
  • The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
    • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
    • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
    • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally.  WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
    • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Update Rollup 17 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
    • Please review my teammate Shawn Dieken's superb (and recently updated) blog posting "How to install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 without an Internet Connection" which provides details on how to set up an install on a machine without access to the Internet
    • Please review my former teammate Jon Strand's equally superb blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption

for these CRM components:

NOTE: On Jan. 20th, 2012 these installation files were updated to include CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 (Build 05.00.9690.1992)

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 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 Prerequisites:

  • Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Implementation Guide download or online versions for the various CRM components serviced
  • You must have Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 6 installed (build 5.0.9690.1992) to apply this Update Rollup

Note regarding Microsoft Dynamics CRM Stack Technology Compatibility:

Do you want to know if certain Service Packs or versions of a Microsoft product are supported with Dynamics CRM? Now we have all of this in one “living" Knowledge Base article: the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.  For example, you can use this KB article to determine the latest Microsoft SQL Server major version and Service Pack that is supported. Microsoft lists new products like Internet Explorer 11+ and Microsoft Windows 8.x as TBD until testing is complete; generally near General Availability (GA) of that product.

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollup 18 is the seventeenth (considering that Update Rollup 9 was not released publicly) of a series of cumulative Update Rollups that include fixes for the issues that are or will be documented in the "Master Knowledge Base Articles" for CRM 2011 Update Rollups.  As they are cumulative, Update Rollup 18 contains all fixes shipped via Update Rollups 1-18, including fixes that were never publicly released via Update Rollup 9.

  • PrincipalObjectAccess records are orphaned when the script is run from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968520
  • Synchronizing updated Tasks from CRM to Outlook causes duplicates to appear in Outlook
  • Users attempting to save a Goal that has a count metric type that uses a custom rollup field (integer) in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 will encounter the following error:
    •  "A Rollup Query cannot be set for a Rollup Field that is not defined in the Goal Metric"
  • Error when importing a Managed Solution for an entity with Many to Many (N:N) Relationships with Offline Capability for CRM for Outlook checked:
    • "ManyToManyRelationshipService.Update caught exception: System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added."
  • If you Add or Delete a field from a form in Form Designer which also contains a sub-grid that is set to auto-expand, then the auto-expand will fail after a Save and refresh is performed
  • Users of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook may experience slow performance in views if those views contain attributes with the Option Set data type
  • After installing Update Rollup 16 or Update Rollup 17 on CRM 2011, users that are members of teams with an assigned security role can no longer access CRM and receive a 404 error
  • If you have more than 3 recipients on an Appointment that are not available, then the Scheduling Alert does not pop up and the Appointment will not be saved
  • Emails are sent out from Outlook with duplicated tracking tokens
  • The sort order for a view changes when switching back to a view where one had previously defined a custom sort order
  • When a Managed Solution is imported that updates an existing solution that contains customizations from another Managed Solution, not all labels included in the update are applied to the system
  • When replying to an email from within the CRM for Outlook client, duplicate records are created in the ActivityPointerBase table
  • The Create Activity dialog fails to open during a Mail Merge operation
  • Each LookupMru entry in the UserEntityUISettingsBase table is added to the OfflineQueue table for offline functionality of the CRM for Outlook client, even though no changes to the record or the MRU list have been made, which can cause performance issues
  • When you upgrade to Update Rollup 16 or Update Rollup 17 for CRM 2011 and you have workflows that contain wait conditions on attributes, the wait conditions may fail if they are not one of the following attribute types:
    • DateTime, Status, Boolean, Decimal, Float, Money, Integer, Picklist/OptionSet
    • This occurs if you have enabled the OrgDbOrgSetting: ActivateAdditionalRefreshOfWorkflowConditions
  • If a user opens a record from a parent record such as an Account in the Outlook Client and then clicks a link on that record to take them back to the parent record, the focus on the parent record does not occur
  • After installing Update Rollup 12, there are changes to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 forms that may impact the visually impaired such as lighter colors and the absence of highlighting on items such as the SiteMap and Tab titles
  • After installing Update Rollup 17, summary values do not show when Report Wizard built reports are saved to Excel
  • After installing Update Rollup 17 users can no longer use the backspace button in any text fields if they are not using the System Setting "Load pages in the most recent version of Internet Explorer"
  • When synchronizing recurring Appointments from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Outlook in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, users receive frequent reminder notifications even if the reminder is dismissed
  • When attempting to page through Quick Find results in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook after sorting, users receive the following error:
    • "There was an error displaying the records in this view"
  • Memory leaks can occur during solution import when plugin assemblies are included in the solution
  • When you register a plugin assembly that contains custom workflow activities in one version of .NET framework, and the plugin assembly is updated in Visual Studio to use a different version of .NET framework, you are not able to use the additional custom workflow activity in the workflow editor
    • This occurs because the assembly is loaded in the primary appdomain for the W3WP process
  • When you copy or clone a Contract from the ribbon on a Contract record, the cloned Contract is shown. If you then modify the cloned Contract and press Save, the original Contract is shown after the Save completes
  • If a user’s logon domain is different from the Fully Qualified Domain Name, Deployment Manager crashes while opening
  • When a user has delegate access to a Calendar and they receive a Meeting Request for another user, the Appointment is never created in CRM:
    • The Appointment states, "This meeting will be tracked in CRM after it is saved or sent"
  • When calling AddMembersTeamRequest to a Team that has been shared to a record simultaneously to two or more Teams with the same set of members, blocking in the database on the Subscription.ReInitialize column if the members are configured for Outlook
  • Daylight Savings Time rules are incorrect for Egypt time zones after installation of Fix It updates for Windows
  • Workflows are triggered after resolving a case, even if the fields are not updated when the Form Assistant is enabled
  • Tracking an email through the CRM Email Router in CRM 2011 when there are two images embedded in the body and one image is a link to an image (url), the image that was not the link is duplicated and replaced the one with the link
  • When the AddressBookMaterializedViewsEnabled OrgDbOrgSettings value is set to True, and Update Rollup 16 is installed on the server and client, searching for records in the CRM client for Outlook Address Book will not return correct records and the sort order may be incorrect
  • Changing the SharePoint display language breaks the CRM to SharePoint Integration
  • When printing the results of an Advanced Find view in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, users will notice that some rows are incomplete due to page breaks occurring on the page
  • Adding a read-only duration field to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Appointment form prevents the start and end dates from defaulting to today's date and time
  • When using the CRM for Outlook client with Update Rollup 16 applied a Quick Find search on the Account entity shows correct columns on the first search. If you search a second time with the same or different search phrase, columns which belong to related entities are missing in the result set
  • After Update Rollup 16 is applied, Silverlight web resource grids formatted with "Use available area (Stretch to Fit)” no longer sizes the grid height properly
  • Clicking the Mail Merge button in the ribbon bar of the Advanced Find screen when an entity is selected on the sub-grid, the Mail Merge window does not open
  • Under certain conditions, emails that are tracked and sent will not successfully promote to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the user will receive an error:
    • “Unknown error occurred while synchronizing data to Outlook.Item Name=SUBJECT”
  • Updated Conditional formatting on Outlook does not show updated results
  • In the Dynamics CRM Outlook Client, when going back Online, the ActualEnd value is reset on an Activity that was completed while offline
  • After updating the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Client for Outlook past Update Rollup 11, users are no longer able to scroll through the email description field contents using the Reading Pane
  • Emails are sent with duplicate tracking tokens
  • An error occurs " intermittently when running reports:
    • "MSCRM Data Connector Not Installed"
  • The "Set this computer to be the Synchronizing client" option does not take effect when selected
  • DST change Russian time zone changes
  • Adding a read-only duration field to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Appointment form prevents the start and end dates from defaulting to today's date and time
  • After installing Update Rollup 17, the ViewID attribute of the NavBarByRelationshipItem tag in FormXML is not being respected
  • After upgrading to the latest CRM 2011 List Component for SharePoint 2010, a script error occurs, which will typically block the prompt on whether or not the user wants to create the folder location:
    • SCRIPT5009: 'IsNull' is undefined createfolder.aspx, line 11 character 4
  • If You are assigning Team Membership via plugin, the user Cache does not get invalidated, causing an error when trying to retrieve a record
    • The issue occurs if the Team is has a security role and Access Rights are controlled via Team ownership
  • Dynamics CRM 2011 with SharePoint 2010 or 2013, the edit properties page not scrollable when list has multiple fields
  • You execute a report after installing Update Rollup 17 for CRM 2011 and suddenly receive rsProcessingAborted errors when running reports
  • When you receive a mail from Outlook with numbered list (auto-numbering) in the email body into CRM and reply to this from within the web client, the email layout is changed and body does not display the numbering of the first level of auto-numbers
  • Outlook Email Form does not open once the focus is changed to Inbox from CRM folders
  • Invalid time set/displayed when using custom time formats
  • JavaScript error occurs when navigating on the forms for Facilities and Equipment:
    • “Unable to get property ‘raiseEvent’ of undefined or null reference”

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Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

  • Occasionally, updates released via Update Rollups require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups are always cumulative; for example, Update Rollup 16 contains all fixes previously released via Update Rollups 1-15 as well as fixes newly released via Update Rollup 16. So if you install Update Rollup 16 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Update Rollups, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 1-16:
    • Update Rollup 1: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 2 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2535245 RetrieveMultiple optimization for basic depth needed for local and deep depth read privileges in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011
      • NOTE: see comments near the beginning of this blog regarding significant rework to EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization released in Update Rollup 10
    • Update Rollup 3: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 4: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 5: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 6 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2664150  Steps to clean up the PrincipalObjectAccess table in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 after Update Rollup 6 is applied
    • Update Rollup 7: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 8: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 10 (includes hotfix components of Update Rollup 9): no updates requiring manual configuration to enable, but
      • Note my above comments regarding ERMO (EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization) option configuration via registry keys or (preferred) OrgDbOrgSettings updates
      • This information supercedes the information in KB 2535245, which discusses EnableRetrieveMultipleOptimization enhancements shipped in CRM 2011 Update Rollup 2
    • Update Rollup 11 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2820838 Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router Rule Deployment Wizard does not work in an Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 mixed environment
    • Update Rollup 12 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually - details on enabling or configuring can be found in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
      • 2820835 Sync the private property from Outlook appointments to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 with Update Rollup 12
    • Update Rollup 13: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 14: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 15: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 16: no updates requiring manual configuration
    • Update Rollup 17 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 contains the following update that you must enable or configure manually:
      • When you attempt to deploy a mailbox rule using the forward mailbox rule deployment wizard, with a split deployment for Exchange 2010 where your mailbox servers are not client access servers, you receive an error: Failed to access the default store for the user. To enable this fix,
        • On the Email Router machine, add a new String value Key named "CASServerName" in the path HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMEmail, then:
        • Enter the NetBIOS name of one of the Exchange CAS servers
    • Update Rollup 18: no updates requiring manual configuration

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Mismatched Update Rollup versions within a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment

In a scenario where you may be running many client workstations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 for Microsoft Office Outlook, a common question is whether it is supported to run mismatched versions. For example, where Update Rollup 5 has been installed on the CRM Server but the Outlook clients are still on Update Rollup 1, or where Update Rollup 1 is on the CRM server but due to updates available to the Outlook client you have decided to install Update Rollup 6 on the clients without installing Update Rollup 4 on the server.

The general rule of thumb is to try to keep the versions in sync as much as possible, and we recommend that you avoid deltas of more than one version between client and server.  So ideally, you would be running Update Rollup 14 server with Update Rollup 13 or 14 on your Outlook client. However, it is permissible (though not recommended as a long-term solution) to run mismatched Update Rollup versions on Outlook client and server, as Microsoft does do some testing of such combinations.

However, regarding the other Update Rollups (for example Rollups for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Email Router or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting Extensions), it is not supported nor recommended to run mismatched versions. A best practice is to update these components at the same time you update your CRM Server.  Do the best you can to keep these Update Rollup versions in sync.

For more information, see the blog posting "User experience while accessing CRM 2011 application servers while Update Rollups are being applied"

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Update Rollups or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

 

Greg Nichols
Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRM2011UR18Podcast.mp3

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Podcast and Overview: Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1

September 23, 2014, 12:08 pm
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Contents:

We're proud to announce that all packages for Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 were released on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014 to the Microsoft Download Center!  These Update Rollup packages should appear on Microsoft Update in Q4 2014.

Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 Build number:

6.1.1.132

Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1: (KB 2953252). Going forward, the plan is for the Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Update Rollups and Service Packs to be published a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast

On Wednesday, September 24th 2014, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

  • The release of Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013
  • New fixes made available In Update Rollup 1 Service Pack 1

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 Podcast

Note regarding Podcasts: We've recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts.  See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information.

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The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups and Service Packs, visit the "CRM Update Rollup and Service Pack Collateral Page"

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Important note:

An updated Unified Service Desk (Build 06.01.0001.0132) has been released as part of Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 SP1. See the following Microsoft Download Center webpage for download details:

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

  • Testing CRM 2013 Update Rollups: Best Practices
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Update Rollups, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
    • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
      • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
      • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment, to shake out any performance-related issues early. The CRM 2011 version is currently being evaluated against CRM 2013, but CRM Premier Field Engineering can help you use the CRM Performance Toolkit with CRM 2013
      • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
      • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

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Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 packages are available for download via: 

to update the Dynamics CRM Product installations listed in this Microsoft Knowledge base article:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installations, Updates and Documentation

Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates

  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally.  WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Service Pack 1 Update Rollup 2 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
  • Please review my former teammate Jon Strand's blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2013 and CRM 2015 Update Rollups and Service Packs

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 Prerequisites:

  • Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Implementation Guide download for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1:

  • The lookup view for the Site entity in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 is not sorted by name
  • Recently Viewed Record List Becomes Empty After Update
  • Option Set is not selected on first click
  • Forms lose focus when using lookup field in CRM for Outlook
  • Emails with attachments created while in Offline mode throw an error while going Online if user is set to use CRM Email form as the default email form for Outlook
  • Duplicate records created if Save or Save and Close is pressed multiple times
  • If there is a web resource being called using a button within the ribbon and resource is updated, the updates are not shown when the CRM for Outlook client is Offline
  • Command bar disappears when you click on the button for a custom web page
  • When tracking an email through the CRM Email Router, when there are two images embedded in the body and one of the images is a link to an image (url), the email that is not a link to an image gets duplicated and replaces the one with the link
  • Options Sets with no label disappear when trying to change their value
  • Unable to select body in completed Email activities
  • Consider the scenario where the "subjectid" field on an entity form is set to Business Required
    • In this scenario when "subjectid" receives focus without providing a value and then loses focus the field will thereafter show the Field Validation message "You must provide a value for Subject"
    • This message will be displayed with the Validation Error icon even if valid "subjectid" value is provided
    • This validation error prevents the user for saving the record. "subjectid" getting focus without a value can be due to user interaction clicking, field getting focus form onload or by calling setfocus in jscript.
      Issue occurs moving across pages when using Next Record or Previous Record button on a form to move to second item after crossing the page boundary
      • 1. The 'previous record' button becomes disabled after you cross grid pages
      • 2. After crossing a page boundary the 'Next Record' is available to click but does nothing
  • Unable to configure CRM for Tablets on iOS7 devices
    • Not caused by a specific entity, just the combination of many customized entities
  • Cannot uninstall Managed Solution after Service Pack 1 Product Updates have been applied
  • CRM 2013 does not support CEIP Option disabling through the XML config file
  • When you apply conditional formatting to a CRM view in the CRM for Outlook Client, you receive an error when changing the sort order and navigating to page 2 of this view:
    • "There was an error displaying the records in this view."
  • Date field in the Note wall displays incorrectly in en-AU environment
  • Forms opened as the result of the Convert To, Set Regarding, or Set Parent ribbon actions cause the forms to be opened in the Outlook process rather than the WebFormsHost process, which may cause Outlook to become unstable
  • After Applying CRM 2013 Service Pack 1, Automatic Resolution does not work when using TAB key
  • Users clearing the value on a business required lookup field may notice that any onChange events attached to that field are executed twice using the field's old value
  • In an Opportunity that you have created, click + beside "Sales Team" sub-grid, select "Lookup more records" and select multiple users
    • When you press OK, there will be an error on the page and not all users are added
  • When programmatically making visible tabs that contain several subgrids, the size of these subgrids is not recalculated causing the layout to be scrambled
  • Daylight Savings Time rules will be incorrect for Egypt time zones after the installation of the "Fix It" updates for Windows
  • CRM accesses https://ecn.dev.virtualearth.net:443  even when you turn off Bing Map integration
  • CRM reports embedded in IFRAME objects (on forms / dashboards /etc...) no longer display correctly when using Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10
  • After adding a Connections sub-grid to an entity form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, clicking on the plus(+) button doesn't open a window to add the record
    • Additionally, users will see a 'Error on Page' status at the bottom of the browser window
  • When navigating away from an area that links to content hosted on a different site than the CRM web, you receive a blank page and a script error occurs
  • German translation corrected for the Phone Call Activity, to show "Anrufen mit"
  • 'Add Existing Competitor' button does not work as expected when you add the OOB Competitor N:N relationship to the Opportunity form navigation
  • Users migrating databases from external systems to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 will experience Generic SQL Errors:
    • Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding
  • The Business Process Error dialog that contains the debug file is not displayed when a profiled plugin is executed on a grid refresh. An unhandled exception occurs instead
  • Script error occurs when selecting a party type field in a Business Rule action
  • Cannot display Notes intermittently if setting Note as the default tab of the social panel
  • When trying to change the parent account relationship behavior:
    • On the first try everything goes well but after saving and publishing all customizations any change will be not be saved
    • The following error is thrown: The related entity has already been configured with a parental relationship or a relationship where some behaviors cascade. Select the referential relationship type
  • Cannot switch between Product lines using arrows when Product Inline Edit View
  • Cannot upgrade solutions with custom activity entities after upgrading from CRM 2011 to CRM 2013
  • When the ownership of an Opportunity changes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, the ownership of the corresponding Lead also changes
  • Consider the scenario when an entity record window is a popup outside of the CRM 2013 application:
    • When a user navigates to a related entity associated view and clicks on the Opportunity name on the form, the system takes the user back to new Opportunity form instead of returning to the form for the existing record
  • Clicking on a HTML Web Resource within an IFrame does not perform the Mscrm.SimpleInlineControlEditView.prototype.onPageClick which then forces a call to Mscrm.FormDataControl.prototype.setAttributeValueFromControl
    • This calls Mscrm.FormDataControl.prototype.setAttributeValue to update the value of the attribute in a newly updated text Mscrm.TextBoxControlEditView so that when script is run inside the IFrame and accessing parent.Xrm.Page the value is incorrect
  • When you apply conditional formatting to a CRM View in the Outlook Client, you receive an error when changing the sort order and navigating to page 2 of this view:
    • "There was an error displaying the records in this view."
  • Users of modified Lookup views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 may notice attributes being rendered in the lookup are not part of the layout
  • When a user who has delegated access to a calendar receives a Meeting Request for another user, if they track the item in CRM and then try and set the regarding object, the appointment is never created in CRM
    • The appointment states, "This meeting will be tracked in CRM after it is saved or sent"
  • After upgrading to CRM 2013 you are not able to import translations for display strings when other languages have been enabled and were customized prior in CRM 2011
  • CRM users who accept and track appointments received from a sender using a POP3 email provider such as Hotmail or Gmail may notice duplicate Appointments in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • When using Server Side Sync and configuring User’s mailboxes for Email sync, embedded images within emails are not displayed when using the web client to view the tracked email
  • When revising a quote on a form that utilizes a custom business process flow in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, users will receive the following error:
    • Unexpected Error An error has occurred Downloading the error log provides additional information: Crm Exception: Message: An unexpected error occurred., ErrorCode: -2147220970, InnerException: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index at System.Collections.CollectionBase.System.Collections.IList.get_Item(Int32 index) at Microsoft.Crm.ObjectModel.BusinessProcessFlowServiceInternalHandler`1.NavigateToNextEntity(Guid currentEntityId, String currentEntityLogicalName, Guid nextEntityId, String nextEntityLogicalName, Guid processId, ExecutionContext context)
  • When enabling filtering on a view, if the user's screen cannot display all the columns on the page simultaneously, the filtering button (funnel) covers the drop-down on the last column
  • When viewing the result of a Rollup Query, an error occurs when a column is added from Account into Contract Line's Advanced Find View, and the Entity Type is set as Contract Line
  • When Accessing CRM application using the MOCA client, system deactivated views are still available and selectable from within the MOCA client
  • After updating the Unsecure Configuration for one of the existing plugin steps for the ActivityFeeds.Plugins to not contain XML, it will cause the Async service to crash in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013.
    When attempting a lookup on a field that will be filtered by a N:N relationship, the following two errors are shown:
    • There was an error while trying to resolve the typed in text. Please use the lookup dialog to set the value
    • An error occurred. Please try your search again
  • Consider this scenario where you have a CRM 2013 environment that was upgraded or has 2011 customizations imported:
    • When customizing an Entity's new Refreshed form using the "Merge Forms" functionality some Event Handlers are merged but do not appear in the Form Properties Event Handlers section
    • When adding the script event handlers manually it is observed that the scripts fire twice
      • This occurs for any control that already has a CRM internal or manually added Event Handler on the target Refresh form
  • Mobile application fails to configure due to metadata inconsistency in views
  • Users attempting insert an Email Template with an attachment into an Email in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 get a dialog:
    • 'This template contains attachments. If you want attachments as a part of your email. Click Cancel. Save the email, and then re-apply the template. To continue without the attachments, click OK.”
    • This occurs even if the email has been saved previously
  • Users of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Client for Outlook are prompted to enter credentials when downloading attachments
  • When selecting a Price List, while adding Existing Products within an Opportunity, the Price List selected using the default view "Price List Items in Entity Price List" would only show the Product icon and not the name of the Product
  • When opening a record containing a reference to a child record using a quickview control, that does not have access to the child record and will prevent you from opening the parent record, resulting in a privilege error even though you have full permissions on that parent record
  • Realtime workflow on a partylist field picks up the wrong field value
  • When you upgrade to Service Pack 1 CRM 2013 and you have workflows that contain wait conditions on attributes the wait conditions may fail if they are NOT of the following attribute types:
    • DateTime
    • Status
    • Boolean
    • Decimal
    • Float
    • Money
    • Integer
    • Picklist/OptionSet
    • This occurs if you have enabled the OrgDbOrgSetting: ActivateAdditionalRefreshOfWorkflowConditions
  • When you attempt to export a view to Excel from the explorer ribbon in the CRM client for Outlook an error is received:
    • The error is received if the view that you are exporting contains attributes from related entities and the total number of attributes is 10 or greater
    • This begins to occur after Service Pack 1
    • Useful error information can be obtained from the server platform traces Platform Error: >Crm Exception: Message: Number of link entities in query exceeded maximum limit., ErrorCode: -2147204339
  • Secondary category picklist values are not sorted in comparison charts even if an order is specified in the chart definition
  • Selecting multiple products causes duplicated Product line records in SalesOrder
  • While setting the SetRegardingLookupDefaultEntityType OrgDbOrgSetting in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, the setting is correctly applied but the Lookup dialog for Regarding attributes defaults to the Account entity rather than the entity specified in the setting
  • SQL CE CommitMode.Deferred transactions do not always commit, causing duplicated tracking tokens
  • The returned DBCS display value from inline lookup create displays incorrectly
  • Two Account/Contacts field in 'Add Data Value ' while inserting/updating E-Mail Template for Opportunity
    • One of them is inserting blank value with no indicator if which one is working and which one is not
  • After adding a Connections sub-grid to an entity form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, clicking on the plus (+) button doesn't open a window to add the record
    • Additionally, users will see an 'Error on Page' status at the bottom of the browser window
  • Users in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 receive "An error has occurred. Please return to the home page and try again." error dialogs when deleting more than one product at a time from an Opportunity, Sales Order, Quote, or Invoice record
  • Users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 are not able to create a parental relationship between two custom entities if the related entity has an attribute with the Image data type
  • Users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 who have configured SQL Reporting Services to run under a service account from a trusted domain will see the following errors when attempting to run a report:
    • An error has occurred during the report processing. (rsProcessingAborted) Cannot create a connection to data source 'CRM'. (rsErrorOpeningConnection) System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryServicesCOMException: There is no such object on the server
  • Unable to search the Opportunity Product by Product ID after clicking on '+' option on the inline items sub grid for Existing Product on the Opportunity form
  • Users attempting to set the state of an Appointment to Scheduled by setting the Status Reason field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Service Pack 1 are unable to do so because they only have the Free and Tentative option values
  • When a team owns a record and that record is also shared with that same team, no user is able to remove the sharing from that record
  • Exceptions that originate from an asynchronous plugin's constructor will cause the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Async service to terminate
  • When you have custom scripting on an entity form that executes the Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType function you may receive Invalid Operand to 'in' exception either in the UI or when you debug your custom script
    • This error will occur after calling Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType only after one of the following actions is taken on the form:
      • Adding a competitor to a sub grid
      • Adding a new access team member to a sub grid
      • Removing an access team member from a sub grid
      • Adding a connection to a sub grid Updating the role on an existing connection in a sub grid
  • You receive the below error once you enter the text in any Activity, Task, or Notes after entering text with '@'  symbol in the POST's under Social Pane of any record:
    • "Access Denied. This form is no longer available. As a security precaution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not automatically resubmit your information for you. To continue, close and reopen the form, enter your information again, and then save the form."
    • This issue appears on all Refreshed forms which have Social Pane
  • When two entities have an N:N relationship and a new subgrid is added to one of the entity forms, it will not display the + icon
  • Cannot configure CRM mobile application due to failed metadata loading when LabelText is missing
  • If a business rule is defined on an entity with conditions that include where a field "does not contain data", when an existing record is opened and the value in that field is removed the business rule is not fired
  • Required Attendees not populated with Contact when related Appointment created from Contact

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Support for new technologies provided by CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2 and Service Pack 1 provide support for:

There is no new support for new technologies provided by CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1.

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Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Update Rollups require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups are always cumulative; for example, Update Rollup 2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update Rollup 1 as well as fixes newly released via Update Rollup 2. So if you install Update Rollup 2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Update Rollups, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 1-2:

  • CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • CRM 2013 Update Rollup 2: no updates requiring manual configuration
  • CRM 2013 Service Pack 1: no updates requiring manual configuration, but some new features need to be enabled by a CRM Server Administrator
    • Go to Settings > Administration and then click Install Product Updates
  • CRM 2013 Update Rollup 1 for Service Pack 1: no updates requiring manual configuration

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft will release enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

CRM2013SP1UR1Full.mp3

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Table Bloat Due to Workflow Log Entries

September 29, 2014, 12:00 am
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One of the more common customer issues that has been coming up often lately is table bloat due to a large volume of completed or canceled workflow entries in the organization. There are three main tables that are impacted by this workflow history retention:

  • AsyncOperationBase
  • PrincipalObjectAccess (POA)
  • WorkflowLogBase

Let’s start with a quick background on the purpose of the POA table and why there should be concern if this table starts to grow out of control. The POA table is a SQL table within each CRM organizational database which is used to store all sharing information, mapping users and teams to objects that have been shared to them explicitly or via cascaded operations. We recommend keeping the size of this table reduced as much as possible to optimize performance of the application.

The second table of concern is the AsyncOperationBase table. This table tracks your asynchronous processing job execution (system jobs, workflows, plug-ins, etc). Similar to the POA table, as this table grows larger and contains millions of records, you will most likely start to see a performance decrease on the system.

The last table is the WorkflowLogBase table. This table stores your detailed workflow execution history, including detailed information on the execution of each step within the workflow. Again, if this table grows into the millions of records, you may start to see performance issues with the system.

Now that we’ve covered the purpose and concerns of these tables, let’s discuss the issue at hand. As mentioned previously, table bloat for these three tables is a concern. It’s probably common sense that a large number of completed workflows could directly affect the AsyncOperationBase and WorkflowLogBase tables since they’re used for storing execution and logging history of the workflows. So, why are we seeing table bloat on the POA table as well? This occurs because workflow executions result in the creation of shared access entries in the POA table for the WorkflowLog record of the owner of that workflow.  This means that every time a workflow is executed there are associated WorkflowLog records created in the POA table. Depending on the number of steps within the workflow, this could result in a high ratio of POA records being created for a single workflow execution. The more often workflows are executed, the faster all three of these tables will grow. There are ways to reduce the number of WorkflowLog entries within these tables and we’ll get into that in a bit.

How can you tell if your table bloat is due to a large number of workflow entries? Below are a few simple queries that can be executed to provide you with a record count on the tables of concern. The AsyncOperationBase table will typically have less records than the POA and WorkflowLogBase tables. Take the results of all three queries into consideration when determining if you are seeing this issue in your environment.

Disclaimer: I recommend running these queries during non-Production hours to minimize any performance impact on the system

AsyncOperationBase Query –
This query will display a row count of records (operation types defined in the comments of the query below) with a status of completed or canceled and a state of completed.

/*AsyncOperationBase OperationTypes, StatusCodes and StateCodes
 Operation Types:
 Workflow Expansion Task = 1
 Collect SQM Data = 9
 PersistMatchCode = 12
 FullTextCatalogIndex = 25
 UpdateContractStates = 27
 WorkFlow = 10
 
 Status Codes:
 Suspended, Waiting = 10
 Succeeded = 30
 Canceled = 32
 
 State Codes:
 Completed = 3
 Suspended (Waiting) = 1
 
 Replace "OrgName" below with your CRM organization*/
 
 USE [OrgName_MSCRM]
 
 GO
 
 SELECT Name, OperationType, StatusCode, StateCode, COUNT(Name) AS TotalRecordCount
 FROM AsyncOperationBase WITH(NOLOCK)
 WHERE StatusCode IN (30, 32) AND OperationType IN (1, 9, 12, 25, 27, 10)
 GROUP BY Name, OperationType, StatusCode, StateCode
 ORDER BY TotalRecordCount DESC


POA Query –
The query below will provide you with a breakdown of the total number of POA record counts per record type. This will allow you to pinpoint which record types are consuming the majority of your POA table. If the record type “WorkflowLog” contains a large number of records, then you may be experiencing the issue described above.

 /*Replace "OrgName" below with your CRM organization*/
 
 USE [OrgName_MSCRM]
 
 GO
 
 WITH POAS as (SELECT ObjectTypeCode, COUNT(ObjectTypeCode) AS TotalRecordCount
 FROM [dbo].[PrincipalObjectAccess] POA WITH (NOLOCK)
 GROUP BY ObjectTypeCode)
 SELECT MTDSE.Name, POAS.ObjectTypeCode, TotalRecordCount
 FROM POAS JOIN ( SELECT [Name],[ObjectTypeCode] 
 FROM [MetadataSchema].[Entity] 
 GROUP BY [Name], [ObjectTypeCode] ) MTDSE ON MTDSE.ObjectTypeCode = POAS.ObjectTypeCode
 ORDER BY POAS.TotalRecordCount DESC


WorkflowLogBase Query –
This query will return the total number of records in the WorkflowLogBase table with a status of Completed, Canceled or Waiting. 

/*WorkflowLogBase Status codes: 
 Status 1 = In Progress 
 Status 2 = Succeeded 
 Status 3 = Failed 
 Status 4 = Canceled 
 Status 5 = Waiting 
 
 Replace "OrgName" below with your CRM organization*/
 
 USE [OrgName_MSCRM]
 GO
 
 SELECT wflb.Status, COUNT(wflb.Status) AS TotalRecordCount 
 FROM WorkflowLogBase wflb WITH(NOLOCK) 
 WHERE Status IN (2,4,5) 
 GROUP BY wflb.Status 
 ORDER BY TotalRecordCount DESC

 

Resolution

There are a couple different ways to remediate this issue. Listed below are separate remediation options based on whether or not your company has business requirements for retaining a history of the workflow execution history.

Option 1 - Purge all successfully completed and canceled workflow history

If you have no business requirements for keeping a history of the successfully completed and canceled workflows, consider using the remediation steps below:

1.     Enable the Automatically delete completed workflow jobs (to save disk space) option located in the WorkFlow properties>Administration tab>Workflow Job Retention section:

 

Note: You would need to do this for all workflows in the organization

2.     Purge all workflow history for successfully completed and canceled workflows using one of the options outlined below:

    1.   Supported SQL script
           1.     Execute the script found in the KB article below:
                   Performance is slow if the AsyncOperationBase table becomes too large in 
                   Microsoft Dynamics CRM
                         KB968250 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968520
                  
                         Note: This script has been updated to include purging of the associated
                   POA records, no longer requiring separate execution of the script found
                   in KB266415.

    2. Bulk delete job within CRM (may take longer)
           1.     Create a bulk delete job with search criteria like the example below:
                  

 Option 2 – Retain workflow history

If you have business requirements around keeping a history of the successfully completed and canceled workflows, it is still highly recommended to determine what that retention period is and purge any completed and canceled workflows older than that timeframe. Keeping an indefinite amount of workflow history will cause these tables to continue to grow out of control slowing down performance. Review the remediation steps below:

1.     Create a scheduled Bulk Delete job to run during non-Production hours with the action of purging successfully completed and canceled workflow jobs older than a specific timeframe (no more than 1 month is recommended). Below is an example of search criteria to use for this type of job:

Note: If you’d like to first determine the number of records that would be purged based on a specific timeframe, you can use the three queries listed above and add a WHERE clause for the CompletedOn and/or ModifiedOn columns. See example below.

--WHERE clause to display only results with CompletedOn and ModifiedOn older than 30 days 
 WHERE CompletedOn <= dateadd(day,-30,getdate()) 
 AND ModifiedOn <= dateadd(day,-30,getdate())

 

Additional methods for controlling POA table bloat by modifying security configuration, shared privilege proliferation and unnecessary cascaded behaviors can be found below.

Additional POA Performance Recommendations
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2011/06/09/principalobjectaccess-performance-recommendations.aspx

CRM 2011 Scalable Security Modeling
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39095

CRM 2013 Scalable Security Modeling
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40861

 

Hope this guide helps you alleviate some of the table growth you're seeing in your environment.

Thanks!
Reed Wolfe
Premier Field Engineer

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Creating SSL Certificates for CRM 2013 Test Environment

September 29, 2014, 5:58 am
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A while back I posted a blog on creating SSL certificates in Server 2008 for a CRM 2011 environment. I had requests on how to do this for CRM 2013 in a Windows Server 2012 environment.

When working on a CRM Test environment there are many scenarios where I need to add SSL to the CRM web site such as testing Claims Authentication. Instead of getting a certificate from a 3rd party certification authority I will just use IIS to generate my own certificates. This allows me to quickly create certificates for my testing that will valid on other test machines. Below are the steps to configure the Active Directory Certificate Service so that you can easily test SSL in your CRM environment. I will also include steps on how to install the root certification on other machine so that the certificates are valid for test clients.

Install Active Directory Certificate Services Role

Before a certificate can be created for CRM the Active Directory Certificate Services Role must be installed on the IIS Server. In these steps I am installing the role directly on the CRM Server.

a. Open Server Manager and select Add Roles and Features.

image

b. Within Server Manager Click on Roles – Add Roles.

image

c. Select the CRM server that you’d like to create the SSL certificates on and click Next.

image

d. Select the “Active Directory Certificate Services” Role and Click Next twice to get to the Roles Services window.

image

e. A new window will open with other required features. Click Add Features.

image

f. Leave the default features that are chosen and Click Next.

image

g. Choose Certificate Authority from Role Services and Click Next.

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h. Click Install on the Confirmation window.

image

i. Click Close on the installation window and the install will complete in the background.

image

 

Configure Active Directory Certificate Services

a. Once the install is complete an alert will show in Server Manager stating Configuration required for Active Directory Certificate Services. Click More to start the configuration.

image

b. Click on the Post-deployment configuration Task to launch the AD CS configuration wizard.

image

c. Click Next past credentials screen unless your account doesn’t hold the necessary rights.

image

d. Click Next past Role Services Screen.

image

e. Select Enterprise CA and Click Next.

image

f. Choose Root CA and Click Next.

image

g. Select Create a new private key and Click Next.

image

h. Leave defaults on the cryptographic options and Click Next.

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i. Click Next on the CA Name screen.

image

j. Click Next on the Validity Period screen.

image

k. Click Next past the Certificate Database screen.

image

l. Click Configure on the Confirmation screen.

image

m. Click Close on the Results screen to conclude the AD CS configuration.

image

 

Create the Domain SSL Certificate

Now that the Active Directory Certificate Services role is installed you can generate a domain certificate for the CRM website. These steps show how to generate a wildcard certificate for the awc.local test domain that I am using. This wildcard certificate will then work with the various test orgs on this environment.

a. Open IIS Manager on the CRM Server that the Active Directory Certificate Services role was installed.

b. Open Server Certificates from the IIS Manager Home Page.

image

c. Click Create Domain Certificate with in the Server Certificates window.

image

d. Enter the Certificate Properties. Common name is for the name of the certificate. Since I am creating a wildcard I will enter *.awc2013.local for the Common name. Once all data is populated, Click Next.

image

e. Select the Online Certification Authority. The Certification Authority that was created should be displayed when you choose the Select button. Enter a Friendly name to identify the certificate and click Finish.

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f. The new certificate will show up in the Server Certificates list.

image

Add SSL Certificate to the CRM Website

Now that the certificate is created a SSL binding can be created for the CRM Web Site. Since this will be the only SSL site within IIS we will use the default port 443.

a. Open IIS Manager on the CRM Server.

b. Navigate to Microsoft Dynamics CRM from the list of Web Sites and Click Bindings within Actions on the upper right side of the window.

image

c. Click Add on the Site Bindings Window.

image

d. Select HTTPS from the Type drop down menu and then Select the Wildcard certificate from the SSL Certificate menu, Click OK and Close.

image

At this point the certificate is bound to the CRM website and you can open CRM to test the new SSL binding. Open a browser and enter the CRM URL. In this case I will enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for my server (https://crmsql2013.awc2013.local/CRM). If you are using an alias you will need to create the necessary entries in DNS. CRM should open properly with the SSL URL. The SSL certificate will show up as valid. When clicking on the certificate information I can see the wildcard cert that was issued by my server.

image

 

Install CA Root Certificate on Test Client Machine

This binding will work from other test machines, but will initially be prompted because the CA Root Certificate is not trusted. image

image

The following steps will show how to install the CA root certificate so that it’s trusted and the CRM site opens without any prompts. Opening CRM without any prompts will be needed to successfully test SSL for components on other machines such as the Outlook Client or Email Router.

a. First we need to export the CA Root Certificate.

i. Open CRM using the SSL URL on the Server that the certificate is working properly.

ii. Click on the SSL Icon and choose View certificates.

image

iii. Click the Certification Path on the Certificate window. Select the Root Certificate tab and Click View Certificate.

image

iv. Click the Details Tab for the Root Certificate and Click Copy to File. This will allow you to export the root certificate so that it can be copied and installed on another machine.

image

v. On the Certificate Export Wizard, Click Next.

image

vi. Select Cryptographic Message Syntax Standard – PKCS #7 Certificates (.P7B), Click Next.

image

vii. Specify a name/location to save the exported certificate, Click Next.

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viii. Click Finish to complete the export of the Root Certificate. The certificate is now ready to install on other machines.

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b. The following steps explain how to install the root certificate on another machine.

i. Copy the certificate file to the test machine that was receiving the certificate error. Right click on the certificate and choose Install Certificate.

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ii. Click Next on the Certificate Import Wizard.

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iii. Select Place all certificates in the following store and Click Browse.

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iv. Select the Trusted Root Certification Authorities Store and Click OK.

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v. Click Next and Finish on the Import Wizard.

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vi. Click Yes on the Security Warning asking if you want to install the certificate.

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vii. Click OK on the prompt stating that the Import was successful.

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Open the CRM website using the SSL address and now the site should open without any certificate warnings.

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Hopefully this will help out if you ever need to test SSL for your environment without obtaining a 3rd party certificate.

Thanks!

Jeremy Morlock

Microsoft Premier Field Engineer

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