The CRM Field Guide - A New Book by Various CRM MVP's Has Been Released

Many of the CRM MVP's  banded together and compiled their knowledge to release a stellar book that covers most aspects of CRM.  This book, with it's many knowledgeable authors, can be considered the true experts guide when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

Bonus:  I contributed to a small part of chapter 1  :)


Check it out here:
http://www.crmfieldguide.com/

or buy it from Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Field-Guide-Joel-Lindstrom/dp/0981511899/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348848654&sr=8-1&keywords=crm+field+guide

-Happy Monday!

Dynamics CRM Blogger Strikes Back Against Content Thieves!

In the last week or so I have seen sizable backlash against content thieves in the Dynamics CRM community.  Jukka Niiranen as come with a great way to strike back.  Check this out!!

http://niiranen.eu/crm/2012/09/getting-back-at-blog-content-thieves/

- Happy Monday!

Determine if an Entity is Eligible to Participate in a Relationship Type Using VB.NET in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

This illustration shows how to programmatically determine if an entity is eligible to participate in a relationship typ  in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 in code using VB.NET.  

There are three different SDK web service messages highlighted in this post.  They are:

• GetValidManyToManyRequest: Get list of entities that can participate in many to many relationships
• GetValidReferencedEntitiesRequest: Get list of entities that can particaipate in one to many relationships as the "many" entity
• GetValidReferencingEntitiesRequest: Get list of entities that can particaipate in one to many relationships as the "one" entity

Ok, here is what the code looks like!

Here's the VB.NET Code:

Dim req As New GetValidManyToManyRequest()
Dim resp As GetValidManyToManyResponse = DirectCast(slos.Execute(req), GetValidManyToManyResponse)

'Get list of entities that can particaipate in one to many relationships as the "many" entity
Dim req2 As New GetValidReferencedEntitiesRequest()
Dim resp2 As GetValidReferencedEntitiesResponse = DirectCast(slos.Execute(req2), GetValidReferencedEntitiesResponse)

'Get list of entities that can particaipate in one to many relationships as the "one" entity
Dim req3 As New GetValidReferencingEntitiesRequest()
Dim resp3 As GetValidReferencingEntitiesResponse = DirectCast(slos.Execute(req3), GetValidReferencingEntitiesResponse)

'now you can get the entitie names this way for each response by examining the response.entitynames property

Thats all there is to it!

I hope this helps!

Dynamics Xrm Application Speed Builder Project Kicks Off!

I have just kicked off a project to build an application that will hopefully help immensely in the porting of standard database driven applications to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The vision is pretty simple:

• Analyze the database schema (first db targets will be MySQL and MS Sql Server)
• Allow user to decide what tables should be made into custom entities in CRM and create them
• Analyze foreign keys between between tables in database that correspond to custom entities and build      appropriate relationships.
• Allow user to determine on a per-table basis what fields should be added as custom attributes.
• Allow user to determine which of those custom attributes should be placed on the application form.

The current team is (more to come in future most likely):

• Jason Lattimer - Developer
• Maarten Docter - Developer
• Thomas Canaple - Developer
• Myself - Coordinator /  Developer

There is a project live on CodePlex for you to follow if you would like at:
http://xrmspeedy.codeplex.com/

Just understand that there is no code released as of yet as the project still hasn't been coded.  :)

-

Powerful Multi-Threading to the CRM 2011 SOAP Endpoint

I have run into several situations where people want a very quick delete functionality or they have an application that needs to hit the webservice many times in very quick succession.  This usually means multi-threading your application and that can cause problems if you hit it too many times too quickly and you can get errors because the available ports get used up and are not recycled fast enough.  I have overcame this to some degree in .NET by using stacks and when an atomic operation fails it just get's put back on the stack for another thread to pick up and try again.

It seems that there is another way to crank up the horsepower and increase throughput by changing a couple registry settings.  One to increase the number of ports available and another to decrease the amount of time they take to recycle.

Check out more here:

http://community.dynamics.com/product/crm/crmtechnical/b/billoncrm/archive/2009/01/20/crm-webservice-error-58-only-one-usage-of-each-socket-address-40-protocol-47-network-address-47-port-41-is-normally-permitted.aspx