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Dynamics CRM / Twitter Integration

There is now a Social Networking "Accelerator" for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that allows business professionals to monitor and analyze customers’ conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services. This first release of the accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases.

Microsoft Dynamics has released several interesting accelerators over the last several months.  I'll be installing, testing, blogging, and presenting on the integrations as we go along.

Look for more on the CRM / Twitter integration test results soon.  We also plan on holding "Twitter and Grits" Lunch and Learn sessions in the next month or two.

How to Send E-mail Blasts from Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Always a good source of CRM knowledge; Frank, from Workopia, Inc., has posted a blog on how to perform e-mail blasts from CRM (either CRM Online or CRM 4.0 On-Premise); including how to include graphics and mail-merge personalizations: http://microsoft-crm.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A2586C4AB938C065!956.entry

Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

CRM Accelerators are a range of add-on solutions developed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 customers and partners. Each accelerator is available at no cost and will showcase how the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 platform can be configured and extended to broaden marketing, sales and service capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners are encouraged to further extend these accelerators to meet their specific business needs. Each accelerator will be fully supported as per any other customization for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that follows SDK guidelines. Additionally, all samples are supplied with full source-code so they can be extended further to meet specific customer requirements.

http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators

List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

The List Web Part for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides a way to view and update Microsoft Dynamics CRM records using a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 Web site. Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can create shared or personal List Web Parts of Microsoft Dynamics CRM records from a SharePoint Web site, open records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 from the List Web Part, and create connected List Web Parts.

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3B6EB884-EC15-4288-A2A3-D0B47E057458&displaylang=en

How to Create a Query with Picklist Values in Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Getting at the Picklist Values is not easy.  You know the values are stored in the entity as numerical values, not the character-based descriptive values.  But how to get at the descriptive values that are useful to we humans?

Here's a sample query that will get you there for Leads (ObjectTypeCode 4), and a custom picklist value for County (sync_county).  The key table you want to get access to is the StringMap table.  But you have to put a couple of strategic filters in place to make it work.

SELECT LeadBase.CompanyName, LeadBase.FirstName, LeadBase.LastName, LeadExtensionBase.Sync_County, StringMap.AttributeName, StringMap.Value
FROM LeadBase INNER JOIN
  LeadExtensionBase ON LeadBase.LeadId = LeadExtensionBase.LeadId INNER JOIN
  StringMap ON LeadExtensionBase.Sync_County = StringMap.AttributeValue
WHERE (StringMap.ObjectTypeCode = 4) AND (StringMap.AttributeName = N'sync_county')

Value Not Available for Selection in Advanced Find Filter

Ever come across a value that you want to search on in Advanced Find, that's just not there?  I'm creating an e-mail list, and I want to exclude all the Contacts I flagged with "Do Not Bulk E-mail."  The field was not there to set a filter on.  Hmmm.

Answer is to go to Customizations for the Contact entity, look up the "Do Not Allow Bulk E-mail" attribute, open it up, and check the property, as shown below.  Change the "Searchable" setting to "Yes."  Save-and-close, save-and-close, publish.

 

Sorting Microsoft Dynamics CRM Views on Second Column

In Dynamics CRM, Views are a powerful screen that shows tabular data in customized column formats.  ONe thing to note however, is that the customized view only starts with one level of sorting.  So, if I want to sort Companies by State, say, that's fine.  But what if I want to sort by State, and then City.

Your initial view will be sorted by State, as indicated by the triangle symbol in the column header.  To create a secondary sort by City, hold the Shift Key, and click on the City column heading.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Recently, I was looking for a Keyboard Shortcut for the "Save-and-New" icon.  So, instead of taking my hands of the keyboard, and clicking Save-and-New, I found that I can use CTRL-SHIFT-S to accomplish the same thing.

See the list of ten different CRM keyboard shortcuts.

Printing Mail Merge Labels from Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Word 2007

I had some difficulty getting all the fields I wanted to print, to actually print.  Mainly, the Job Title field doesn't seem to want to print in the default setup, using the Address Block.  I jimmyed things around to trick the system into printing in just the way I wanted.  Here's a couple screen shots showing how I did it.  Your results may vary: this is a finnicky program.  I hate to say it, but I don't think Microsoft's best programmers worked on this Mail-Merge piece...

 

Multi-Select Checkbox-Style Picklist in CRM 4.0

  Sooner or later most organizations implementing CRM will ask how they can add a "multi-select" picklist to one of their forms.  Just like it sounds, a multi-select picklist allows you to select more than one value at a time, like for example, a blog post that you may want to categorize as being applicable to both CRM 3.0 and CRM 4.0 (not the case with this one I don't think).  Here's a link from the official Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team blog on how it can be accomplished with just a little bit of Java Script code that you can copy, edit, and paste into you form's On-Load Event Rule:

http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/03/31/crm-4-0-checkbox-style-multi-select-picklist.aspx