Sampath's Blog

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional 2011

2011-04-02T03:43:00Z

I got the good news yesterday. So here we go for another year. Thank you Microsoft. It was been a wonderful journey so far.

Map integration with Microsoft CRM

2010-08-12T02:27:44Z

A common requirement to integrate maps in to Microsoft CRM to see the location of a CRM entity has been a very common requirement. Recently I had to do this for one of my customers so I thought why not share the code with all the CRM enthusiasts out there.

The procedure is very simple.

Create a application that uses the Google Maps API (I had to use Google because Bing maps was not for Cambodia)
Pass the parameter values to the map from CRM

There are plenty of resources and code samples on the net for this. But the best one I got from my friend Andriy. He is a Microsoft CRM MVP and one guy who is the best of what he do (that is CRM of course). You can download the full code from Andriy’s blog and I have added the compiled code that I used. To go to Andriy’s blog post click this link - http://a33ik.blogspot.com/2010/06/intergration-google-maps-v3-into.html

Ok so how do we do it,

Download the compiled map htm file and copy it in to the ISV folder in the CRM website
Add an frame in to CRM and name it map or what you like
Write the coding on the on-load event in the form.

crmForm.all.tab2Tab.onclick = function()
{

if (crmForm.all.new_project_cityid.DataValue[0].name != null
&& crmForm.all.new_projectstreet1.DataValue != null )
{
var oldurl = crmForm.all.new_project_cityid.DataValue[0].name + ","+ crmForm.all.new_projectstreet1.DataValue;
}

if (oldurl != "")
{
var url = "/ISV/gmap/mapintegration.html?address=" + oldurl;
crmForm.all.IFRAME_map.src = url;
}
}

Just to clarify, my tab number is 2. My Iframe name is IFRAME_Map. The challenge I found is that in Cambodia it really didn’t work when I use more than 2 values. So what I went for basically is the city and the street number. Example: Phnom Penh, St 271

Finally I added a little additional modification since Andriy’s original code use only text box but my customer wanted a lookup. So my city is in a lookup and the street is in a text box. All you have to do for that is use the following code to pass the data value

   1:  crmForm.all.new_project_cityid.DataValue[0].name

Great that’s all. You can easily see where your place in the map is now

A very special thanks to CRM Guru Andiry Butenko.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Granular Backup (Backup and Restore List Items)

2010-08-05T01:51:11Z

A commonly required feature with SharePoint was the ability to backup and restore list items. Even though this was not possible in SharePoint 2007 MS has added this functionality to SharePoint 2010. For you to do this you need to follow two simple steps.

First one backup the list item (can be done through power shell or central admin)
Import the list item to the place you want to restore using power shell.

Lets look at how we can do this in detail.

1. Go to SharePoint 2010 central admin – Click on Backup and Restore (click on the main link here)

2. Under Granular backup section click on Export Site or List

3, In Site collection select the correct site collection – Under the site select the site that contain the list you want to export – and on the list select your list you want to export

4. Click on Start Export. (Make sure your timer job is running and it will complete with success)

5. Now to import make sure you have the same site collection and site created on the server you want to import. Because our option is to import a list so if the sites are not present you will not be able to import. So make sure you create them first with the same name.

6. Got to Start – All programs – SharePoint 2010 products and open SharePoint 2010 management shell

7. The cmdlet we are going to use for this is import-spweb. so type the following command on the power shell

import-spweb

identity:name of your site collection

path:path of your backup containing the list

8. All will complete successfully and you can view the log file for verification

New Hotmail Upgrades

2010-08-04T11:41:09Z

Microsoft has done it. YES!! The all new hot and sexy hotmail. Sleek clean looks, Office web apps, tight integration with Sky Drive and much much more. You can directly create word documents on the web and save them on the Sky Drive. Open attachments just on the web browser. Man its all there. Well done Microsoft.

FAST Search for SharePoint 2010

2010-08-03T12:10:02Z

I finished setting up FAST Search 2010 for my office few weeks back. But I didn’t have time to share the excitement. Frankly telling FAST Search is a great extension for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Search. With FAST you have see previews of documents, relevance search and much more.

Clock and Weather web part for SharePoint 2010

2010-08-03T10:54:00Z

There is a cool web part for SharePoint 2010 which displays a clock and weather of a city of your selection. You can download this at http://www.virtosoftware.com/free-clock-weather-web-part-sharepoint.aspx

Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010 Official Launch in Cambodia @ Naga

2009-11-04T06:22:00Z

The new efficiency technology stack will be launched in Cambodia 21^st November form 9AM to 6PM at Nagaworld Resorts Phnom Penh. There will be lots of existing things happening including an IT exhibition.

All geeks are welcome

For more information or registration visit: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=142847

Agent communitcation pannel for Microsoft CRM 4

2009-05-19T06:57:00Z

Hi Guys,

Sorry for being away for some time. Was quite buzy with some work and didnt have much time to write. Anyways, Im back now!!

There was quite a lot discussions on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM agenet communication pannel or as we call is agent desktop. Even Micrososot has shown this in few of their brochures too but there was not much info on how it work. Thanks to CRM Guru in Sri Lanka - Amal Amaranayake now you can see it in action. Check out this post in his blog. Im sure you will love it.

http://crmlk.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F30F5B210AE41C3C!221.entry

Cheers!

Samapth

Thank You Microsoft

2009-04-02T01:32:00Z

I really would like to express my heart filled gratitude to Microsoft for awarding me with Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award.

Thank you Microsoft

Microsoft CRM 4 Dynamic Pick List Error: one or more of the option values for this picklist are not in the range of allowed values

2009-03-21T10:39:00Z

I recently encountered a problem while trying to add values to a pick list in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 on runtime. The problem is that once you try to save the entity which has the pick list for example in my case it was the opportunity it will give you the error : One or more of the option values for this picklist are on in the range of allowed values.

The reason for this is that, you will need to have the picklist as empty in the design with out any values. However by default MS CRM keeps an index value of 0 for any pick list. So when you click the save button on the form the, since the list values are dynamic the list will clear and pass a null value to the list making CRM popping up the above error.

Method to resolve, even though it took some time for me to realize what was going on the resolution for this is pretty simple. Just make sure that on the form save event you set the pick list value to the default index value which is 0.

The following code shows how. My pick list name here is new_subcategory and you can change that to your list name.

var sb = crmForm.all.new_subcatogeory;
sb.DataValue=0

Mobile express for Microsoft Dynamics 4.0

2009-03-13T20:51:00Z

Microsoft recently released beta of the long awaited Mobile Access setup for Microsoft CRM 4. You can download it from the following link.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=05453fa4-9551-4a88-9852-634a9ad0e140

This is actually pretty cool since you can basically access from any internet enabled device and there are no client component to install on your mobile. Also it comes with a web console for administration.

Check this out guys

Cheers!

Sampath

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update rollup 3

2009-03-13T20:47:00Z

Hi Guys,

Microsoft has released the update rollup 3 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4. You can download it from the following link.

https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=05453fa4-9551-4a88-9852-634a9ad0e140&displaylang=en

Cheers!

Sampath

Bulk Data Import in to Microsoft Dyanamics CRM 3

2009-03-07T16:54:00Z

I was trying some bulk uploads of data from csv files and found a nice application that can import data in to CRM. The following link contains a nice application that you can use to bulk upload data in to Microsoft CRM V3.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb291036.aspx

Cheers!

Sampath

Timeout error when uploading customization files more than 8mb in Microsoft CRM 3 and 4

2009-02-23T01:31:00Z

Actually if u tries to upload a customization file that is more than 8mb in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM v3 and even in v4 you will get a time out and u will not be able to successfully upload the file in order to import the customizations.

By modifying certain registry entries to you can rectify this error.

Step one – Setting the OLEDB time out in the registry –

1. Open the registry using regedit

2. Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM

3. Create a new DWORD value under MSCRM and rename that to OLEDBTimeout

4. Modify the value to 86400 in the value data box and then for the base option click Decimal

5. Then create another DWORD value called ExtendedTimeout and edit the value to be 1000000 then click ok.

Now it’s time to modify the web config file to reflect the timeout settings

Setup 2 – Edit the webconfig file

1. Open IIS and go to MS CRM Website.

2. Then select the webconfig file and open with Notepad and modify the line called

<httpRuntime executionTimeout="300" maxRequestLength="8192"/> Here u need to increase the value to reflect the size of your customization like in the screenshot

3. Save and close the webconfig file.

4. Restart IIS then re import the customization file.