xRM Consultant

1. Navigate to your CRM instance on your app server.
2. Navigate to \CRMWeb\Tools\DuplicateDetection\ViewDuplicates\
3. Edit this file in Visual Studio or Notepad.
4. Add this line to the ShowPage() javascript member or any member that is called by onLoad(): document.getElementById("btn_id_Ok").disabled="true";
5. Save your change.

1. Create 2 x new fields on the contact entity (don't have to put them on the form) called “Old First Name” and “Old Last Name”
2. Wrote an OnDemand workflow that first of all, takes the values of the “First Name” and “Last Name” fields and populates them into the newly created fields above. The workflow will then clear the “First Name” and “Last Name” fields. This thus changes the full name to blank.
3. Ran an advanced find to show all inactive contact records.
4. Ran my workflow in step 2.
5. Carried out my import (successfully as my newly imported records only resolved to active contacts)
6. Wrote another workflow that takes the values of the “Old First Name” and “Old Last Name” fields and populates them into the “First Name” and “Last Name” fields. The workflow will then clear the “Old First Name” and “Old Last Name” fields. This thus changes the full name back to what it should be.
7. Ran an advanced find to show all inactive contact records (again)
8. Ran my step 6 workflow.

• If like me, you aren't bothered about changing the names of the deactivated contacts back from Blank you can stop at step 5
• If you wish to go through this process but only with a relevant sub-set of deactivated records you can obviously define this in the Advanced Finds (steps 3 & 7)

The Problems

The Best Practice (Well…according to me anyway)

1. Create a Deployment for your Client on your development environment
2. Develop in the “Default Solution”.
3. When ready to deploy on your client server, you have 2 choices:
• Export The Default Solution – If this is exported as managed, then when imported it will show as “Default Solution” in the clients list of installed solutions. If it is exported as unmanaged, it will overwrite the existing default solution and as such, wont appear in the clients list of solutions.
• Create A New Solution & Add The Relevant Components – When exported either as managed or unmanaged, it will show in the solution list.
4. For small changes you also have 2 choices:
• Create  A Single Solution File With Relevant Components – Create a solution file with a relevant name (i.e. ClientName Updates 2011) and add the relevant components. Every time the client wants changes made, create a solution with the same name but different version number on your Dev environment and when importing as a managed solution, it will update the existing solution. You can of course always do this with your solution file created in step 3 with the same results.
• Create Multiple Solution Files For Each Change Batch – Create a solution with a unique name and install on your clients environment.
5. For major changes, i would go through step 3 again.
6. When working with other managed plugins, always uninstall them from your Dev environment before exporting your solution.

Duration:

Date & Time

Only OnUpdate…

Hey Guys,

I am currently developing a CRM system in 2011 for one of our biggest clients. One of the requirements is to create editable lists which i have decided is best handled by creating holding entities for this information. For example, creating an entity to hold marketing sources allows easier reporting across selected sources and allows the marketing team to manage the list (adding new ones and deactivating unused ones). The problem with this is that to add a value to this it involves opening a whole CRM form which isn't the best. So, for these entities I don't display the left-navigation options and i wanted to minimize the Ribbon.

However, this wasn't as easy as it sounds…

First of all, having scoured the SDK i could see plenty of examples of how to add or hide BUTTONS on the ribbon and even (via other blogs) remove the ribbon itself, but nothing that would minimize the ribbon allowing it to be expanded if needed.

So after a conversation with the very helpful xRM Mike and reading another post by the excellent Rhett Clinton I used the following:

window.top.document.getElementById("minimizeribbon").fireEvent("onclick");

However, still didn't work…..

Reason being, that the Ribbon seems to be one of the last things to Load in the form, loading after the OnLoad events have fired. So, i needed to add a timeout to wait before firing the script and it worked a treat! Final code ended up as:

function toggleRibbonbar()
{
var t=setTimeout("toggleRibbon()",0);
}
function toggleRibbon()
{
window.top.document.getElementById("minimizeribbon").fireEvent("onclick");
}

Which gave the following results:

A big thanks to Rhett, Mike and as always the other CRM Legend that is Rob P

Ta

xRM Consultant