Clint's Blog

So another week has gone by, and another interesting situation has come up. It appears that in CRM 4.0 you can no longer "hide" views from being shown in the drop down list by sharing them with a team. This got me thinking, we could probably hide these views on a more dynamic basis using a retrieve multiple plug-in. So that is what I did. I have a plug-in that can be downloaded from my blog, as always this is as-is with no warranty what so ever. In order to install it you can run the registerpluginproject.exe /install and to uninstall run registerpluginproject.exe /uninstall. You could also use other means to register the plug-in if you want. The only other thing you need to do for the tool to work is to drop a file in the CRM web site in the ISV folder (crmweb\ISV\). The file is a CONFIG file that lets you set the following

• Which entity type codes to filter
• Which roles should be included in the filter
• Which saved queries to filter for the entity type code

To make things a little easier I have included an XSD to allow better editing of the CONFIG file. If you see any issues with the XSD please let me know. Here is an example of a CONFIG file

<Settings>

<Setting EntityTypeCode="0">

<FilteredRoleIds>

<FilteredRoleId id="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"/>

<FilteredRoleId id="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"/>

</FilteredRoleIds>

<FilteredSavedQueryIds>

<FilteredSavedQueryId id="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"/>

<FilteredSavedQueryId id="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"/>

</FilteredSavedQueryIds>

</Setting>

</Settings>

Of course the GUIDs are incorrect, and so is the entity type code but it is just a sample

If you wanted to filter the Active Accounts view on the account entity for people with the Salesperson role you would populate the EntityTypeCode attribute with a value of 1, the FilteredRoleId id attribute with the value of the GUID for the Salesperson role, and finally put the GUID value for the Active Accounts view in the FilteredSavedQueryId id attribute.

You can add multiple Setting nodes for different entities. However if you duplicate an EntityTypeCode only the first one will be added.

If you change the CONFIG file you must restart IIS (I am working on some logic to refresh this when the file is updated), however if you change a users roles to take them into scope of a filter, or out of scope of the filter that will take effect right away.

Here is the link for the download

Enjoy!

New Tool Available

Well it has been a long time since I have updated my blog, I thought to start off the New Year I would post a tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 that everyone wants (or at least that is what I have been hearing since CRM 3.0 released and data filters where available in the outlook client). I am posting the tool with an installer/uninstaller. If you want to install it you need CRM 4.0 server and the rest of the requirements are out on the doc that is in the same folder. You can find it here: CRM 4.0 Offline Data Filter Administrator. Let me know what you think, and if you have any ideas for improvements post them to the blog.

I hope to publish a few more of my tools that I have written for CRM 4.0 in the near future.

This tool is as is with no warranty what so ever.

Enjoy

Day 7

Finally I made it out of my hotel and out into the city of Munich. I traveled to Munich by train and it was actually really nice. It was fairly cheap, 6.70 EURO, and the pass was good for any public travel from Lohof (near Unterschleissheim and just down the road from the Microsoft offices) into Munich. Once in Munich I took a guided bus tour of the city and was able to take a lot of great pictures. I saw the Bavarian parliament building, the different food and goods markets they have in the plazas as well as the palace of Nymphenburg. The one thing to remember if you are wanting to go into the city of Munich or anywhere in Bavaria on a Sunday, don't expect to get to do any shopping. All of the shops and stores will be closed until Monday. However if you are instead looking for some good food or drink you are in luck. There is many beer halls and gardens, along with many coffee shops. After I got back from my tour and got settled back into my hotel for a week of work with the CRM support team in Munich.

Day 8

Well today was my first day in the Microsoft offices in Munich. I arrived early in the morning to get my badge as the badges we use in North America (at least in the US) don't work and you need another one to get into the buildings. I got to work with Michael, Danny, Dieter, and the rest of the crew. It was interesting to have my day almost completely over when the day in Fargo was just starting. I now have a little better understanding of how hard it is to work with the Fargo office and the devs in Redmond since you do not get many hours with everyone in the office. In order to accommodate for this Danny and Michael will get into the office a little later in the morning and stay a little later in the evening in order to be able to be in the office while the team in Fargo and the devs in Redmond are still in the office. Tonight I went out for dinner at this very nice Pizzeria called La'Albratros in Unterschleissheim (yes pizza in Germany). The food was good. It was a little strange as the pizza pie comes out to you uncut and all they give you is a fork and a knife to cut the pizza up however you would like. It was nice since they spoke English and the menus were also in English J.

Day 9

Today was another day the same as the first. The walk is a little long from Victors to the Microsoft offices, but you will definitely be awake once you get there. Some things that are a little different in the offices here is that if you want a soda you have 3 choices Coke, Coke Light, or Fanta Orange. And the strangest part is that they come in glass bottles. When is the last time you had a soda in a glass bottle? Another thing that is strange is that when you get lunch in the cafeteria on campus and you want a soda you have this weird soda called Mezzo Mix. Also you pay for the drink instead of the fountain drinks being free in Fargo. Finally the nice thing that I found out is that if you put money on your badge then you get a 30% discount on your food. This evening I went out with Michael for a friendly game of Poker when this friends. I guess it was their first time playing Poker. It was pretty fun. We played Hold'em and 7 Card Stud. At the end of the evening I was up almost 4 EURO, when we only started at 5 EURO. The train ride back to my hotel was a little longer since this time I took the U-Bahn (subway) and then the S-Bahn (above ground train). I was actually very lucky as since when I got off the U-Bahn at Feldmoching I was able to get on the S-Bahn right away to get back to Lohof and back to my hotel. I am starting to get tired of the walk from the train station to my hotel, at least I am getting in my exercise I suppose.

Day 10

Today started much like any other so far at work. Michael and I worked on some HFIs and I worked with Danny on some other cases he was working on. It was so nice that after lunch we took a little walk around the Microsoft Campus. Later on in the day we had a meeting with Thomas the manager for CRM in EMEA. The meeting usually happens on Friday but Thomas was heading out for an extended weekend. I really didn't do much today after work. I was really tired from playing poker the night before. Danny and I went out for Pizza again at La'Albratros again. It was good again and it is always nice to chat with Danny.

Day 11

Well today is a public holiday in the southern part of Germany. Weird, they get the day off for All Saints Day (a nice name for Halloween). Since it is a holiday, the shops are again closed, but the restaurants are open. I met up with Michael again today and another of his friends (Rudy I believe). He is a scientist that works in patents for some biological company. We sat outside and had a Latte macchiato. So far the day was very nice. We continued the day by taking a tour of Munich. This tour was a lot better as we got to see the sights a little closer and the picture opportunities were a lot better. Also Michael likes to give tours, as we had his Munich tour book and was telling me all sorts of stories about the different places that we saw. They ranged from places where old rulers of Bavaria lived to where Hitler gave his famous speech. It was very strange to see that (it kinda made the hairs on my arms all tinglely). We ended the day with another coffee at the Glockenspiel Café. Later on Michael and I went back to his place to place some Xbox 360. We started with Futbol (soccer for us Americans). This was actually pretty fun. However just like in real life most of our games were 1-1 or 1-0. Then we moved onto Tennis. I was a little better at this one and beat Michael in every match we played. We then played Project Gotham Racing. This was actually pretty fun and I beat Michael again at this game. I think he was getting upset that I was able to beat him at games he plays all the time. Because of this we went back to Futbol. Tonight I was not so lucky with my train rides. Since it was later in the evening the trains don't run as often. Also I was getting on when the train times were changing. I got on the train only to have to get off while the train was put to sleep for the evening. I had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. Once I got on that one I left for Feldmoching again. Here I ran into more problems as the next train to Lohof was not leaving for 30 minutes. By the time I got home it took me 1.5 hours of train rides and walking back to the hotel. I was so tired. I am starting to get ready to be back in my own home and sit on my own couch and sleep in my own bed J.

Day 12

Well today is my last day in Munich. It was a slow day in the office since pretty much everyone was OOF due to the holiday the day before. I finished up some work that I needed to get done as a lot of new hotfixes were released today for CRM. I worked with Michael on some issues and we all ate lunch together. After lunch I worked on getting checked in for my flights tomorrow. That was the most difficult thing I have ever done. The KLM site only takes either your e-ticket number or your booking number (neither of which were working). My e-ticket number wasn't clearly marked on my travel documents. Note: with American Express business travel you need to put the airline number together with your ticket number to get your e-ticket. I got checked in and I am ready to head back home. I got back to the hotel and ate at the hotel restaurant. All week I had eaten other places but I didn't feel like going out anywhere. The food was OK, but I am ready to get back to some normal American food. The beer here is very good so I will miss that, also the portion sizes are good here as well. Time to get ready for tomorrow. I will let you all know how the travel back to the states works out. Wish me luck.