CRM 2013 Tool – Hosk’s CRM 2013 Guid Getter

Inspired by the Advanced Find on record forms for CRM 2013 tool on codeplex, I thought I would also add a tool of my own which would get the guid of a record.

Getting the guid of a record is one of the boring manual jobs I have to do when testing my plugin code and there are many ways to do this

Quick way to get a guid in CRM 2013

video of getting guid

but I wanted an easier way and I was also interested in creating a project on codeplex to see how that process worked.

So here is the project

https://hoskscrm2013guidgetter.codeplex.com/

 

Basically the tool doesn’t do much apart from show the guid in the form notification area of the record.  To use it you install the managed solution

 

Then you will see the option on all default and custom records.  To find the button click the 3 dots

 

Then when you have clicked the button the guid shall magically appear

 

The hardest part of the whole process was getting GIT to work so I could upload the source files.

So I can proudly say I have created a tool, now all I have to do is create a tool which does something more useful.

 

 

CRM 2013 tool – Plugin and Workflow Synchronous events execution order editor

When Tanguy the CRM Tool guy creates a new tool, it’s time to down load the new XRMToolBox and see what new toys he has created for us to play with.  You can read about it on his latest blog post .

I like the way someone mentions they would like to do something and POW the next moment Tanguy has created a tool to do just that, he lives to give.

In this blog post I am letting people know Tanguy has a new tool out and giving it a test drive so you can see what it does, so you can see if you want to use it.  I have also done a video review which you can see here

Hosk CRM Dev review CRM 2013 tool – Plugin and Workflow Synchronous events execution order editor

This tool is really only of interest to developers, although it does have some use as informational tool to other users but it’s primary use is to allow the CRM developer to see and easily change the order of synchronous plugins and workflows.  The real bonus is it show the order of worflows next to Plugins, so you can see the whole picture of what is happening on the trigger of a CRM message/event for a particular entity.

This new Tool is interesting and useful for projects where you have a lot of plugins, particularly entities with lots of plugins being triggered on the same message.

To use it you fire up the XRMToolbox

add a connection.  If you are using a CRM 2013 trial select Use Office 365 because I found that when I tried to using the Use CRM Online I couldn’t connect

 

Once you have your connection done, you will then a see a list of all the great tools.  Today we are going to click on Synchronous events execution order editor.  Clicking this will open a new tab with the tool details. This is useful because it means you can open multiple tools at once

 

 

You then need to press the load events button, this will load the SDK Messages and then you can see what plugins are running the rank.

You can edit the rank (which is the order the plugins will run) and then press the apply update(s) button to save this.

Not only is the tool useful for changing the rank but it’s also an easy and quick way to view what plugins you have running.  When you look at your current system you will notice there are a lot of activity feed plugins running.

Good work Tanguy, keep up the good work.

 

CRM 2013 Tool – Easy Navigate lets you design your own metro like start page

I saw a tweet from CRM MVP Jukka Niiranen @jukkan mentioning there was a new tool on codeplex which allows you design your own start page.

This sounds interesting particularly as I still find getting around CRM 2013 a little bit on the slow side but this could be because I have been conditioned to go to use the left hand menu which is no more.

There is already a tool called quick navigate which does almost exactly the same thing except it doesn’t let you edit what you show on the start screen.

I have done a quick video looking at the tool and going through the process of installing and uninstalling

Here is what Easy Navigate looks like

It’s easy to install and use.

There is a little trick to uninstalling it, you have to uninstall it inside the easy navigate solution first before you delete the solution.  I was momentarily dumbstruck when it wasn’t letting me delete the solution.

It makes navigating CRM a lot quicker when you first open CRM, particularly if you want to go to Solutions or customizations because I can get there in one click rather than the two or more in the default navigation method.

If you are not a CRM Admin (which automatically gets all new security roles ) then you need to assign EasyNavigate security role to any users who want to use it.  I haven’t got any other users in CRM 2013 trial so I’m not sure how it works with regards to security privileges of the user and if they can view only the entities they are allowed but it wouldn’t really matter because if they clicked on it they couldn’t see anything so why would they

Here is my new default start, got rid of marketing and service and moved case to sales.

The only down side I can see is it isn’t easy to add the tiles back once you have got rid of them.

Here is the link to the codeplex project page so you can download it yourself

http://easynavigate.codeplex.com/

CRM 2011 tool – CrmDiagTool2011 can now access remote CRM Servers.

Tanguy the CRM tool guy has been busy, busy justifying his well earnt CRM MVP status.

Tanguy has created many CRM tools but the most useful tool for anyone supporting customer CRM systems or trying to resolve a problem then the CrmDialgTool2011 is the best.  It is even useful for debugging plugins because you can turn on tracing and it spits out errors to the error log.

Tanguy with help from his colleague Nicolas have released a new version of the tool which has the functionality to allow you to connect to remote CRM Servers.  This means you don’t have to open up a remote desktop to run the tool.

You can read about the tool update here

if you want to download the tool then you should head over to codeplex – http://crmdiagtool2011.codeplex.com/

looking at a screenshot of the tool, it does look impressive.

I have to say it’s very impressive that Tanguy gives this tool away for free, thank you very much sir.

If you wish to thank Tanguy for his hard work he has a paypal button on his blog, go on give it a click

CRM 2011 Tool – CrmDiagTool 2011

There is a new version of one of the most important tools you can have when something in CRM 2011 has started not to work.

The CRMDiagTool is an easy way to turn on and off error logging in CRM 2011 and it does it without even needing a server restart (which customer never seem to be keen on).

You can read about it on Tanguy’s blog here or check out the codeplex page here

 

Thanks again to Tanguy he has produced lots of excellent CRM tools which he has generously shared with the CRM community.   A worthy CRM MVP

CRM 4 – A list of the most useful CRM 4 tools

Yesterday I did a blog post on CRM 4 addon’s and today I have found an excellent list of CRM 4 Tools.

There are a lot of CRM 4 tools out there but this list probably contains the most useful tools, so if you see any tool on here you haven’t used with CRM 4 before then I would recommmend you download it and you will probably save yourself a lot of time.

I found the list of CRM MVP Mahender Pal’s blog on this post and I was reading the other blog posts, he has some good blogs posts, especially for CRM developers.

Dynamics CRM Tools

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Implementation Guide

Comparing Customizations Utility

Configuration Data

Dynamics CRM 4.0 Documentation Generator

FetchXMLBuilder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Demonstration Tools

CRM Javascript Intellisense Generator

CrmDiagTool for CRM 4.0

Microsoft Dynamics CRM JScript Export Tool

CRM Plugin Registration Tool

Internet Facing Deployment Configuration tool

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Bulk Update and Export tool

Isv.config Manager

Tool to server side webservice call to client side

Export JavaScript from CRM

CRM 2011 – Tool – Role Updater for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

I do love a good CRM 2011 tool, they can sometimes really make your life a lot easier.  The master of CRM 2011 tools is the great Tanguy and his fantastic blog Dynamic CRM Tools, if you visit his blog  I can guarantee you won’t leave without downloading one of his tools.

He is an MVP and rightly so.

He has been busy and has created a new tool, a Role updater for CRM 2011.  This is a great tool, it makes it easier for CRM 2011 administrators and developers to add or remove privileges to multiple security roles in one operation. You’ll no longer have to open each security role and apply privileges one by one.

http://roleupdater.codeplex.com/

 

Although setting security in CRM 2011 is easy to use it can be slow going especially if you have to add privileges for a new custom entity to lots of security roles.  This tool can  help make it quick to administer the security roles.

Here are some links to all of Tanguys tools

View Layout Replicator

Searchable Property Updater

Ribbon Browser

Ribbon Editor (alpha)

JavaScript Web Resource Manager

SiteMap Editor

Role Updater

CRM 2011 Tools – SiteMap Editor and Ribbon Editor

[tweetmeme source=”BenHosk” only_single=false]

I have two excellent CRM 2011 tools to recommend today, they will save yosu a lot of time and make configuring the SiteMap and the Ribbon much easier.

Editing the sitemap is quite a time consuming task because you have to export the sitemap, makes changes to the xml files and then import the changes. Any syntax errors will cause the SiteMap not import correctly and then if you don’t like the changes or you have done it wrong then you have to go through the export/change/import procedure all over again.

Thankfully with this excellent tool editing the SiteMap is alot easier, you can load the SiteMap into the editor, make the changes and then export them back.

You can get the SiteMap editor on codeplex here. Also the writer of this tool has written many CRM tools and is well respected in the CRM community. His name Tanguy and you should look at his blog.

The project describes the SiteMap editor like this

Project Description
SiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 helps developer and customizers to configure the Site Map in a graphical way.

You’ll no longer have to create solution, add component, export, update Xml and reimport the solution to update the SiteMap.

There is also the Ribbon editor which can be used to edit the Ribbon using a graphical tool rather than hand editing XML files again. You can download the tool here

Here is the project description

Project Description
Ribbon Editor makes it easier for developers and customizers to edit Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 ribbons.

You’ll no longer have to know by heart all ribbon capabilities to customize it.

You still have to understand how a ribbon work. This application is not a wizard, it is really an editor. There is no consistency checks until you try to import back the ribbon.

This project is currently in Alpha version, it has still many bugs but I can’t identify all by myself. Please create discussion for feature request or issue for any bug found.

 

CRM 4 – Why downloading CRM 4 plugin dll’s is useful

It’s funny how things of interest and usefulness can turn up at exactly the right time, it’s frustrating when they turn up after you have solved the problem.

Today one of my CRM buddies was wondering what values were set in a CRM 4 plugin and we weren’t sure what code was actually deployed in a plugin.

I then happily chirp up that just yesterday I blogged about  a perfect tool for this problem.  So after remembering the tool was a command line tool we managed to export the dll’s and then we used http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/ILSpy.ashx, which is a dll decompiler to see what was in our own dll (it sounds a bit daft when you say it out loud).

Hey Presto we could work out what code had been deployed.

This is a very useful tool if you have been left to look after a project after someone has left.

CRM 2011 – free Javascript Mapping Add-on

A great tool added to codeplex this week, CRM 2011 Javascript mapping

http://crmmapping.codeplex.com/

It provides free and basic mapping using Microsoft Bing (of course).  What I really like about this project is it also has instructions on how to add this to the Ribbon and uses only javascript.

The person we all have to thank is Hadley Pettigrew and he has an excellent blog posts about this which you can read here

here is the screen shot from codeplex so you can get an idea what it looks like

Project Description
This project provides an easy to install mapping component for CRM 2011, it is made to be easily configured for any customisations and may be used for a good starting point for other projects.

It provides a basic bing maps integration with a configuration resource to help configure which fields reference the address or Latitude and Longitude. The configuration has a default setup that can be changed to suit your deployment.

Example Screenshots
Advanced Find Window

Results