Hosk Year 2014 in numbers

Whilst reflecting on another year, which has passed, I thought I would review my years in numbers, I appreciate numbers don’t tell you about quality but are merely a metric

Quality is difficult to define so they’re not any metrics on the quality of my CRM, content I have been creating, so I thought I would look at the facts, numbers, views and badges

Looking at the numbers below it seems I have had quite a busy year and I have learnt a lot about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and I have read and written lots of interesting blog posts.

Thanks for everyone who visited the blog, read my tweets or watched a youtube video.  a big thanks to anyone who left a comment, I love comments.#

Hosk Dynamic CRM Blog

I created 213 blog posts this year, which is roughly 4 per week.  In 2011 I published 455 blog posts!

I did a blog on the most view blog post

Hosk Blog Most Popular CRM Posts of the Year

Here is the list of top blog posts with the views on the right

1.  MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Certification – 7610 views

2.  CRM 2013 – Setting up Visual Studio with the Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM – 7478 views

3.  CRM 2013 – Step by Step Update Plugin Tutorial using the CRM 2013 Development Toolkit – 7021  views

4.  CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work – 4751 views

5.  CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Study information – 4362 views

6.  CRM 2013 – quick way to get the guid on a form – 4123 views

7.  CRM 2013 – MB2-703 – Customization and Configuration Certification Solution Test Questions – 3857 views

8.  CRM 2013 – Plugins – Simple update plugin – Redeploying, improving and updating – 3656 views

9.  CRM 2013 – Javascript to get id of current record – 2613 views

10.  CRM 2011/2013 – Javascript to get the object type code of an entity – 2532 views

11.  CRM 2013 – How to set up Field Level Security – 2555 views

12.  CRM 2013 – Workflow to set the current date and time – 2532 views

 

Total Blog Views

It was my best year yet and I almost made it to the half a million views.  It’s to be expected my views should have gone up because each year I will have published more blog posts (total 892 at the moment).

In 2013 I took a year off and only published 34

 

 

 

The top referring sites in 2014 were:

1. twitter.com
2. linkedin.com
3. community.dynamics.com
4. social.microsoft.com
5. stackoverflow.com

 

Microsoft Certificates

I only passed on Microsoft CRM certification this year

MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration

The main reason I only passed one because I spent ages creating material to help people study for the certification, which you can find clicking the link below

MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Certification

Microsoft Community Badges

At some point Microsoft created lots of different badges and then created levels.  I found I was level 7 and the gamer in me wanted to reach level 8, so I did.  Answering questions is a tricky process and anyone who has answered lots of them has my respect.

I made it onto some Leaderboards and yes, before you say it, I know they don’t really mean anything but I view it like being on an arcade machines top 10 list (before someone unplugs it and they reset all the points)

Suggested answers all time Leader Board

https://community.dynamics.com/leaderboards/5.aspx

Verified Answers All Time Leader Board

https://community.dynamics.com/leaderboards/8.aspx

I got my level 8 badge (you need 16000 points), the only real way to get this badge is to answer lots of CRM Forum questions

I answered a bunch of CRM Forum questions which was a great way to learn CRM 2013 and find the most common problems people were experiencing.

985 suggested answers

392 verified answers

This may be enough to get an MCC badge for Jul – Dec to go with the MCC badge I got from Jan 2014 to June 2014 but I’m not sure yet because I haven’t received an email and Microsoft haven’t updated anything.

19452 points (no one really knows how the points work but you get a bunch for having a verified answer)

Hosk Twitter

The number of followers has gone up but I’m not sure what it was last year the only stats I have were taken in March 2014

In March my twitter stats were

• 3,863 TWEETS
• 1,283 FOLLOWERS

Today

• 5569 Tweets
• 1644 followers

So I have tweeted probably about 2000 tweets and gained 400 followers in 2014

Hosk LinkedIn Blog

This was my first year with a LinkedIn Blog

I published 31 LinkedIn blog posts

https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/24927776

1453 followers

My top 3 viewed blog posts

What is the Microsoft CEO actually saying? 10486 views 95 likes

Annoying practices of bad recruitment consultants – 4640 views – 68 likes

Are people starting to like Microsoft again? 1922 views – 157 likes

Hosk YouTube Channel

I started a youtube channel I think in March.  It has some videos to help you get started with Plugin development and some videos to help pass the CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration exam

Hosk CRM Dev 

49 YouTube videos

40406 video views

271604 estimate minutes watched

188 likes

6 dislikes

20 shares

771 subscribers

 

Top
CRM 2013 – Create a simple plugin in CRM 2013 using the CRM Development Toolkit		7,622 (19%)	74,812 (28%)
CRM 2013 – Setting up Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM		4,981 (12%)	26,168 (9.6%)
CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work in CRM 2013		3,323 (8.2%)	39,571 (15%)
CRM 2013 — MB2 703 — Customization and Configuration Certification Solution Test Questions		2,566 (6.3%)	13,081 (4.8%)
CRM 2013 – MB2 703 – Business Units and Security Roles		1,734 (4.3%)	19,700 (7.3%)
MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Study information		1,358 (3.4%)	4,923 (1.8%)
CRM 2013 – JavaScript tutorial using CRM 2013 Developer Toolkit		1,317 (3.3%)	9,539 (3.5%)
CRM 2011/2013 Dialog’s and Custom Workflow example		1,250 (3.1%)	5,646 (2.1%)
Get Certified in MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration		1,247 (3.1%)	3,570 (1.3%)
CRM 2013 Plugin – Step by Step guide for a Post Account Create Plugin using the Developer Toolkit		1,143 (2.8%)	6,937 (2.6%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hosk’s Top CRM Articles of the Year 2014

Waking up early, isn’t a problem I have two young children (1 and 3) who are particularly effective alarm clocks. Getting the kids dressed, fed and packed off to nursery was a lot more difficult on the first day back, in fact everything seems to be difficult after you have had a week off over Christmas

I haven’t fully booted up in 2015 (when typing I have to stop myself adding the prefix of CRM every time I write 2015).

I did write this article on Linkedin this morning, which might interest you.

Predictions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM in 2015

Before I go on I would say congratulations to Guido Preite for being one of the new CRM MVP’s in 2015, check out his CRM MVP profile here.  He has written some great blog posts this year and has answered 100’s of CRM forum questions.

So instead of fully engaging my brain and creating brand new blog posts, I thought I would create a list of some of the best CRM articles and blog posts I read last year.

Some of the list has been taken from my article of the week recommendations earlier in the year (when I use to do a round up of the good CRM articles of the week).

Other blog posts on the list have been articles I have remembered.

The content of the articles probably focuses on CRM 2013 and please remember there are lots of blog posts I have missed out because I created the blog post in an ad-hoc manner. If there are any great articles please add them in the comments.

I will start with this list of of the top 25 CRM sites, a great list of CRM blogs to subscribe to.

http://www.dynamics101.com/2014/09/top-25-dynamics-crm-sites/

A nice article about using CRM evaluating if you should create a personal or system view

http://gonzaloruizcrm.blogspot.ca/2014/09/should-i-use-crm-personal-views-or.html

CRM MVP Jukka Niiranen

Jukka wrote some great articles on CRM this year, here are a few I enjoyed

A look at business process flows and processes in CRM 2013.  Business process flows are quite a departure from CRM 2011 and this article helps get your head round it.

Getting Your Head Around Dynamics CRM 2013 Processes – Part 1

Synchronization vs. Tracking: Understanding Activity Management Options in Dynamics CRM

 

Time Travel with Workflows: Accessing “Before” and “After” Values

10 Tips for Designing a Great User Experience in Dynamics CRM

It’s a very detailed article and goes into great depth explaining the various aspects of recurring workflows.

Dynamics CRM Reminder Workflows Done Right

Scott Durow

It’s not one article this week but four, an amazing Super hero Fiddler 2 tutorial from CRM MVP Scott Durow

• Part 1: X-Ray vision
• Part 2: Invisibility
• Part 3: Faster than a speeding bullet!
• Part 4: Ice Man

Another great blog post on monitoring

Monitor, Monitor, Monitor

I would encourage all CRM developers to read Scott’s blog and his CRM forum answers as I have learnt a great deal.

CRM MVP Leon Tribe

I found this article very interesting because I hadn’t used Azure and Leon’s walk through and review shows how easy it is to setup.

Are you Azure Curious

Microsoft changed the records created on a lead conversion

CRM 2013 and lead conversions

CRM MVP Adam Vero

Adam wrote this article in response to a blog post about access teams, where I wasn’t sure the real benefit of them.  Adam is a guru on all things security in CRM

a great article from CRM MVP Adam Vero on why you should use Access Teams. There have been quite a few blogs and a videos on how to use access teams and a quick introduction to access teams but this deep dive from Adam explains WHY you should use access teams.

http://blog.crmguru.co.uk/2014/05/16/why-use-access-teams-in-dynamics-crm-2013

Adam doesn’t write enough blog posts in my opinion but this is one from CRM 2013 but it’s excellent so I’m including it in the list.  It’s a long read, so get comfortable.

Security Roles and Teams in CRM 2011 – An Inconvenient Half-Truth

CRM MVP Guido

This article from Guido is great, it takes a question from the forum, an answer from CRM MVP Scott Durow, followed by some hard work by Guido to create the full solution, great work.

Check if a User has a specific Privilege

I will add another because I can, it’s from the snooze Berry, Dave Berry.  It was written when Dave use to blog (pre snooze), although I have been informed from the great Berry himself he is busying doing great things with TypeScript and CRM

Entity.GetAttributeValue<T> Explained

Other Authors

A good article on how to get the lookup dialog

http://inogic.com/blog/2014/09/how-to-get-lookup-dialog-in-crm-2013/

great article on the limitations of CRM Online

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 – Limitations of Dynamics CRM Online Vs On Premises

A great article on Actions, something I have been trying to get my head round. This article will give you a good idea of how you can use them

Four Important Concepts Needed to Understand about Actions in Dynamics CRM

An interesting use of the available tools to get the date and time

Retrieving Server Datetime using Javascript

This article compares functionality between CRM 2011 and CRM 2013, very useful for people just starting to use CRM 2013 or have to upgrade a CRM 2011.

Interesting comparison of functionality between CRM 2011 and CRM 2013

CRM MVP Andre Margono write a good post on using OData information source in Excel.

Enable Dynamics CRM oData Query Filter for PowerQuery Performance

This is my article of the week because it’s a very useful new piece of functionality that has slipped under the radar of the CRM 2013 SP1 release.  It’s new functionality that’s easy to implement.

Custom State Model Transitions in Spring Release for Dynamics CRM 2013

This article by Gareth Tucker who has written any blogs this year (come back Gareth we love you) is an excellent run through JavaScript notification and he also has some other good blogs on the new CRM 2013 features

CRM 2013 NEW FEATURES: JAVASCRIPT NOTIFICATIONS

This article is great, not only is the content good but also the presentation with GIF’s is really good.

Debugging Asynchronous JavaScript with Chrome DevTools