Introduction: Sometime it requires us to update only certain records which satisfies condition. so how to update those records all at once. Description: We had a requirement where we wanted to change the status of all the record of lead which are in New status. We need to follow below steps to achieve this. Make sure that your search field is added on Quick find view of that entity, otherwise you will not find the record in quick find view. in our case it is lead entity. Added the column status. Save and publish your customization after adding the column. Let’s go the home page of lead entity and search by putting criteria “new”, it will list down all the records which matches the condition. Now you have all the records that matches the condition of new means these records are newly created. Now click and edit in online excel as shown. Now you can edit any column listed. In our case I have changed the status from new to approved of two records, as it shows it is processing two records as shown. Record is updated/ failed in system you can see it as shown below. You can open and see the changes in that records. Hope this helps you while doing bulk update for the records based on condition.

Introduction: One of regular CRM user suddenly start getting error “The use does not have read permission to a secure field. The requested operation could not be completed”. As it clearly visible that the error is coming due to the security issue. But after checking the permission we did not find any issue in the security role. Since it was working earlier it was not known why it is not working now. But someone has imported a modified solution in production instance. Then, we checked and found that a new field security profiles were created, since this particular user was not the member of list, so he was not able to read the record. You need to make sure that you have added user/users into this list whom you want to read/create/update a particular field. Once you have added the user you will able to read/update/create the value of a particular field. Hope this helps you to resolve the security profile issue.

Problem Statement: In CRM, most organizations generally import products from other Source through Excel or other data import means. In general, we do not want to publish the product as soon as they are created because we need to set the price list and units before they are available anywhere in CRM. If there are many products, CRM does not allow to publish all the products at once. It becomes very painful to publish each and every product. This is unimaginable if the count is in thousands and more. See screenshot below which suggests I cannot see the Publish option if I select more than 2 products in the view: Solution: The best way to tackle this is: Create a Default Product Family (Dummy product family). Add all the products in the Dummy product Family. You can do this while importing products as well by setting the parent product as the Default Product Family. In case you already have a family and hierarchy, you can still follow this approach by setting the parent of root family as the Default Product Family. E.g. If you have products as the following defined hierarchy: Product Family A A1 A2  A3 A31 A32 Product Family B B1 B2 … In this case, you can set the parent of “Product Family A” as Default Product Family Once this is done, you can now import all the products, set up pricing and units as required. This is how your Hierarchy will look like in CRM: When all the products are ready, go to the Default Product Family A On the ribbon, Select Publish –> Publish Hierarchy This will publish all the products in the hierarchy. Since all your products are in the hierarchy of the “Default Product Family”, all the products will be published saving A LOT of Time. TAKE THAT CRM … You CANNOT SLOW US DOWN!!

Introduction: Best way to load data into CRM is excel/CSV.  But some time it happens that few records may not be imported into CRM. One of the error more frequently occurs is “a duplicate lookup reference was found”. Description: If you are importing data using CSV, you will find that this is simplest way of importing data into the CRM. But there are chances that while importing data you may receive error. One of them is “a duplicate lookup reference was found” looking at the error it says that you have more than 1 records with the same name while setting the look up. But if you will try to look for the duplicate record you would not be able to find record. As you can see in the below screen shot. It has two fields with the same display name, so if you will try to import the records in the CRM.  You will encounter the listed error. To resolve reported error, you need make sure that you have unique display name. Hope this blog helps you to import the records while importing the records.

Introduction: In this blog, we shall see how a user can install the ‘LinkedIn Sales Navigator’ on their MS D365 CRM online environment. Pre-Requisites: D365 CRM Online Environment MSDynamics 2016 and 365 Widget Rar File. Procedure: The following are the steps to Install the LinkedIn widget to Microsoft CRM D365 Step1: The user will have to download the zip folder from the following LinkedIn website link. Do not unzip the folder as we need to import the solution as it is to the D365 CRM Environment. For downloading the zip folder use the following link and save the zip folder to a particular folder. https://www.linkedin.com/help/sales-navigator/answer/78963 Click on the zip folder download link as shown in the above image. Step 2: Now the user will have to go D365 CRM and on the ribbon, go to Settings> Solutions as shown below On the solution page select ‘Import’ option Browse for the solution file that we had previously downloaded and click on ‘Open’ then ‘Next’ In the next window the user will get the information of the solution. The user can view the information by clicking on the ‘View solution package details’. Click on Next to proceed ahead. Note: User will have to check the ‘Enable any SDK message processing steps included in the solution’ if it is unchecked and click on the Import option A dialog box will pop up showing progress of the import. Once the importing has finished click ‘Next’. A summary window will display all the imported components, indicating the solution import. Step 3: The last step of the installation process is to assign all users a ‘LinkedIn Configuration’ security role to give them access to the integration. In the All Areas drop down, navigate to Settings > Security and click on Users. Select all the required users to whom you want to provide the LinkedIn widget access and click on ‘Manage Roles’ at the top. A dialog box will pop up as shown below and check ‘LinkedIn Configuration’ and click OK. The user has finished importing and configuring the LinkedIn for Microsoft Dynamics CRM online solution. Conclusion: Thus, we have seen how can a user successfully configure the ‘LinkedIn Sales Navigator’ widget for MS D365 CRM Online Environment.

Overview Spring 2017 update to Dynamics 365 is coming up in July 2017. And there are exciting new additions and improvements coming to Dynamics 365 For Sales. Here are the highlights on what’s up next – LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Improve performance of their sales processes from LinkedIn Company and Sales profiles Display Navigator person and company information on Lead, Account, Contact and Opportunity pages. Automatic daily updates between the two systems. Write select Sales Navigator activities (InMails, messages, notes and call logs) to D365 For Sales. D365 Connector for LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms (only if you use Lead Gen Forms for LinkedIn): Bring LinkedIn Leads to D365 Online using this connector. Automatically captures and syncs leads to further nurture them. Support for multiple LinkedIn member accounts. Configure how Leads will be captured. Analyze Lead performance. Prospect to Cash Integration: Connect D365 For Sales and D365 For Operations using Common Data Service. Maintain Accounts in Sales and sync to Operations as Customers. Sync Contacts Sync Products from D365 for Operations and sync them to Sales. Create Quotes in D365 for Sales and sync them to Operations. Generate Sales Orders in Sales for existing Productions and sync them to Operations. Generate Invoice in Operations and sync them to Sales. Relationship Analytics: Relationship health Most Contacted Relationship KPIs Dynamics 365 Administrator Role in Office 365: Assign D365 Admin role at a tenant level. Can manage instances and admin functions, access D365 application if they are licensed. Bulk Data Loader:  New cloud based service for bulk import/export to cloud staging tables and perform light data-quality functions. Then push back to Dynamics 365. Will be accessed from a link in Admin Center and will redirect of LCS. Cortana Integration: Surface relevant Activities, Accounts and Opportunities to Salespeople. Customer backup and restore (online only): Customer backup and restore on Azure servers securely. Database Level Encryption with Customer Managed Keys: Ability for customers to generate their own keys and upload it to Azure Key Vault. Also revoke access on demand in a self-service manner. Portal Features Ability to Include attachments on knowledge articles so that they can be displayed on the Portal. Improved Admin Wizard on Portal to add an entity to the Portal. When data is updated in the entity, it will be automatically available to Portal users who have access to these data. Source Code for Portals will be available on the Microsoft Download Center under MIT license for developers to download. This will let Portals be deployed for D365 Online as well as on-premise environments. Support Azure Ad-B2C for Portal authentication using a single sign-on configuration Configure portal authentication for SSO. Manage Portal security in Azure. Support Timezone independent date formats in Portal forms. This means that  

Introduction: While customizing or adding a button to ribbon there are chances that you want to add same behaviour as of an existing button. But it is not known how to check what logic has been applied to that button. Description: If you want a custom button to have same behavior as that of system button, then how to achieve this. This can be achieved by using the workbench Ribbon customization tool. Let’s see how to do that. Open Ribbon Workbench and select the solution which you want to customize. Here I want my custom button to have same behaviors as of the Qualify lead Right click on the Qualify button and select customize command. As soon as click on the customize button you will able to see all the customization that are applied on that button as show below. Now you can add all the display and enable rule to your command as shown below. Similarly, you can add display rule as show below. Now you have same customization as that of the lead button.  

Introduction: The tablet app for Dynamics CRM have limits that allows only number of fields, tab and grid that can be view on form. The current limitation are as below, 75 fields 10 Grids 5 Tabs Description: This limitation is put to increase the performance of CRM while using on phone or tables but what If you are using CRM online and you have more than 75 fields on the form than you will not be able to see the fields which falls after that on tablets. Similarly, if you have more than 5 tabs than you will able see only first 5 tab in the tablets. Solution: CRM includes organization settings that can increase these limits. These changes cannot be done directly. You can change these settings using the OrgDBOrgSettings tool, available with any update rollup download. You can download the tool from given link: https://orgdborgsettings.codeplex.com/ You need to import the managed solution into the CRM and Once the import is successful you will able to see the solution. Open the solution and you will able to see the organization setting cannot be changes directly We will change the setting for the for the tablet setting as shown below You can change the setting as below Max fields =500 Max grids=50 Tabs=50 Hope this helps, while designing tablets forms  

Introduction: We have various methods to query CRM like, “query expression”, “fetch expression” and “LINQ”. If we want to query data of two different entities, then we should have relationship between entities otherwise you will not get data. In case you want to process data of two different entities which are not related to each other then what to do. We can achieve this using fetch Expression in with the common field data type. Description: We had a requirement where we wanted to get the data from two different entities which were not related to each other but both of them had common field Email Address. So we can query the CRM using Fetch expression by providing from field and to field which will connect to each other. Solution: To demonstrate this how it works I have tested it with account and contact entities as an example. We are testing it with “email address”. To execute this query XRM tool box is used. You can download it from given link http://www.xrmtoolbox.com/ Account: Contact: Query: <fetch version=”1.0″ output-format=”xml-platform” mapping=”logical” distinct=”true” >     <entity name=”contact” >         <attribute name=”fullname” />         <attribute name=”emailaddress1″ />         <order attribute=”fullname” descending=”false” />         <link-entity name=”account” from=”emailaddress1″ to=”emailaddress1″ alias=”Account” >             <attribute name=”emailaddress1″ />             <attribute name=”name” />         </link-entity>     </entity> </fetch> As you can see that we have linked contact and account on the basis of emailaddress1. Once you execute the query you will have all the records which are related to each other with same email id As you can see there are more records matching with same email id on account and contact. So it returns all the records with the matching email id. Conclusion: You can query CRM data of two different entities using the same data type fields.

Overview: The purpose of this article is to help fellow entrepreneurs and sales managers leverage technology for effectively managing their sales pipeline with a few easy steps. As an entrepreneur, one of the most difficult aspects of my work is generating sales and building a healthy sales pipeline. On June 1st 2017, CloudFronts will complete 5 years and looking at all the systems we have in place, I feel we have adequate sophistication in our Operations and Administration processes. On the other hand, I feel our Sales processes are still not mature and need to evolve. This and future articles will focus on how we can leverage Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales for managing sales. This is something we use today and so I feel it should help others. “I know I need to keep track of my sales pipeline, but I am just so busy.” Step 1 – Data Entry We are always so busy and entering data into CRM can be such a pain! Just quickly sending out that email makes sense when you have just a few opportunities to manage. Eventually this method fails as our memory can only hold so much information. So, you will need to enter data in your CRM! While the term, ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies to data, this is apt for a sales person – “No data entry = lost opportunities”. So, take a few seconds (now is the best time) and enter that Customer, Contact and Opportunity data into CRM! You already paid for the licenses, might as well use it! Step 2 – Managing your pipeline by keeping your ‘Est. Close Date’ up-to-date. Once I enter my Opportunity for the first time, I just really want to update the Est. Close Date and sometimes the Est. Revenue. I really do not want to open the Opportunity every time. I could have used Editable Grids for this but I also wanted to add some ‘intelligence’ here which I could use later for analysis. I wanted to capture some notes on why I changed the Est. Close Date and put these notes in the Notes section with a predefined title (like – ‘Est. Close Date Change Reason’). I worked with our CRM team to setup a simple workflow dialog. This is how I manage my Opportunities now – 1. My Open Opportunities View> Select my Opportunity and then run my Dialog. The dialog is simple and really has only 2 input options, Est. Close Date and Reason – The reason becomes a note record on my opportunity. The above process works well for me for my Pipeline Management. My opportunity view is sorted by Est. Close Date, so this further ensures I do not have any past due opportunities. Step 3 – Just do it. No, we don’t need to really buy a pair of running shoes, but we need to do the above 2 steps diligently and every day. The benefits of this exercise will become obvious very soon and you will be running faster than before towards better close rates as things stop falling through the cracks (of our brain). Remember – ‘Sales cures all.’ Let’s take care of that sales pipeline! You can always email me at AShah@CloudFronts.com to discuss your sales processes and technology adoption. In the coming articles, I will talk about how Sales Pipeline Management ties into business decision making – from Resource Allocation to Recruitment.