Exchange Server 2007 is available on MSDN

Exchange Server 2007 is available on MSDN.

Other CRM Related 2007 products on MSDN:

1. Windows Vista
2. Office 2007
3. SharePoint Designer 2007
4. InfoPath 2007
5. Forms Server 2007
6. Office SharePoint Server 2007

You can download the trial version here

Dynamics CRM + Exchange + SharePoint + Office Forms + PerformancePoint

Customers that buy Dynamics CRM know that their new CRM application will integrate with their current Windows environment (Windows / IIS / SQL / Exchange). In fact, you do need Windows, IIS, SQL Server and Exchange Server to make full use of Dynamics CRM.

But...there is more.

With the introduction of Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Performance Point Server 2007 and Office Forms Server 2007 it's possible to extend the funcionality of CRM with new server applications:

Office SharePoint Server 2007 / Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007:
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems.

Read more / Download Trial

Office Forms Server 2007 / Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007:
Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 provides scalable, standards-based electronic forms solutions with enhanced security that can help your organization to extend the reach of forms-driven business processes to anyone with a Web browser.

Office Forms Server 2007 is a new server offering in the Microsoft Office system. It is a standalone server that delivers new Microsoft Office InfoPath Forms Services, which is also available in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Read more / Watch online demo

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007:
Microsoft Performance Management allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization.

Read more

More interesting Office links:

Microsoft Office Online

Microsoft Office Live

Build your own custom lookup dialog (easy and free)

Using a script provided by Curt Spanburgh and some extra tips by Ronald Lemmen, it's easy to build your own custom lookup dialogs.

Below you find the script (sandbox download) that can be used on a form.

crmForm.all.parentaccountid.additionalparams = "fetchXml=<fetch mapping='logical'><entity name='account'><all-attributes/><order attribute='name' descending='false'/><filter type='and'><condition attribute='parentaccountid' operator='not-null'/></filter></entity></fetch>";


For defining your exact query text you can open the Advanced find page in CRM and build the query you want.

Then you can run the query in CRM to see if it returns the data that you want. Press F11 to get the address bar in the Internet Explorer and enter this script; press enter.

javascript:alert(resultRender.FetchXml.value);

If you get a warning about leaving the page, press 'ok'. You can copy all the text on the popup by clicking somewhere on the popup and then pressing ctrl+c.

Then, in notepad you can paste this 'advanced find text' and finally replace the downloaded script text from above with your advanced find text; your custom lookup dialog is there!

Microsoft CRM 90-day trial version (Vista/Office 2007 compatible)

Today’s release is only for English, but all other languages are already undergoing localization testing and will be released in waves beginning in January.

Physical media will be updated within the next three to four months.

Download

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Compatibility Update (for Windows Vista-based and Microsoft Office 2007-based systems)!

With this update, you can install and run Microsoft Dynamics CRM clients for Outlook on computers that run Windows Vista-based operating systems and/or Office 2007-based applications.

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Routing and dispatch solution on Windows Mobile and sales force automation tool using Microsoft Dynamics CRM help Geek Squad and Best Buy For Business

Best Buy For Business — a growing unit of more than 1,000 consultants who sell, implement and support solutions for small-business customers — is now using Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 in-house as part of a comprehensive solution for supporting its complex sales cycle.

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides tremendous insight into the most effective way to manage our outside sales force, as well as complete visibility into what our consultants are doing,” said Jay Devers, director of technology solutions for Best Buy For Business. “Today we have a comprehensive sales force automation tool in place that salespeople can use every day as a part of their regular business rhythm to maximize their customer relationships.”

Read more

Data Migration Framework issues

As a Dynamics CRM consultant I like both the functional and technical activities during CRM implementation and one of these activities is Data Migration. Almost every new customer has some source data that has to be migrated to Dynamics CRM, so I've seen some nice source data examples (Act!, Goldmine, Access, SQL, CSV etc.) till now.

For the migration I use the Microsoft Dynamics Data Migration Framework and with this tool it's not that hard to migrate the source data to CRM, if you know the rules......

Below some of those rules:
1) Remove the restricted access option for the users & administrator.
2) Add a role to all the users (owners of records); if one of the users (owner of records) doesn't have a role, the records for this owner won't migrate.
3) Be aware that the DMF can only migrate records to an entity with a maximum of 250 attributes! I saw this one last week (thanks Jeroen for your help).
4) Take care of a good definition of the picklists; you need to map alle the items during the Migration Wizard and if some of the items aren't there, you need to start again.
5) Don't forget to add the id's for the entity the record belongs to (contact to account etc.).

More info can be found in the Data Migration Pack

Fix high CPU usage with Microsoft CRM VPC

Menno te Koppele (A Freaky Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 blog) published a post to fix the high CPU usage when using Windows XP and the May VPC:

- Start the May VPC
- On the desktop right click “My network neighborhoods” and choose properties, do the same on the Local Area Connection.
- Adjust the settings as shown in the picture.

- Hit ok and ignore the message about the empty DNS entry.
- Go to Virtual PC Console and open up the settings of the May VPC.
- Change the Network settings to “Shared networking” .
- Go back to the VPC and click start/shutdown/restart.

If everything works make sure you save/merge the changes into your VPC if you are working with the undo disk enabled.

Your CPU usage would be normal after this when you start Outlook within the VPC image.

Read more

Modifying the Areas in the Navigation Pane

The sitemap [system] entity makes is possible to customize the navigation pane.

You can rename the items in the navigation pane:

- Settings
- Customizations
- Export Customizations
- Export the sitemap
- Open the XML file with you XML editor
- Search for the area that you want to change
(in this example: area id="SFA" shape="RECT" coords="0,0,0,0" resourceid="Area_Sales"

- Change it to: area id="SFA" title="”type" shape="RECT" coords="0,0,0,0" resourceid="Area_Sales" Title=”the label you want”

- Save the XML file
- Import the XML file
- Publish

More detailed info here

By modifying the sitemap it's also possible to display a custom webpage / dashboard (sharepoint) instead of the current Home Page:

subarea id="nav_home" resourceid="Homepage_Home" icon="/_imgs/area/18_home.gif" url="url to custom webpage / dashboard" client="Web"

It is even possible to add Custom Entities and place them in the navigation where you want them or remove an unused top level Area just by deleting them in the sitemap.

More info here

AutoMerge for MS CRM 3.0 (automate mailmerge)

AutoMerge for MS CRM 3.0 provides the opportunity to automate WordMailMerge for MS CRM 3 for daily/weekly/monthly tasks.

It is able to perform following actions automatically:
- Print documents
- Save documents
- Create CRM letter activities

AutoMerge can be started via scheduled tasks or via the MS CRM Workflow -Manager, therefore it's possible to automate steps, like generating a document whenever a new contact/account or lead has been created/deleted......

Read more

CRM SMTP Settings: New Free Microsoft CRM Utility

Configures the SMTP server settings required for the CRM Server to utilize a different SMTP Server than itself.

CRM SMTP Settings can be found on this website. Registration is required but the utility is free.

CRM Tracer: New Free Microsoft CRM Utility

CRM Diagnostic Tracing makes it easy to see what is happening behind the scenes. This utility will make the registry changes for you. CRM Tracer will work with both the CRM Server and CRM Client.

CRM Tracer can be found on this website. Registration is required but the utility is free.

CRM StartStop: New Free Microsoft CRM Utility

This small utility will start and stop all the following CRM-related services:

- The CRM Web Site
- MSCRMBulkMailService
- MSCRMDeletionService
- MSCRMWorkflowService
- MSCRMFaxRouterService
- MSCRMExRouterService

CRM StartStop can be found on this website. Registration is required but the utility is free.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 CTP

Microsoft today announced the release of the first community technology preview (CTP) for its integrated performance management application Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.
Scheduled for general availability in mid-2007, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 brings together next-generation monitoring, analytics and planning capabilities in a complete performance management application.

Beginning today, customers can visit http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?siteid=181 to download the first bits of code and test the product's capabilities in a real-worldbusiness environment.

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Datasheets can be found here.

Update:
"If you look at the questions that business users have, there are basically five categories: What happened, what is happening, why, what will happen and what do I want to happen. Reporting is classically how we look at what happened. Dashboards and scorecards are how we look at what is happening. Analytics of various types are how we look at why. And then there’s planning software."

Read the full Q&A here

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 for Business Ready Licensing and Modular Based Price Lists

This download of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Professional Edition software is specifically for customers who have purchased licenses from the Microsoft Dynamics Business Ready Licensing (Advanced Management) and Modular Based (Professional Edition) Price Lists.

Download

CRM V3C (Vista / Office 2007) is planned to be released at or around December 22nd

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM V3C (Vista / Office 2007 compatible version) is planned to be released at or around December 22nd. Exchange 2007 compatibility is to be released on the same date (Update to the Rules Deployment Wizard).

The V3C release is going to released as a “Re-Release”.
- Client Only
- Includes Service Pack Roll Up
- Compatible with other supported versions of Windows and Office

It will be available via Microsoft Downloads and MSDN on or around the above date.

Source

Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft CRM 3.0 is available!

This update contains hotfixes and updates.

The build number of Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is 1.02.3297.173 for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 client for Microsoft Office Outlook and for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 server.

The build number of Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is 1.02.3297.171 for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 version of the Microsoft CRM-Exchange E-mail Router.

This Update Rollup is NOT the Vista / Office 2007 compatible update!

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