Kids, don't try this at home!

SSRS Report Show Dynamics CRM Note Attachment

2009-10-01T10:32:00Z

We've had couple of instances where we needed to embed existing image attachments in dynamics crm into sql server reporting services reports. Here are the steps you need to take in order to make it happen. It's pretty straight forward.

Create a new report
Add a new table
Drag an image control onto the table and place it into the column that you want, select 'Database' from the options
Click on the image -> go to the 'Properties' tab -> from the 'Value' dropdownlist select '<Expression...>' and use the following bit of code
```
=System.Convert.FromBase64String(Fields!documentbody.Value)
```
'documentbody' is the field from the FilteredAnnotation view.

EXAMPLE

RESULT

Enjoy!

Dynamics CRM 4 SDK for the iPhone via MonoTouch

2009-09-21T22:35:00Z

We are working on a version of the Dynamics CRM 4 SDK that will work with the iPhone via MonoTouch. Here is a preview of it creating an account in Dynamics CRM using the MonoTouch C# library. We're creating this to speed up development of xRM solutions that can leverage the power of touch based mobile devices as well as the Dynamics CRM platform.

Challenges so far...

MonoTouch doesn't support web services natively yet, therefore we had to use the HttpWebRequest class to make raw calls to the crm web service. We also had to duplicate Request, Response, CreateRequest, CreateResponse, TargetCreateDynamic as well as all Dynamics CRM specific data types (CrmDateTime, CrmDateTimeProperty...etc).

Sample Code

// IFD not supported yet

CrmAuthenticationToken token = new CrmAuthenticationToken

    AuthenticationType = 0,

    OrganizationName = "MagnetismLimited",

    CallerId = Guid.Empty

};

CrmWebRequest sdk = new CrmWebRequest("http://virtualcrm03/mscrmservices/2007/crmservice.asmx",

    "MAGNETISM", "Administrator", "h3rew3g0", token);

// only difference here is that entity.Properties is an array instead of type PropertyCollection

DynamicEntity entity = new DynamicEntity("account");

entity.Properties = new Property[] {

    new StringProperty("name", accountName),

};

TargetCreateDynamic target = new TargetCreateDynamic { Entity = entity };

CreateRequest cr = new CreateRequest { Target = target };

CreateResponse response = sdk.Execute(cr) as CreateResponse;

Console.WriteLine(response.id);

Dynamics CRM SDK for the iPhone is still in its early stages, we plan to release a public beta by the end of October. If you'd like to be part of our test team please contact me.

Dynamics CRM - Programmatically Block Outbound Emails

2009-07-21T05:37:00Z

Time for another crm goodie...

We've been working on a little project that needed blocking of certain outbound emails, with the Dynamics CRM plugin architecture this made it very very simple. For whatever reason, if you want to block outbound emails from Dynamics CRM programmatically, hook into the Send message on the email entity at the Pre stage synchronously then set the IssueSend property to false.

A bit of code
if (context.MessageName.Equals("Send", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
{
context.InputParameters["IssueSend"] = false;
}

A little gotcha, the system marks the email as Sent even though we've blocked it, so be careful with that one. Hopefully this is useful to someone else. We've used this technique to write a neat little addon for Dynamics CRM, keep an eye out for it!

Dynamics CRM 4 Mobile Express Released!

2009-07-10T05:07:00Z

Mobile Express for Dynamics CRM is now available for free from Microsoft. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=f592ec6c-f412-4fd5-9a80-cd3bcbd26d8b

Here it is running on the iPhone

Main	Accounts

Active Accounts	New Account

Dynamics CRM - Backup, Restore & Publish Customizations Programmatically

2009-07-10T00:34:00Z

Here is a simple class you can use to backup, restore and publish dynamics crm customizations programmatically. Please keep in mind that dynamics crm customizations are additive, which means, if you import a set of customizations lets say a new attribute on the account entity and you restore a backup of the old customizations the new attribute on the account entity that was imported will not be deleted.

Usage
CrmCustomizations customizations = new CrmCustomizations(service);

You can backup to an xml file or a zip file by calling the Backup method. Backup method takes care of creating the xml or zip file by looking at the output file extension.
    bool backedup = customizations.Backup(@".\customizations_backup.xml");
    // or to a zip file
    backedup = customizations.Backup(@".\customizations_backup.zip");

To restore a backup call the Restore method. You can pass it a .zip file or a .xml file path.
    bool restored = customizations.Restore(@".\customizations.xml");

Once you have restored you need to publish the customizations, to publish call the Publish method. It will publish all customizations.
    bool published = customizations.Publish();

Download the class file

Enjoy!

Dynamics CRM - Synchronize with Xero Accounting Software

2009-07-02T23:49:00Z

Here is a sneak preview of Dynamics CRM integrated with Xero that we have just completed. Yesterdays post (automatically emailing pdf invoices) is part of this whole system we've been working on. If you are using Xero as your accounting software it can now be integrated seemlessly into Dynamics CRM.

Take a look at this 5 minute video (audio coming soon...)

What Can It Do?

In real-time

Synchronize accounts in Dynamics CRM to and from Xero
Synchronize invoices from Dynamics CRM to Xero
Synchronize invoice payments from Xero to Dynamics CRM
Synchronize account codes from Xero to Dynamics CRM

It has been a pleasure working with the Xero API, Xero has done a very nice job. Looking forward to v2 which will provide the ability to synchronize credit notes, currency, additional payment options and more...

Thanks to Tony Rule from Xero for guiding us through the API and Amanda Mattson from XrmLinq for the LINQ to Dynamics CRM tool.

Dynamics CRM Workflow - Automatically Email any Report generated in CRM as a PDF attachment

2009-07-02T03:43:00Z

Time for another Dynamics CRM goodie...

We try to automate as many things as we can, automatically sending invoices is one of them. Workflow as you know in Dynamics CRM is very powerful, specially the ability to create custom activities and hook into the pipeline. We took advantage of this, we created a custom workflow activity that takes in any entity, Email and a Report, automatically turn it into a PDF, attach it to the email and send the email.

Take a look at this 5 minute video to see how it works. If you're interested in using this in your organization contact me via this link.

Under The Hood

Report2Pdf
This class does the heavy lifting, it has a method called Download, connects to the report server, configures the parameters and renders the report as a PDF then returns a byte array.


public class Report2Pdf

    public static byte[] Download(string rsUrl, string rseUrl,

        System.Net.NetworkCredential credentials, string report,

        Report2PdfParameter[] inputParameters, string culture)

Workflow Activity
Straight forward, read the configuration data, makes a call to the Report2Pdf.Download method, creates an activitymimeattachment then executes a SendEmailRequest.

byte[] data = Report2Pdf.Download(config.Url, config.ExecutionUrl,

    new NetworkCredential(config.UserName, config.Password, config.Domain),

    report.Location, rps.ToArray(), config.Culture);

LINQ and Dynamics CRM
Thanks to Amanda and the team at XrmLinq for giving us access to their library. This has made data access so much easier. Something that would take atleast 10-20 lines of code and a lot of effort messing around with FetchXml has now been reduced to 3 lines and LINQ!


var config = (from c in xrm.ReportServerConfigurations

              where c.ReportServerConfigurationId == report.ConfigurationId

              select c).SingleOrDefault();

Dynamics CRM 4 - Progress Bar

2009-05-05T09:27:00Z

I was browsing the dynamics forums the other day and saw a post asking about the progress bar in CRM, we created one awhile back, here it is for anyone else that's looking for something similar.

Click here to download a working sample.

What you'll need

jQuery 1.3.2
step.gif
statusbar.gif - You can get this from the /_imgs/ folder in CRM

crmprogressbar.js
function crmProgressBar(id) { this.bar = $("#" + id); this.bar.css({ 'height': '23px', 'width': '357px', 'background': 'transparent url(img/statusbar.gif) no-repeat' }); this.bar.find("div").css({ 'height': '19px', 'width': '1px', 'background': 'transparent url(img/step.gif) repeat-x', 'position': 'relative', 'top': '2px', 'left': '3px' }); this.step = function(percentage) { var width = parseInt((percentage / 100) * 351); if (width > 351) { width = 351; } this.bar.find("div").css({ 'width': width + 'px' }); } }
Example

Create a new html file
Create a new javascript file and copy the above code into it
Include a reference to the jQuery javascript library
Include a reference to the javascript in your html file
Add a "div" tag to the html file and give it an "id"
Add another "div" tag inside the "div" you created in step 4. and put a blank space
To initialize the progress bar; create a new variable to hold the progress bar, then create a new instance of the progress bar by specifying the "id" of the div you created in step 4.
eg: var progressBar1 = new crmProgressBar("id-of-div");
To step/increment the progress bar use the step() instance method
eg: progressBar1.step(10); // will increment to 10%;

<div id="p1"> <div>  </div> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> var i = 5; var cpb = null; $(document).ready(function() { cpb = new crmProgressBar("p1"); increment(); }); function increment() { if (i <= 100) { i += 5; cpb.step(i); setTimeout(increment, 1000); } } </script>

Web Form to Dynamics CRM 4

2009-03-18T11:38:00Z

We've decided to release another component we've been using internally. This little webcontrol allows you put pass data from a Web Form to Dynamics CRM 4.

How does it work?
Create a UserControl to layout the form.

<%@ Control Language="C#" %>
Topic:
<asp:TextBox ID="topic" runat="server" /><br />
First Name:
<asp:TextBox ID="firstname" runat="server" /><br />
Rating:
<asp:DropDownList ID="rating" runat="server">
    <asp:ListItem Text="Hot" Value="1"></asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem Text="Warm" Value="2"></asp:ListItem>
    <asp:ListItem Text="Cold" Value="3"></asp:ListItem>
</asp:DropDownList>
<br />
<br />
<asp:Button ID="submit" runat="server" Text="Add to CRM" />

Next we add the Web2EntityControl into our .aspx page and configure the connection settings (Url, Username, Password, Domain ...etc of CRM) as well as Mappings.
For example:
Which field in Dynamics CRM should the topic field (from above) map to?

Here is a sample configration

<magnetism:Web2EntityControl ID="leadform" runat="server" SkinPath="~/lead.ascx"
    Async="true">
    <Settings Url="http://virtualcrm/mscrmservices/2007/crmservice.asmx" 
        Domain="MAGNETISM" OrganizationName="Demo" UserName="Administrator" 
        Password="itsasecret" EntityName="lead" />
    <Mappings>
        <magnetism:Mapping CrmFieldSchemaName="subject" CrmFieldType="NVarChar"
        ControlID="topic" ValuePropertyName="Text" />
             
        <magnetism:Mapping CrmFieldSchemaName="firstname" CrmFieldType="NVarChar"
        ControlID="firstname" ValuePropertyName="Text" />
        
        <magnetism:Mapping CrmFieldSchemaName="leadqualitycode" CrmFieldType="Picklist"
        ControlID="rating" ValuePropertyName="SelectedValue" />
    </Mappings>
</magnetism:Web2EntityControl>

This form is mapped to the Lead entity (EntityName="lead")
Topic textbox is mapped to the "subject" field in Dynamics CRM
First Name textbox is mapped to "firstname" field in CRM
Rating dropdownlist is mapped to "leadqualitycode" picklist in Dynamics CRM

This control works with On-Premise, Partner Hosted & IFD installations. This works really well for data entry forms, we use it on our Contact Us page as well as client contact us pages and hand the data through to leads or cases depending on the customer query.

If you'd like a copy contact me.

Enjoy!

Dynamics CRM - Writing FetchXml Queries

2009-01-13T00:45:00Z

While browsing the online Dynamics CRM SDK a while back I noticed that FetchXml had a XSD schema. So I grabbed the xsd.exe tool from Visual Studio, generated a cs file to see if I can use that to create FetchXml queries. Here are my findings.

To generate the cs file
xsd.exe /c /n:ExamplNamespace FetchXml.xsd

You'll notice that the resulting code file has an object array called Items, if have a look at the metadata attributes on that field you'll see which elements are supported. For example the "fetch" class Items array will support "entity" and "order"; how do we use it?

fetch sample = new fetch

    Items = new object[]

        new entity { name = "account" },

        new order { attribute = "name", descending = false }

};

Dig a little deeper and you'll see that you are able to generate more complex queryes. For example:
Get the first 10 accounts ordered by account name along with the primary contact.

fetch f = new fetch

    mapping = fetchMapping.logical, // not required

    aggregate = false, // not required

    count = "10", // not required

    distinct = false, // not required

    page = "1",

    Items = new object[] {

        new entity {

            name = "account",

            Items = new object[] {

                new linkentity {

                    name = "contact", // link entity schema name

                    from = "contactid", // link entity key schema name

                    to = "primarycontactid", // parent link entity key schema name

                    Items = new object[] {

                        new attribute { name = "contactid" },

                        new attribute { name = "fullname" },

                        new order { attribute = "fullname", descending = false }

},

                new attribute { name = "accountid" }, // or new allattributes { }

                new attribute { name = "name" }

},

        new order { attribute = "name", descending = false }

};

Now that we have defined the query we need to create a string representation of it so that the crm web service can understand it. To do that we will use the XmlSerializer to serialize this fetch instance.

XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(fetch));

StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();

xs.Serialize(sw, f);

sw.Close();

string fetchXml = sw.ToString();

string result = sdk.Fetch(fetchXml);

Dynamics CRM 4 Visio Stencils

2008-12-10T04:38:00Z

We have decided to release the Visio Stencils we've been using for Dynamics CRM 4 projects, find out more about them here.

Sneak peak of the shapes you can use on Create/Update (eg: Popup windows)

Here is the Account screen duplicated with the stencil set. You'll notice subtle differences, but to the client it looks like the real thing.

Enjoy

CRM 4 Activity Direction Indicator (experimental)

2008-12-04T04:40:00Z

I've been trying to change the icons under History for each entity to show the direction of the email or phone call.

Using Fiddler I found out that areas.aspx was responsible for rendering the grid when you click on History, then when you click on the Refresh button or create a new Activity it automatically refreshes the grid, that call is made into the AppGridWebService.asmx which returns the formatted html of the grid.

Unfortunitely I'm not sure how I can hook into the .asmx and modify the returned html.

Leaving AppGridWebService.asmx aside for now, areas.aspx was easy to hook into, here is the result.

1st Phone call: an outbound call which is displaying the custom outbound phonecall image.
2nd; an inbound call, lastly the email is an outbound email with a custom icon.

To hook into areas.aspx create a new HttpModule then on BeginRequest

HttpApplication app = sender as HttpApplication;

// make sure we're hooking into the correct page

if (app.Request.AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath.ToLower().Contains("areas.aspx"))

    if (app.Request.QueryString["tabSet"] != null)

        // check we're hooking into the history page only

        if (app.Request.QueryString["tabSet"].ToLower().Equals("areaactivityhistory"))

            app.Response.Filter = new DirectionFilter(app.Response.Filter);

DirectionFilter will manage replacing of icons. Inherit from Stream and implement the various properties/methods, most important is the Write(...) method.

string html = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer, offset, count);

// find the activity type code

int index = html.IndexOf(ACTIVITY_TYPECODE);

while (index > 0)

    int typeCode = 0;

    if (int.TryParse(html.Substring(index + 7, 4), out typeCode))

        Guid activityId = new Guid(

            // look back 44 chrs, from 'otype=' (36=guid, } encoded=6, space and "=2 == 44)

        html.Substring(index - 44, 36));

        switch (typeCode)

            case 4210: // phone call

                html = Replace(sdk, html, index, activityId, "phonecall", "ico_16_4210_1.gif");

                break;

            case 4202:

                html = Replace(sdk, html, index, activityId, "email", "ico_16_4202_1.gif");

                break;

            default:

                break;

    index = html.IndexOf(ACTIVITY_TYPECODE, index + 1);

buffer = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(html);

_stream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

Constants
const string ACTIVITY_TYPECODE = "otype=\"";
const string ACTIVITY_IMAGE = "src=\"/_imgs/ico_16_";

Replace function
Activity image is couple of columns away from the "otype=" attribute
IsOutgoing is not important, it's just connecting to CRM and making a RetrieveRequest to find out the direction of the activity.

We'll leave html encoded, we could use HttpUtility.Decode to avoid having to use "ACTIVITY_IMAGE = "src=\"/_imgs/ico_16_""

private string Replace(CrmService sdk, string html, int currentIndex, Guid activityId, string entity, string outgoingImage)

    int imgIndex = html.IndexOf(ACTIVITY_IMAGE, currentIndex);

    if (imgIndex > -1)

        // connect to crm, check activity directioncode

        if (IsOutgoing(sdk, entity, activityId))

            // remove the existing image if its outgoing

            html = html.Remove(imgIndex, ACTIVITY_IMAGE.Length + 9); // ico_xxxx.gif" = 9 chars

            // replace with the newone

            html = html.Insert(imgIndex, string.Format("src=\"/_imgs/{0}\"", outgoingImage));

    return html;

Please note this is experimental, if you'd like the code so you can play around with it flick me an email. Looking forward to hearing comments on how we can get the Refresh icon to retain the changed icons.

CRM 4 Incremental Numbering for any Entity

2008-10-23T10:12:00Z

UPDATE 08/01/2009
- Project is now on CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/crmnumbering/)

MYOB can only take 8 characters and accountants don't like seeing cryptic Invoice Numbers that CRM generate, so we ended up writing a custom plugin that automatically incremented each invoice. Keeping extensibility in mind we made it work with any customizable entity. Here is how we did it.

We created a simple organization owned entity that held the type of entity you wanted to increment, the property/field you wanted to increment and the current/starting position.
The field to increment must be of type integer.

Next we wrote a plugin that hooked into the Pre-Create event synchronously, check the target, get the incremental settings for this entity, make sure the property specified is not in the property bag, increment the current number and update our custom entity with the newest number.

public void Execute(IPluginExecutionContext context)

    if (context.InputParameters.Properties.Contains("Target") &&

        context.InputParameters.Properties["Target"] is DynamicEntity)

        DynamicEntity entity = context.InputParameters.Properties["Target"] as DynamicEntity;

        // simple query to get incremental settings for this entity

        IncrementalNumbering setting = GetSettings(context, entity.Name);

        // system generated, if its assigned ignore this record

        if (setting != null && !entity.Properties.Contains(setting.PropertyName))

            int next = setting.CurrentPosition + 1;

            CrmNumberProperty increment = new CrmNumberProperty(setting.PropertyName, new CrmNumber(next));

            entity.Properties.Add(increment);

            // keep track of the latest id inside the custom entity

            setting.Increment(context, next);

GetSettings call above finds the matching setting, if it finds one it calls overloaded constructor below passing it the Dynamic Entity which then convert the CRM specific types into basic .NET types.

Here is the IncrementalNumbering class.

public class IncrementalNumbering

    public class Fields

        public const string Id = "mag_incrementalnumberingid";

        public const string EntityName = "mag_entity_schema_name";

        public const string PropertyName = "mag_property_schema_name";

        public const string CurrentPosition = "mag_currentposition";

    public IncrementalNumbering() { }

    public IncrementalNumbering(DynamicEntity entity)

        this.Id = (entity.Properties[Fields.Id] as Key).Value;

        this.EntityName = entity.Properties[Fields.EntityName].ToString();

        this.PropertyName = entity.Properties[Fields.PropertyName].ToString();

        this.CurrentPosition = (entity.Properties[Fields.CurrentPosition] as CrmNumber).Value;

    public void Increment(IPluginExecutionContext context, int next)

        using (ICrmService service = context.CreateCrmService(true))

            this.CurrentPosition = next; // set before calling ToDynamic

            TargetUpdateDynamic target = new TargetUpdateDynamic();

            target.Entity = this.ToDynamic();

            UpdateRequest request = new UpdateRequest();

            request.Target = target;

            service.Execute(request);

    // include rest of the fields, but leave it for now

    public DynamicEntity ToDynamic()

        DynamicEntity entity = new DynamicEntity(IncrementalNumbering.SchemaName);

        PropertyCollection properties = new PropertyCollection();

        properties.Add(new KeyProperty(Fields.Id, new Key(this.Id)));

        properties.Add(new CrmNumberProperty(Fields.CurrentPosition, new CrmNumber(this.CurrentPosition)));

        entity.Properties = properties;

        return entity;

}
}

Here is the result

Bit of a hack with converting between CRM and .NET types, keep an eye out for another post where I'll be showing you how to wrap CRM entities so that you're only working with .NET types. If you want the full sample including code; send me an email.

Enjoy!

CRM 4 Custom Workflow to Validate NZ Bank Account/IRD Number

2008-10-07T06:06:00Z

Recently we created a payroll solution which integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4, part of that was to validate the Bank Account and IRD Numbers.

Here's a screenshot of a sample workflow. You can download the code from here.

Solution contains a Util.cs class which you can use on your other projects to validate New Zealand Bank Account & IRD numbers as well as 3 workflow activities:

- BankAccountNumberValidator.cs
Validates the bank account number and returns true/false (IsValid property)

- CleanBankAccountNumber.cs
Given a bank account number it cleans and formats it to xx-xxxx-xxxxxxx-xxxx

- IRDNumberValidator.cs
Validates the ird number and returns true/false (IsValid property)

Enjoy, keep and eye out for more CRM goodies...

CRM 4 Custom Workflow Activity Editor Bug/Fix

2008-09-23T04:34:00Z

Description
Using the workflow editor, if you open up a custom workflow activity and being to edit a step, if that step contains a dynamic value (slug); it duplicates it. First time you add the dynamic value it works fine, after you save and close then reopen that step you'll see the dynamic value displayed twice.

eg:
before save and close: {SomeField(Entity)}
after save and close: {SomeField(Entity)}{SomeField(Entity)}

Reproduce
1. Create a custom workflow activity or compile and register one of the supplied workflows from CrmSdk 4.0*
2. Restart IIS
3. Create a new Workflow
4. Add a new workflow step (The custom activity you created/registered in step 1)
5. Assign a dynamic value to one of the properties
6. Save & Close
7. Reopen the step, you'll see the dynamic value/slug displayed twice

Fix
*Unsupported*
1. Go into the server, SFA\workflow\ folder
2. Open customactivityform.aspx in notepad
3. Find line 31 and 34, you'll see that the same call is duplicated twice, comment one of them out