Month: January 2017

Hosk’s Top Dynamics 365 Articles of the week – 27th January

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Quotes

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. John Ruskin

#HoskWisdom Favoutes this week

  • The only limitation to what you can develop is the person developing it #HoskWisdom
  • The end always triggers a beginning #HoskWisdom
  • The pressure to make things complex will be great but you must keep it as simple as possible #HoskWisdom
  • Don’t waste words, make every one count #HoskWisdom
  • Don’t blame other people for your failures #HoskWisdom
  • Constantly talking about doing something is a barrier to doing something #HoskWisdom
  • It’s not just what you say but how you say it #HoskWisdom
  • if you tried your hardest you have nothing to regret #HoskWisdom
  • If something has no value, stop measuring it #HoskWisdom
  • Contributing to a successful team is better than achieving personal goals #HoskWisdom
  • Don’t over think and under act #HoskWisdom
  • The difficulty working with cowboy coders is dealing with the all shit that comes from their code and horses #HoskCodeWisdom
  • Increasing people on a project increases complexity of working, colloborating and communicating #HoskWisdom
  • When I see someone crying when their football team has lost, I want to tell them they need to take football more seriously #HoskWisdom
  • Respect silence, its thinking time #HoskWisdom
  • You cant solve all of life’s problems in a day but you can start with one of your own #HoskWisdom

Want more #HoskWisdom then follow #HoskWisdom or follow @BenHosk

Articles of the week

awesome-1

Using Portal Capabilities in Dynamics 365 (CRM)

Good run through portal capabilities, a detailed step by step guide

Best of the rest

The difficulties of scaled agile projects

Dynamics 365 SDK refreshed (11 January 2017)

10 Types of Dynamics 365 Project for IT Decision Makers

Getting around Delegated Admin Restrictions

Read Barcode Value Using Barcode Scanner Control in Dynamics 365

Step by Step Guide to Setting up your Dynamics 365 Portal Trial

Working with JSON objects in Dynamics CRM Plugins

Smart Buttons in the Ribbon Workbench

ALM for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: CRM Solution Lifecycle Management

Everyday is a school day, yomi fields are for phonetic spelling

Programming/Scrum

5 Steps To Better Agile Retrospectives

Trello board on better retrospectives

It’s Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings

CannotMeasureProductivity

Other

Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule

Leadership That Gets Results

Servant leadership – the leadership theory of robert K. greenleaf

Effective Leadership Styles for Scrum Masters

Five books every ScrumMaster should read

Béla Guttmann: the mastermind who was more than just a curse

Stephen Hawking’s Productive Laziness

To Everyone Who Asks For ‘Just A Little’ Of Your Time: Here’s What It Costs To Say Yes

everything Ryan Holiday wrote in 2016

how to improve success rates in NFL drafts

David Foster Wallace: The String Theory

Great course for Scrum masters

How to build a great team and culture

The Hosk – currently reading

The Hosk – just finished reading

Hosk’s CRM Developer Articles

A collection of my favourite CRM Developer articles I have written

CRM 2016 – Tips on passing the MB2-712 customization and config exam

All the CRM 2013 content to help you pass the exam

#HoskCodeWisdom

When you are going through project hell, don’t stop to create the nice to have features #HoskCodeWisdom
Quick fixes are never quick and usually add technical debt, so take longer and do it properly #HoskCodeWisdom
If not managed properly, adding more people to a project can slow it down instead of speeding it up #HoskCodeWisdom
Don’t waste time adding functionality the user might like but hasn’t asked for #HoskCodeWisdom
Never optimize code unless you have to #HoskCodeWisdom
Scrum master should never have answers they should ask the team for answers #HoskCodeWisdom
Writing code is simple but writing simple code is the hardest thing you can code #HoskCodeWisdom
You need to love code with your heart and write code with your head if you want to be good programmer #HoskCodeWisdom
Creating bugs bothers good developers #HoskCodeWisdom
If you don’t find writing code fun, you will never be good developer #HoskCodeWisdom
If you don’t control technical debt, it controls you and the horse you rode in on #HoskCodeWisdom
You cannot be the master coding because some days the code wins and you lose #HoskCodeWisdom
When programmers think they are good, code will find a way for you to waste a whole day on something which doesn’t work #HoskCodeWisdom

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The difficulties of scaled agile projects

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There are many projects which are Agile in name but chaos in reality #HoskWisdom

The Agile framework is like a person with a hammer, all problems look like nails and all projects look like Agile projects #HoskWisdom

 

Agile/Scrum used on large/enterprise projects with multiple Scrum teams, scaled Agile increases the complexity of a project and if not managed, adding more people can slow projects because there is a cost to adding more people to a project and increasing complexity.

Many agile project require an increase in velocity to meet an earlier completion date, the common method is to add more people to the project.

These Brooks quotes, author of the Mythical man month are apt
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Fred Brooks
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned. Fred Brooks

Adding more resources (usually developers) to a project would seem sensible.  If one team have a velocity of 25 story points Sprint (Story points gets internally translated to days by 91 percent of the population #HoskWisdom).  So if there are 4 teams a velocity of 100 story points per sprint.

The reality is teams and individuals don’t start delivering 100 percent instantly because there are other factors to consider.

Increasing people on a project increases complexity of working, collaborating and communicating #HoskWisdom

These other factors have been explained by Brooks Law

Brooks Law

 Brooks points to the main factors that explain why it works this way:
  1. It takes some time for the people added to a project to become productive. Brooks calls this the “ramp up” time. Software projects are complex engineering endeavors, and new workers on the project must first become educated about the work that has preceded them; this education requires diverting resources already working on the project, temporarily diminishing their productivity while the new workers are not yet contributing meaningfully. Each new worker also needs to integrate with a team composed of several engineers who must educate the new worker in their area of expertise in the code base, day by day. In addition to reducing the contribution of experienced workers (because of the need to train), new workers may even make negative contributions, for example, if they introduce bugs that move the project further from completion.
  2. Communication overheads increase as the number of people increases. Due to combinatorial explosion, the number of different communication channels increases rapidly with the number of people.[3]Everyone working on the same task needs to keep in sync, so as more people are added they spend more time trying to find out what everyone else is doing.
  3. Limited divisibility of tasks. Adding more people to a highly divisible task such as reaping a field by hand decreases the overall task duration (up to the point where additional workers get in each other’s way). Some tasks are less divisible; Brooks points out that while it takes one woman nine months to make one baby, “nine women can’t make a baby in one month”.
The problems associated with adding new teams is ramping up, individuals need to learn/understand
  • Business logic
  • Project processes
  • Best resources for situations
  • Project politics
  • Collaborate with others

A scrum team takes 2 sprints to get up to  speed, usually 50% efficiency for sprint 1 and 60/70% in Sprint 2.  When you add the added overhead of trying to collaborate with other teams this can slow new teams further and slow existing teams.  

Deadlines are the common cause of adding more people to a project which adds more pressure to the project and the newly arriving people.

A big overhead is integrating the work from multiple teams into one solution, even with continuous integration there will be problems when bringing solutions together

 

Sutherland one of the creators of Scrum mentions scaling in this article

InfoQ: Now that more and more larger organizations are using Scrum, the need for scaling increases. Can you give some suggestions how organizations can scale Scrum?

Sutherland: Scrum is designed to grow like a biological system. To create a baby, you need one good cell that replicates. If this cell is bad you have a lot of problems. So the challenge is to first get a single team successful to use as a model for other teams, then replicate it. As you grow, Scrum as large follows the same basic principles as Scrum in the small. If it doesn’t you have introduced waste into the system. You will build out organ systems, just as in the human body that have some specialization and need some training on how to handle cross team coordination, elevating impediments all the way to senior management, avoiding the introduction of unnecessary teams that can compromise performance, and scrumming the entire organization.

We have published several papers showing that a properly scaled Scrum can provide linear increases in global velocity, something never seen before in software development. However, you need to do Scrum really well to make this happen.

Hosk thoughts on scaling agile projects

The first rule of large agile projects is not to do large agile projects #HoskWisdom

Large Agile or Scrum projects are difficult but this doesn’t mean Agile/Scrum are not right for large projects because large projects are difficult and have similar problems no matter the framework or methodology used.

Agile projects have an extra dimension because quick decisions are needed from empowered product owners to give Scrum direction and feedback

Having multiple teams adds the need for more communication and collaboration and managing dependencies between teams.

There are lots of different scaled agile frameworks, many of them discussed in article below

Comparing scaling agile frameworks

Most of the frameworks try to solve problems with shared resources between teams and collaboration between teams (Scrum of Scrums meeting).

If you want existing teams working efficiently, you must remove project level impediments before adding new teams.  When a team works well then try adding one more team at a time.

There are other reasons for project troubles

Is Safe Evil

Conclusion

Big projects are difficult, hard and challenging and having people with experience of large projects helps.  There is pressure with big agile projects because sprinting and collaborating create conflicts and complexity.

Stick with the processes and aim to keep improving your processes and relationships.  Challenging projects are the most satisfying to deliver because you have to work hard and earn the achievement of a successfully delivered project.

A few last great quotes from Fred Brooks on why projects are delivered late
Fifth, when schedule slippage is recognized, the natural (and traditional) response is to add manpower. Like dousing a fire with gasoline, this makes matters worse, much worse. More fire requires more gasoline, and thus begins a regenerative cycle which ends in disaster. [page 14]

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time. Fred Brooks

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Hosk’s Top Dynamics 365 Articles of the week – 13th January

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Quotes

Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome. Zig Ziglar

#HoskWisdom Favoutes this week

  • If recruiters want to be treated with respect, they need to treat people with respect #HoskWisdom

Want more #HoskWisdom then follow #HoskWisdom or follow @BenHosk

Articles of the week

awesome-1

CRM Development hacks

great article with some great link to show all fields, enable all fields, get record guid and links to other pages such as advanced find/solutions.

Azure functions are a useful tool to learn about, to help move long running processes out from Dynamics 365

Best of the week

CRM for Dynamics 365 Top 10 New Features

Dynamics 365 – What does Include entity metadata do

Top 10 Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 Tips from 2016

Dynamics 365 – Editable Grids

Hosk’s favourite Hosk Dynamic blog posts of 2016

Dynamics 365 – Editable Grids JavaScript Example

How to show signature accepted using Pen Control in Reports & HTML web resources – Dynamics CRM/365

The Top 10 Hosk Dynamics CRM blog posts for 2016

Learning Path authoring now available in Dynamics 365 (online)!

Business Rules – Dynamics 365

Will Dynamics 365 redesign Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online? 

XrmToolBox : Marketing List Manager Plugin

worth a read to refresh me about outer join functionality added to CRM

Replicate Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) data to Microsoft Azure SQL Database

What’s new for developers: Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 App for Field Service – A Walkthrough Tour

 Email Engagement in Dynamics 365 (CRM)

Dynamics 365 – You can’t add new forms to the appointment entity

Executing Dynamics 365 workflows from Microsoft Flow

CRM 2016 – ActivityParty and ActivityParty Lists

WHAT’S NEW IN THE DYNAMICS 365 DEVELOPER TOOLKIT

CRM 2016 – Tips on passing the MB2-712 customization and config exam

Programming

Write a Live Code Analyzer for Your API

Why “Agile” and especially Scrum are terrible

3 Strengths That Make Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Stock A Buy Now

What are story points

too cool for school – lego kanban board

Other

 The Outrageous Cost of Skipping TDD & Code Reviews

 10 ways to better lead your agile team

Former Navy SEAL commanders explain why they still wake up at 4:30 a.m. — and why you should, too

Managing Your Boss

32 Little Rules I Follow To Live A Life That Feels Good Every Day

4 WAYS TO PUSH THROUGH ADVERSITY AND FAILURE WITHOUT EGO

The Hosk currently reading

The Hosk – just finished reading

Hosk’s CRM Developer Articles

A collection of my favourite CRM Developer articles I have written

CRM 2016 – Tips on passing the MB2-712 customization and config exam

All the CRM 2013 content to help you pass the exam

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Hosk’s favourite Hosk Dynamic blog posts of 2016

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Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Francis of Assisi

You are always a student of Microsoft Dynamics 365 never it’s master #HoskWisdom

The minute you stop learning new Microsoft Dynamics 365 functionality, you are falling behind #HoskWisdom

I only published 63 blog posts, compared to 148 in 2015 and 220 in 2014, 455 in 2011!   Numbers don’t mean anything because it’s the quality of the content not the amount which is important.

Most of the popular blog posts were written in earlier years, this could be because these blog posts are linked to more blogs, the blog posts are better or more developers are not using the latest version of Dynamics CRM/365.  Below is a link to the most popular blog posts in 2016

The Top 10 Hosk Dynamics CRM blog posts for 2016

I thought I would share the most useful blog posts I wrote last year

  1. How to evaluate job offers for Microsoft Dynamics CRM roles 
  2. CRM 2016 – The importance of keeping the same guids between CRM instances 
  3. CRM 2016 – What’s the best way to organise solutions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 
  4. CRM 2016 – Tips on passing the MB2-712 customization and config exam 
  5. CRM 2016 – Failed to generate excel
  6. Will Dynamics 365 redesign Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online? 
  7. In Praise of the Incomplete Dynamics 365 consultant 
  8. CRM 2016 – ActivityParty and ActivityParty Lists 
  9. What is the purpose of a CRM Practice 
  10. Extreme ownership – taking ownership for what you do 
  11. Study tips for the Scrum Certification 
  12. Looking at the ideas behind SCRUM
  13. Microsoft buys LinkedIn – What you need to know

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The Top 10 Hosk Dynamics CRM blog posts for 2016

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Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results. Willie Nelson

The company that needs Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and hasn’t bought it, is already paying for it #HoskWisdom

I have written Dynamics CRM blogs for 6 years and this year I got the most views in a year 673873,  beating last years numbers 661057.  Thanks to all the people who read my blog posts and support the Hosk Dynamics CRM blog post.

I have written blog posts so long the default category is CRM 2011!

A lot of people have told me this year how the Hosk Dynamics CRM blog post has helped them which is great.

Here is a list of the most viewed blog post in 2016 (I am always tempted to write CRM 2016, that will now stop with Dynamics 365).  The views don’t include articles viewed on other sites.

Home page / Archives 48326
CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work 13408
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Interview Questions 12904
CRM 2013 – Step by Step Update Plugin Tutorial using the CRM 2013 Development Toolkit 11382
What are the limitations of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and how do you work with them? 10162
CRM 2015/CRM2013 – JavaScipt to get the current users name 9753
CRM 2013 – Javascript to get id of current record 7370
CRM 2015 – how to find Statecode value 7141
MB2-703 – CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Certification Information 7131
CRM Plugins – Stopping infinite loops and understanding PluginExecutionContext.Depth 7005
Where is the CRM Developer toolkit for CRM 2015? 7004

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Dynamics 365 – You can’t add new forms to the appointment entity

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I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. Jimmy Dean

Thinking is difficult, which is why most people avoid it #HoskWisdom

Just when you think you understand Dynamics 365 it bamboozles you making you think your browsers broken.  I was trying to add a form to the Appointment entity, only to find the new form button was missing.

I tried it in different browsers but the create form button on appointment was refusing to appear.  I asked another developer to add a new appointment form but the button was missing for them too.

Here is custom form with the create form button

no-create-form-1

Here is the Appointment entity and there is no create form button

no-create-form

Why?

As always we start with the CRM SDK but I couldn’t really find anything but I did find this tip of the day instead

Tip #561: Custom Activity Forms

It has this interesting information and opinion

There is no New button or Save As button that is available on the following activities:

  • Social Activity
  • Appointment
  • Recurring Appointment

This is mostly likely is due to the binding of the information on the form fields to the Outlook client for Appointments and to Microsoft Social Engagement for the Social Activity. Custom versions of the form would likely endanger the integrity of the sync.

 

This forum post discusses

Why can’t I create new forms for the Appointment activity?

I wasn’t sure the reason for not being able to add appointment forms but Outlook integration would seem the most logical.

I was thinking the problem could have been the old forms which Microsoft haven’t updated yet, discussed in this blog post

CRM 2016 – Why can’t I add a business rule to the Article entity

 

What can you do?

You can update the existing appointment form and this is a valid option but you should consider if you need to use the default appointment form and if a heavily customized appointment form will cause problems and maintenance overhead.

You could use business rules and Javascript to show/hide sections or fields on the appointment form.  Be careful with Outlook integration because new fields won’t appear on the Outlook appointment record (but will appear on the CRM appointment record).

The other option is to create a new entity.

If you are going to create a new entity it might be an activity,  read this blog post to understand what this means

Be careful making an entity an activity because it’s very difficult to add security to an activity because all activities live under the one security setting.

Creating an activity will mean it appears under activities, you must need this functionality.

Conclusion

Only being able to update the one appointment form stopped me in my tracks, what if we needed to use the appointment form in other scenarios, I would be difficult to support.

This made me pause to think if I needed the appointment functionality and when making entity changes it’s better to think longer and avoid a mistake because deleting things in Dynamics 365 is a slow painful business.  Much better to think hard and avoid creating entities incorrectly.

Dynamics 365 gives you the power to quickly and easily create entities but that doesn’t mean you should.

CRM Entity ownership – How do you decide?