Friday, July 22, 2011

Ribbon Editor for CRM 2011

Tanguy Touzard has developed a fantastic tool that allows you edit CRM 2011 ribbons from one simple UI:

http://ribboneditor.codeplex.com/

It is still in the very early stages of development, but I find that it's working for me. Tanguy's blog, Dynamics CRM Tools, has a number of other useful tools that he's come up with.

Also, on a side note, you'll want to check out this band. Saw them at The Republic last night and they were great.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Success

I realize it's been almost a month now since I took the exam, so I definitely needed a follow-up.

Last time I posted, I mentioned that I was taking the Microsoft CRM 4.0 Applications exam. To my complete joy (and relief), I passed! I finally have a certification that gives me the title of Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS). It was definitely not the easiest test I've ever taken, but I prevailed nonetheless. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of this post on Richard Knudson's blog. He covers all of the modules in a concise manner and lays to rest any confusion you might have about each entity's status properties. If you want to pass the 4.0 Applications exam, read the aforementioned article.

Now that the certification is done, I'm on to the next one (sorry for the awful Jay-Z reference). In any case, I've started reading Beginning C# 3.0. Apparently, it covers from being an absolute novice to learning advanced concepts and everything in-between. That, along with learning CRM 2011 should keep me busy for...oh,...the next year.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Praying

I haven't posted anything for months so I figured now would be as good a time as any.

Exactly 12 hours from now, I take the Applications in CRM 4.0 exam.  I'm feeling pretty good about it, but from what I've read on other blogs, the test is no cakewalk.  I'm praying that all the studying/prep materials pay off. 

I think Socrates just about sums up how I feel about it with the following:

"I know that I know nothing."

Until tomorrow... 

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

HTML - Redirect to a new site/page

I recently got a request from a customer to un-index their site and have the main page redirect to an entirely different site. In order to do this, you must place this code in the HEAD section of the page for this to work**:



**SyntaxHighlighter is being difficult and won't let me use a META tag in my post so where you see "M ETA=""" in the block, it should simply be the word "META" by itself. Also, do not include the "m" closing tag at all.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How to Format Date/Time fields in CRM Mail Merge

Since I have been working on this for the past hour, I think it only appropriate that I share it with you guys.

By default, when running a Mail Merge, CRM (no matter how you specify the attribute type on the CRM entity) uses a datetime field. This means that even if you create an attribute and set its type as "Date only", CRM will still give you both date and time like this:

"1/25/11 12:00AM"

I followed the steps on Jeremy Winchell's blog and was successful in changing the datetime field to show the desired format:

"January 25, 2011"

Useful.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

JavaScript - Date of Birth Validation

As a requirement for a project, I had to make sure that the applicant was at least 18 years of age. The code snippet below checks that the person is of age and (if he or she is underage) displays an alert pop-up. This code should be placed in the onSave event and will effectively prevent the CRM form from saving if the person is less than 18 years old:

if (crmForm.all.gov_birthdate.DataValue != null)  
  {  
           var maxDate = new Date(); //get today's date 
           maxDate.setFullYear(maxDate.getFullYear() - 18);

           if (maxDate < crmForm.all.gov_birthdate.DataValue)   //under 18  
            {

                 alert('An applicant must be at least 18 years old.');
                 event.returnValue = false;
                 return false;

            }


  }

Saturday, January 29, 2011

JavaScript - Get Object Type Code for any Entity

I needed to find the specific Entity code based on its location with respect to the CRM tenant. The code below should be placed in the onLoad event of an entity. When the form is opened, the Entity code will display in an alert pop-up:

//put in onLoad event of entity
     alert('Object Type Code: ' + crmForm.ObjectTypeCode);

Friday, January 28, 2011