Activity Feeds and Exceptions or How to fix something that should work

During work I found following logs in event viewer:

Exception information: 
    Exception type: CrmException 
    Exception message: Could not find a web resource with name Images/refresh.png.
   at Microsoft.Crm.Application.Components.Handlers.WebResource.RetrieveWebResource(String webResourceName, String preview)
   at Microsoft.Crm.Application.Components.Handlers.WebResource.ProcessRequestInternal(HttpContext context)
   at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
   at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

Review of book - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Application Design

This book was written with my CRM MVP and forum fellow Mahender Pal.

I read this book in a single breath and I can assure that this book would be helpful for both beginners and veterans of Microsoft Dynamics CRM world.

Chapter 1 describes common information about CRM - what is it, different deployment options, clients that could be used to work with CRM, software and hardware requirements and out-of-box modules.

Chapter 2 describes basic customization that is available in CRM.

Chapter 3 describes automation points that could be used in CRM without involving of developer into the project - dialogs and workflows.

Chapter 4 gives understanding how CRM business logic could be extended using plugins - serverside triggers that react on different system events.

Chapter 5 gives understanding how developers can extend client side scenarios.

Chapter 6 provides information how external applications can interact with CRM using endpoints in different deployment models.

Chapter 7 provides the description of Mobile Client for CRM.

Chapter 8 shows different basic scenarios that you can face with during implementation of CRM.

I highly recommend to read this book from author who has deep knowledge of all the aspects of implementation of CRM.

In case you are interested in this book please use following urls for accessing:

http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-application-design/book

Migrating contacts and accounts from Goldmine to Microsoft CRM 2011

I just finished a project where I had to migrate data from Goldmine to Microsoft CRM 2011 so I decided to share with my results.

MS CRM 2011: Rollup 11 and ‘CrmException: A non valid page number was received: 0’ error

I installed Rollup 11 on our development servers and after server restart CRM instance was broken. Every page that has grid or grids shown following:

I googled and found following solution:
1. Open regedit.
2. Open HKLM\SOFTWARE'\Microsoft\MSCRM.
3. Open TurnOffFetchThrottling key and change value to 0.
4. Make iisreset.
Once steps were done CRM instance was fixed.

MS CRM 2011: Add new Deployment Administrator through SQL

Here is just short script that has to be executed against MSCRM_Config db to add new deployment administrator:

Declare @DomainName Varchar(Max)
Set @DomainName = 'Put new deployment admin login here'--i.e. 'Contoso\Administrator'

Declare @Id uniqueidentifier
Select @Id = Id From mscrm_config..SystemUser Where Name = @DomainName

if (@Id is null)
Begin
    Set @Id = NEWID()
    INSERT INTO mscrm_config..SystemUser(Id, Name, DefaultOrganizationId) 
    VALUES(@Id, @DomainName, '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000')
End

INSERT INTO mscrm_config..SystemUserRoles(Id, SecurityRoleId, SystemUserId) 
VALUES(NEWID(), (Select Id From mscrm_config..SecurityRole Where Name = 'Administrator'), @Id)

So the only thing you need to do is to put domain name of new deployment administrator in a format DOMAIN\Login like Contoso\Administrator.

This trick is 100% unsupported and can lead to malfunction of whole CRM deployment. I suggest you to take backup of MSCRM_Config DB before you run this script.

Customer Portal – switching authentication from LiveId to Forms

I have got a requirement from one of customers create customer portal. It was my first experience with portals so I decided not to build custom website but to install and configure Customer Portal. I would not write how to install and configure this solution – it is well described. Once it was configured I had a phone conference with customer and first requirement and main challenge for me was to remove LiveId authentication and replace it with other authentication.

New badge – MCC

Today I have got an email from Microsoft that notified me that I’ve got MCC award. It’s funny because I thought that in case you hold MVP award that you can’t get MCC. It seems that I was wrong.
So now I’m listed here at the page number 4.
That's how my profile of forums looks now: