Webfortis has authored several books on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We have exceeded our expectations with regard to these books and the first one has gone past 3rd printing - which means the appetite for our books is really great! (we've been informed that our books are recommended reading in several instructional classes and even prior to taking the certification exams on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0).

Our link for these books is here:

Today we received word that our books is truly international - Check the link below for our first book translated 100% in German:

 

The interesting thing is that it's impossible to order this book from the Amazon.com site - instead, you have to navigate to the Amazon.de site directly... 

Outlook Synchronization

The entire whitepaper can be downloaded here

Microsoft recently introduced Microsoft Dynamics CRM Rollup 8 (it is available here). It has some nice fixes and updates over Rollup 7, which we detailed in our post located here called "Outlook Client - Improvements in Update Rollup 7".

Our friends over at the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog have this post about it:

Update Rollup 8 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sustained Engineering team will release Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 8 on Thursday, December 17, 2009.

Once the release is available the links below will take you to the necessary information about Update Rollup 8.

• Microsoft Download Center: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c53b2916-6b93-4092-bdd3-a394c96ca000
• Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=975995

General Details about Update Rollup 8

• Update Rollup 8 is cumulative. However, the Update Rollup 8 CRM Client and Data Migration Client packages require Update Rollup 7 to be installed. For all other CRM components you do not need to install any previous Update Rollups prior to Update Rollup 8
• The Update Rollup 8 download contains updates for the 40 supported Language Packs. Prior to installing the Update Rollup 8 Language pack you must install the original Language pack.
  • If you have Language Packs installed, you should

1. Download the Update Rollup 8 Language Pack
2. Install the Update Rollup 8 Language Pack
3. De-provision the Language Pack
4. Re-provision the Language Pack

• Information about how to avoid reboots when installing the CRM Outlook Client can be found in the Update Rollup 4 blog posting.
• The Update Rollup 8 Client can be deployed before the server is upgraded to Update Rollup 8.
• Steps to make the Update Rollup 8 Client available via AutoUpdate can be found in the Update Rollup 4 blog posting. The Link and Patch IDs can be found in kb article 975995.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router

Update Rollup 8 adds support for Exchange 2010. However, the Update Rollup 8 Rule Deployment Wizard does not yet support Exchange 2010. We are working to add that support in future Update Rollups.

How to get support for Update Rollup 8

To get support please contact Microsoft Product Support. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;%5bLN%5d;CNTACTMS

Note: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

UPDATE/WARNING: There is an issue associated with Enterprise deployments of Microsoft Dynamics CRM that the Rollups have not corrected yet. This issue appears to be related to the fact that while the Rollup remediates all existing databases/instances of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, when you go to redeploy a NEW instance (i.e. tenant) of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the "SubscriptionManuallyTrackedObject" table is not there and you will get an error on all new instances unless this table is manually copied from a remediated database, or the most current Rollup version is applied to the server again after a new tenant is provisioned.

The specific error you might receive is this:

Generic error:

"A SQL Server error occurred. Try this action again."

This error will show in the Trace Log:

"Invalid object name 'SubscriptionManuallyTrackedObject'"

This issue and fix is documented at the EMEA Dynamics CRM Support blog located here.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many great features and functions, however there is a LOT you can do with the application. From an open/downloadable SDK (located here and up to version 4.0.11, last updated 11/24/09 as of this post) to a free Developer toolkit from the Dynamics CRM Engineering for Enterprise (CRM E2) team located here.

Our page has several of these utilities and a few more. This page is located here: http://www.webfortis.com/crm/crm_utilities/:

There are a ton of other utilities out there that have some interesting functionality that is worthy of pointing out:

1. Mitch Milam's blog and postings on CRM utilities located here: http://blogs.infinite-x.net/free-utilities/. Mitch has the following utilities available:

CRM 4.0
CRMExportJavaScript - Extract all of the custom JavaScript found in a CRM organization and write the code for each event to a file.
Enhancement Request - A customization that allows you to track enhancement requests for a CRM system from within CRM.
CRM 4.0 Development Skeleton - Provides a CRM developer with Visual Studio solution that allows for quick prototyping and development of applications which use the CRM SDK.
Plugin Settings - A customization that allows you to store settings for plugins inside of CRM itself. 
CRMExport - Is a command-line application that allows you to export all customizations from a CRM organization.
Run CRM Deletion Service runs the CRM 4.0 deletion service which will physically delete any CRM records that have been marked for deletion.  See this post for more detail.

Misc
Description Version - ROI Calculator allows you to calculate the Return on Investment for a proposed CRM customization.
Duplicate Email Detection SQL script. 
 
CRM 3.0 and 4.0
Description Version - CRM Tracer allows you to activate and deactivate diagnostic tracing without having to modify the required registry settings by hand. 

CRM 3.0
CRM StartStop starts and stops the CRM-related services and web site.
CRM SMTP Settings configures the SMTP server settings required for the CRM Server to utilize a different SMTP Server than itself.
CRM Scan Contacts Scans the CRM Contacts Entity to identify and correct possible data corruption issues in the Job Title Attribute.
CRM Metadump exports a list of Entity Attributes to an XML file that can be easily imported into Microsoft Excel.
Birthday Update utility. 
Change Request customization allows you to track change requests inside of CRM. 

2. Michael Höhne over at Stunnware offers a couple of utilities, both paid (filtered lookups) and free. Of particular value is his Trace Log Viewer located here: http://www.stunnware.com/crm2/topic.aspx?id=TraceLogViewer. We use this viewer regularly and it makes searching for errors a lot easier:

• CrmDiagTool4
• CrmKB968793FixIt
• Crm4EmailConnectorLogger
• CrmDiagToolTurbo.zip
• MSCRM30OutgoingEmailConfigWizard
• MSCRM30RetrieveBUHierarchy.zip
• MSCRM30KB925780AdminTool.zip