Microsoft CRM "du jour"

We had a weird problem at a customer site where we could add any users one by one via the 'New User' button but when using the Add multiple users in the New User Wizard, not all users where showing.

After escalation at Ms Support, it turns out it was related to the way the PreferredDC Registry Key is handled (this registry key allows to specify a specific DC by name so that MSCRM AD calls are routed preferably to that DC) and the way replication worked between those specifics DC .
I quote MS Support :
"When you are adding one-by-one users it is firstly searching from the specified DC, and if nothing found it searches for the whole Domain – that’s a reason why you are able to add users one-by-one. 
But when using “Add multiple users” it searches only for the specified DC."

That's quite interesting as I always thought 'Preferred' means exactly that, but it turns out it is only valid for the non wizard approach.
Anyway, the first DC should have known all needed users but that particular PreferredDC was not replicating all info, so changing the registry key to a 'better' DC solved the issue.

Btw, the reason we need to have this registry key setup in that case is because we sometimes routed AD calls to invalid DCs (ie: DCs not mounted properly/completely) which led to weird authentications issues.

Here's a summary of this week interesting (at least for me ;) information related to Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft has released an update of the deployment guide for CRM 2011

There will be a change in Microsoft Volume Licensing from July which now includes Cloud Deployment, more information here 

The CRM team blog has released source code for Bing Map Integration and Hierarchical Tree View

Here's a link to all known Build numbers for CRM 4.0 

There's a quite nice series of articles on interacting with the webservices from javascript by Paul Way. 

Mscrm Blogger as a published a very useful reference article on what is supported or unsupported in MSCRM 2011.

Gonzalo Ruis reminds us of the new cleaning option for asynchronous processes in CRM 2011. 

Here's an article on Banking and Microsoft CRM by Kevin Wessels.

Qurius has a nice article on embedding images in CRM Forms.  

A new e-mail configuration article is available "How to configure the Dynamics CRM on-premises and Dynamics CRM Online E-mail Router in different deployment scenarios".

Dynamics CRM 2011 has been certified for use on Citrix XenApp 5 and 6, more information on the Citrix Website. 

Brad Koontz has written a nice article about the future evolution of email, I particularly like this quote "disruptive technologies don't kill their predecesors; they just change them".

Update Rollup 17 has been released for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Here's a summary of the fixes:

• The synchronization process enters an endless loop when you synchronize data in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook
• You experience slow performance when Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 runs a search in the Active Directory environment
• Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown" error message when you try to assign a record to a user after you install Update Rollup 15 in the Turkish version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
• "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms" error message when you run the database plug-in assembly in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

• When you cancel a quick find search in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, the grid revert to the previous view that was displayed before you run the search. However, if the view contains columns from related entities, incorrect data is displayed.
• When you click Use Advanced Find to evaluate members in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, the marketing list cannot contain more than 5,000 members.
• After you delete one of the email-addresses of a user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, the email address of a resource in service appointments of the user is lost.
• When you select a time in a date/time field, such as the Due field of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM task, you receive the following error message:
  An error has happened getting the date.
• Assume that a user is moved to a new business unit in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. When you click OK after you select the business unit, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application becomes unresponsive.
• In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, when you write custom code that uses the addressused value of an activityparty object to set an email address, the addressused value is ignored. This problem occurs if you install Update Rollup 11 or a later version of update rollup.
• When you export a report to Excel in offline mode in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 client for Outlook, the generated file name extension is invalid.
• When you install the Critical On Demand (COD) package of hotfix 2535327, you receive the following error message:
  This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms.
• In Internet Explorer 9, when you create a quick campaign by using a wizard in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, you receive the following error message:
  An error has occurred in the script on this page.