MS Dynamics and Power Platform Blog

Microsoft Convergence  2010 Atlanta, April 24-27 Convergence is the Microsoft Dynamics premier event! Here are 4 great business reasons why one should attend this event. Learn how to get the most out of Microsoft Dynamics solution. Learn how to use the technical resources and support available. Understand how to empower people to use functionality. Investigate additional Microsoft Dynamics functionality, plus third-party vendor solutions that could better position you for success. Connect with other users and Microsoft product experts. See firsthand how other users optimize their solutions to drive business success. Consult with solution provider and Microsoft product experts. Get free technical support and participate in hands-on lab exercises. Get up to date on Microsoft products and technologies. Take advantage of more than 400 sessions covering Microsoft Dynamics and the latest Microsoft products including Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP (including Microsoft Dy...

Its a chilly winter night and I just bothered to sneak into MIX Conversation Video over you tube and finally i realized the power of Dynamics CRM and how it aids web based Line of business applications development. Sometimes I wonder why people get so crazy about CRM application development and  I have seen the CRM buffs in my organization trying new things now and then ranging from Telemarketing to Bing Maps Integration to SMS I ntegration with Dynamics CRM and CRM Live and then I thought why not to expose the power of Dynamics Live for the readers of this blog. As all of you know Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not just an Account or Contact Management Suite. It incorporates Sales, Service and Marketing as well. I guess this product has hit the roots in the Sales Force sector. This CRM Suite really fascinates people with its rich set of integrated technologies, Business Analytics and extensiveness. It has deep process automation and one fine day we could see this suite expanding bran...

The Import Data Wizard for CRM Online makes customer’s life easy by powerful features such as the automatic customizations of field width (for text data) and list values (for picklists). 1. The Field width customization feature increases the length of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM text or ntext field on the fly based on the length of data in the source file. When import data wizard encounters a mismatch in the field lengths of source data and target field it deduces following: i. Is the field customizable. ii. Finds the maximum length of the source data in respective column of given source file. iii. Checks whether the length found in step 2 is more than the default length of the field and is less than the maximum allowed length for the Text column (which is 4000). If both conditions mentioned in Step iii are satisfied, it updates the metadata of an attribute to the length found in step2 and changes the column length in database. Import Data Wizard applies field width customization even if ...

Microsoft is trying to exploit its desktop applications strength in large enterprises and promote its now-more-robust business applications to this sector. Buyer interest in Microsoft solutions is high in the market and is growing in the enterprise segment. Enterprise buyers will be attracted to Microsoft Dynamics CRM if they have made a commitment to a Microsoft infrastructure in order to lower their TCO in buying and managing business technologies. Buyers also like Microsoft Dynamics CRM usability and its quick time-to-value compared with traditional CRM applications.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides a wealth of sales analytics and automation capabilities that help organisations to zero in on their sweet-spot and institutionalise best practices for improved sales alignment. Microsoft has branched into various in-house technology integration with CRM Suites. The latest concept of (X)RM has proved to be a successful engagement to leverage rich set of technologies to c...

Nice read on how to capture Campaign Responses in MS CRMMicrosoft CRM includes four ways to create campaign responses: • Record responses manually : Enter responses based on a direct marketing campaign activity. • Convert an existing campaign activity to a campaign response: When someone responds to the marketing material you’ve sent them, you can convert the corresponding campaign activity, such as a phone call, e-mail, or appointment, to a campaign response. • Automatically generate responses: For e-mail activities you’ve included in your campaign, you can also use Microsoft CRM to generate the campaign responses automatically. When customers respond to e-mail activities, you can choose to have Microsoft CRM create the corresponding campaign response records automatically. This option is available only if e-mail tracking is enabled. This is a setting your administrator can set. If you are an administrator, set the Track e-mail option to Yes on the E-mail Tracking tab on the System Se...

Ever got the error when viewing any report in MS CRM: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: The report server cannot decrypt the symmetric key used to access sensitive or encrypted data in a report server database. You must either restore a backup key or delete all encrypted content. Here's the solution to it:1. Open Reporting Services Configuration Manager 2. Connect to your RS server 3. Select 'Encryption Keys' from the left pane 4. Press the 'Delete' button to get rid of your encrypted content 5. After doing this, you will need to re-set the connection strings and stored credentials on your reports. PS: If you do have a backup, press the 'Restore' button instead of the 'Delete' button.

When MS CRM and SQL Server are installed on separate server machines, we need to install MS CRM Connector on the server running SQL reporting services. While installing this, I faced an error saying “Unable to validate SQL Server Reporting Services Report Server installation” in the Environmental diagnostic wizard. As stated by Microsoft support , this issue comes in the following scenarios: 1. You try to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services on a server that is not running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS). 2. You try to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services on a named instance of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. 3. You try to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services on a SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services installation that uses a nondefault Web site. In my case, the issue was due to named instance of SQL server 2005. To resolve this issue:- For ...