Tip #1300: CDS vs Dynamics 365 instances

Man holding an apple in each of his hands comparing the two.

Dynamics 365 Apps are built on top of Common Data Service Citizenship in IT, 2019 edition If that’s the case, we should be able to install/uninstall Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Apps at will, right? Yes. In theory. In the future. Decoupling Dynamics 365 CE from the underlying platform is a long and painful process. Our […]

Tip #820: Running multiple USD instances

Multiple instances illustration

If you ever tried to run Unified Service Desk more than once, you’d be very familiar with this message: Why would one want to run multiple instances? It’s handy during the development and testing to try various deployment scenarios, compare the look of a deployment after configuration changes, and connect to different organizations at the […]

Tip #660: Talk to your network administrator if you split Dynamics CRM server roles

Messy network

Be nice to your network administrators. Really. They may be pain in the neck but they are the ones keeping the bad stuff out. If you install Dynamics CRM with all roles on one machine, it typically goes well and rarely requires fiddling with the firewalls. However, once you start splitting the roles, e.g. offloading […]

Tip #659: Installing Dynamics CRM on a named SQL Server instance

I don't trip

It is possible to install Dynamics CRM On-premises using SQL Server named instance. For most parts, the process is straightforward and no different from a “standard” installation except that you have to use server_name\instance_name notation when referring to SQL Server. But sometimes things don’t go according to the plan and this is what I learned: […]

Tip #548: 64-bit Office & CRM – Go for it!

In years past the common practice when CRM professionals were asked by clients about installing 64-bit Office, the answer was clear “Don’t do it!”. First off there was little compelling reason to install 64 Bit Office as the only real application in the suite that took advantage of it was Excel. That common thinking has […]

Tip #468: Tipster guide to Unified Service Desk installation

It’s Friday and this week the video subject is on something closely related to and built on top of the Dynamics CRM. USD, which stands for United States Dollars Unified Service Desk. In the first video in our USD series, we walk you installing Dynamics CRM’s USD desktop client as well using package deployer to […]

Tip #161: ADFS vs Citrix for external access

When deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM on premises, ADFS is the recommended approach for providing external access to the application. However, alternative methods, like Citrix and application virtualization can also be used. These alternative methods can do a good job of providing access to the core CRM web application, but do not provide full support for […]

Tip #136: OnPremise Orgs I hope you are under SA

Like most software companies Microsoft is a strong enthusiast of annual maintenance fees. In the Microsoft world it is known as Software Assurance. In the Fall (or so) when the next major version of CRM is released (think V7.0) operating systems and other remnants from the previous decade will no longer supported. You can kiss just […]

Tip #133: Do not add CRM application pool account as a user

It’s quite common to configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM during the installation to use domain account to run web application service. In fact, this is exactly how you configure load balancing front-end configuration. It might be tempting to add the domain account selected to run CRMAppPool as CRM user. (Have no idea why, it just is). […]