Tip #777: So long Microsoft.Xrm.Client and thanks for all the fish

So long and thanks for all the fish

At the beginning of the year we reported some ongoing issues with CrmServiceClient and recommended continuing use of Microsoft.Xrm.Client. The issues reported have been resolved and, as of now, there are no compelling reasons to use Microsoft.Xrm.Client. If you’re starting new project then the choice is trivial – simply use nuget packages for XrmTooling and […]

Tip #771: Dynamics 365 Developer Toolkit is available

Good news for the developers – after long delays and missed Visual Studio releases, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Developer Toolkit has been released as a free Visual Studio extension and is available for download. The first thing you’d want to do after the installation is to let the tool know where your tools live. Go to […]

Tip #770: Power to the users and developers with Chrome extension

Shoot yourself in a foot

If you are developer or power user, and don’t mind shooting yourself in a foot, check out Chrome Extension for Dynamics CRM Power users, available as a Chrome extension or as a birthday suit a.k.a. source code. Just some of our favorite features: God Mode. Makes all mandatory fields optional. Makes hidden fields/tabs/sections visible. Makes […]

Tip #768: Avoid running out of memory when using CRM context

Low memory

When you process large data in your code, email attachments, for example, there is always a danger of running out of the available memory. Consider this code dealing with the email attachments: The danger here is running out of memory on retrieval of the file attached to the CRM notes. Even though from C# point […]

Tip #757: Passing enumerated values to Web API

Passing values

Shiny Dynamics CRM Web API has a number of useful functions that you can call using simple GET. Like ubiquitous WhoAmI: https://notarealorg.api.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.1/WhoAmI, nifty RetrieveOrganizationResources: https://stillnotarealorg.api.crm.dynamics.com /api/data/v8.1/RetrieveOrganizationResources, or canny RetrieveDataEncryptionKey: https://yesthisisarealorg.api.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v8.1/RetrieveDataEncryptionKey. Some of these functions require parameters and documentation how to pass parameters is available. Except that the documentation does not explain how to deal with […]

Tip #746: Bring in the specialist

Workflow auto bringing the specialist

Washing car on weekend is something that everyone can do on their own. Probably. But if some serious cleanup is required, one’s better off calling Mr Wolf. Same goes for complicated cases in customer service. If you run a secure shop that deals with the cases that include sensitive or personal identifiable information, then security […]

Tip #731: Hide and protect your custom CRM API

Protect yourself by covering

Yesterday we illustrated how you can wrap some server-side functionality as a custom API to be consumed by the developers. One of the undesired side effects is that business can now poke their nose into the API when building workflow processes: If your API is a smoking gun and you don’t want business to accidentally […]

Tip #730: Turn your CRM into API machine

Locked black box

When people ask me to describe the differences between custom workflow activities and custom actions, I always use the following definitions: Custom workflow activities. A functional blackbox created by the developers to be consumed by the business Custom activity. A functional blackbox created by the business to be consumed by the developers There is more […]