Allegient

Here at Allegient we strive to be thought-leaders in CRM.  One example of that is Daryl LaBar, a consultant and developer in the CRM practice.  Daryl is currently the all-time top contributor of answers for Dynamics CRM 2011 on StackOverflow.  Click hereto check the scoreboard and click his answer link to see some of the questions he's answered.  If you need help with your Dynamics CRM implementation or want expert advice on everything from in-depth infrastructure to user adoption, contact me at...

Currently I’m working on an ASP.net website that caches data during the Application_Start event of the Global.asax.cs.  Generally this is a great idea for a website, especially when deploying a website in a load balanced environment, because the penalty of loading cached data can be spent in one page load.  Take the server out of the load balancer, deploy your changes, hit the first page, verify that no errors occurred, and put the server back in the balancer.  This ensures that a user hitting...

Aliased values have always annoyed me when performing a QueryExpression, or FetchXML Query.  It requires a lot of boiler plate code each time you attempt to retrieve an aliased value (checking for it to exist, including the entity logical name, casting the aliased value’s value to the correct type, etc).  I created some extension methods to help simplify the process for everyone.

First the code:  There are 5 methods.  

1. GetAliasedValue<T> – This is the main method.  It’s an extension method on...

Recently MS Dynamics Online released version 5.0.9690.3339 referred to as the iPad Sales experience update.  One of the items that has been reintroduced is the ability to select various views when utilizing a chart on a dashboard.  This allows greater flexibility in dashboard chart configuration.  

To update an existing dashboard with this functionality,  navigate to Workplace - Dashboards - select the dashboard you wish to update and click Edit.  Highlight the chart component and click...

In my previous post titled "Microsoft Dynamics CRM UR12 Sales Stage and Pipeline Phase Behavior", I realized I left an important detail or point of clarification out.  Just to be clear, two "Sales Stage" fields now exist on the Opportunity entity:

1. Sales Stage
2. Sales Stage Code

"Sales Stage" is the new option set field that uses the Global Option Set "Opportunity Sales Stage".  While it is a global option set, it appears it can only be changed within the new Opportunity form "Edit Sales Process"...

Like many of you out there, our Dynamics CRM team at Allegient is navigating the ins-and-outs, and ups-and-downs related to the December 2012 Service Update. There are definitely a lot of great features that we are excited about. And then there are a few things that will either take some getting used to, or we will wait with bated breath for a fix from Microsoft. This entry (which happens to be my first) explores the latter...

In previous versions of Dynamics CRM (including Dynamics CRM 2011 sans...

Dynamics CRM has until now been available only for Internet Explorer.  Cross-browser support including Chrome and Safari has been included with the most recent update.  To accommodate this enhancement, Microsoft has deprecated the use of HTC (HTML Components) including the crmForm API, which is IE specific and has moved to producing HTML including the 'XRMpage' API which supports the WC3 standards. 

A reprieve for updating to the new standard has been granted until the next major release...

As you have probably seen CRM's latest Update Rollup (UR 12) contains some significant UI changes.  For several of the main entities, such as Contacts, Cases, Opportunities, Leads, and Accounts, CRM has added a new process oriented design which adheres to the design directions of Windows 8 and Office 2013.  Let's look at the new Opportunity form header to see an example of this new design:

One of the first things you will notice is that the ribbon is gone.  You see a couple of buttons you are...

As many of you know, update rollup 12 is here for the online version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.  Within this update, the new forms and flows user experience is available if you choose to "opt in".  One of the key new features that Microsoft has unveiled is what I might call the "imbedded sales process" within both the Lead and Opportunity entities.

The image above shows an example of the new Opportunity form.  As you can see, the ribbon menu is gone, and the new guided sales process is...

Allegient continues their support for SharePoint Saturday by sponsoring SP Saturday in Indianapolis on January 12, 2013.  Allegient’s collaboration area includes over 36 employees and continues to grow.  Sponsoring the event was an easy decision.

SharePoint Saturday Indianapolis is a free community-focused SharePoint event dedicated to educating and engaging members of the local technical community. SharePoint Saturday draws upon the expertise of local SharePoint IT professionals, developers...