The preconference sessions for CRM are sponsored by CRMUG, the CRM user group.
CRMUG General Session
Tips and resources by ColoradoJules
Road Ahead by BIll Patterson
Outlook Troubleshooting
Yippee!! Our bug of “Synchronization with your Android / Windows Mobile / Blackberry has failed” actually is a bug. This was supposedly addressed in several update rollups, but like the Loc Ness Monster, not actually been seen yet. Scheduled to be addressed in Service Pack 1 for Outlook 2010 later this summer.
Upgrading to 2011
Why not upgrade:
- Infrastructure not ready
- ISV Extensions aren’t ready
- Heavy JavaScript
- Unsupported extensions
- Legacy CRM 3 code
Why upgrade
- Outlook add-in
- Web resources
- Security changes (field level security)
- Inline forms
- Dashboards and visualizations
- New JavaScript DOM provides FULL addressable access to all elements on the CRM form, menus, nav bars and ribbons
- Doing phase “x” of implementation
- Native SharePoint integration (native looking document library)
- Any entity can be queued.
Prepping
- Scope an as-is upgrade
- Inventory all out of product plugins, asp pages, integrations, javascript
- Understand what customizations are ‘unsupported’ like JavaScript
- Assess “to-be” state against new features
- Decide whether the as-is code is needed or if there is a better way under 2011
- Find 2-3 wins for the business
- “spaghetti” upgrade (upgrade, throw it against the wall and see what happens)
Preparing Solutions
- Dashboards and visualizations
- Security
- Team ownership (woohoo)
- Field level security – read only / visible or not. Only applies to custom attributes, all internal fields are visible and open
- Forms
- Rule based forms
- Inline grids
- Ribbon
- JavaScript
- Many 4.0 solutions will break
- New SDK has many samples
- API
- Authentication changes
- Move to WCF
- Revamped Dynamic Entity
- Plugins
- Database registration makes it easier – makes the plugin part of the solution rather than a tack-on
- Sandbox environment – isolation mode – runs in a separate security context, only has access to web services. Lets plugins run on CRM Online or other shared environments
- Run ‘'inside’ the transaction
- Reports
- Fetch based reports – current reports have MONSTER queries (filtered views) to pull user security into what data is displayed.
- .NET chart controls now linked. Fetch data (click the show the fetch from advanced find!) can be aggregated and pushed into a chart
- Wizard-based reports will automatically convert
- Solutions
- May require some planning to segment out components of the solution to meet space requirements, etc.
- Shared development environments are going to be VERY difficult
Infrastructure
- 64-bit only
- 8GB RAM or more
- 40GB HDD or better
- Server 2008 SP2 or better
- IIS 7.x native mode
- SQL 2008 Std, x64 SP1 or later / better
- ADFS
- must be ond default website
- requires port 443
- HTTPS must be used inside and outside
- Certificates
- Wildcard works the best
- Subject alternative name cert can work, need all org names
- Single name cert – can’t do multi-tenancy
Planning
- The upgrade works, but trust and verify
- Test in dev / testing environments if you have them
- Test with a redeployed copy of your production system
Upgrade Choices
- Connect to existing – Install on new web server, point to existing 4.0 databases
- In-place – use CRM 2011 install to upgrade the existing environment
- Migration – build new 2011 env, use import organization to upgrade
- Best option appears to be migration. Use new env for testing, if the ugprade blows up, turn access back on for the old environment, everyone can still work tomorrow morning.
Planning outlook Upgrade
- 4.0 Client can still connect to connect to CRM 2011
- Offline client can connect and upload data. Can’t go offline again until upgraded
Planning SRS / Email
- No longer optional
- Data connector can no longer be shared across multiple crm deployments
- Uninstall 4.0 connector first
- Router can be upgraded
CRM 2011 Update Rollup 1 has been released. Early fixes and things that were found just prior to RTM.
CRM releases changing to a 6/12 month release cycle rather than a 3 year major update cycle
