Create a reference to your XRM data contexts

1. Get the records you want to copy
2. For each record
   1. Clone it
      (If you skip this your lookups will be blank)
   2. Create a dynamic entity
   3. Remove the entityId property
   • If you skip this you will get a “Record with this primary key already exists” error
   • If your entities are not identical on both server, also delete any properties that don’t exist on Target.
   4. Create the dynamic entity on your target server

This is an over simplification to demonstrate the process. The implementation of the contact Contact copy will be much more complex because any related lookup entities (such as Accounts) should be copied also to the target server.

The code really is that simple for records where the related entities/records already exist on the target server. For example: We use a custom entity that controls the pricing of some services, our business staff staged the data on a DEV server, verified the changes and received approval then we used code similar to the snippet above to push the changes at a scheduled time.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 does not have the ability to store rich text. This can be useful for:

• Store formatted product descriptions in CRM and then display it on your website.
• Allow end users to update email text in a CRM record then pull that information into a workflow. (Allows users to update email text without having access to update workflows).
• Probably much more.

We implemented this using TinyMCE. This little library replaces CRMs input boxes with its own. The OnChange even updates the CRM data field with the HTML markup.

Directions:

1. Get TinyMCE and jQuery and save it to your ISV folder.
2. Copy the following code to your form OnLoad script.
• Be sure to update the path for TinyMCE and jQuery.
• Be sure to add your CRM field IDs to the elements property below.

Thats it! Have fun.

If you are a developer on the Windows platform you may have used or encountered Notepad++, if not you should look it up. Notepad++ adds many IDE like features like syntax highlighting, code completion and macros in a lightweight package that should replace windows notepad.

If you have ever complained about programs generating ugly XML you should install XML Tools for Notepad++. The tools are installed from the plugin manager and give you a whole list of tools including Pretty Print, linearize and toggle the HTML identities (&lt; to <, etc). I regularly copy blocks of code from SharePoint/SharePoint Designer into Notepad++ just so I can read the stuff.

Another great plugin is JSMin. It’s a JavaScript formatter that allows you to pretty print, linearized and minimize.

XML is like violence, If it is not doing what you need it to do, you are not using it enough.

Using Windows 7 Professional, 32 bit

Active Directory Admin Tools

• Remote Server Administration T0ols for Windows 7 – After installing you must enable the features in control panel. The download site has all the details.

Exchange Server 2003 Extension for Admin Tools

• Exchange System Manager for Windows Vista – Extract the download package to a temp folder. Open cmd.exe as Administrator and run [TEMPFOLDER]\ESMVISTA.MSI /q. The /q suppresses the dialog box that tells you the install is not for your windows version.

Dameware NT Utilities 5.0

• During the installation you will receive some errors. Ignore them and complete the installation. When the install is complete open cmd.exe as admin is run: regsvr32 /s dwstdu.dll

Orion Solarwinds

• Manually installing Solarwinds Toolset Integration features on Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 8 – You can also disable UAC but I have become used to it.