Microsoft CRM Costumization Tools Collection

Hi folks,

in the last 2 years I was offen confronted with time consuming tasks and problems, like editing the ISV.Config or compare two customization files. To be more efficient I often surched for tools. There are a lot of them out there, if you find them. What I was always wondering about, was that there is no link collection gathering that tools.

So, here you are.

Name	Description	Licensing
Stunnware Tools	A bunch of tools in a realy great looking und intuiv IU. Following a list of functions. + Edit ISV.Config and Sitemap + Compare customization files + Metadata Explorer + Fetch XML Generator + Wrapper Code Generator + export data to Microsoft Office + Trace File Viewer	There is a free community edition and a enhanced edition for sale
Stunnware Javascript Factory	This Tool enables a easier way of programming client side Javascript in CRM forms. It’s an integration into Visual Studio and uses it’s IntelliSense. Changes to scripts can be published directly from Visual Studio	per user licensing with scaled prices
ISV.Config & Sitemap Editor	An editor with handles direct editing of the ISV.Config and the Sitemap without downloading and republishing the customization files. It opens the XML files in Visual Studio for editing	Freeware
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Demonstration Tools	A Tool from Microsoft that helps to configure MS CRM for presentations. Some of the Tools are really useful in projects, too. So for example, you can grafically edit the Sitemap or create picklists that are filtered by the value of another picklist.	Freeware
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Documentation Generator	An Add-In for Microsoft Excel that parses a customization file and generates a table based documentation. Really usefull to avoid writing long tables with lists of attributes	Open Source
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Administration Console	This  console is a powerful way to assign and remove security roles accross multiple users. Furthermore it enables you to have a look at the different synchronization rules for the outlook client. This includes rules that are not visible in CRM or Outlook.	Open Source

Skinning for CRM reports

proMX GmbH has designed and integrated a customizable design of CRM reports, fully integrated in CRM. At first I want to describe the entity used to store the design information in CRM. It is called proMX_report_skin and contains default settings and special settings for parts of a report.

The report has different sections shown in the figure below.

 

Report sections

Figure 1 Report sections

The sections are

· header

· filter area

· parameter area

· table header

· table group header

· table row

· table summary

· footer

The attributes with the prefix ” promx_default” are default settings and must be filled. In the query for the dataset you have to provide that some of the settings are nullable and can be without a value. Default settings have to be used if an attribute is null. The query will be made e.g. ISNULL(promx_header_background, promx_default_background) AS [HeaderBackground].
If you want to have the same settings for many sections than you can use the default settings and clear the values for these sections.

The next figures show the entity promx_report_skin with default settings and table settings.

 

Report skin default settings

Figure 2 Report skin default settings

 

Report skin table settings

Figure 3 Report skin table settings

The fields for color values can be filled with a name for the color listed as system-defined colors in here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.color_members.aspx or a ARGB value like #FFFFFFF for color white

The fields for font size values must be filled with numberpt, e.g. 12pt.

Another required field for the design is the companylogo. Ist is attached as a notice in promx_report_skin and must be an image file (.bmp, .gif, .png, .jpg etc.). The size of the image should be 5 cm x 2 cm. Images that are greater or smaller than this size will be fit in the imagebox proportional. You have to consider in the query to get the companylogo that it is possible to attach more than one notice to a report skin. Therefore you have to ask for the last inserted notice of type file:

(SELECT TOP 1 documentbody FROM FilteredAnnotation WHERE objectid = rs.promx_report_skinid AND filesize IS NOT NULL ORDER BY createdon DESC) as Companylogo … FROM FilteredPromx_report_skin AS rs

In the reports you have to create a dataset that gets all the settings out of promx_report_skin. In the properties of a textbox it is possible to use an expression to set Background Color, Color, Font Family and Font Size.

 

Textbox properties

Figure 4 Textbox properties

How to synchronize CRM contacts to outlook where you are not the owner

I just read the article Synchronizing CRM Contacts I do NOT own to my Outlook from Eric Boocock which describes the problem in a good way. The only lack in his solution I can see is that you are having a generic attribute for all users.
This means if one contact has this flag, every user who is filtering on this attribute gets the contact synchronized.

I prefer a solution where every CRM User is creating a marketing list for his contacts and uses this marketing list as filter attribute.

Create marketing list with member type contact

Add your Contacts

Modify the Local Data Groups (Sorry I only have a german Outlookclient for screenshots at the moment)

Filter on marketing list name