Simply jump for (Scribe) AX-CRM integration

At the end of the month Scribe is releasing, yes it is still  May 31st here, the new integration between CRM 2011 and AX 2012.

Most interesting change from technical point of view that for the integration the web services adapter is used and primary keys are stored in source and target system.

The web service adapter is one of the very interesting and useful integration options of Scribe Insight. It gives you many opportunities to integrate with all kind of other application.

Of course we like to have integration 'out of the box' and we know that could be hard to achieve, I won't mention Microsoft Connectors here ;-)

Luckily, Jumpstart makes it easy to set up your basic integration(s). In a nutshell the solutions comes with  the components for CRM 2011, AX 2012 and Scribe Insight to setup your integration. Next you have to do a little configuration and you up and running.

By the way you need the new version 7.5.1, which is also released today and offers for example enhanced web service adapter functionality. Also supporting MS SQL 2012.

AX-CRM Jumpstart

The principle for integration is similar to other integration you can achieve with Scribe Insight. The core is Microsoft Message Queue. The changes from source system are published to the queue processed by Scribe Insight and send to your target system and vice versa.

Of course, every integration is custom and sometimes you lucky you get away with standard integration. Nevertheless this is a great step to get your basic integration up and running and take it beyond!

Happy Jumping.... you can start NOW!

Returning speaker at Decisions 2012

Of course always good time for some shameless self promotion. I actually also did some things in April I wrote my next musing and also started writing on my next presentation for Decisions 2012 called 'A Practical Approach for Keeping Data Integrity'

My latest musing 'Three Keys to Keeping Data Accurate and Reliable in Your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Application' also prepares for what is coming and I am actually still amazed how companies are struggling with data migration approaches, data strategies, but hopefully my effort (or read crusade) will finally pay off :)

See you at Decisions 2012, oh it is free and virtual so not attending is not an option.

Keeping track of your CRM build number

The build numbers of your CRM are important it indicated with version is installed and you can determine which of the many roll ups you have deployed.

build number

Same useful tips is that in case you have Microsoft software contract like Volume licensing etc it might be that if you download your CRM software it is still RTM version. It will help to just download version from the internet which usually already has latest roll-up applied.

Ok, some of you are a bit scared to apply the latest roll up you could download a previous one too.

Nevertheless common issue as my roll-ups cannot be installed might be due you already installed CRM which includes the roll-up you try to apply. Also reading the notes with roll-up can be handy so you now you first have to apply roll-up 6 and then 7 or 8, depending how much cuts you have ;)

Same easy site that gives you overview of the rollup can be found:

CRM 2011
CRM 4.0 ( might be time to think about upgrading )
CRM 3.0 ( really time to move ahead)
In case you want to have any idea when the next one will be available go here. Please notice it is "Projected" which basically means if you lucky we have it and else you just wait a 'bit' longer...

Time to keep track of your build number!

CRM 2011 Javascript old times same struggle with syntax

Oh where did the time go? It is already May and I guess I skipped April this year ;) I am back in the field and actually doing some basic coding not the C# stuff but good old JavaScript.


I did start ages ago and just to add some historic facts a quote:


"...JavaScript was originally developed in Netscape, by Brendan Eich. Battling with Microsoft over the Internet, Netscape considered their client-server solution as a distributed OS, running a portable version of Sun Microsystem's Java... " (source wikipedia)"


Basically you like it or you hate it. In my case I need to do it often too keep track of the DOM and the syntax. In CRM 2011 as you noticed there are some changes made in comparison with CRM 4.0. Nevertheless the basic stuff of hide, show, copy files is nice, but interesting part is calling web services and this could give you some nice functionality. Also the way you can store your coding in CRM is definitely improved.

Example code and yes no guarantees it works :-)

So, basically I was making some ugly script and run of course in bug with getting the value of check box. It works fine when you use radio button or list, but not with the famous box. There was some workaround, but of course we try to use supported coding for a change and lucky I could change the layout of the checkbox and got the script working on a onChange event.

I also tried to add some JSON but I stranded on the CRM 2011 permission got some error stating the protocol was not supported. I got tipped by colleague to use " XrmServiceToolkit" and this would help you to use SOAP and worked like a charm :)

So happy scripting :)

Back to the .....

My bug hunting days are almost over and in April getting back to the darkside. I must say it was very interesting experience and to see and join the MS Support way of life.

Nevertheless,not much will change I will still need to solve those issues and also good to be back at the other side and continue integration, migration and implementing CRM.

Of course also time to spam you again with my blog post and also working on some new articles for MS Dynamicsworld

Keep on coming and reading.. don't be afraid.. we have cookies :)

exceeded the threshold of 10 seconds?

As you should know by now in case of mysterious CRM bugs always check the event viewer. It is the source of all kinds of events like: information, warning and our fav "errors".

Guess, the common one is the printer, yes we do not install those on servers. Nevertheless the event viewer logs are often overlooked and especially the warnings might give you some nice clues.

You might have seen something like "Query execution time of 10.6 seconds exceeded the threshold of 10 seconds." and also mentions your CRM database. In my case and think also others still might wondering, where the *&^% we can change those 10 seconds.

My first guess would be "treshold" settings in MS SQL server, but this is something completely different. It is some cursor stuff (stalk your dba). Hmmm what other settings we might have the most important are described in the following post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/crminthefield/archive/2011/06/13/microsoft-dynamics-crm-timeout-settings.aspx

Nevertheless, nothing mentioning those 10 secs....

My latest information about this famous 10 secs is, that it is internal warning of CRM. The warning is automatically send after, yes indeed an query exceeded the 10 seconds. It is just warning that some of your processes are taking too long, duh :)

Your best guess for the cause is in the use of fetch xml and accompied by database locks. To prevent this add the 'no lock' feature.

Happy threshold hunting

Heading for the Cloud

It looks 2012 is becoming the year of the 'Cloud'. I remember that years back people did talk about 24/7 online, easy data access, not bounded to certain device. It seems that many steps are currently taken into this direction.

We see the offering of CRM Online, Office 365, Scribe Online (RS & SYS) and also the competition is not sitting still and offers services like Oracle On Demand and Salesforce. I personally think we are on the right track, but still at the beginning. A lot of steps still have to be taken in the area of connected clouds together, integration and hybrid solutions (cloud & on-premise) .

There is also a down site to all this cloud business, people still worry about the safety of cloud, is my data still secure, is my privacy still guaranteed are just some frequently asked questions.

Also new laws to control the internet e.g. ACTA  & SOPA might have negative effect on the development of cloud business. Nevertheless, this development would also raise awareness at companies to see that data have to be kept save and hopefully they start taking the topic more serious and come up with solution to keep our data safe.

Personally, I think the strength in the internet still is the ability to provide & share knowledge, which is a great asset and should not be bounded.

So, I am very eager to discover the cloud and experience it all.

Happy clouding :)