Phil Edry’s Dynamics CRM Blog

The company I work for, Altriva Solutions, has asked me to contibute blog posts to their CRM blog. I’ll post links to my company blog whenver I author something over there that is relevant to CRM. Most recently, I published a post entitled, “The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Resource Center – What it’s good for and how to remove it”. Intro:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Resource Center can either be a valuable tool to encourage user adoption or if it’s not used, it can clutter users’ screens without any value add. This post will discuss what the Resource Center is good for, and if you don’t buy it (or if your users do not have access to the internet from their workstations) we’ll also discuss how to remove the Resource Center to open up valuable screen real estate.

Read more…

As of May 8th, 2009, I’ve been running 64-bit Windows 7 RC1 at work. Here are some observations that might be relevant to the CRM community:

- CRM 4.0 Outlook Client with Rollup 3 is working great working “kinda ok” with my Outlook 2007 SP2!… Sometimes Outlook freezes up and I can’t send emails. If you instead choose to install the offline client, your outlook will freeze up even worse and you will hate life. I’ve heard of similar symptoms for installing the offline client on Vista 64-bit, so it’s no surprise. I will have to try again with rollup 4 and installing the offline client in compatibility mode. UPDATE: My outlook freezing issues have gone away and things have been working pretty great. To re-iterate, no matter what system you’re on, I highly suggest installing the Outlook client WITHOUT offline access in the name of performance and stability, unless you absolutely need it.

- The new Virtual PC is really cool (but not all THAT much different user-experience-wise from Virtual PC 2007)! I was able to open Virtual PC 2007 virtual hard drive files with Windows 7 Virtual PC. The USB and clipboard integration stopped working after a while, so I had to manually disable it and install the new version of the VPC integration tools. After that, life is good!

- Multiple monitor support is still not perfect. I’m convinced Microsoft will never get multiple monitors to work perfectly without driver confusion and flickering.

All in all, I am shocked with how well everything is working. Feel free to comment if you’re thinking about moving to Windows 7 RC and have any questions.

UPDATE: I’ve now rebuilt my laptop with Windows 7 RTM and have had no problems with the CRM for Outlook Client (no offline access). HOWEVER, if you install Rollup 6 on your client, you may get an unexpected error when you click “Advanced Find” within Outlook. To resolve this issue, turn off UAC. I was unable to recreate this issue on my workstation, but a colleage of mine spent a long time working through it. To turn off UAC in Windows 7, do a start menu search for “User Account Control” and select Change User Account Control settings. Then drag the bar down to “never notify”. This work around is non-ideal, since UAC in Windows 7 can be a helpful security tool, but there you have it. Your other option is to uninstall rollup 6 and install rollup 5.

-Phil

To follow up on my last post, MB2-634 Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Has Released, I’ve finally gotten around to taking the exam — and I passed! I’d be happy to answer any questions about the exam within the limits of the exam non-disclosure agreement.

To prepare for the exam, I read through the Microsoft eLearning Course 8969 materials a couple of times the day before the exam and then just took it. I believe that you can access the course materials for free if you have a support contract with Microsoft, or you can pay $35 (until June 30, 2009) and buy the materials. The course material on the whole was pretty good. I think the topics covered were mostly applicable to real life. I’m not sure if I was working with an early release of the documentation or what, but my biggest complaint was that the grammar and typos were pretty horrendous in some sections. But whatever, that stuff isn’t important if the material is good.

My day-to-day work involves the material covered in this exam, so that’s probably why I got by on so little preparation. Microsoft’s MB2-634 Exam summary lists the topics covered in the exam. Of the topics covered, I found “Deployment Considerations” to be a pretty big part of the exam when considering how your extensions will work in the offline client. “Licensing Requirements” was a topic I forgot to study for, so be sure to read up on those.

All in all, I’d say this was my favorite exam since it was the most “real world” of the four MS CRM certs. I didn’t take the 3.0 version of this exam, so I can’t compare the two.

Don’t forget your Second Shot! I wouldn’t have taken such a chance with my limited studying if I didn’t have that safety net.

Phil

To follow up on a previous post regarding the release date for the Extending Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 exam, Mb2-634 has finally released! Microsoft Learning has a study guide out: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exams/MB2-634.aspx and you can register for the test at the Prometric site.

Be sure to register for the Second Shot voucher before you register for the exam. They now offer 25% off of your next exam in addition to a free retake.

Apologies for the long break in posts, but wedding planning can be rather time consuming! I’m now back from my honeymoon and ready to get back to work. I hope to take the new exam soon and ramp up on the new Accelerators for CRM. Meno has a good post with links to how to get started.

Lastly, I’d like to point out a quality CRM blog from my friend Tim Dutcher: Takin’ care of business… with Dynamics CRM 4.0. His CRM 4.0 Quick Reference is nice to have near your phone when discussing CRM with clients.

-Phil

1. Read this quick guide on how to redeploy CRM 4.0 without uninstalling and reinstalling CRM. (Note that you won’t have to copy over the CONFIG database). http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/tedh/archive/2008/05/20/15540.aspx

2. An oldie but a goodie, if you need dummy users to map to, use this script! FOR /L %i in (1,1,100) DO NET USER CRMUSER%i Pass@word /ADD

We ran into this issue at a client after the last Windows Update patch Tuesday. The Customer Effective Blog has a solution. However, this will not solve the problem in all environments. The only sure fire way to fix this issue regardless of corporate security policy is to uninstall the Windows Update for Internet Explorer.

Update: Mike has posted a comment with more information regarding this issue. Looks like you can edit the blank.aspx page as a workaround. Look at the comments for details.

Trika just posted that everyone’s favorite Second Shot offer is back! Register for Second Shot and breathe easier. If you have problems getting your Second Shot voucher to work, read Trika’s entry or go here. Go get certified!

For those of your new to Microsoft Certification, Second Shot allows you to take any Microsoft exam again if you fail it the first time. For any exam, I suggest moderate studying, registering for the exam with Second Shot, and using the first shot at the exam as a practice test if you don’t pass.

Everyone’s favorite nightstand reading is now better than ever.

Thanks to the CRM Team Blog for pointing us to the new version. They advertise “Over 30 corrections and revisions”, but these are largely related to grammar and other minor changes. One welcome addition is help on using NLB to install CRM 4.0 on multiple computers.

The MSDN link doesn’t seem to work (at least not on Firefox) but this link works.

The Customer Effectiveness Blog links to a white paper that outlines Microsoft’s “plan of continuous innovation and capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, which includes:
- Mobility
- Accelerators
- BizTalk Integration
- SharePoint Web Parts”

Download from Customer Source

Download from Partner Source

I found it a good read — it got me excited about what’s in the pipe.

According to an email I just received from “Microsoft Dynamics Training & Certification” (mbs-cert@microsoft.com), Extending MS CRM 4.0 should come out 8/30/08. Who among us will brave taking the exam on day one? Will this exam be more like the installation and customization exams, or more like the much-disliked applications exam? Tune in come September — same Bat-BLOG, same Bat-Blogger! (Man, am I dying to see The Dark Knight…)

Image from Flickr, Creative-Commons 

UPDATE:  “The release date for Extending Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 4.0 has been revised and set as 10/16/08. Please keep in mind that this is still tentative and subject to change. We recommend checking with your testing center after 10/16/08 to verify the test is being offered.”

Also, The Dark Knight was awesome at the local IMAX.