Update Rollup 8

CRM4 Update Rollup 8 has been released. The major change seems to be support for Exchange Server 2010 plus minor fixes.
The download link is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c53b2916-6b93-4092-bdd3-a394c96ca000

CRM/xRM - 1 Million Seats!

Microsoft crosses the 1 millionth seat Mark . Read the article on http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-13xRMInitiativePR.mspx

Update Rollup 5 Released

Microsoft CRM Update Rollup file has been released. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970141

CRM Quick Campaign Email Sitting in 'Pending Send' with outlook client open

I was tearing my hair out with quick campaigns not sending emails. The Outlook clients were open with the correct user settings both in Outlook and the CRM user settings on the server. But the emails remained in a 'pending send' state. Restarted the Async service didn't resolve it either.
Finally, by chance, I deleted any quick campaigns that had emails with the 'failed status' and all the emails came to life and were 'sent'.

Strange but true.

Update Rollup 4 for MSCRM Released

I see the 8 weekly update for Rollup for is on time.

See Microsoft Downloads for more details.

Opportunity Close in Plug-ins

I was working with a plug-in that needed to be fired when an opportunity is won. It took me a while to figure out what messages to register the plug-in with. I tried Update, SetState, SetStateDynamicEntity and could not get it working. Finally I got it working by using the 'Win' & 'Lose' messages.

Developing Plug-ins

Plug-Ins. I recently had to develop my first plugin and to say the least it was an experience. After ploughing through numerous blogs and documentation I finally got it working. Here are some tips if you are starting out to develop plug-ins.

1. Ensure you have the latest copies of the SDK dlls. If not you could run into earlier sdk bugs.
   
2. Ensure tht you have the latest update rolloups. My plug-in was throwing http 401 errors until I installed the latest rollups.


3. Use dynamic entities instead of the web service references. It is a little harder to understand and get working but will payoff in the long run.


4. Learn to debug plug-ins and how to find the detailed error messages. You will need it.


5. Understand the entity-message mapping.


6. Download the Microsoft CRM Developer toolkit.


7. Download the latest Plug-in registration tool.

I hope the above helps.

Welcome to yet another Microsoft CRM Blog! MY name is Rocky Sharma and I am a Microsoft CRM consultant.
Why another blog? Bacause I've come to realise that often answers you seek can only be realised by gleaning bits of information from all relevant blogs and then applying the bits that are relavent to what you are trying to achive. I'm only a small time player and always to towards master bloggers like George Doubinski and Michael Hohne and many others including the Microsoft CRM team bloggers for inspiration and indepth expert opinions. So I will put my opinons and discoveries on this blog and hope that you will find it usefull in someway.