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Tip #54 | PowerShell Merge – A clustered key can appear only once in a table

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If you upgrade your database to NAV2016 using the PowerShell Merge commandlets and have a change to table 49 you will run into this issue.

Table 49 is the Invoice Posting Buffer table that NAV uses to create G/L entries for each unique combination of values in the Sales and Purchase documents. With the NAV2016 release Microsoft have added the Deferral Code field to this table and the primary key.

One of the most popular mods to NAV is to add the description of the lines to this table to inherrit the description of the sales lines to the G/L Entries. This mod is also decribed in my book Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Application Design.

The PowerShell merge tool does not understand that there is a conflict and will just add a second clustered index to the text file which results in this error:

Clustered1

To fix the issue, just remove one of the indexes in the text file and combine them into one.



Read Committed Snapshot Isolation (RCSI)–Know before you use it for your Dynamics CRM Database

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‘Read Committed Snapshot Isolation’ Or RCSI is short is something I continuously keep hearing in my CRM implementations every time there is any discussion related to the CRM performance.  On the lighter...(read more)

str2con und führende Nullen

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Beim Ein- und Auspacken von Zeichenketten (Strings) mit führenden Nullen, die als Ganzzahlenwerte (Integer) interpretiert werden können, kann es dazu kommen, dass Werte verändert werden: static void...(read more)

str2con and leading zeros

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If you pack and unpack strings that have leading zero values you are in danger of running into issues because these values might be changed: static void str2ConLeadingZeros ( Args _args )...(read more)

How Wireframes Help Save the Day

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Wireframes, also known as a blueprints or model designs, are visual guides, outlines, which represent the simplified model of an object, state, or workflow being described. Essentially, wireframes are created for the purpose of arranging elements to best accomplish a particular purpose. They usually lack typographic style, color, or graphics, since the main focus lies in functionality, behavior, and priority of content. In other words, they focuses on functionality, not appearance. Wireframes can be pencil drawings or sketches on a whiteboard, or they can be produced by means of a broad array of free or commercial software applications.

But… chances are you probably already knew all this.

In addition to their core purpose, wireframes have an additional and wider meaning:

Wireframes provide means of easily expressing oneself and collaboration with people who have joined around the same idea but are approaching it from different perspectives.

For example, let’s consider the usual business scenario we often encounter here at Merit Solutions: a company has a business process that wants supported by a mobile app. We have multiple groups of people involved in this scenario: project sponsors, subject matter experts (SMEs), end users, project managers, business consultants, and development (DEV) and QA teams. They all aim towards the same goal, but the goal is perceived differently by each group: project sponsors want to increase revenue and performance, SMEs want the business process to be improved, users want simplicity, business consultants clarity and consistency, DEV needs the translation to something suitable for them to build on and QA wants to maintain the quality standard of the delivered solution.

This complex collaboration usually starts with analysis and the gathering of requirements which end up collected in a document. Our experience teaches us that this can be quite inefficient and slow process.

Often the information on the business process gets misinterpreted, remains incomplete or details get missed out. Even more often project sponsors and SMEs are not aware of what they exactly want.

Since the writing of the document can take time, and the design and development even more, there is a fair amount of risk that comes with this approach, mainly because of the mentioned issues, but also due to the fact that the technology and needs change over time. Wireframes can have a huge impact on the mitigation of this risk.

The following qualities of wireframes are making it an excellent choice for collaboration:

  • They are easy to draw and as such they save time.
  • They are easy to understand as they are visualizing the idea.
  • They eliminate the level abstraction that sits between the ones unique perspective and commonly understood representation as each component is illustrated – they are tangible.
  • They can store more details than text.
  • They are efficient and consistent.
  • They are easy to grasp, improve communication and collaboration between the team members, regardless of which team they belong to.
  • Quite often, the tools for the development of wireframes are online and free.

The post How Wireframes Help Save the Day appeared first on Merit Solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Interview Questions

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I found questions I used interviewing a CRM developer, The questions will give CRM developers an idea of the questions you might get asked in a CRM developer interview.

This article will help you prepare for a CRM developer interview.  The article will investigate the purpose of interview and discuss common topics with sample CRM developer questions

Interviews can be interesting experiences,  a time to reflect on your experiences and knowledge, but don’t be too good Should you hire a Rockstar developer for your CRM project?

Interviews are scary

Many people find interviews are scary because they contain the unknown.  When your mind thinks about unknowns it exaggerates things, focusing on worst case scenarios

  • Forgetting a technical detail
  • Not understanding the questions asked
  • You can’t remember any of your technical skills
  • The interviewer asking for skills and experience you don’t have
  • Turning up without trousers on
 I refer to this as the Stephen King television series concept.  The story IT is a great example
Stephen King television series start great, the monster is hidden in the shadows, mystery and unknown let people imagine something terrible as people disappear.
Interview are similar, you imagine how bad it could go.  It’s like the Stephen King series IT, the early stages and the clown is scary, when the final scary monster appears it isn’t scary (a big spider)

What is the purpose of the CRM Developer interview

Whilst preparing for the interview, consider the interviewer’s perspective and goals of the interview

  • What are the objectives of the interview?
  • Identify skills and experience for the role?
  • The interviewers context (e.g. developer, management, director)?
  • Will the interviewee work well with existing staff members?

People can exaggerate their CV’s, part of the interview process is validate what skills and experience the interviewee has.  You can assist in the process by giving as many examples of your experience and skills as possible.

Describe significant projects and your role in those projects, interviews are short so present the highlights of your recent experience.

The interviewer will see how truthful you have been on your CV and estimate your CRM knowledge and experience.

Key areas

CRM knowledge

  • Knowledge of CRM SDK
  • Understanding of CRM out of the box functionality
  • CRM certifications held

Experience

  • Projects
  • Your Roles on those projects (looking for role exaggeration is common)
  • Experience of CRM customizations
  • Size of project
  • Integrating external applications with CRM
  • Project style (Agile, Waterfall, others)

Career

  • Where are you now?
  • Where are you going?
  • Why are you moving?

CRM certifications

I am a big fan of CRM developers getting certified (read why you should get certified and the benefits).  Studying for a CRM certification gives developers a good knowledge of out of the box functionality and its limitations.

Here are links to resources to help you pass the Customization and Config CRM certification

but…

Certifications show knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it gives no sign the person can create effective CRM solutions.  Certifications don’t show character, or how they will work with other team members.

Learn new CRM features and functionality

Learning new CRM features, understanding new functionality, keeping up with latest version of CRM shows a person is self-motivated learner.

If you haven’t worked with the latest version, having knowledge on new features is the next best thing.  Staying up to date with new versions of CRM and new functionality is being prepared for using it.

Experience and knowledge of CRM

Experience is an important commodity, you can’t buy it or learn it, only gain it.

I have seen .NET developers new CRM, struggle with CRM development due to the lack of CRM experience.

Why .NET developers struggle with CRM development

Whilst getting experience, CRM developers make and learn from mistakes and mistakes cost time and effort.  Those with experience are less likely to make the same mistakes.  Experience increases the chances of a successful CRM project.

Give examples of your experience in as many answers as possible, experience is one of your most valuable assets.

Career

There will be questions on your career ambitions where do you see your career now? where do you see your career going?

Think about your career, you should have a destination in mind and a route to getting there.

The CRM world is small.  If unsuccessful in this job, you might work with the interviewee in this company or a different company.

Don’t criticise

NEVER be negative or critical about your colleagues. This wastes interview time on negative things, instead talk about your skills and experience.

No one likes to work with someone who criticises and blames their colleagues.  If you criticise your current colleagues, it’s likely you will criticise people in your new company.

Build your brand

Building your brand is preparing for an interview before you get an interview, it is not a quick process but a continuous process.

Build your brand by

  • Write a CRM blog
  • Create Youtube videos on Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Answer forum questions
  • Tweet about CRM
  • Create CRM tools
  • Slideshows/presentations
  • Attend CRMUG or other live CRM events
  • Interact with CRM community

Contribute to the CRM community, this could lead to you knowing and being recommended by employees of the company.  You can make a good impression before you make your first impression in the interview.

Creating content gives examples of your CRM ability, knowledge and experience, which can be found by the interviewers.

The Hosk CRM blog interviewers can see my CRM knowledge and experience and get an idea of who the Hosk is (yes the Hosk does like talking in the 3rd person!)

  • Your brand is you
  • Your point of view
  • Your experience
  • Your voice

Embrace your individuality, don’t copy other content but create your own unique content.  Creating a brand isn’t just selling yourself to people, you want to create a compelling interesting brand like the Apple iPhone compared to many android phones you can’t distinguish between.

CV and Project experience

You be asked to walk through your CV and explain it in detail, particularly the projects

  • Projects you worked on
  • Different customizations you created with problems/benefits
  • Different roles worked on projects
  • Project problems and how you overcame them

Practise Relentlessly

Interviewing is a skill, the more you practise a skill the better you get.  For an interview you are giving a presentation on yourself.

In the book Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds, it has a great quote on practising your presentation

Practice relentlessly and internalize your content so that you can deliver the presentation as comfortably as having a conversation with a close friend.

Carmine Gallo

There is no excuse for not being prepared for a presentation where the topic is yourself.

Practice talking about your CRM experience so you can explain the projects, roles and the positive skills and experiences you got from them.

Practising helps you give a great interview because instead of thinking what to say, you are familiar with the content and are focusing on delivery.

Information to help prepare

Read Hosk Developer articles

These articles offer insights into understanding the CRM, CRM SDK and CRM developer processes and best practices.

Your approach to CRM development, diagnosing problems and best practices are key parts of a CRM developer.  Knowledge and skills can be learnt, but character and processes take longer.

Final Hosk tip

Skills and experience are important, but character is the vital.

Be confident and enjoy the experience if you don’t get this job it will have been an opportunity for you to practise your interview technique.

Enjoy the interview, you have nothing to lose and a job to gain.

Other CRM interview questions

This site has some great interview questions and answers

https://crmtipsbyprm.wordpress.com/category/interview-questions/

A collection of CRM interview questions for CRM 2011

CRM 2011 – Common CRM interview questions but what do they tell you?

Hosk‘s CRM Interview questions

I’m not going to give the answers to the questions because they would be my answers.  The questions are ones you might get asked, so if you are going to an interview think about the answers to show case your experience and thoughts on CRM development.

Q.  What is your CRM experience?

Question Purpose – A summary of CRM experience, your CRM career journey.

Mention – Role and experience, concentrate on the most relevant experience for the role

Q.  Tell me about your last CRM project?

  • Size
  • Complexity
  • Customizations
  • Integration

Question Purpose – The question aims to find out the experience of the

Mention- Mention different customizations, difficulties experienced and how you overcame them.  Show what skills you used and will bring to the role.

Q.  What development tools do you use for CRM development?

Question Purpose – CRM developers can answer this question if they have done CRM development.

Mention – CRM Developer toolkit, XrmToolkit, Ribbon Workbench, Plugin Registration. Tools used in CRM development which you use.

Q.  When do you use managed and unmanaged solutions?

Question Purpose – Does the developer the differences between managed and unmanaged solutions, whichcanbea pain.

Mention – Discuss your experiences with Solutions, how you used them.  How would you use solutions.

CRM 2013 – Understanding Solutions and how they work

Q.  What are the disadvantages of managed and unmanaged solutions?

Question Purpose – Explain when to use managed solutions and when to use unmanaged solutions.  Solutions are key part of releasing the customizations to the customer, if done badly can cause problems and waste time.

CRM 2013 – Managed solution problems with out of sync solutions

Q.  How do you set up your CRM solutions?

Question Purpose – You can package the CRM solutions in lots of different ways, releases/sprints/phases, splitting up the customizations by type (e.g. plugins, javascript) or creating solutions with different functionality in.

Mention – Your experiences or ideas of how you think solutions should be created.  There is no right or wrong way

Q.  What are the potential problems with multiple developers working on a project?

Question Purpose – What development environments have you worked in, with how many developers, problems and solutions.

Mention – How you have developed solutions with a team of developers and what problems can arise.

Q.  How do you debug a plugin?

Question Purpose – Lots of CRM Developers debug in different ways but it’s an important skill because CRM developers must test be able to test and debug their code.

Mention – How you debug, e.g. Unit Test, console app, Remote Debugging or plugin registration tool

Q.  How do you debug Javascript?

Question Purpose – Debugging Javascript is a necessary skill for a CRM developer

Mention – Pressing the F12 key and getting your breakpoints setup and hit. If you haven’t done this, try it out, it’s awesome.

Video CRM 2013 – JavaScript tutorial using CRM 2013 Developer Toolkit

Dynamics CRM 2011 JavaScript debugging in Internet Explorer 11

Q.  Have you integrated CRM with other systems, what was it and did you have any problems?

Purpose – Integrating CRM with 3rd party application or other Microsoft products is common.  It’s great if CRM developers have experience of this..

Mention – Any experience you have, problems you experienced and how you overcame them.

Q.  How to you estimate CRM customizations?

Question Purpose – Developers have to estimate work.  The greater accuracy you can estimate the better.

Mention – explain how you estimate customizations.  e.g. breaking up the work into smaller chunks, taking into account risks and experience.

Q.  Tell me about a project which went wrong, what were the reasons for the problems, how did you cope?

Question Purpose –  Projects can go wrong, problems will happen.  Showing the character to overcome problems and obstacles is an important skill.  Identifying the cause of problems, taking steps to avoid them will be useful to your prospective employer.

Mention – The lessons learnt and how you avoid potential problems.

Q.  How do you test your code?

Question Purpose – Unit testing code is great.  if you have experience mention it.  This question is asking how you test the logic of your code, which might not be unit testing.  You might debug your code or write a console app to run your code.

Mention – Unit testing knowledge and experience if you have it.  Your process of testing code.

Q.  Explain how pre-validate, pre and post are different plugins?

Question Purpose –  Specify how running a plugin in a different stage changes the purpose of the plugin e.g. pre before data is written to the database, post is after the changes have been written to the database.

Mention – Plugin stages, images and when you use each .

Q.  How are Asynchronous and synchronous plugins different?

Question Purpose –  Does the CRM developers understand the difference? Explain when to use an Async plugin instead of synchronus plugin.

Mention – Time.  Synchronus plugins must run straight away, async plugins can be delayed.

Q.  What is a common cause of plugin bugs?

Question Purpose – To find out if the developer has experience developing, if they have they will have experienced common errors.

Mention – The most common error is an infinite loop caused by updating fields, which triggers the plugin to run again and again

Q.  What is early binding, what are the benefits and the drawbacks?

Question Purpose – To understand if you the CRM developer understands the benefits of early binding.

Mention – Early binding creates strongly typed code which is easier to read and moves the errors to compile time and not runtime.  Early binding stops syntax errors which can occur with late bound code.

Q.  Should you keep up with the latest release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Question Purpose – Does the CRM developer understand the benefits and disadvantages of keeping your version of CRM to the latest release.

Mention – Whenever you upgrade your CRM your customizations might stop working but you get the new features and fixes.  If you delay you have more versions to catch up to.

Should you keep up with Microsoft Dynamics CRM release cycle?

Q.  How do you keep up with Microsoft Dynamics CRM news?

Question Purpose – Does the CRM developer keep up to date with CRM, if so, how?

Mention – Blogs, certifications, Microsoft Dynamics community page

Q.  What is the effect of making a pluginsandboxed?

Question Purpose – CRM online can only deploy sandboxedplugins, so it’s important for a CRM developer to realise the limitations the sandbox can have.

Mention – CRM online can only deploy Sandboxedplugins and  Limitations such as

  • Access to the file system (C Drive)
  • systemevent log
  • certain network protocols
  • registry
  • You cannot access any other DLL’s
  • IP addresses cannot be used
  •  Only the HTTP and HTTPS protocols are allowed.
  • In isolated mode you cannot call any external DLL’s\DLL’s in the GAC

This blog hadsomegood restrictions ina bitmore detail

  • Attempting to use the AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolveevent
  • IO.Path.GetTempPath() [System.Security.Permissions.EnvironmentPermissionException]
  • Any filesystem access code [System.Security.Permissions.FileIOPermissionException]
  • Attempting to use the EventLog [System.Diagnostics.EventLogPermissionException]
  • Attempting to use IsolatedStorage [System.Security.Permissions.IsolatedStoragePermissionException]
  • Any references to Thread.CurrentThread caused a security failure.

Read this blog Understanding Plugin sandbox mode for more information

Q.  When do you use OData?

Question Purpose – To test if the user has written many JavaScript customizations

Mention – OData is the primary method to retrieve information from related records

Q.  What Access teams and why would you use them?

Question Purpose – Access teams are not widely used, does the developer know what Access team are and how they work.

Mention – The purpose of access teams are to easily share records with a team of people where the members of the team are not static.

CRM 2015 – The benefits of Access Teams

Q.  What is Metadata and how is it used in CRM?

Question Purpose – Does the CRM developer know what Metadata is and how it works with CRM

Mention – Metadata is the data about data.  CRM has lots of Metadata, types of field, optionset value, auditing etc.  To retrieve Metadata you need use webservices, RetrieveEntityRequest for entity Metadata and RetrieveAttributeRequest

CRM 2015 – Understanding CRM Metadata

Q.   What things should you consider when choosing between CRM online or on Premise?

Question Purpose – CRM online has several limitations compared to CRM on premise, a CRM developer should understand them.

Mention – The big difference is you can’t see or modify the CRM server and SQL server.  CRM Online limitations, such as Sandbox plugins, workflow limit of 200, custom entities 300, storage is a monthly fee.

Q.  Why is code readability important?

Question Purpose – To find out if the developer designs code, codes to best practices

Mention – Reading and understanding code is important because code spends most of its time in a maintenance state.  Developers will need to read and understand code to extend the code, debug the code.

Why Code Readability is important

Q. If a user complained a particular CRM form is loading slowly, how to investigate, what to look for?

CRM 2011/2013 Investigating CRM Form Performance issues

Q.  If CRM stopped working, what would you check?

Question Purpose – This test experience.  CRM will stop working on production systems is good to know a CRM developer will know what to check.  To understand what to check the CRM Developer will need to understand the architecture of Microsoftt Dynamics CRM.

Mention – CRM Async services stopped, APP Pool service account password, SQL Server services, Disk space, Active Directory

Microsoft Dynamics CRM not working?check these common causes

Q.  What is the POA table and how can it affect performance?

Question Purpose – The POA table is used for security and sharing.  A large POA can cause performance problems

Mention – security, sharing problems.

PrincipalObjectAccess–Performance Recommendations

How would you questions?

Q.  validate a phone number on a form

Q.  Add a sequential counter to a custom entity

Q.  Automatically fill in an address field when a user selected a contact lookup field on a custom entity.

Q.  Send an email on the creation of an account record.

Q.  Update a status with a plugin


Filed under: CRM 2011

Learn How to Turn Data into Success on Modern Workplace

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(Please visit the site to view this video) In this world of infinite intelligence, devices and apps, it is critical to know how to transform information into action. Join us as industry leaders share...(read more)

Getting started with the cloud competencies

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imageChinmayi Bhavanishankar
US Partner Experience Lead
Yammer

It’s been just over a year since the initial release of the Microsoft Partner Network cloud competencies. The importance of the cloud continues to grow, with customers spending more than half their IT budgets on cloud and managed services in the last year (IDC, 2015). We’ve learned a lot from partners over the past year about how we can make competencies more valuable, and recently implemented changes to competency requirements that help you meet cloud performance requirements more quickly, plus added a new cloud competency for enterprise mobility.

Fewer than 10% of our partners worldwide have attained a competency, and only a small percentage of those have met Gold competency requirements. A competency can help establish credibility with your customers and provide you with a way to distinguish your company from competitors.

“Competencies are a great way to demonstrate to current and potential customers both the scope of your expertise and the depth of your experience.” – Gavriella Schuster, General Manager, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group

The five cloud competencies

There are now five cloud competencies available, for partners with active practices around Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, and Enterprise Mobility Suite. Specific requirements for each of the cloud competencies differ, but there are three common requirements: cloud performance; customer references and satisfaction; and technical exams. To learn about a competency’s specific requirements, click the competency name in the list below to go to its portal page, then select Silver or Gold.

image

Recent competency changes

At WPC 2015, Gavriella Schuster, General Manager for the Worldwide Partner Group, announced changes that allow for quicker achievement and accommodate the shift in focus from seats sold and revenue to active use and consumption:

  • Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency – Reduction in seats of Office 365 sold and new Office 365 customers for both silver and gold
  • Cloud Platform competency – Reduction in the performance goal for silver; additional licenses of MSDN and Visual Studio 2015; improved Internal Use Rights benefit for Azure, as a single bulk annual credit
  • Cloud Productivity competency – Achievement is now through Active Entitlements (active users); you can meet the active user requirement across any Office 365 workload (Exchange, SharePoint Online, etc.) or with Office 365 ProPlus
  • For all competencies, there is no longer a requirement for unique MCPs per competency
  • For all competencies, sales and presales assessments are no longer required
  • For many competencies, new technical exam and assessment options are available

Read the blog post by Gavriella Schuster

Go to the What’s new page on the partner portal

Meeting cloud performance requirements 

For partners working toward attaining or renewing a cloud competency, one of the most important requirements to understand is how your cloud performance will be measured and tracked. If you are not yet familiar with Digital Partner of Record (DPOR), I encourage you to utilize the resources below to understand how it affects your competency status and eligibility for benefits like incentives, support, and internal use.

As the Partner of Record, you will also get visibility to your customers’ cloud consumption and usage through the Cloud Services Partner Dashboard, which can help you identify cross-sell, upsell, and new solution and service opportunities.

The Digital Partner of Record portal page provides you with an overview of DPOR, step-by-step guidance and videos to help your customers add you as their Partner of Record, frequently asked questions, and more.

Go to the Digital Partner of Record page on the partner portal

Sign in to the Cloud Services Partner Dashboard

Contact MPN Support for help with cloud competencies

 

Comments about this blog post, or questions about the topic? Let us know in the MPN 101 Yammer group.

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Determining Total Record Counts

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If you are familiar Microsoft CRM, then you know that one it’s great features is the ability to store thousands of records for your organization so that you can report on that data for effective decision making. There is one challenge though – in CRM 2015 (pre-spring release) and earlier versions. Say you want to know how many Active Contacts records you have. When you pull up the list of your Active Contacts, you get 1-250 of 5000+ indicator at the bottom left corner of the list view.

Ahhhhh, the frustration! But don’t lose hope! There are a couple of things you can do to find the exact number you are looking for, and in today’s blog, we will show you how!

If you have under 10,000 records, you can use the Export to Excel feature and export all the records in the current view.


Simply scroll to the end of the worksheet to determine how many records were exported. Keep in mind, if the total number of rows reaches 10,001 it means that you have more than 10,000 records and all of the records that meet the query criteria were not exported. Microsoft CRM limits the number of records exported to Excel to 10,000 in order to minimize the potential inadvertent performance impact of large queries on the system.

But all hope is not lost! Use the following trick to get the exact number of records in your query with a quick customization. You’ll need a security role with Customizer privileges to perform these changes.

First, navigate to Customizations.

1. Click on Fields under
the entity for which you need the record count.

2. Create a custom attribute with data type “Single Line of text” called “Total Count”. There is no need to add this new field to the entity form.


3. Then Publish your customizations.

4. Now, create a New Report with the Report Wizard. You’ll need the necessary permissions to do so.

5. In the Report Wizard, enter a Report Name and select the Contact entity (in our example) in the Primary record type drop-down menu.

6. In the next window, you can choose a previously saved view or create all new Report Filtering Criteria. To get the full record count (both Inactive and Active records), clear the filter criteria completely before clicking the Next button.

7. In the Add Grouping window, select Total Count from the Column drop-down menu. Then select Count from the Summary Type drop-down menu.


8. To add a column to the report layout, select Click here to add a column. The Column drop-down menu will default to Full Name. Leave that and select OK.


9. In the Format Report window, select Table only.

10. Finish the report. And then run it to view the results!

And there you go folks, the total count of all your records! You can also export the records into Excel from the report if desired.


These quick tricks will help you the next time you need to retrieve the total number of records from an entity like Contacts in CRM 2015 (pre-Spring release) and earlier versions!

Happy CRM’ing!

High Volume GP Integration Tip: Increment your batch ID every X thousand records

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By Steve Endow

I've developed several high volume Dynamics GP integrations for customers that needed to import tens of thousands of transactions at a time, and I also work with customers who use Post Master Enterprise to automatically post their batches--many of whom have very high volume integrations.

While the process of importing 20,000 or even 100,000 transactions into Dynamics GP is not terribly different than importing 100, there is one thing that can be challenging with such high volume GP integrations:  Batch Posting.

eConnect imports can shove a lot of data into Dynamics  GP very quickly, but once the import is done, you are stuck with a massive pile of transactions to post in Dynamics GP.  And those batches can take a long time to post.

One thing I always recommend to customers who have to import thousands of transactions at a time is to have their import break up the data into multiple Dynamics GP batches.  So instead of having a single batch with 40,000 transactions, have eight batches with 5,000 transactions, or even 20 batches with 2,000 transactions.  There is no magic number for batch size, but I would personally keep them under 5,000 per batch.

I recommend this because if there is a batch posting failure or an error that causes the posting to stop, you won't be holding up 39,000 transactions.  If the batch size is 2,000 transactions, a posting failure will only delay posting for those 2,000 transactions, while 38,000 transactions in the other batches can continue to post.

So how do you split your import of 40,000 transactions from a single data file into multiple batches?

I'm glad you asked!  It's quite easy:  You just change your batch ID.

In your import, you will maintain a transaction counter that gets incremented every time a transaction is imported.  After that counter hits X thousand records, you change your batch ID and reset your counter.

I prefer to make the batch size a configuration option in my integrations.  So the customer can change it to any value they want at any time.  Then, when I assign the batch ID to the transaction, I check the counter.  If the counter hits 5,000 (or whatever value is configured), I increment the batch ID suffix, like INV12345-1, INV12345-2, INV12345-3.

If you have a .NET eConnect integration, this is just a few simple lines of code.  If you are using SmartConnect or Scribe, you would probably need a few global variables to store your batch size and transaction count, and a few lines of script in your Batch ID field.

To me this technique of managing batch size seems very obvious, but I have had dozens of phone calls with customers who are importing tens of thousands of transactions into a single batch, and then stressing over the batch posting process at 1am, because a failed batch posting would take them hours to re-post.

Skip the stress--split your batches.

Happy importing, and merry posting.


Steve Endow is a Microsoft MVP for Dynamics GP and a Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

You can also find him on Google+ and Twitter



Microsoft Power Query: An Excel User’s Dream for Data Extraction and Cleansing – MSDynamicsWorld.com

ERP Implementation: What You Need to Know in Advance (Webinar)

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Is new ERP a consideration for your team in 2016?

ERP Implementation - Armanino and Panorama WebinarJoin the upcoming webinar with Armanino and Panorama on What You Need to Know Before Starting an ERP Project.

Get your project off the ground the right way and avoid common mistakes in ERP implementations. Hosted by Eric Kimberling, Managing Partner of Panorama, and Tim Hourigan, ERP Consulting Partner at Armanino, this webinar will cover key insights from Panorama’s 2015 ERP Report. Additionally, these experts will showcase how businesses can achieve a best-in-class ERP implementation.

 

REGISTER NOW: What You Need to Know Before Starting an ERP Project »

 

  • Key findings from our annual ERP Report

  • Results of best-in-class ERP implementations vs. average implementations

  • Differentiators of best-in-class ERP implementations

  • Tips to make your ERP implementation more successful


About Armanino, LLP

Armanino is a Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP and CRM Partner with five California locations (San Ramon, San Jose, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco) as well as offices in Portland, OR, Bellevue, WA, and Naperville, IL.

Our team understands the unique business processes, common pain points and compliance issues many high-tech manufacturing and life science companies’ face and can assist you with integration to front or back office systems, deployment, data migration, and training.

We encourage you to call us with questions and let us know about your company and business goals. Visit us online at: http://www.armaninollp.com

The post ERP Implementation: What You Need to Know in Advance (Webinar) appeared first on goERPcloud.

ERP Implementation: What You Need to Know in Advance (Webinar)

0
0

Is new ERP a consideration for your team in 2016?

ERP Implementation - Armanino and Panorama WebinarJoin the upcoming webinar with Armanino and Panorama on What You Need to Know Before Starting an ERP Project.

Get your project off the ground the right way and avoid common mistakes in ERP implementations. Hosted by Eric Kimberling, Managing Partner of Panorama, and Tim Hourigan, ERP Consulting Partner at Armanino, this webinar will cover key insights from Panorama’s 2015 ERP Report. Additionally, these experts will showcase how businesses can achieve a best-in-class ERP implementation.

 

REGISTER NOW: What You Need to Know Before Starting an ERP Project »

 

  • Key findings from our annual ERP Report

  • Results of best-in-class ERP implementations vs. average implementations

  • Differentiators of best-in-class ERP implementations

  • Tips to make your ERP implementation more successful


About Armanino, LLP

Armanino is a Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics AX, GP and CRM Partner with five California locations (San Ramon, San Jose, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco) as well as offices in Portland, OR, Bellevue, WA, and Naperville, IL.

Our team understands the unique business processes, common pain points and compliance issues many high-tech manufacturing and life science companies’ face and can assist you with integration to front or back office systems, deployment, data migration, and training.

We encourage you to call us with questions and let us know about your company and business goals. Visit us online at: http://www.armaninollp.com

The post ERP Implementation: What You Need to Know in Advance (Webinar) appeared first on goERPcloud.

How to install AX 2012 Enterprise Portal in a multi-server web farm

How to find inventory on hand

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This week’s Arbela Tip and Trick will show you how to find inventory on hand using X++. The following code will help you to achieve this: Static void findAverageCost_arb(Args _args) { InventOnHand...(read more)

SQL View For Payables Transaction Distribution Accounts | azurecurve

Where Would You Like to See Microsoft Dynamics CRM Go Next?

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We have seen CRM come a long way since its initial inception. Every step of the way has brought us one step closer to having the "perfect" customer relationship management system.

Logan Consulting History of Customer Relationship Management

Now in the cloud, the possibilities of CRM are endless. Where would you like to see CRM go next?

For more information, contact Logan Consulting, your Chicago based CRM partners.

The post Where Would You Like to See Microsoft Dynamics CRM Go Next? appeared first on CRM Software Blog.

What is New in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016

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Microsoft has just released Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016, the latest version of its immensely popular mid-market ERP system. So what does this update mean for existing and potential users? What is new in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016?

Microsoft continues to invest heavily in the Dynamics NAV product and to build out the channel and the brand to the point where it is the most popular mid-market system in the world with over 110,000 customers as of June 2015. The changes, however, are much more than just a good marketing and sales engine. Whereas some of the competitors continue to invest in adding more and more features and functionality, Microsoft has continued to build a superior platform capable of being configured to meet virtually any requirement.

Versions 2009 through 2015 added significant changes including a three-tier structure, web services, SQL Server reporting services, improved scalability, and a choice of clients. Dynamics NAV 2016 has continued the enhancement of the platform while adding a few key improvements.

So, what’s are the new features in Dynamics NAV 2016?

  • One of the most impressive new features is a configurable workflow engine. While there was rudimentary workflow before in areas such as purchasing and sales document approval, the new workflow goes much further into the application suite, offering many new possibilities for automating business processes.
  • Microsoft continues to improve the integration to the web by taking the tablet client, enhancing it, and making it available for web browser and phone clients. Now users will have a consistent experience across tablets, phones, and web browsers. This move has also greatly enhanced the ability to configure the web browser client.
  • Taking advantage of the three-tier structure with web services, Dynamics NAV 2016 can also be configured to automatically retrieve foreign exchange rates into the system, which is welcome news for anyone involved in international business.
  • A Dynamics NAV content pack allows Power BI to provide more powerful business intelligence and dashboard capabilities into Dynamics NAV, without the requirement for an expensive partner add-on product.
  • A useful new feature for speeding up the productivity for your staff includes submitting expenses via smartphones by taking photographs of expense slips and submitting them through an OCR engine.
  • Add-on products or enhancements can now be added through code extensions, which allow modifications to customer databases in a multi-tenant environment, where customizations would normally not be possible. These extensions can survive upgrades, which offers the potential to greatly simplify the upgrade process in some situations.
  • Microsoft continues to push forward the concept of multi-tenant environments, where customers share code but not databases. They believe this is the route to greatly expanding the user base and extensions allow resellers to play to the traditional strength of Dynamics NAV, which is the ability to configure the software to fit unique business requirements.
  • Finance users will now have access to posting previews, which display the typical Navigation summary page, without a printed document, that users are used to seeing.
  • One of the most important improvements is the native integration to Dynamics CRM where customers can configure the integration to Dynamics CRM directly from the Dynamics NAV toolkit. This offers many possibilities for improving the integration between these two products, something that previously was somewhat limited or relied on an integration tool such as Scribe.

As you can see there are many new features of Dynamics NAV 2016 that make it a great product to upgrade to, but also to consider if you’re currently researching a new ERP system. All in all, we think Dynamics NAV 2016 is an exciting release with promises of much more in the next version, code-named “Madeira”.

By Malcolm Roach, President and CEO of Open Door Technology, 2015 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club and Finalist for Regional Partner of the Year.

ALPCO Commits to further improve Customer Satisfaction with i95Dev’s Magento & Microsoft Dynamics GP Integration

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ALPCO joins the list of customers who have immensely benefited from i95Dev’s Magento Dynamics ERP integration line of products. ALPCO, founded in 1991, is a prominent importer and distributor of immunoassay products for the North American life science markets. And, we are really happy and proud to announce the successful implementation of Magento & Microsoft Dynamics GP integration for them.

In last 20+ years, ALPCO has grown from one exclusive partnership with a European manufacturer to become a premier channel representing over 60 collaborating partners from around the globe. But, what did not change over the years was ALPCO’s focus on customer satisfaction and its commitment to provide high-quality products and superior customer support.

To live up to that, ALPCO was making significant investments in upgrading their infrastructure and partnered with i95Dev to integrate their new feature rich B2B eCommerce store, powered by Magento, with their Dynamics GP system. The objective was to leverage i95Dev’s Magento and Integration experience to effectively and efficiently manage their B2B customers across eCommerce and ERP platform.

To help ALPCO achieve their objective, we not only streamlined ALPCO’s business processes by integrating their Magento eCommerce store with Dynamics GP ERP system but also identified a number of customizations to better manage and serve their B2B customers like supporting child logins in Magento. Typical to B2B commerce, ALPCO had multiple users logging in from every single company. Magento, by default, did not support this and hence, ALPCO’s Magento was customized to create sub-logins - mapped to a single customer in Magento. Now, multiple users from the same company can use their respective sub-logins to log in and place orders. These orders were then subsequently synced to the Dynamics GP system.

Other customizations included capturing end user details and order comments, supporting split orders, partial fulfillment & invoice, price level and tier price sync, product sync from Magento to Dynamics GP and more. The icing on the cake for ALPCO was how i95Dev’s integration solution worked seamlessly with SalesPad and their existing workflows. ALPCO can now manage their businesses and customers efficiently using any of the three systems GP, SalesPad or Magento. ALPCO now even authorizes payments in SalesPad during order placement for orders placed in Magneto.

There is nothing like a happy customer. Justin Gonsalves, the Accounting Supervisor, has all good things to say about i95Dev – “I am very impressed with i95Dev - the project was quite complicated and i95Dev's team worked diligently to provide reasonable solutions for everything that came up. In the end, we are confident that we chose the right partner for this project.

 

If you too are looking to integrate your Magento eCommerce store with Dynamics GP or an integrated B2B/ B2C eCommerce solution for your Dynamics GP ERP system please feel free to contact i95Dev at 301.760.7499 or visit our website for more information.

by i95 Dev

Two Steps to Easier Payroll Management

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Payroll processing can be an ugly beast. It can be time consuming, fraught with danger and generally a huge headache. If that sounds like your payroll day, week or fortnight, take heart. Microsoft Dynamics GP Payroll along with Integrity Data’s game changing add-ons can tame the beast and eliminate the dangers. Here’s how:

First, acknowledge payroll complexities

The benefits that your company offers its employees may be different from other companies and different for other employees or offices within your company. You can’t be expected to keep track of all the different plans with merely an excel spreadsheet like you did in the old days.  You also have to keep track of each employee’s pay rate, overtime, paid vacation and sick days. On top of all that you have to enter and write checks, have them authorized and distributed all within a specific time-frame.

See what I mean by the payroll beast? In some companies this entire process can take days or weeks to complete for each pay period.  But wait. What if most of this information could be entered once and easily updated, perhaps some of it by employees themselves? What if deductions could be calculated and balanced automatically. What if there was software that would take over the “busyness” of preparing payroll and assure that employees got paid on time with no one falling through the cracks?

Next, find the right solution(s):

Integrity Data offers a suite of enhancements that you can add to your Microsoft Dynamics® GP Payroll software solution.  If calculating vacation time, sick or military leave, FMLA or other leave benefits is a challenge, then Comprehensive Leave Manager is the tool for the job. If your business offers different pay rates or calculates expenses by department, the Employee Accounts and Splits solution allows you to automatically split employee costs by percentage based on department, position, pay code or GL account.

Integrity Data can guide you in finding the right solutions for your particular set of payroll challenges.

Implementing the right software solutions not only increases payroll productivity but reduces time and guards against error. Using the right tools for the job can tame the payroll beast and contribute to far less stress at payroll time.

By Integrity Data, a Microsoft Dynamics GP ISV out of Illinois

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