Hi all,

When we announced Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell in this article, we got some feedback that you want to run the module on Azure Automation. Yes we hear you and here comes the latest module which supports Azure Automation!

Please get the latest module from GitHub (Please download version 2.x)

What’s Azure Automation?

Before showing “how to” part, I will explain what is Azure Automation in case you do not know about it. You can consider Azure Automation as PaaS. It provides a place to run PowerShell scripts. You don’t have to worry about Operating Systems nor clustering for High Availability, nor Infrastructure. Azure Automation also provides various capabilities.

– You can upload your own modules.
– You can store variables such as Credential, String, etc.
– You can schedule the task.
– You can draft and run test session, before “publish” the script.
– Integration with services such as GitHub, your own services, etc.

Please find more detail about Azure Automation here.

Step by Step instructions

It’s time to play with it. Please follow the steps below to create your first script running on the cloud, which disables “Display welcome screen to users when they sign in” System Settings.

Create Azure Automation Account

1. Login to Azure Portal. If you do not have any Azure Subscription, please sign up for 30 days trial. http://portal.azure.com

2. Click Browse | Automation Accounts from the list and click “Add” in the list.

3. Check if correct Subscription is selected, then enter name. Then click “Create” button.

4. Go back to Automation Accounts list to confirm the account has been created.

Add Assets

Next step is to add Assets. Asset is a place where you store your own stuff, such as PowerShell modules and variables.

1. Open added Automation Account and click Assets.

2. Click Modules.

3. Click “Add a module” button.

4. Click folder icon to browse module.

5. Select Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell.zip which you download from GitHub, and click “OK”.

6. Next, add credential. Click Credentials.

7. Click “Add a credential” button.

8. Enter credential detail and click “Create”.

9. Lastly, add CRM Server URL. Click “Variables”.

10. Click “Add a variable” and enter CRM server URL as “string” variable. Click “Create”.

Create Runbook

Now you are ready to write first script! To do so, you need to create a runbook, which will contain your script.

1. Go back to your automation account blade, and click Runbooks.

2. Click “Add a runbook” button, and select “Create a new runbook”.

3. Enter a name as “SetNavigationTourOff” and select “PowerShell” from Runbook type, then click “Create”.

4. Once the runbook created, select the runbook and click Edit.

5. Firstly, you get credential and CRM Server URL from variables. Expand “ASSETS” | “Variables” and right click “CRM Server” variable. Then, select Add “Get Variables” to canvas menu, which inserts a script to get the variable.

6. Modify the script to store the result to $crmserver variable.

7. Expand “Credentials” and right click “CrmCred”, then select Add to canvas.

8. Change the script to store the result to $cred variable.

9. Next, you connect to your CRM organization. Expand “CMDLETS” | “Microsoft,Xrm.Data.PowerShell” and right click “Connect-CrmOnline”, then click “Add to canvas”. Modify the script to store the connection to $conn variable, and pass parameters you obtained above.

10. Lastly, put the following script to the canvas either by typing or from left menu. The entire script looks like this.

11. Click “Save” to save the change.

Test the runbook

Once you crafted the script, you need to test it.

1. Click “Test Pane” button.

2. Click “Start” to run the test, and wait until it’s completed.

3. Once completed, login to your CRM to see if “Display welcome screen to users when they sign in” System Settings has been disabled.

Publish the runbook

Once you confirmed it works as expected, you publish the script.

1. Click “Publish” button. Click “Yes” for confirmation dialog.

2. You can also set scheduling. Click “Schedule” button.

3. Create your schedule as you need.

Conclusion

Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell is compatible with cloud now, and you can bring everything to the cloud. You may still need VM or local computer if you need to keep running the script less than every hour though, as minimum scheduling period is an hour for Azure Automation as of now.

Ken
Premier Mission Critical/Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Japan

I am pleased to announce that we released “LINQPad 4 and 5 Driver for Dynamics CRM Web API” on CodePlex.

https://crmlinqpadwebapi.codeplex.com/

What’s LINQPad?

LINQPad (http://www.linqpad.net/) is a great tool which you can write and execute LINQ query against many data sources, like SQL Server, Oracle or Web Services. In addition to LINQ query support, the tool also supports C#/F#/VB expression, statement block or program, to write and execute the code and code snippet.

What can you do with CRM Driver?

This driver does several things.

– LINQ query against Dynamics CRM organization
– Execute Web API action and function
– Register application to Azure AD for CRM Online

This driver works with Dynamics CRM 2016 On-Premise, IFD and Online, which supports Web API.

Install Driver to LINQPad 4 or 5

1. Download and install LINQPad if you don’t have it yet from http://www.linqpad.net/

2. Go to https://crmlinqpadwebapi.codeplex.com/ and click “DOWNLOADS” tab, then download CRMLinqPadDriverWebAPI.lpx file.

3. Open LINQPad and click “Add connection” link on top left.

4. Click “View more drivers…” button at the bottom of the page.

5. Click “Browse” button in the bottom of the page.

6. Select downloaded CRMLinqPadDriverWebAPI.lpx file, then click “Open”.

7. Click OK.

Register an application

For IFD environment, you have to register an application before using the driver.

1. Login to AD FS server (You need to use Windows Server 2012 R2 AD FS or later).

2. Open PowerShell

3. Run the following command. You can change name and Guid, but please keep RedirectUri as the driver expects the value.

> Add-AdfsClient -ClientId 5ee98d47-38d1-4db5-b5c2-9a60f88c0076 -Name “CRM For Linqpad” -RedirectUri http://localhost/linqpad

4. Note the ClientId as you use it later.

For Dynamics CRM Online, the driver automatically register an application on your behalf if you have privilege. Otherwise, you can register an application to another Azure AD environment and use consent feature. In that you, you need to register an application in advance and obtain ClientId. Please see following article for detail how to register an application.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt622431.aspx

Use the Driver

1. Select “Dynamics CRM Web API Linq Pad Driver” in Choose Data Context and click “Next”.

2. For IFD, or if you have ClientId, then uncheck “Register to Azure AD automatically” on the top, and enter ClientId.

Otherwise, leave the checkbox checked.

3. Click “Login to CRM” and login to your Organization at login screen.
Select correct combination for login.

4. If you didn’t pass ClientId for Online environemnt, then it tries to register application to get ClientId. If your user account doesn’t have enough privilege, you may need to ask Azure AD admin to login or let them register and give you the ClientId.

5. Then, it’s downloading data content and generates models. For IFD or consent mode, you will be prompted for authentication.

6. Once “Loading Data” completed, click “Exit”. Then LinqPad starts loading schema, which takes a bit of time. Wait until you see schema information on the left pane like below screenshot.

Write LINQ query and Execute

1. Firstly, select added connection from “Connection” dropdown on the top right.

2. Enter LINQ query to query window.

3. Click “Play” button or press F5 key to execute query. You will see the result in result pane.

4. Click SQL tab in result pane, where you can find Web API Url for the query.

Use Key for navigation

To use navigation, you can use ByKey to specify single record.

1. Enter following Query by changing account id to match your record.

2. Execute and see the result.

This is equivalent URL displayed in SQL Tab.

https://crm2016training8.crm7.dynamics.com//api/data/v8.0.1.79/accounts(69e3ec47-60d5-e511-80e3-c4346bc4ef3c)/contact_customer_accounts?$select=fullname

Execute Unbound Function

To execute Unbound Function, follow the steps below.

1. Change Language to “C# Statement”.

2. Enter following code to execute WhoAmI function.

3. Execute and see the result.

This is equivalent URL displayed in SQL Tab.

https://crm2016training8.crm7.dynamics.com//api/data/v8.0.1.79/WhoAmI()

Execute Bound Function

To execute Bound Function, follow the steps below.

1. Enter for following query, which use navigation of user and call function on it. Replace systemuserid to your user id, which you get from previous function.

2. Execute and see the result.

This is equivalent URL displayed in SQL Tab.

https://crm2016training8.crm7.dynamics.com//api/data/v8.0.1.79/systemusers(8dd78a80-c930-490a-bf06-64e57804b276)/Microsoft.Dynamics.CRM.RetrieveUserPrivileges()

Actions

Actions works similar ways to Function.

What’s next?

We would like to hear feedback from you!! As it’s open source, you are able to extend it to your own needs, or you can suggest/report bugs.

Ken
Premier Mission Critical/Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Japan

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online there was a limit to the number of “workflows and dialogues” you can create of 200, along with entities of 300. You could find information about their usage in the Resources In Use page for your deployment (Administration/Settings/Resources in use) that looked like below:

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1 (Spring 15 Release ‘Carina’) this upper limit of “Workflows and Dialogs” has been removed.

If you notice in the below image the 3^rd bar for it has been removed, for best practices of workflows please refer to: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531079.aspx

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online there is a limit to the number of entities you can create. If you need more custom entities, contact Microsoft Dynamics CRM technical support. This upper limit can be adjusted, Ref: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/88b18946-474c-4c94-8e4c-27532f930757#BKMK_LimitationsOnMetadata

Regards,

Fadi EL-Hennawy

Dynamics CRM is an application layer software that sits on top of and integrates with a technology stack that includes other server roles (Active directory, SQL server, Exchange server, SharePoint server,…). Most IT Departments will have clearly defined roles and tasks for each technology server that are well documented and carried out by the technology administrator/owner.  Depending on the size of the implementation sometimes more than one full time resources is assigned, but not for Dynamics CRM! Adding to the normal classic IT administration functions, Dynamics CRM is a business application that embraces end users customizations and responds to changes in business needs.  All of that adds to the life cycle of the solution and adds a bit more complexity.

Having that said, the role of Dynamics CRM administrator/owner is critical to the success of the solution, and it is required at different stages of the solution life cycle.  In this article we are going to focus on post go-live, operational production tasks of the Owner/Administrator of Dynamics CRM solution

Notice the below is only high level guidelines for Dynamics CRM on premise solution.  Each solution will have its specific needs and each organization will have it’s own specific best model, it’s a big “it depends”. Dynamics CRM PFE offers a service that can help your organization reach good understanding specific to your implementation,  the service is Microsoft Proactive Operations Program: Operations Team Roles and Responsibilities for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (POP OTRR) Contact your Microsoft Technical Account Manager for more details.

Most of these tasks above are not to be carried out by the CRM administrator/s themselves rather they are to be performed by different teams, but the owner in terms of accountability is the Administrators of CRM and they are responsible for coordinating and managing these tasks.

Regards,

Fadi EL-Hennawy

Hi everyone,

Today, I introduce PowerShell scripts to move your Dynamics CRM data to Power BI via PowerShell so that you can see CRM data nicer way.

Prerequisites

Before starting, let’s setup all the prerequisites.

PowerShell

If you are running Windows 10, you are ready. If you are on prior versions, make sure your PowerShell is later than PowerShell V4.0. To confirm, open PowerShell, type “host” and run. There is Version column which shows you which version the PowerShell is. If it is not version 4 or later, please update your PowerShell.

Dynamics CRM PowerShell module

We use Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell module to get data from Dynamics CRM. Please follow this blog to install the module to your PowerShell environment. If you are on Windows 10, or you have installed WMF 5.0, you can simply run “Install-Module Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell” to install it from PowerShell gallery. Please see more details here.

Or you are also able to download from GitHub where we host releases. Please read how to install here.

Power BI PowerShell module

For Power BI interaction, we use Microsoft.PowerBI.PowerShell and Microsoft.ADAL.PowerShell. Please download these modules here and here.

Once you install all modules, please make sure you can find these modules by running following command in your PowerShell.

>Import-Module Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell
>Import-Module Microsoft.ADAL.PowerShell
>Import-Module Microsoft.PowerBI.PowerShell

Power BI provision

Next, setup or signup PowerBI.com as your Power BI destination. Go to http://www.powerbi.com and provision Power BI if you do not have any, If you already have one, you are able to use it. Free edition is fine for now. To signup, simple click “Sign In” button on the page and it will navigate you through.

Get ClientId and Authorizatin Name

The Microsoft.ADAL.PowerShell needs ClientId and Authorization Name to acquire access token. If you have no idea what they are, please do not mind for now and just follow the steps below to obtain them.

1. Go to https://dev.powerbi.com/apps?type=native

2. Click “Sign in with your existing account” and sign in by using the account you provisioned above.

3. In Step 2, enter like below.

4. In Step 3, check all checkboxes for now.

5. In Step 4, click “Register App” button which gives you “Client ID”. Please note it.

Create Power BI dataset

Now, you are ready to write scripts. First of all, let’s add a dataset to Power BI which stores CRM data.

1. Open PowerShell ISE.

2. Add following code. This lets you connect to PowerBI.

# Connect to your PowerBI
Connect-PowerBI –AuthorityName <yourdomain>.onmicrosoft.com `
-ClientId <obtained ClientID> `
-RedirectUri http://localhost/powershell  -ForcePromptSignIn

3. Add following code. This will create a dataset which includes table and columns.

# Define columns for Table
$col1 = New-PowerBIColumn -ColumnName Entity -ColumnType String
$col2 = New-PowerBIColumn -ColumnName Counts -ColumnType Int64
$col3 = New-PowerBIColumn –ColumnName Date –ColumnType DateTime
# Define table by using defined columns
$table1 = New-PowerBITable -TableName EntityCount -Columns $col1,$col2,$col3
# Define dataset by using defined table
$dataset = New-PowerBIDataSet -DataSetName CRMPowerBIDemo -Tables $table1

# Create Table
Add-PowerBIDataSet -DataSet $dataset

4. Run the script. Sign in by using Power BI account.

5. When completed, go to http://www.powerbi.com to see if the dataset created.

Insert Data from Dynamics CRM

Next, you retrieve Data from CRM.

1. Click New on PowerShell ISE to create new script.

2. Enter following code to get all Entity record counts from CRM Online.

# Connect to CRM Online
Connect-CrmOnlineDiscovery -InteractiveMode

# Connect to PowerBI

Connect-PowerBI –AuthorityName <yourdomain>.onmicrosoft.com `
-ClientId <obtained ClientID> `
-RedirectUri http://localhost/powershell  -ForcePromptSignIn

# Get PowerBI DataSet
$dataSet = Get-PowerBIDataSets | ? {$_.name -eq ‘CRMPowerBIDemo’}
# Get All CRM entity definitions
$entities = Get-CrmEntityAllMetadata -conn $conn -EntityFilters Entity
$date = [System.DateTime]::Now.Date

# Count records only User/Team owned type
foreach($entity in $entities | ? {$_.OwnershipType -eq [Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Metadata.OwnershipTypes]::UserOwned})
{
$logicalName = $entity.LogicalName
$count = (Get-CrmRecordsCount -conn $conn -EntityLogicalName $logicalName -WarningAction SilentlyContinue)

if($count -eq 0)
{
continue
}
Write-Host $logicalName $count

# Create row and insert to PowerBI Table
$row = @{“Entity”=$logicalName;”Counts”=$count;”Date”=$date}
Add-PowerBIRows -DataSetId $dataSet.Id -TableName ‘EntityCount’ -Rows $row
}

3. Run the script.

Visualize data in Power BI

Lastly, create visuals in PowerBI.

1. Go to http://www.powerbi.com and login.

2. Select “CRMPowerBIDemo” dataset.

3. Click Table Visual from Visualizations.

4. Drag and drop fields from EntityCount table to Values.

5. Table will show the data.

6. Click any chart as you wish to change the visualization.

Summery

By using PowerShell, it is very easy to pull data from Dynamics CRM and import to Power BI.
In addition to importing data by using PowerShell, you can directly pull data from Dynamics CRM Online by using OData or Dynamics CRM connector from PowerBI.com, too! I will explain that in the future articles.

Ken

Contents:

• Podcast
• CRM Update Collateral Page
• Update 1.0 packages available for download
• Update prerequisites
• Functionality and Performance issues resolved by this Update
• New features for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• What’s new for administrators and customizers in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• What’s new for developers in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Deprecation announcements with Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1

We’re proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 (Service Pack 1, codenamed Naos) were released February 21st, 2016 to the Microsoft Download Center! These packages will appear on Microsoft Update shortly .

Note the naming convention change! Post-RTM Updates used to be called Update Rollups, now they’re just called Updates with the version number:

Was: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 1 or 2

Is now: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update 0.1 or 0.2

For more details, see the Dynamics CRM Product Group blog “New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates“

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 Build number:

8.1.0.359

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 Microsoft Download Center page

Here’s the “Master” Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0: (KB 3154952). Going forward, the plan is to continue publishing Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Updates a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast

On Monday, June 27th 2016, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0
• New fixes made available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0
• New functionality made available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0
• Deprecated functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: We’ve recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts. See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information. To download the podcast audio file, right-click here, and choose to save the link location or file locally.

Go to Top

The “CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page“

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs, visit the “CRM Update Rollup and Service Pack Collateral Page“

Go to Top

Important note:

An updated Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Build 2.1.0.556) has been released. See the following Microsoft Download Center webpage for download details:

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link point to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2016! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Go to Top

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 Microsoft Download Center page – released May 23rd, 2016
• The Microsoft Update Catalog – to be released shortly
• The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
  • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 “master” Microsoft Knowledge Base article
  • Please review Jon Strand’s blog posting “CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups” which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups “silently” in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2015 Updates for these CRM components:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2016

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 for Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook Client)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Email Router

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Data Connector

The SSRS Data Connector is not available as an individual download. It is included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2016 download. When you extract the Server package (CRM2015-Server-ENU-amd64.exe /extract:path: extracts the content of the package to the path folder), you’ll find the Data Connector in the SrsDataConnector folder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Language Packs (aka Multi-Language User Interface / MUI)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Report Authoring Extension (with SQL Server Data Tools support)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 List Component for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (for multiple browsers)

Go to Top

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Implementation Guide download or Online TechNet for the various CRM components serviced

Go to Top

Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0:

• Resolve incorrect navigation property names during upgrade from CRM 2016 RTM to CRM 2016 Update 1.0
• Outgoing and incoming e-mail stops processing for all organizations
• Using Internet Facing Deployment the OWA App is not loaded in Edge browser
• Using Compose Mode in OWA is adding a known lead into the “To” Field and clicking retry throws an error
• Incorrect numbers are displaying for Recent Cases and Opportunities on the Record form
• Unable to create Opportunities if Business Process Flow exists
• Not able to add members from one Marketing List to another
• Update logic of Record Creation Rules automatically updates the Regarding Object Entity data
• Activities, Contacts and Tasks are not synced when connecting CRM Online to Exchange On Premises in Hybrid mode
• RetrieveInlineSearchResults doesn’t filter lookup types by Read/Append Privilege
• Incorrectly modified on date displayed in Social Pane for Activity Records created after 6:30 PM
• Large workflows are slow to execute in CRM Online
• IOS and Android Dynamics CRM apps fail to configure if an uppercase value is in the organization URL
• Fixed missing publication warning dialog when user performs any action in Activity Feeds configuration
• Navigation after Related Record Grid operation is redirected to a Form instead of a View
• The OptionSet control methods for StatusCode Field is not working
• Bulk edit on entities causes the Status Reason Field to change back to the default value
• Incorrect Next Page link for related entities
• Quote Product, Order Product, and Invoice Product Forms are updated
• Cloning a Product causes sharing of the image
• Server Side Synchronization Performance Dashboard should have a name or description that indicates that it is for troubleshooting
• Can create Navigation properties with the same Name on an Entity
• Unable to add Contacts from one static Marketing List to another
• The message “Web browser tying to close the window” appears when attempting to use the CRM app for Outlook in Internet Explorer, or Microsoft Edge
• Outgoing E-mail, and Incoming E-mail stop processing for the organization
• Uninstalling a Managed Solution will cause Business Rules to be Deactivated
• (Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 Only) Slow Performance when opening Customize the System, and other associated Views
• (Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 Only) Getting error while installing sample data on Finnish (1035), Hungarian (1038), and Norwegian (1044) languages

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Support for new technologies provided by CRM 2016 Update 1.0:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM Compatibility List.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0 provides no new support for technologies, though CRM 2016 RTM does. Consult the Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM Compatibility List to identify newly-supported technologies.

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1 – 0.2:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1 contains updates that you must configure manually.  These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”.  For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates

Go to Top

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Contents:

• Podcast
• CRM Update Collateral Page
• Update 1.2 packages available for download
• Update prerequisites
• Functionality and Performance issues resolved by this Update

We’re proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 (Update Rollup 2 for Service Pack 1) were released July 18th, 2016 to the Microsoft Download Center! These packages will appear on Microsoft Update Q3 CY2016..

Why a blog regarding a “CRM Online Update”?

As you probably know, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.0 was generally considered to be the Online-only server changes code-named Carina. However, there are 3 sets of packages (32- and 64-bit) on the Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update, Update 1.2, that are also compatible with CRM 2015 On-Premise, and contain changes not in already released Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.1:

• CRM 2015 Client for Microsoft Office Outlook
• CRM 2015 MUI (Multi-Language User Interface
• CRM 2015 Email router

Note the naming convention change! Post-RTM Updates used to be called Update Rollups, now they’re just called Updates with the version number:

Was: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 1 or 2

Is now: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update 0.1 or 0.2

For more details, see the Dynamics CRM Product Group blog “New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates“

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 Build number:

7.1.2.1032

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 Microsoft Download Center page

Here’s the “Master” Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2: (KB 3141809). Going forward, the plan is to continue publishing Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Updates a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast

On July 27th, 2016, Ryan Anderson and Greg Nichols from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2
• New fixes made available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 Podcast

Note regarding Podcasts: We’ve recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts. See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information.

Go to Top

The “CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page“

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups and Service Packs, visit the “CRM Update Rollup and Service Pack Collateral Page“

Go to Top

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and 2015 to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link point to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2013 and CRM 2015! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Go to Top

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 Microsoft Download Center page – released July 18th, 2016
• The Microsoft Update Catalog – to be released Q3, CY2016
• The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
  • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 “master” Microsoft Knowledge Base article
  • Please review Jon Strand’s blog posting “CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups” which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client update rollups “silently” in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2013 and CRM 2015 Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs for these CRM components:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2015

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 for Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook Client)

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015

Provides a configuration-based framework for quickly building agent applications for call centers. You can aggregate customer information from different areas in Microsoft Dynamics CRM into a single desktop and get a 360° view of customer interactions

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Email Router

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Data Connector

The SSRS Data Connector is not available as an individual download. It is included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2015 download. When you extract the Server package (CRM2015-Server-ENU-amd64.exe /extract:path: extracts the content of the package to the path folder), you’ll find the Data Connector in the SrsDataConnector folder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Language Packs

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 for Windows 8 (“MoCA” – the Mobile Client Application available via the Windows Store)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for iPad (in iTunes)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Report Authoring Extension (with SQL Server Data Tools support)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 List Component Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 List Component for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (for multiple browsers)

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Implementation Guide download or specific TechNet content for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2:

• Extended the application metadata sync timeout to be the value from registry of key: ExtendedTimeout
• Corrected an issue with multi-entity Business Process Flows
• Lowered the severity of trace category for a UserAgent lookup scenario
• Resolved an issue with certain organizations where Outlook Configuration for CRM fails if Client has Update 7.1 installed
• Resolved an issue where Bulk edit update reverts statuscode to default value
• Fixed an issue where an onchange script isn’t firing from +New Button when Quick Create is disabled
• Corrected an issue with # characters showing instead of actual datetime values on dynamic refresh when using Danish
• Certain users in some organizations are unable to view Opportunity Records in the same browser window
• Scrolling on the top menu takes a user to end of the list, skipping all the entities between first page and last page
• Added the functions addPreSearch and addCustomFilter
• Using QuickView with an option set renders parent form as having unsaved changes
• Unable to publish customizations after having deleted an entity with a Business Rule
• Provisioning Users from O365 fails if the default Email Profile is set as POP3 and the Accounts/Contacts/Tasks option is set to Server Side Synchronization
• When using Export to Excel, GUIDs are exported instead of ActivityPartyName
• The DbUpgrade Action for FolderBasedTracking fails to create relationships for all custom entities with the MailboxTrackingFolder entity
• Added additional tracing information for tracking server-side sync issues
• CRM Custom Email Templates are inaccessible in the CRM for Outlook client
• When using a personal view on PluginTypeStatistics, error “The required attribute ‘jump’ is missing” occurs
• An error occurs when changing the status of a team owned, activated Quote (revise/close/order)
• An error occurs when pasting Excel data into another Excel workbook, “The command cannot be used on multiple selections.”
• Unable to render the Subject tree lookup if there are 250+ nodes
• Utilizing the save functionality on rich email text clears the email body when using the new form rendering engine
• Added additional duplicate value detection for certain values
• Removed the “starts with” filter on ConversationIndex validation
• “An error occurred when CRM tried to generate the Excel file” when attempting to Export to Excel
• Export to Excel fails if there are columns with duplicate display names
• An error occurs when attempting to reimport data that was exported to Excel, “A duplicate lookup reference was found.”
• A permissions error occurs when assigning a record from the open record form if the assigning user has user level assign permissions
• A script error occurs when refreshing the product form after upgrading to CRM 2015 Update 1
• Multiple errors received on launching Outlook when an item is tracked from a non-default store and tied to a non-CRM user
• An incorrect message shows when collapsing\expanding tabs, when using the new form rendering engine, “Are you sure you want to leave this page?”
• Outlook cannot configure to an organization that has a sitemap with matching subarea IDs in group (and when ShowGroup is set to false)
• An error occurs in Query Builder when using related entity Existing Product and Name
• Default views for activities crashes when the view contains UnresolvedEmailParty
• Enabled an option in CRM to resolve certain instances where server-side sync mailboxes become unusable
• Mailboxes becoming disabled in CRM if the user isn’t active in CRM
• Unable to read response from Exchange when making EWS calls
• Form load from custom roles causes multiple exceptions in the CRM traces related to missing privileges and performance degradation
• Telemetry shows “Can’t execute code from a freed script” resulting from ribbon.js
• Failure in processing email in “GetItems” step results in an infinite loop
• Issue with lines being added to the top of the email body when replying to an email in CRM
• Automatic case creation customer identification fails for contacts who are also users with the same email
• The OptionSet control methods for statuscode field are not working
• Mail Merge to email with attachments shows a blocked attachment message for every attempt to create records in CRM after the first email
• Plugin steps and image attributes not updating with solution import
• Pressing “ALTGr+S” on a Polish keyboard does not enter the Polish “?” alphabet character
• Submit button no longer supports Back Office Integration
• Dates populated with Business Rules are showing the wrong day
• An error occurs when opening certain views from CRM for Outlook, “There was an error displaying the records in this view.”
• A timeout occurs when making a change to Field Security Profiles
• The “GetValue()” function on Date type is returning an incorrect value
• The CRM for Outlook client synchronization resets and triggers recurring appointment reminders
• A chart for the Appointment entity is not displayed correctly when it is supposed to show only related records
• Composite Controls are not able to be read-only
• The CRM for Outlook client doesn’t refresh the Authentication token after 30-60 minutes
• Web resources don’t resize when the browser window is resized
• Action registered on saved event on hosted controls is not triggered correctly
• Cannot bulk import product records as per Product Structure
• Appointment reminders are shown as soon as appointments are synchronized with Server Side Synchronization
• Currency precision not displayed correctly
• Pipeline Phase is blank after an Opportunity is reopened and Sales Stage reverts to Qualify
• Currency unit is not displayed correctly even after making changes
• The OptionSet display order is not respected in the new form rendering engine
• Error “The data type is not valid for the boolean operation” occurs when configuring the CRM for Outlook Client
• Record doesn’t save when it has a Currency Field and there is a lookup for the Currency Entity editable and hidden on the form
• When a plugin throws an exception, that exception doesn’t block the assignment of a record
• While setting default values for activities, the owner attribute is becoming overwritten with the currently logged in user
• Unhandled exception occurs when trying to update an existing connection that doesn’t have a role
• Query Builder Error occurs when sending emails to unresolved email recipients and using rollup queries
• HTTP 404 – Not Found received when building Search criteria
• When saving an email activity, after changing parties and owner, the added parties are lost
• After upgrading to CRM 2015 Update 1, unable to access HTML Web Resources in Outlook Client
• BusinessUnitIDs are updated to new values after a full organization copy
• Corrected an incorrect translation in German regarding the opening of an Account record
• A format using a comma as the decimal separator causes wrong amounts for quantity
• Merging records that have connections with a custom lookup will fail if the related records of the custom relationship have different records than out of the box connections
• “SetFormMode” executes inefficiently in the new form rendering engine
• Creating an appointment after creating a phone call throws a script error on the social pane
• WorkflowTransactionContext within the Dispose method call attempts to call ExecutionContext.OnErrorRequest against an ExecutionContext that is not in use
• An OptionSet with a selected null value results in the Command Bar to no longer functioning correctly
• Using The Business Process Flow causes some records to be rendered incorrectly
• The received date is not shown on the draft email when replying to an email from CRM
• The “Email A Link” function sets CC on Email to “[Object object]”
• When un-hiding a section via SDK, fields change their size upon selection
• Privilege check on navbar item causes an error to occur
• Report wizard allows the creation of reports that exceed the maximum number of linked entities
• The CRM for Outlook client prompts for the same email address if there are 2 exchange accounts in the same profile
• The CRM for Outlook configuration errors in the log don’t include the error code or a forward link for Dynamic Help
• The CRM for Good App displays a white screen when using Good Work as the Authentication Delegate
• CRM for Good error “We’re having trouble settings things up. May we try again? Or we can start fresh but you’ll lose any personalization you made in the app” occurs when trying to use delegate authentication
• When opening a case record which is automatically closed using a workflow, the error “This case has already been resolvedClose and reopen the case record to see the updates” occurs
• An error occurs when attempting to add the Organization Service in a Visual Studio Project
• CRM Outlook client configuration creates Address Book Provider subscription
• Unable to print workbooks that have been exported to Excel from CRM Online
• Solution Import fails on managed properties
• The “Welcome” screen loops when using CRM for Good App on an iPad
• Content on the grid is not formatted correctly, and not aligned with the grid header
• Regarding Field is removed when changing an Appointment to a Recurring Appointment
• “You do not have permission to access these records” error when clicking Track in CRM if the user does not have prvReadConvertRule privilege
• When sending emails from CRM, the Contacts are not separated by a semi colon
• After using Export to Excel, the “Save Changes to CRM” function fails on entities that share display names
• Marketing List in the CRM for Outlook Client does not refresh
• Auto save changes cursor position in multi-line text fields
• The error “The field has an invalid XAML formula definition – Rollup field” occurs when saving a rule for Roll-up field
• CustomerAttributeMapping is not thread safe and can cause Infinite Looping
• Not able to add members from one Marketing List to another
• Assigning records throws an error when assigning a user that has user level assign permissions
• Cannot tab into Calendar
• DbUpgrade Action for FolderBasedTracking fails to create relationship for all custom entities with MailboxTrackingFolder entity
• Default views for activities crashes when the view contains UnresolvedEmailParty
• When using the new Form Rendering Engine, the Addresses sub-grid “+” does not respond when clicked
• Chart is not displayed correctly when it is supposed to show only related records
• The error “The command cannot be used on multiple selections” occurs when attempting to paste data in Excel
• Subject tree lookup cannot be rendered on the new Form Rendering Engine if there are 250+ nodes
• Outlook cannot configure to an organization that has a sitemap with matching subarea IDs in group, and ShowGroup set to false
• Provisioning Users from Office 365 fails if the default Email Server Profile is POP3 for e-mail, and ACT is Server Side Synchronization
• Unable to Publish Customizations after deleting an entity with a Business Rule
• An error occurs when trying to modify Work Hours for Facility/Equip
• Cannot run reports with default filtering from dashboard
• Object doesn’t support property or method ‘substr’ script error occurs
• The error “The message was saved as a Microsoft Dynamics CRM record without all of the original attachments. One or more attachments were blocked or invalid.” occurs when sending a Mail Merge with an attachment
• Server Side Sync throws exception if regardingObjectTypeCode for Email is invalid or absent
• AccessMode and its Audit Record have been changed by system
• Audit Logs Fails to Render for Workflows
• The error “An unexpected error occurred.” occurs when attempting to import Contract Item data
• When attempting to save an Appointment the error “General failure in scheduling engine” occurs
• Dynamics CRM mobile app does not adhere to role based permissions in the RibbonDiffXML
• Performance issues occur when using RetrieveMultiple to retrieve e-mails if the e-mail address does not resolve to a record in CRM
• Date for Rollup field gets reverted back to 1/1/1900 after the Field is created
• Fields with labels on top are not set as visible via Business Rule
• When using Server Side Sync to sync an activity if there is a value on ActualEnd it creates a closed Exchange task
• Script error occurs when creating a new Case 2 times in a row by clicking Save and Close
• Manager level hierarchy security model not working as expected
• CRM App for Outlook encounters an error when attempting to load in Outlook Web Access
• Wrong Billing date on Contract
• The error “Cannot create the given type without the required parameters” occurs when modifying recipients on email template used by workflow
• Updated ADAL version used by Outlook Client
• Label on Business Rule does not get translated after import
• The error “Error An error has occurred.” occurs while trying to create an Appointment using Search
• Running a Workflow on an update step clears the email Body\Description Field
• Server Side Synchronization calls to obtain access token fail with the error “Underlying connection was closed.”
• Creation of user is prevented when user has a POP or SMTP type of e-mail account
• Confirm Prompt Missing when deactivating a record
• Unable to copy text from multiple areas of the Form
• Using CRM for Outlook the message “Tracking Outlook Item in CRM contacting CRM” appears for tracked sent emails
• Able to delete “Opportunity Products” from a Won Opportunity that has a Read-Only status
• Change in value does not get updated in the Dynamics CRM reading pane within Outlook
• Web Resource does not respect sizing on the new Form Rendering Engine
• WorkflowTransactionContext is not thread safe and does not use unique TransactionContextId
• Server Side Sync Tries to Call Update on Missing/Deleted Exchange Items
• Missing hidden columns when exporting from Data Import fields
• Unable to show result that Business Process Flow was changed
• The error “Principal user (Id) is missing prvReadQuote privilege (Id)” occurs when attempting to close an Opportunity as lost in CRM App for Phones and Tablets, and this error does not occur using the web
• Open in a New Window option missing from sub-grid context menu
• The RowVersion property returns null when retrieving entity during synchronous plugin
• Unable to see the Full Name of a User or a Team that the record is shared with if name is long
• Outlook Client WebFormsHost HTML Web Resources are opening behind Form window
• Chart rendering error for an entity with more than 10 calculated fields
• Duration Field value appears incorrectly formatted when format uses comma as decimal separator
• SuppressDuplicateDetection is not honored in child context
• Add to Another Marketing List’ sub-grid button is not functioning
• Business Process Flow field shows HTML encoding instead of special characters
• Cyclic reference between two workflows causes solution export to fail
• When attempting to select a template to insert into an e-mail using CRM for Outlook, the error -“You must select a Recipient or a Regarding Record that can be associated to an Email Template. For example you cannot select a Queue. Select a Valid recipient or a regarding record and try again” occurs.
• Creating phone call using the Dynamics CRM mobile app, the ‘Call To’ field is not set correctly
• “Japanese” and “Oceania” options are missing on PluginRegistration Tool in the latest SDK (7.1.1)
• Attachments are removed from the Outlook Appointment after synchronization
• Lookups filtered with ‘related records filtering’ do not function on Dynamics CRM mobile app
• ScheduledStart Field is not visible inside Activity through Global Search while using the Dynamics CRM mobile app
• The database file cannot be found error occurs during Outlook Client configuration
• An appointment record created in the web client is locked in the mobile apps
• The OptionSet control clientAPIs aren’t working correctly for the “statuscode” field in the new form rendering engine
• IOS and Android mobile apps fail to configure if an upper-case value is in the organization URL
• Auto-save changes cursor position in multi line text fields
• Clicking record name in To field of email does not open the record
• Opening the Documents section from the Service Request entity is taking longer then 15 seconds
• Bevels are shaded out in all form headers
• MemberCount property gets calculated wrong when adding members from custom code using parallelism
• Opening a Hierarchal Form from Territory entity results in an error
• A Saved Query works in a web browser, but when opening it in CRM for Outlook the error “There was an error displaying the records in this view” occurs

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Support for new technologies provided by CRM 2015 Update 1.2:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2 provides no new support for technologies, but includes the support provided via Update 1.1 for::

• Windows 10 and the Edge Browser

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1 – 0.2, only if any manual configuration is required:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
  
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.2: no updates requiring manual configuration

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update Rollups against released versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft will release enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Here are the 15 tips that we shared as part of our Migrating to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online interactive discussion at Ignite 2016.

We wanted to share them in a blog article to those who attended (to reduce the need for notes), for those who could not attend, and help reduce our own need for more PowerPoint slides. For those in attendance, feel free to ask any questions during the last 45-60 minutes of our session, or come find is in the hallways at Ignite. For those of you who couldn’t attend please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll do our best to reply in a timely manner.

1.       Review new features and functionality

·         Review what new features are available that you can leverage in the latest CRM Online version and use this information to build a business case to migrate or update to the next version

·         What customizations can be retired in favor of out of the box configurations

                                                               i.      Example: Retiring certain JavaScript in favor of Business Rules

·         What’s New: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/what-s-new.aspx

·         What’s new for Administrators and Customizers: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn531078.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

·         CRM Roadmap: http://crmroadmap.dynamics.com

2.       Data Migration Strategy

·         What data and features actually needs to move to CRM Online

·         Data Loader for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

                                                               i.      https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/lcs/2015/10/22/preview-feature-data-loader-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-online/

·         Other options include: Dedicated ETL tools (multiple platforms), SSIS adapters, and usage of .NET libraries such as the PFE Core Library or just the CRM SDK assemblies

·         Article: Migrate Your Existing Data to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

                                                               i.      https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/Global/CRM/learning/documentation/user-guides/DataMigrationCRMOnlineOnboardingSuccess

3.       ISV Solutions

·         Review current ISV solutions and confirm whether they are still needed when moving to CRM Online and look at the dependencies required for the solution.  Contact the specific ISV’s to confirm their solution works with the latest CRM Online version.

4.       Federation with Active Directory

·         A benefit of CRM being part of office 365 is the shared identity configuration, therefore CRM can support capabilities in Azure AD such as:

·         Conditional Access –  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt750484.aspx

·         Azure AD Connect (formerly DirSync) https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/active-directory-aadconnect 

5.       Integrations: Review current and planned – common approaches include:

·         Logic Apps can now be notified by CRM Online and may talk back into CRM Online: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/connectors-create-api-crmonline/ 

·         Service Bus Integration:

                                                               i.      Previous version of service bus limited (CRM 5.0 – 8.0)

                                                             ii.      Updated service bus starting CRM 2016 Update 1 (CRM 8.1 and higher) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg334766.aspx

·         Other tools including ISV online hosted integrations

6.       Outlook Client Integration

·         Consider your current Outlook integration and if the CRM App for Outlook will work for your organization. 

·         CRM App for Outlook vs. CRM Outlook client

·         CRM App for Outlook User’s Guide: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/crm-app-for-outlook-user-s-guide-lightweight-app.aspx

·         Install CRM for Outlook: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699760.aspx

7.       Email Options

·         Review and consider if you want to use Server Side Sync or CRM Email Router.  It’s strongly recommended that you use Server Side Sync, but if you are not using Exchange, then you will have to use the CRM Email Router or the CRM Outlook client as an email routing option.

·         Set up server-side synchronization of email, appointments, contacts, and tasks

                                                               i.      https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531109.aspx

·         Install CRM Email Router: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699800.aspx

8.       Reporting Strategy

·         SQL Reports against the transactional database are not possible with Dynamics CRM Online.  Existing SSRS reports should be updated to use FetchXML

·         PowerBI This is also a perfect opportunity to look at self-service BI options like PowerBI

·         Synchronizing data to an enterprise data warehouse

·         Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Reporting Considerations: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn792525.aspx

9.       Mobility Solutions

·         Review your current mobility solutions or requirements for mobility with CRM Online.

·         There is an app for CRM for Tablets & CRM for Phones available on Windows, Apple and Android

·         Mobile customization tips:

                                                               i.      Same form is now used for web, tablet and phone

                                                             ii.      Custom javascript will work as expected

·         CRM for Phones and Tablets User’s Guide

                                                               i.      https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/crm-for-phones-and-tablets-user-s-guide.aspx

·         Setup CRM for phones and CRM for Tablets

                                                               i.      https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn531128.aspx

·         Customize CRM for phones and tablets

                                                               i.      https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531159.aspx

10.   CRM Online Updates

·         Customer Driven Updates (CDU)

                                                               i.      Review the information in the Updates page in the CRM Online Administration Center (https://portal.office.com > Admin centers > CRM > Updates tab) to find out what instances are ready to update, and the schedule.

                                                             ii.      Approve the update.  If you do not approve the update, Microsoft will not apply the update. 

·         Weekly service updates are applied to your CRM Online organizations and communications are sent out to CRM Administrators with details.

·         Manage Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Updates

                                                               i.      https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn308237.aspx

11.   Sandbox vs. Production organizations

·         There are two different types of organizations in CRM Online.  Production organizations are meant for production deployments and most organizations will only have 1 or 2 production instances.  Sandbox organizations are used for development purposes and customers commonly have 1 or more sandbox organizations.

·         Sandbox organizations offer additional management features such as Reset, Admin Mode and Delete.

·         All organizations are on the same hardware and treated as Production organizations

·         Manage CRM Online instances

                                                               i.      https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn659833.aspx

12.   CRM Online Backup & Restore functionality

·         CRM 2016 Update 1+ allows for on demand backup\restore from admin center

                                                               i.      On demand backup\restore

                                                             ii.      Available for 3 days

                                                           iii.      Does not count against your storage limits

·         https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt748060.aspx

13.   CRM Administrators & Office 365 Global Admins

·         CRM Administrators can manage organizations in the CRM Admin Center

·         CRM Administrators will receive CRM notifications and communications

·         CRM Global Administrators need to provision new organizations and approve User emails.

·         CRM Administrators are still needed with CRM Online.  You are not going to lose your administration job!

                                                               i.      Administering CRM 2016

1.       https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn531101.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

·         Engaging the CRM Online Support Team

                                                               i.      https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/dynamics-online-support.aspx

14.   Organization Insights (Preview feature)

·         View metrics about your instance with Organization Insights dashboard

                                                               i.      Active Users, Specific Operations, Total Page Requests, etc.

·         Available in CRM 2016 Update 1 and beyond

·         https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt703628.aspx

15.   WebAPI and OAuth Support / Deprecation of SOAP

·         If you authenticate with the CRM SDK .NET libraries: CALL TO ACTION: Update to the latest SDK libraries (8.0 or higher)

·         If you authenticate with CRM via your own, you should migrate SOON over to using ADAL which will use oAuth.

·         WebApi will be the endpoint of choice going forward

                                                               i.      CRM 2011 wcf/soap service has been declared deprecated – no, it’s not going to disappear in the near term but it’s a signal to all developers to start migrating

                                                             ii.      If you use the .NET SDK libraries you can keep using these, these will eventually start to use the WebApi under the covers – no need to write a custom http client

·         https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2016/06/17/deprecation-announcements-with-dynamics-crm-online-2016-update-1-and-microsoft-dynamics-crm-2016-service-pack-1

We really enjoy hearing all of the success stories about how you are leveraging Dynamics 365 products to accelerate and grow your business success!  We also enjoy hearing about any challenges you are having with your deployment and how we can help make it successful.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at Ignite 2016!

Shawn Dieken – @sdieken & Sean McNellis – @seanmcne

Follow the conversation:
@pfedynamics | http://www.pfedynamics.com

Related collateral you should know about:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral
• New features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365 Update 2.0
• What’s new for administrators and customizers in Microsoft Dynamics 365
• What’s new for developers: Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Important changes coming in future releases of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (developer focus, inc. deprecations)

We’re proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 (December 2016 Update, aka Service Pack 2, codenamed Centaurus) were released December 16th, 2016 to the Microsoft Download Center and available for download! Appropriate packages will appear on Microsoft Update shortly .

Note the naming convention change! Post-RTM Updates used to be called Update Rollups, now they’re just called Updates with the version number:

Was: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 1 or 2

Is now: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update 0.1 or 0.2

For more details, see the Dynamics CRM Product Group blog “New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates“

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 Build number:

8.2.0.749

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 Microsoft Download Center page

Here’s the “Master” Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0: (KB 3205084). Going forward, the plan is to continue publishing Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Updates a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast

On Tuesday, January 31st 2017, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team provided information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.0
• New fixes made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.0
• New functionality made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.0

during their Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.0 podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: We’ve recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts. See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information. To download the podcast audio file, right-click here, and choose to save the link location or file locally.

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The “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” Page

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs, visit the “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” page.

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Important note:

An updated Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Build 2.2.0.755) has been released. See the following Microsoft Download Center webpage for download details:

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link above points to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2016! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 Microsoft Download Center page – released December 16th, 2016
• The Microsoft Update Catalog – to be released shortly
• The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
  • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 / Microsoft Dynamics 365 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 “master” Microsoft Knowledge Base article

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2016

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 for Microsoft Office Outlook (Outlook Client)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Email Router

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) Data Connector

The SSRS Data Connector is not available as an individual download. It is included in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2016 download. When you extract the Server package (CRM2015-Server-ENU-amd64.exe /extract:path: extracts the content of the package to the path folder), you’ll find the Data Connector in the SrsDataConnector folder

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Language Packs (aka Multi-Language User Interface / MUI)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Report Authoring Extension (with SQL Server Data Tools support)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 List Component for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (for multiple browsers)

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Implementation Guide download or Online TechNet for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0:

• Groups do not stay highlighted when selected
• Focus is lost in an Upload Data File while using the Import Wizard
• A failure occurs when using ribbon rules
• Unable to create a Lead with an Estimated Budget
• The CRM App for Outlook fails to load and a generic error occurs when missing System Application Metadata privileges
• The error Error installing sp with name=p_DeleteSingleAuditPartition Online index operations can only be performed in Enterprise edition of SQL Server occurs when installing Dynamics 365 on a SQL Standard installation
• An Out of Memory message stating Array dimensions exceeded supported range occurs on servers running the Asynchronous server role
• A Null Exception occurs when sending DataPublishing success complete messages in the DataPublisingEntityProcessor
• A 500 Internal Server error occurs when using an existing subscription on the Data Sync Framework
• Using Category Search, the + buttons to add new record no longer work
• Importing of a custom Solution with the default Activity Feed plugin included should not be allowed
• Configuration database access can result in an incorrectly initialized Sandbox Host Manager, which causes plugins to fail
• A Retrieve Multiple plugin can fail when run during a large Duplicate Detection Job
• Navpropname is not available during $expand after a Solution upgrade
• When using the Interactive Service Hub an error occurs when attempting to create a Contact from the Account Main Form
• Unable to see a custom Entity in the To Field multi party lookup in the Email Form
• Unable to create a new Main-Interactive Experience Form
• Learning Path sidebars do not pop open on every page load
• After creating Custom Controls, a user with a custom Security Role is no longer able to use the CRM for Mobile app
• The keyboard that appears on the device will cover the Lookup Field when the Lookup Field is selected while using the CRM for Mobile app on an iOS device
• A User’s Team is not being evaluated in a View query properly because the data does not show up in the Team View on CRM for Mobile app
• Performance issues occur when querying the Opportunity Product entity, which are caused by the Modified On Field
• Access Teams are no longer active on an entity after upgrading
• Dynamic Help added for Server Side Synchronization
• Mailbox for unlocked is enabled for all organizations
• Appointment Recipients do not receive invitations
• Asynchronous Service for Server Side Synchronization uses more threads than it should. This can cause performance issues
• When using Server Side Synchronization, Tasks will duplicate in CRM when a user is assigned the Sync to Outlook privilege through a Team rather than directly through their security role
• Asynchronous Service crashes if a Data column contains more than 100MB of uncompressed data
• If EWS (Exchange Web Service) throws ServiceResponseException, mailboxes will get stuck when using Appointment, Contact, and Task syncing with Server Side Sync
• Unified Service Desk displays a Security error and then closes
• Using the new Form Rendering Engine, Xrm.Page.ui.getFormType() is returning the wrong value for a Read Only Form
• When AutoSave is triggered while in email context, Editing is blocked
• Grid View check marks are not readable the by screen reader

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Support for new technologies provided by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM Compatibility List.

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1 – 0.2:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1 contains updates that you must configure manually. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2 contains updates that you must configure manually, as does Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates

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Greg Nichols
Dynamics 365 Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Today we are starting a new series of articles that will be published on a monthly recurring basis. This series will focus on Dynamics 365/Dynamics CRM and provide an overview of featured news, updates, training links…etc. This is an example of the type of information we provide to our customers using our Dedicated Support Engineer (DSE) service. We hope you find this content valuable. Please direct any feedback to the comments at the end of the article. Enjoy!

Featured News

Dynamics 365 Mandatory 8.0 Update Notifications have been sent out to all 8.0 customers indicating a mandatory update will begin in March. The upgrade window will be March 3 through June 30. Below is copy of the notification message: Scheduling your organization for an update is important and necessary to provide you with all the great updates, performance improvements and features available to you. To help you experience the best Microsoft Dynamics 365 has to offer, the update policy ensures your service is on the latest version. If your organization is two versions behind the latest version, it will be updated without needing approvals. Below is an example of the customer notification: Per our records, your organization is currently on CRM Online 2016 (8.0) and based on the update policy your organization will be set to a mandatory update starting March 3, 2017. The update will not require your explicit approval if you have not approved a scheduled update. If your 8.0 organization does not have a scheduled update, you will be automatically scheduled staring in January 2017. You can move the update to an open available slot between March 3, 2017 and June 30, 2017, however, you will not be able to reschedule your update past the CDU window. If you have already scheduled and approved an update between March 3, 2017, and June 30, 2017, the organization will be updated on that date with no further action needed by you. Please be sure you are familiar with and understand the Customer Driven Update Policy and follow these easy steps to get prepared for your next CRM Online update. 1. Get familiar. Stay up to date with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Roadmap for the complete list of capabilities and service investments. 2. Get prepared. Read about Managing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online updates. 3. Engage. Your partner and Microsoft teams are here to help you be successful.

View the Progress of your Dynamics 365 Update To better track and manage the status of Dynamics 365 (online) updates, a new Updating Instance feature has been added to the Administration Center.   Customers can now see the status of their update as it goes through the four stages: Status Description Queued (Not Started) The update is queued and will start at the scheduled time. Backup The Dynamics 365 (online) instance is being backed up. A copy of the instance is backed up before the update for recovery purposes. Restore The Dynamics 365 (online) instance is being restored. Database Upgrade The Dynamics 365 (online) instance is being updated. For a complete description of the update process, see Manage Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) updates.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Organization Insights The new Organization Insights for Dynamics 365 (online) is now available. This solution provides important adoption and use metrics for the Dynamics 365 organization, and tools to help customers stay ahead of performance and support issues. Some of the features include” Monitoring adoption and use Managing storage and performance Granular troubleshooting assistance for workflows and API calls This solution is available for download from the Microsoft AppSource. Minimum supported platform version is 8.2.

Updates & Releases

Now available: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 packages Microsoft is proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 (December 2016 Update/Service Pack 2/Centaurus) are available in the Microsoft Download Center! The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 Build number is 8.2.0.749 Note: The naming convention for updates has changed. Post-RTM Updates were referred to as Update Rollups, now they will be called Updates with the version number: Old Naming: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 1 or 2 New Naming: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update 0.1 or 0.2 For more details on the naming convention, see the Dynamics CRM Product Group blog “New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates“ For more information on what’s available for download and the resolutions provided by Dynamics 365 Update 2.0, take a look at this post from the Dynamics CRM in the Field blog.

Deprecation Announcement The Dynamics Connector has been deprecated and is no longer supported with version 8.2. For any customer still using the Connector, a workaround has been developed to make it work for 8.2 organizations, but it will not be supported on any future CRM versions. Use the following steps to get the Dynamics Connector working with 8.2 organizations: Download the latest CRM SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50032 Before replacing the .dlls in the next two steps, make copies of them Replace Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy.dll from the <Connector installation directory> with the .dll of the same name found in the SDK installation. Replace Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.dll from the <Connector installation directory>\Adapters\Microsoft.Dynamics.Integration.Adapters.Crm2011 directory with the .dll of the same name found in the SDK installation. Redirect the dependent Xrm Sdk assemblies from version 7.0.0.0 to version 8.0.0.0 by updating or adding the following xml tags to these connector configuration files; these files can be found in the <Connector installation directory> ConnectorServiceHost.exe.config Microsoft.Dynamics.Integration.Adapters.Crm2011.Configuration.exe.config Microsoft.Dynamics.Integration.Client.exe.config <configuration> <runtime> <assemblyBinding xmlns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1″> <dependentAssembly> <assemblyIdentity name=”Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk” publicKeyToken=”31bf3856ad364e35″ culture=”neutral” /> <bindingRedirect oldVersion=”7.0.0.0″ newVersion=”8.0.0.0″/> </dependentAssembly> <dependentAssembly> <assemblyIdentity name=”Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Proxy” publicKeyToken=”31bf3856ad364e35″ culture=”neutral” /> <bindingRedirect oldVersion=”7.0.0.0″ newVersion=”8.0.0.0″/> </dependentAssembly> </assemblyBinding> </runtime> </configuration> Shutdown all connector applications Restart the Connector Service Restart Connector Client application Attempt CRM configuration again

New Features in Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.1 Social Selling Assistant Microsoft Social Engagement introduces Social Selling Assistant, to empower your salespeople to sell more by leveraging social media. With this application, your salespeople get personalized and smart recommendations to share on their social networks to enable them increase their social presence, gain trust from their followers, and generate more leads. Post to LinkedIn With this release you can add your personal LinkedIn account as a social profile, then share any public post in Microsoft Social Engagement to your professional network on LinkedIn. You can choose between two visibility options: show the post to everyone on LinkedIn or to your network only. This post action is available across all Microsoft Social Engagement services, including the newly released Social Selling Assistant. Japanese and Chinese (traditional) User interface Microsoft Social Engagement introduces Japanese and Chinese (traditional) languages in the user interface. The localization of the user interface also includes the respective calendars for Japanese and Chinese (traditional) languages. In addition to the new features, Update 1.1 addresses some issues and improvements which can be reviewed in this blog post.

Errors when accessing the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Customers have experienced the following error when trying to access the Dynamics 365 app in Outlook: “Sorry, something went wrong while initializing the app. Please try again, or restart the app”. The resolution for this issue is to close the app and attempt to reopen it again. If the problem persists then try closing the internet browser and navigating to the application again. Customers have also reported the following error: “Something went wrong during sign-in. Please try again. If the problem persists, contact your system administrator.” This error can occur when the App for Outlook is unable to connect to the authorization service to ensure that you are authorized to use this app or if the Dynamics 365 (online) URL was changed after the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook was installed. Resolution 1: Close the app, and open it again. If the problem persists, try closing the internet browser and reopening it again. Resolution 2: If you changed your Dynamics 365 (online) URL after Microsoft Dynamics 365 App for Outlook was installed, you need to redeploy the app: A user with the System Administrator role can redeploy the app to users by opening the Dynamics 365 web application and then navigating to the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook area within Settings. Select the users who should have the app redeployed and use one of the Add App buttons to redeploy the app. After the Status changes to “Added to Outlook”, you can verify if the issue has been resolved. If you already had the app open, close and reopen it. For more information, review this support article.

Dynamics 365 App for Outlook: Your device/browser is unsupported Customers have experienced the following error when trying to access the Dynamics 365 app for Outlook: “Your device/browser is currently unsupported.” Click here to view the requirements for deploying the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook and the supported devices and browsers.

Email Server Profile “Test Failed” error After clicking the Test Connection on an Email Server Profile record in Dynamics 365, customers have encountered a “Test Failed” error. The Failure Details section contains the following message: “The SMTP address has no mailbox associated with it.” This error can occur if the format domain\username is used for the User Name (Example: contoso\user). The resolution is to update the user name in the Email Server Profile Credentials section to use the UPN format (Example: user@contoso.com) instead of the domain\username format. If the error persists, then verify a mailbox exists for the user and the UPN value in the User Name field matches the email address for the user’s mailbox in Exchange.

Server-Side Synchronization “404 NotFound exception” The following errors may be displayed in the Alerts area when testing and enabling a Dynamics 365 mailbox: Mailbox <Mailbox Name> didn’t synchronize because an error occurred while connecting to the email server. The owner of the associated email server profile <Email Server Profile Name> has been notified. Mailbox <Mailbox Name> didn’t synchronize appointments, contacts, and tasks because an error occurred while connecting to the Microsoft Exchange server. The owner of the associated email server profile <Email Server Profile Name> has been notified. The email message “Test Message” cannot be sent because an error occurred while connecting to the email server. Mailbox <Mailbox Name> didn’t synchronize. The owner of the associated email server profile <Email Server Profile Name> has been notified. Each of the errors above, also include the following error code: Email Server Error Code: Http server returned 404 NotFound exception. This error can occur for one of the following reasons: The mailbox for the user could not be found because the email address is not correct or the mailbox is not currently available. The configuration of the associated Email Server Profile is not correctly configured to be able to locate the mailbox. The resolution calls for verifying the e-mail address of the mailbox record in Dynamics 365 matches the e-mail address in Exchange and verifying the configuration of the associated Email Server Profile. Review the following support article for more details.

Dynamics 365 and SDK v6.0 issues An issue has been identified with client applications on SDK v6.0 having difficulty connecting with the Dynamics 365 organizations in v8.1 and higher. The following message is returned: “The Organization Service URL is invalid. Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved” This issue is due to the SDK v6.0 attempting to authenticate through ACS, but that has been deprecated for Dynamics 365 organizations. An updated SDK 6.x client is now available to resolve this issue. Download and install the updated assembly here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40321

Additional News

New Microsoft.Xrm.Data.Powershell 2.5 The Microsoft.Xrm.Data.PowerShell CRM PowerShell module allows CRM administrators to perform CRUD operations with Dynamics CRM data and change user and system Settings for both Dynamics CRM Online and On-Premise environments. A new version of the module is now available with updated dlls from 8.1 to 8.2. Download the latest version here. For more information about what the module can do, take a look at the “Great Power Tools for CRM Administrators” Part I and Part II blog posts.

Use SCCM to install Dynamics 365 for Outlook Organizations with large deployments of Dynamics 365 for Outlook should consider using System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to more efficiently and securely deploy and manage Dynamics 365 for Outlook installation. Download this pdf for step by step instructions on how to use SCCM for your deployment.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 performance improvements with SQL Server 2016 SQL Server 2016 comes with a set of rich capabilities that can help you solve and meet your business needs. The Dynamics 365 engineering team continues to evaluate these capabilities to enhance the application’s performance in upcoming releases. One such enhancement is the improvement of performance in Dynamics 365 (on-prem) with SQL Server 2016 CU2 when using database compatibility level 110 (SQL Server 2012 compatibility level). The application’s performance is improved when the organization database trace flag is set to 1224. This setting reduces the CPU usage by disabling lock escalation based on the number of locks. For details, please see Improve performance when you use Microsoft Dynamics 365 with SQL Server 2016. The performance of SQL Server 2016 is also improved with the High Availability Enhancements. The obsolete Database Mirroring technology has been replaced with a more efficient Always On Basic Availability Groups for high availability. Another capability to consider is the In-memory Columnstore. In-memory Columnstore uses column compression to reduce the storage footprint and improve query performance for data warehousing scenarios. For more suggestions on ways to help maintain and fine-tune your Dynamics 365 applications with SQL 2016, checkout What’s New in SQL 2016 (Database Engine).

Make Business Recommendations using Business Intelligence The fall 2016 release of Dynamics 365 introduced a powerful new feature as part of business processes called business recommendations. This feature enables a Business Analyst or System Customizer to guide users to optimal data based on intelligence they have about their business. A great example is with product selection. If a user is running an Insurance Sales business process and is at the stage where they are discussing with their customer what insurance products they want to buy, a business recommendation check can be added to the process to review the performance and profiles of past deals to help the user identify the best products to suggest. More information on implementing business recommendations can be found here.

RetrieveMultiple Performance Blog Series RetrieveMultiple is a type of query used to retrieve one or more entity instances based on specified criteria. When this query executes, security requirements are taken into consideration to ensure the person executing the query has the proper access to the entities being retrieved. The additional security checks often will lead to performance issues for the end user trying to access the information. A blog post series has been dedicated to this topic and is now available on the Dynamics CRM Community Support Blog. Topics include RetrieveMultiple introduction, optimization and sharing considerations. Feel free to use this blog series for reference as needed.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online) – Asynchronous Service Quotas The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Asynchronous Processing Service (called the async service) executes long-running operations independent of the main Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online & on-premises) core operation. This results in improved overall system performance and improved scalability. Interested in learning how it works. The asynchronous service features a managed queue for the execution of asynchronous plug-ins, workflows, and long-running operations. These operations are registered with the asynchronous service and are executed periodically when the service processes its queue. Since these operations are queued up and must be executed in time globally, there are some well-defined resource quotas that enable resources to be distributed amongst all online customers equally. For more information, review this post from the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Team Blog.

Training Corner

Training Sites & eLearning Get the most up to date training and eLearning information for Dynamics 365 from the Help Center. The highly anticipated Training & Adoption Kit for Dynamics 365 is also available for download which includes user guides, quick reference cards, eBooks for end users and admins. Feel free to modify the content and distribute to your customers.

Learning Path authoring now available in Dynamics 365 Learning Path is a new Azure service that was introduced in Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 to provide product specific training, walkthroughs, videos, and articles. Microsoft is excited to announce that Dynamics 365 customers can now use Learning Path to create their own custom Help experiences! This help content can be added to any page, screen, form or view tailored to specific roles and the content can be displayed in different languages. To learn more about creating Learning Path guided help, see Create your own guided help (Learning Path) for your customers. Note: This feature is only available with Dynamics 365 (online). It is not available for on-premise.

Add CRM Modules to your Dynamics 365 Trial Created your Dynamics 365 trial instance, but didn’t include all the out of the box CRM modules? Adding those modules is now easier than ever (and you don’t have to create a new instance to do it). Simply access the Dynamics Admin Center and click the icon to edit the Solutions. Select the Modules you would like to install. Note: This change was implemented in the 8.2 Update and is available for the Dynamics 365 Trail Enterprise edition.

Voice of the Customer Surveys Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a survey feature that was made available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 0.1. With Voice of the Customer, users can create and send out surveys to get feedback from their customers about their products or services. Respondents can take the surveys on a phone, tablet, or computer. The survey analytics included with the Voice of the Customer solution helps users use their customer feedback to identify gaps in service, run targeted marketing campaigns, and send offers to increase sales. See Voice of the Customer in action: https://youtu.be/tSef4zXkrPw For more information about installing and using the Voice of the Customer preferred solution, see Get feedback with Voice of the Customer surveys. Voice of the Customer Frequently Asked Questions Part I, Part II, Part III.

Related collateral you should know about:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral
• New features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365 Update 2.0
• What’s new for administrators and customizers in Microsoft Dynamics 365
• What’s new for developers: Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Important changes coming in future releases of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (developer focus, inc. deprecations)

We’re proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 were released December 16th, 2016 to the Microsoft Download Center and available for download! Appropriate packages will appear on Microsoft Update shortly .

Note: The Updates documented in this blog update the Dynamics CRM 2016 components described in this Microsoft Knowledge base article:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installations, Updates and Documentation

Note the naming convention change! For more details, see the Dynamics CRM Product Group blog “New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates“

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 Build number:

8.2.1.176

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 Microsoft Download Center page

Here’s the “Master” Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 201: (KB 4013759). Going forward, the plan is to continue publishing Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Updates a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast

Soon, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team will provide information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 0.1
• New fixes made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1
• New functionality made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1

during a Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1 and CRM 2016 Update 1.1 podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: We’ve recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts. See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information.

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The “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” Page

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs, visit the “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” page.

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Important note:

An updated Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Build 2.2.2.806) has been released. See the following Microsoft Download Center webpage for download details:

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link above points to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2016! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 Microsoft Download Center page – released April 27th, 2017
• The Microsoft Update Catalog – to be released shortly
• The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
  • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 / Microsoft Dynamics 365 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.1 “master” Microsoft Knowledge Base article

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1 Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Implementation Guide download or Online TechNet for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing.

Fixes released via Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1:

• “Scheduling Alerts” dialog is displayed without any alerts in non-Internet Explorer browsers
• Activities and Closed Activities Icons not displayed correctly for some entities
• AdminOnlyMode check should be bypassed when an application from outside wants to execute a SDK in system user context
• Appointment recipients do not receive invitations
• Appointments created in Outlook, or the Outlook Web App need to be activated
• Audit details lost after switching Case Status transition
• Cannot add associated record for N:N Relationships with only Append/Append To permissions
• Categorized Search fails with Query Builder Error due to use of lookup entity Attributes in Quick Find view
• When a Business Process Flow in the Case Entity is duplicated access to Incident records is broken
• Changing owner via workflow also changes Owner in Create Audit Event
• Clicking Phone Number link opens Quick Create form
• Command Bar in activities tab in social pane not displaying all buttons
• Navigating from Contact to Opportunity, and back again hangs with the message “Requesting Data from CRM”
• Creating an Appointment from the Social Pane when < symbol is present (Opportunities)
• Customized Workflow activity will be triggered twice which is designed to be called only once
• Deactivate screen with custom Inactive status reasons requires scrolling to choose the option
• Editing columns during Advanced Find throws the error (window.opener.top.location.href)
• Email body is disabled while using Chrome in Citrix, and Chrome Incognito mode in Windows
• Export solution failed in RoutingRuleHandler.ExportWorkflow with Null System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
• Export to Dynamic Worksheet doesn’t respect regional settings
• Forms no longer underline section headings since Dynamics 365 upgrade
• Getting SQL timeout exception when retrieving application metadata
• Open in browser generates invalid URL in iOS 10
• Last updated field is not shown up under Health box
• Lookup is not defaulting
• Missing “+” Icon on the Quick View control
• Unable to Set Regarding on e-mails when using the Unified Service Desk
• The error “Object doesn’t support property or method ‘$find'” occurs when clicking on Results button twice
• Organizations upgraded from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 can have a Null BusinessProcessType causing these Business Process Flows to be unusable post upgrade
• A Lookup control error occurs when updating appointment created in Outlook
• Page keeps loading after clicking Ok on access denied error
• Previous connection to mailbox is not closed properly using Hybrid Email Server Profile
• The error “unable to connect to Exchange” occurs when attempting to use the CRM App for Outlook in Outlook Web App (OWA)
• Scheduling Alert occurs without an alert when changing an existing Appointment
• Server Side Synchronization required attendees list changes when multiple contacts exist with same email address, or users exist with same email address as contacts
• Solution uninstall is not respecting dependency
• StatusCode value is displayed as Integer instead of Text for Inactive records on the QuickViewForm
• Subgrid for Opportunity doesn’t trigger the Opportunity default Business Process Flow
• Subgrid record changes layout of the Form
• Sync workflow with System User as primary entity throws error when triggered
• SystemUserPrincipals could not repopulate when User is reactivated
• Tasks duplicating through Server Side Synchronization after Security Role change
• Unable to add Notes to Task After navigating away from Task Form in Dynamics 365 For Sales
• Unable to Assign Security Role to Business Process Flow in Dynamics 365 for Sales
• Unable to import Excel containing Floating Point Number field data
• Unable to populate value on Service field on Service Activity from the Form assistant
• Unreadable HTML encode displays in alternate key Selected Attributes list
• WebAPI FetchXml query does not return FormattedValues for Link-Entities attributes in Dynamics 365
• When hiding the Business Process Flow during onLoad only the first 2 steps are displayed when showing the Business Process Flow

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Support for new technologies provided by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 0.1:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM Compatibility List.

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1 – 0.2:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1 contains updates that you must configure manually. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2 contains updates that you must configure manually, as does Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.1 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.1ontains updates that you must configure manually. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates

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Greg Nichols
Dynamics 365 Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Related collateral you should know about:

• New features for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• What’s new for administrators and customizers in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• What’s new for developers in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Deprecation announcements with Dynamics CRM Online 2016 Update 1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1

We’re proud to announce that all packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) were released on May 17th, 2017 to the Microsoft Download Center and are available for download! Appropriate packages will appear on Microsoft Update shortly.

Note: The Updates documented in this blog update the Dynamics CRM 2016 components described in this Microsoft Knowledge base article:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Installations, Updates and Documentation

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) Build number:

8.1.1.1005

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) Download Center page

Here’s the “Master” Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises): (KB 3203310). Going forward, the plan is to continue publishing Master Knowledge Base articles for CRM Updates a bit in advance of release to aid planning.

Podcast:

On Thursday, May 18th 2017, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team will provide information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises)
• New fixes made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.1
• New functionality made available in Microsoft Dynamics 360 Update 2.1 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.1

during a Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.1 and CRM 2016 Update 1.1 podcast.

Note regarding Podcasts: We’ve recently changed the location of where we are hosting and distributing our podcasts. See PFE Dynamics Podcast Update for more information.

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The “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” Page

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs, visit the “Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral” page.

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Important note:

An updated Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365 / CRM (Build 2.2.2.806) has been released. See the following Microsoft Download Center webpage for download details:

Unified Service Desk for Microsoft Dynamics 365

General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link above points to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2016! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) Download Center page – released May 17th, 2017
• The Microsoft Update Catalog – to be released shortly
• The Microsoft Update detection / installation process
  • Note: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 / Microsoft Dynamics 365 Updates will be pushed via Microsoft Update as Important updates
  • Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
  • Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
  • For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.1 “master” Microsoft Knowledge Base article

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Implementation Guide download or Online TechNet for the various CRM components serviced

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Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises):

• Cannot read property ‘raw’ of undefined” error message is displayed for null-valued Two Option fields when Legacy Form Rendering is enabled
• The Refresh from CRM button in Excel corrupts the Currency, Date and Time cells
• The keyboard tab focus goes back to the CRM Home icon after you select any lookup value from the lookup dialog when using the keyboard
• The Outlook client fails initial configuration with single sign-on (SSO)
• Product Properties hyperlink to edit products does not work
• When you create activities by using the Quick Create function, the notes section is unavailable in CRM Online 2016
• 102 duplicate errors occur when you change a contact through the duplicate detection
• You cannot add products from the product associated view in the orders and invoices entities
• “Access Is Denied” error message occurs when you change an owner of a record through a lookup field
• The Activities and Closed Activities icons aren’t displayed correctly
• After the opportunity and contact view is updated with SLA columns, performance decreases when the view contains a Hierarchy condition
• The Alt key does not lookup ActivityParty entities that reference from SDK
• Application metadata sync detection should be language aware
• Application metadata sync lock should be language aware
• Application metadata sync on invalid tables should immediately obtain write lock
• Application metadata sync should not set header state to invalid for user application metadata
• An appointment that is tracked in Outlook creates duplicate appointments in Outlook after it is synced to CRM
• You cannot create an opportunity record if a business process flow exists
• Web API query does not honor the nested filter criteria that has multiple OR and one AND conditions
• Calling setValue in the new form experience causes OnChange events to loop
• “You must supply Parent campaign before you create a Campaign response” error message is displayed for campaign response reimports
• Cancelling SLA Key performance indicators (KPI) does not cancel SLA timer
• Cancelled order title is not displayed on the Activities tab
• You cannot view the default sales dashboard
• Case merge does not function as expected when you switch between the 2 cases and try to merge
• Changing state attributes is not allowed when you create a 20-plugins stage in Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Changing the language through the top bar does not work on a Voice of the Customer survey
• Charts return different results in the Mobile App client than in the Web CRM client
• ClearOptions() of the OptionSet control will trigger the OnChange event through the new form rendering experience
• Clicking telephone number links will open the Quick Create form
• The command bar on the activities tab in the social pane does not display all buttons
• The command bar is missing on multinational entity search on pop-up context
• A contact who has a deleted email address in Exchange isn’t successfully synchronized back to CRM
• The Contract Cancellation Date field is set to current day instead of the selected date on cancel
• “System.InvalidOperationException: Collection was modified after the enumerator was instantiated” error message when you fail to create a placeholder
• The notes section is unavailable when you create activities by using the Quick Create function
• “Tracking Outlook Item in CRM contacting CRM” error message is displayed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 for sent email messages that have been tracked in Outlook
• A SQL error is displayed when you download a Word template for account entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Update messages for plugins are inconsistent with documentation in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Users see a blank chart area after you switch to offline in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• After you create an appointment in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and synchronize it to Outlook, the appointment disappears from the Outlook calendar
• The time zone isn’t set correctly for Voice of Customer survey response entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016
• The IME mode setting for fields are not respected in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Field values do not display from the opportunity Business Process Flow when the quote is revised in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• The CRM App for Windows 8.1 phones freezes on a Stop error after you enter an organization URL
• An error is displayed when you try to move admins to a different business unit
• CRM for phones does not open a web browser when a URL contains multibyte characters
• CRM mail merge sends only one email when recipients are restricted
• The CRM Online copy feature fails if there is an alternative key on a business unit entity
• CRM Online forms shift to the right when you select a lookup
• CRM version upgrades fail if a SQL plan guide is in place on a customer database
• Japanese characters are garbled in survey pages in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016
• Xrm.Page.data.process.moveNext does not work when you save in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• A Business Process Flow related error occurs when you convert a quote to an order in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Custom entities cannot be found by using the Quick Find function in the Dynamics 365 mobile app in offline mode
• Custom views in a lookup window using AddCustomView does not align data and column titles
• You cannot set 0 precision on the Opportunities page when you close it
• Date fields display an incorrect value in the Response Summary area from a survey response record
• Description fields do not scroll in read-only mode
• Different security behavior with the new form experience and quick views within forms
• The drop-down arrow is missing from select lists
• Edge browser fails and redirects when you filter a view by using a custom filter
• Emailing a link throws an exception on the Opportunity form when the All Stakeholders view is used
• The MailboxQueueManager.GetExecutingOperationsMapping() email connector throws the “System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added”
• Email router fails to process POP3 emails
• Email tagger query performance has been optimized
• Emails that are sent from Outlook or Gmail in response to CRM emails and emails to internal users are not tracked
• Emails with attachments that are larger than the size set in CRM cannot be tracked
• Exporting activities does not return expected related records
• Engagement hub does not show queue items for personal views
• Error occurs when you edit a chart in dashboard if it is created from a different language
• Error occurs when you publish customization when using the Safari browser in Mac
• The Error Reporting tab disappears in privacy preferences
• Error occurs when you try to create an order from a revised quote
• Error occurs when you open a case that is resolved by a workflow
• Error occurs with the knowledge base search control on the lead entity
• Exceptions in plugin assemblies will not surface as the inner exception
• Error occurs when you try to add addresses when using the Safari browser on the iPad
• “Custom form label for cell id ‘xxx’, phonecall.scheduledend matches the metadata display name and should be removed from the form” exception is displayed
• Export to Dynamic worksheet does not respect regional settings
• Export to Excel fails if there are columns that have duplicate display names
• ExtendedTimeout in the prepareSync requests is not honored by the Outlook client
• You cannot manually track appointments in Outlook if you type Korean characters in the subject
• Incorrect errors (File Not Found or does not exist on disk) in logs on offline servers occur because of missing offline files
• Sent email messages are left aligned for Hebrew organization
• ForceApply user command does not give error details when the command fails
• Bing API calls are made from a form even though the Bing Map control was removed
• Forwarding or Replying an email in CRM clears the Received time stamp and keeps only the date
• The from field on the email form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 1.0 shows all email enabled entities
• Generated synchronization error is not visible both in the Dynamics 365 mobile app, and the Web client
• An AJAX component error occurs upon upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to 2016
• GetPowerBISharePointSites causes unnecessary exception handling
• Graceful restart and recycle enhancements for the CRM Sandbox servers
• A Handler that is added through the addOnChange API during onLoad will not run after a form was rendered in the new form experience
• Large amount of customizations (entities and attributes) will cause bad performance on system customizations
• Hierarchical security model filtered views cause performance regeneration
• If preventDefault is called on OnSave in the Quick Create form, the Save button no longer works
• An Iframe is not refreshed with the new source URL when you click the form section selector
• Importing by using CRM templates is not possible because of incorrect behavior on the date or time field’s format
• Importing multiple solutions from different publishers that contain overlapping components throws an exception
• When you click lookup fields in the new forms experience footer, referenced records cannot be opened
• An incorrect title is displayed on custom entity forms on the Interactive Service hub
• Increase the amount of time before an IIS timeout
• Index creation on Norsync log tables
• “Permission Denied” error message when you create a case from sub grids on a contact entity form in InPrivate mode in Internet Explorer
• Invalid Odata filter expression is sent to Azure for search
• Large volume exceptions are displayed when it writes to CRM event log
• Location disappears from appointments
• Lookup is not default in CRM 2016
• Mailbox stays locked if communication with site wide fails
• Metadata synchronization fails
• Microsoft analyzers have incorrect word-breaking on strings that contain signed numbers
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM client for Outlook disables when you switch network connections
• Minimal copy breaks rollup fields. Copy should include RollupPropertiesBase
• Missing the + icon on the quick view control
• Missing page navigation arrows for Knowledge Article views after a quick search
• Mobile offline profile work items synchronizing as data work items
• IOS Shim displays script errors when you select the Home button in the Dynamics 365 for mobile app
• Xrm.Utility.openEntityForm API call does not work when using the Dynamics 365 for mobile app
• The ModifiedOn field on Emails is updated without any updates from the user
• Money fields fail to import for non-English languages in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015
• Move up and move down buttons disappear on inline products grid of quotes, orders, invoices and opportunity if the default view is changed
• Multiple databases backups occur for the same organization per day even though a maintenance job is supposed to run once per day
• N:N relationship between two custom entities does not work in the Outlook client
• Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1 AddMembersTeamRequest SDK call does not work after the global auditing and user entity auditing are enabled
• The setValue function causes the OnChange event handlers to run in the new form rending experience using Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• NavBar current entity record name disappears when you click cancel on unsaved pop-up messages
• No results are returned on the Interactive Service hub when you search email subjects that contain square brackets or other special characters
• Null value is added when you update recipient To, Cc, and Bcc fields in workflow steps
• Object does not support the $find property or method when you click the Results button two times
• Odata issues with stage ID
• On the closing dialog of a telephone call, the dropdown for status code shows two rows maximum
• The OnChange event is called multiple times on Option sets
• The OnChange event is fired when a lookup field is changed by the setValue() function
• OneNote integration displays incorrect date and time on new notebooks
• Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks in Server Side Synchronization stop processing if it’s approved by non-O365 admin in CRM online that uses a hybrid profile
• The OnSave() event does not trigger on the Close as Lost or Close as Won button for opportunity records
• Operation returns a RequestEntityTooLarge status code that is invalid
• Optimize bulk delete on SubscriptionSyncEntryOfflineBase during a reinitialize of a subscription
• The Option Set fields do not clear previous record values in the Dynamics 365 for mobile app
• The Organizer field value disappears when an appointment is created from the sub grid
• Other addresses do not synchronize to CRM when they are the only field that is updated in Outlook
• The Outlook client going offline causes a timeout error
• You cannot save data to a custom field on Outlook forms
• The Outlook client displays popup messages during tracking
• Override the behavior for the trialAndGracePeriod hard code value for the TrialExpireNotification message bar
• Parsing of decimal number limits fails in the Dynamics 365 mobile app when locale settings use a comma as a separator
• The Personal Options buttons are not visible with a 1280×768 resolution
• Plugin failures to connect through non-listening (or filtered) network port results in SecurityException because of serialization issues with SocketException
• The PrincipalObjectAccess table is not cleaned up after you delete related activity types
• Preserve the Iframe view when navigating back while using the new form rendering experience
• Multiple invoices are created when you press the Create Invoice button multiple times
• Pricing is locked with a padlock on Quote, Invoice, Order, and Opportunity Product
• Process triggers can be in an orphaned state
• The processing dialog box is missing when you send, forward, or reply to emails after CRM online was updated to CRM 2015 SP1
• Publishing errors occur with orphaned CustomControlDefaultConfig records
• Querying WebAPI with filter returns null owners
• QueueInitializationOperation can result in non-initialized queue managers
• A race condition occurs in the SandboxAppDomainManager static singleton class
• Remaining terms (entitlements) are increased after you reactivate an incident record if there are any workflows that change the status of the case
• Removed Germany billing address check in PVS manifest for Voice of Customer
• RetrieveMetadataChanges request should have a limit for max filters or conditions
• RetrieveMultiple does not work on customer service calendars that have varying day schedules
• Changes are reverted for the Fetchxml Paging report because of back-compatible break
• Rollup field’s Last Update On field causes script errors
• “Access is denied” SandboxHostUnhandledException when you spin up a native process
• The Save and New button functionality does not work in CRM 2016
• The Save button moves to the center of the Opportunity form when a two line footer is enabled
• Saved views with FetchXML that contain a left outer join does not work in Outlook client add-in
• Saving mobile offline filters fail on a custom entity because of the default advanced view that has a linked entity
• Script error occurs when you have a html web resource in Internet Explorer using the new form experience
• Scrollbar on read-only fields is not visible
• The Send Invitation modal appears because two JavaScript functions are renamed as the same
• Server-side sync creates ACT duplicates
• You cannot enter contract lines on case forms when the field is locked
• Service request queue lookup does not work in CRM online because of the or statement in the where clause
• ServiceId is missing in the logs and it is set to Guid.Empty. You cannot search once this happens
• SetCurrentView does not work in the Grid Load event handler
• SharePoint folder hierarchy is incorrectly created by using parent/child relationships
• After the updates from CRM 2016 RTM to CRM 2016 SP1 you try to create an appointment by using the social pane, and the business process flow inside the appointment entity is not visible
• SIS EntityHandler does not handle inability to subscribe to change notifications correctly
• SIS null reference exception in SearchIndexEntityHandlerHelper ExecuteSync
• ASCII question mark characters are escaped for Skype integration (Click to Call)
• Sorted results of interactive service hub knowledge articles in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 SP1 are inconsistent
• Stored XSS in dashboard or form editor
• Sub grids are loaded even if the tab is collapsed
• Synchronization cycles fail with the EWS time-out exception if an Exchange mailbox has many Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks
• Synchronization error occurs when you delete the email address from a contact
• Contact synchronization that uses server-side synchronization causes infinite updates
• Synchronized appointments are not cancelled in Exchange when the appointments are cancelled in CRM
• System and user application metadata table locks should be more precise
• Tabbing into a lookup field opens the most recently used list and does not let the user type without pressing the escape button
• The hierarchy button in the upper-right corner disappears after you open the Quick Create popup
• The billing end date is not computed correctly
• The line breaks between Internet Explorer 11 and Firefox are different when you create an email template
• The Outlook client creates frequent PrincipalObjectAccess calls in order to be available for a potential offline synchronization
• Time zone issues with appointments that are synchronized to Outlook through Server-Side Synchronization
• Trace log files are created and logged on TraceEtwOnly
• After you track an email into CRM, the View in CRM button isn’t enabled
• The new form experience treat a single line text field that has the TextArea format differently than the legacy forms did
• When you navigate away and back to Associated views, two mastheads are displayed after a script error occurs
• Contact method option set is not displaying the correct values when you use the new form experience
• You cannot access HTML Web resources in the Outlook client
• You cannot change the dialog names if the user language differs from the base language
• You cannot set the S2S authentication with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• You cannot create a new lead because of the business process error
• You cannot customize lead address entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• You cannot delete a team or business unit
• You cannot enable the field level security for the PriorityCode attribute on appointment entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• An error occurs after you enable mobile offline for the entity Work Order Service tasks from the Field Service solution
• You cannot override the default product price per unit on an order entity
• You cannot delete the Enable for Mobile option in on-premises for default entities
• You cannot retrieve entity metadata through the SDK if the SLA feature is enabled for that entity
• You cannot retrieve metadata for Customer type fields
• An error occurs when you try to search for existing products by using a language that’s not the default language of the organization
• You cannot use the Web client email with Voice of Customer installed and Legacy forms enabled
• An unhandled exception occurs during Server Side Synchronization processing of a single mailbox that affects all email mailboxes in the organization and may cause duplicates
• Untracking appointments does not remove an entry from the IdMapping table or from the Outlook client
• “ErrorIrresolvableConflict” error message occurs when you update an individual instance of a recurring appointment in CRM and it does not reach Exchange
• Updating imported appointments from Exchange does not synchronize to CRM
• Upgrade from earlier versions fails with Turkish collation
• Upgrade tasks should automatically fail if it takes longer than expected
• You cannot remove a campaign in marketing lists in which the status is read-only
• UserID isn’t replaced in retrieve multiple queries which have multiple references
• You cannot see case views in the views dropdown and you only see My active cases
• You are prompted to save changes when you navigate away from the Entity form with the Embedded Quick View form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015
• Users can see a form that they do not have permissions to if they’ve used a direct link
• Users from other business unit do not appear in the CRM App client for Outlook entity in an Add Eligible users list
• A user’s team is not evaluated in a view query properly because the data is not displayed in the Team view on the mobile client
• You cannot override pricing after upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Using advanced find to add marketing list members causes an error when Auditing is enabled
• Using Exchange on-premises from CRM Online (Hybrid) causes mailboxes to be stuck if connection to Exchange is slow
• Voice of the Customer plugins use shared class members
• The Voice of the Customer survey page isn’t editable when you copy or paste text on the page
• Quotation mark is replaced by the “”” text string
• Web resource height isn’t set correctly
• Web resource size isn’t respected on the Turbo forms in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1
• Week numbers are incorrect (for United States date format) on charts
• When a quick view form contains a sub grid and it is inside a tab collapsed by default, paging controls will be missing from the sub grid
• When you switch between the main form and the related records in CRM, occasionally the Boolean fields (two options) are reset to the default value and will be submitted to the CRM database
• White space is saved to the CRM database at the end of text
• Symbols and fonts are not displayed in Win 10 tablet shim with the Windows 10 anniversary update
• Workflows will have the Running status for the Stop Workflow step (Succeeded or Cancelled)
• Incorrect “expires on date” is displayed when you create a contract through SDK
• Adding New Records to sub grids for N:N Relationships from the CRM for Outlook client causes a script error “ServerError” to occur
• Unexpected email resolution when using Full-Text Search
• When the Hierarchical Security Model is enabled the performance of New User Creation decreases
• The Sort Order of a View is changing after navigating away from the View
• Fields marked as Read-Only on the Opportunity Product Form can be edited
• The error “The sender does not have an email address on the party record ” occurs when attempting to process Pop3 emails using the E-mail Router
• A Synchronous Workflow is causing a Business Process error when attempting to create a related record
• A SQL timeout error occurs when attempting to Go Offline using CRM for Outlook when millions of records are being synchronized
• A Scheduling Alert will occur without any details after changing an existing Appointment
• Unable to load a View of Knowledge Articles while using the Interactive Service Hub
• Data in columns is missing when attempting to perform a Quick Find Search for Knowledge Articles
• Add attachments is not available after saving a new email message in CRM while using Legacy Form Rendering
• Multi-line read-only fields do no not resize or expand properly
• Meeting invitations do not get sent to appointment attendees while using Server-Side Synchronization
• Formatting issues occur in Dashboard Views while using the Dynamics 365 mobile app
• After creating an appointment in CRM the Organizer Field is not populated
• The Sandbox Worker holds on to Socket Handles from the Host Service and causes port exhaustion
• The import of custom entity fails because of a duplicate CustomControlDefaultConfig
• When an Appointment is created and the Organizer places themselves as a Required Attendee, the Required Attendee will be removed after syncing with Server-Side Synchronization
• When using the Dynamics 365 mobile app the Lookup Results bar is hidden behind the on screen keyboard
• SharePoint Document Lists take over 15 seconds to load
• Parature Integration KB Search by default uses “OR” Search which return too many results
• Knowledge Management Search does not return any results when using Unified Service Desk
• Goal Participating records do not show records with the same filter as the Rollup Field
• A bullet point is inserted incorrectly when working in an Email Form and inserting bullet points
• Recently Viewed items are not stored on a Danish or Swedish installation of Windows 10
• After changing a user’s Security Role, they are no longer able to access Interactive Service Hub
• After updating an Appointment in Outlook the Description field changes are not being updated when syncing with Server Side Synchronization
• The email body is disabled when using Google Chrome in Citrix and Google Chrome (Incognito mode) in Windows
• If a CRM organization has over 5000 ribbon rules the Homepage will fail to load
• A Field may overlap a sub grid when the resolution on the screen is lower than 1920×1080
• Spell Checker in Interactive Service Hub does not work for the email drafting textbox
• Marketing Lists are not being associated with an existing undistributed Campaign Activity
• A Case record fails to save while using the Dynamics 365 mobile app
• The “Follow” dialog appears incorrectly on a server installation using the German language
• Server-Side Synchronization fails to process because the previous connection to the mailbox was not closed properly while using a Hybrid Email Server Profile
• The column values are misaligned on a Product sub grid from the Quote Entity
• While using Hierarchy Modeling, Personal Dashboards appear for the incorrect users
• Appointment attachments are not being synchronized from CRM to Exchange while using Server-Side Synchronization
• Unable to see a Lookup Field in order to select the correct Queue in the “Add To Queue” dialog box while using Unified Service Desk
• Charts are not shown using Quick View Forms
• A record window opens in the background when it is opened from a Dashboard in Outlook
• Server-Side Synchronization continuously updates Appointments
• A Pre/Post Create Plugin on the SystemUser Entity does not trigger in CRM Online
• Appointments, Contacts, and Tasks (ACT) syncing fails after performing a Minimal Copy in Dynamics 365 as the Synchronized Fields and User Filters were not created
• Error in ‘UpdateOwnerEmailAddress’ causes user provisioning to fail if the organization is using a Hybrid Email Server Profile
• After enabling Full-Text Search an organization is unable to be updated to Service Pack 1 for CRM 2016
• Changing the owner using a Workflow also changes the Owner in a Create Audit Event
• Odata Expand Property fails while retrieving custom Lookup Fields
• Lead Ribbon does not refresh on Assign
• The + button on the Connection sub grid is not working on the Main Form for the Case Entity
• A solution import will fail if it is a merged Solution
• Modifying a user’s Mailbox to remove Server-Side Synchronization does not reset EnabledforACT back to 0
• One corrupt email in the database will prevent other e-mails from being sent using Server Side Synchronization
• An error occurs when closing a case form after deleting an e-mail with an attachment
• Word Templates using multiple lines of text with line breaks is not working properly
• Some buttons do not respond when clicking on them within the ribbon
• After going offline with the Outlook client, notes are not available for records if a user had previously cancelled offline synchronization
• Client side telemetry should not include the app suspended time
• Users can experience a lookup control error when trying to assign incoming tracked emails
• Errors are not reported on an operation in certain failure instances with locked-file handling
• After an async service restart, a few sandbox execution calls from each worker process will result in a SdkCommunicationException
• Multiple lines of text do not work properly with a Word template
• Multi-lines in a quick view form are not displayed correctly because the max-height attribute is set unexpectedly
• Scan worker threads appear to hang on a ping which delays the status update and results in low clean worker process count
• Dynamics 365 configured with SharePoint on-premises ReadUrl and EditUrl are incorrect
• Pop3 synchronous changes converts async steps in the Pop3 incoming pipeline to run synchronously
• Added dependency information to the exception logged by ThrowCrmException
• Too many resolved email addresses cause performance issues in the async service
• Need to declare the StringBuilder Object _stringBuilder as static
• Added dependency information to the exception logged by ThrowIfDependenciesMissing
• Record window opens in the background when it is opened from a dashboard
• The connection subgrid on a case main web form and the button on the grid is not working
• Error when importing a solution into Turkish base language organization
• Exception on inserting a null value in the WorkflowLogBase table for a non-null column
• Legacy SDK clients that rely on ACS flows no longer authenticate
• The Message field for trace errors contains the entire stack trace
• SQL Query is not included in the exception message
• Reconfiguring Outlook uses the same installation id and does not allow to differentiate between first time and subsequent loads
• The Async plugin is facing an intermittent 2 minute timeout due to cold .NET ThreadPool and slow scale up
• I/O exception on thread synchronization
• Allows a flush of the metadata cache if a new option set value is added Alerts”

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Support for new technologies provided by Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises):

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM Compatibility List.

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1 – 0.2:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1 contains updates that you must configure manually. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2.0: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Update 2 contains updates that you must configure manually, as does Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Update 1.0. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Service Pack 1.1 (on-premises) contains updates that you must configure manually. These include Portal, Field Service, and Project Service, which each require the customer to install the solution from the Office 365 Portal. To receive the product updates, you must “opt in”. For more information on how to install product updates in Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, see the following Microsoft TechNet topic: Install product updates

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Greg Nichols
Dynamics 365 Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Featured News

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.1

Azure Access Control Service (ACS) has been deprecated

With the deprecation of the Azure Access Control Service (ACS), it is important for customers to implement the following updates:

• Update Dynamics CRM Client SDK version to avoid calls to ACS
•  Update Service Bus Endpoints to use SAS Authentication

Parature, from Microsoft End of Life and Transition Announcement

Microsoft continues to innovate and invest heavily in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, and to transition the capabilities of Parature to Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. A toolkit has been developed to help simplify the migration process and over the coming months, Parature customers will receive access to the toolkit. toolkit will include the following components:

• A data migration tool to migrate accounts, contacts, cases (tickets), knowledge base articles, and files;
• Portal templates you can choose from to quickly deploy a modern support portal; and
• A customer service configuration template, which includes out of the box workflows, fields and other
  configurations.
• Videos, documentation and other tutorials to enable customers to self-manage their data migration.

Customers are free to begin their migration prior to receiving access to the toolkit. A list of recommended partners that customers can engage with independently to manage the migration will be provided. Customers may continue to use Parature per the terms of their agreement. There will be no  additional enhancements or changes to current Parature capabilities. Microsoft  will continue to provide technical support until either migration has been  completed, or until May 15, 2018, whichever is first. All migrations must be  completed on or before May 15, 2018, at which point all support for Parature  ends and the service will be terminated. Customers who choose not to migrate  will have 90 days after the service is discontinued on May 15, 2018 to retrieve their data.

Updates & Releases

Support Ending for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 will reach end of extended support on April 10, 2018.  Customers using this version, should upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 or a later version before April 10, 2018 to ensure supportability.

The following resources are available to help with the upgrade:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 IT Pro Technical Library
• Upgrade CRM 4.0 Organization to CRM 2011
• Upgrading from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011

Have questions about supported products? Visit Microsoft Support Lifecycle to view a list of supported products and related policies.

Microsoft Social Engagement 2017 Update 1.5

The MSE 2017 Update 1.5 was released in June 2017. This Service Update includes a number of fixes that enhance the overall Microsoft Social Engagement service.

Improvements

• Improved loading times for Search Setup page with a large number of search topics.
• Improved user experience when working with maps
• Fixed an issue with provisioning Social Engagement in some countries/regions.
• Fixed an issue with closing the welcome screen when using Social Selling Assistant in private browsing mode on an iOS device.
• Fixed an issue with global notifications in Social Selling Assistant when using IE11.
• Fixed an issue with label on timespan drop-down in Activity Maps.
• Fixed an issue on Settings > Global Settings > Location Groups with missing tooltips.
• Fixed a layout issue on Search Setup when editing search topic categories using Firefox browser.
• Fixed an issue on Settings > Social Profiles with missing tooltips.
• Increased contrast ratio on re-tweet dialog for better readability.
• Increased line spacing within paragraphs on posts displayed in Social Center and Social Selling Assistant for better readability.

Additional News

Microsoft Cloud Unified Penetration Testing Rules of Engagement

Guidance is now available for customers wishing to perform penetration tests against their Microsoft Cloud components:

• Azure Active Directory
• Microsoft Intune
• Microsoft Azure
• Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Microsoft Account
• Office 365
• Visual Studio Team Services

In many cases, the Microsoft Cloud uses shared infrastructure to host all customer assets. Care must be taken to limit all penetration tests to a specific customer’s assets and avoid unintended consequences to other customers. These Rules of Engagement are designed to allow the effective evaluation of some assets while preventing harm to other assets or the infrastructure itself.

All penetration tests must follow the Microsoft Cloud Penetration Testing Rules of Engagement. Any violation of these Rules of Engagement or the relevant service terms may result in suspension or termination of accounts and legal action as set forth in the Microsoft Online Service Terms.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 required IP address ranges and URLs

Dynamics 365 online users have experienced some difficulty with accessing their environment due to certain IP address ranges being blocked. To avoid this issue, the IP address ranges used by Dynamics 365 should be available and not blocked by firewalls, antivirus or other network appliances. For the list of ranges, review the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online IP Address Ranges and Microsoft Azure Datacenter IP Ranges.

 Some customers experience issues where they are unable to access Dynamics 365 online, specific URLs fail to load or the following error is returned when trying to configure Dynamics 365 for Outlook: “The server address (URL) is not valid”. This may be due to a proxy or firewall preventing the Dynamics 365 URLs from accessing server resources. Review the following article for a list of URLs that should be whitelisted: Internet accessible URLs required for connectivity to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 enters the Microsoft Cloud in Germany

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is now available for customers in Germany, the European Union and European Free Trade Association countries. This new and unique offering stores customer data in the German datacenters and the customer data is under the control of T-Systems, acting as a data trustee.

The datacenters are located in Frankfurt/Main and Magdeburg and provide the same service levels, security and quality standards as Microsoft’s global cloud offerings, such as multi-factor authentication, data encryption by SSL/TLS protocols based on German certificates, physical security controls, and protection against natural disasters and power outages.

For more information about this opportunity, take a look at this news article. To get an update on all the available datacenters hosting
Dynamics 365, review this TechNet article: New datacenter regions for Dynamics 365.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 + LinkedIn

In April, Microsoft announced with LinkedIn a new integration with Dynamics 365 to help salespeople deliver better outcomes using insights from LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn’s 500 million professionals. Sales Navigator with Dynamics 365 increases the effectiveness of salespeople by tapping into their professional networks and relationships, giving them the ability to improve their pipeline by:

• Leveraging signals across email, CRM and LinkedIn to get contextual recommendations for the next best action within Dynamics 365 for Sales, facilitating introductions directly through the company’s network, and sending InMail, messages and customized connection requests
• Engaging buyers with tailored content throughout the account lifecycle, and getting account and lead updates including news mentions and job changes
• Building strong relationships with existing contacts through access to LinkedIn profile details including photos, current roles and work history.

Training Corner

Training Sites & eLearning

Get the most up to date training and eLearning information for Dynamics 365 from the Help Center. The highly anticipated Training & Adoption Kit for Dynamics 365 is also available for download which includes user guides, quick reference cards, eBooks for end users and admins. Feel free to modify the content and distribute to your customers.

Want to know what new features are available for both online and on-prem customers? Then check out What’s new in Dynamics 365 Help and Training.

Best practices for automating business process flows

The Fall 2016 release of Dynamics 365 (version 8.2) introduced enhancements to business process flows, enabling a number of important customer scenarios (including Concurrent business process flows and Business process flow automation). Organizations that wanted to automate their business processes relied on a few work-arounds, most notably the need to force values on the ProcessID, StageId (active stage) or TraversedPath attributes. Frequently, these techniques would fail with an error message: “Invalid stage transition. Transition to stage <stage name> is not in the process active path” or present visual glitches. Some best practices on how to address these challenges are identified in this Dynamics 365 blog post.

Set default Business Process on a form while creating new record

Problem statement:
Users are unable to switch or set default Business Process on a form while creating a new record.

Scenario:
Assuming a given entity has several forms associated with it and each form can be associated with one or more business processes. When a user tries to create a new record, the selected form will use the default Business Process for the entity – forcing them to update unnecessary fields that relate to this process flow and adding confusion.

Solution:
Via customization, users can add a simple script to automatically switch the Business Process Flow based on certain criteria on form load.

For more information, review this post on the Dynamics 365 blog.

We're proud to announce that packages for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 (Update Rollup 3) were released on August 14rh, 2017 to the Microsoft Download Center!

CRM 2015 Update 0.3 packages are released for:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Outlook Client
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Server
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 E-mail Router
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Language Pack (aka MUI; Multilanguage User Interface)
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Reporting Extensions (aka SSRS Data Connector)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 Build number:

7.0.3.109

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 Microsoft Download Center page

Here's the "Master" Microsoft Dynamics Knowledge Base article for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3: (KB 4018584).

Podcast

Soon, Greg Nichols and Ryan Anderson from the Microsoft CRM Premier Field Engineering Team will provide information about:

• The release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3
• New fixes made available In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3

during their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 Podcast

The "CRM Update Rollup Collateral Page"

For pointers to download locations, release dates, build information, and CRM Premier Field Engineering blogs and podcasts for all supported Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups and Service Packs, visit the "CRM Update Rollup and Service Pack Collateral Page"

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General Upgrade Rollup and Service Pack Notes:

• Testing CRM Update Rollups: Best Practices
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Premier Field Engineering recommends doing all the standard testing you generally do for all Updates, which could be the functional and performance testing that you would do with a new major release or a subset of that test plan
  • The “general rule of thumb” for test plans for Update Rollup installs are:
    • Test any changes in a pre-production environment BEFORE introducing into your production environment. Manage your risk!
    • Consider using the Performance Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and 2015 to simulate your production user load in your testing environment to shake out any performance-related issues early. The link point to a recently-released version of the Toolkit reworked to support CRM 2013 and CRM 2015! Talk to your TAM (Technical Account Manager) if you want Premier Field Engineering to help your team install and configure it!
    • Test using the permissions your most restrictive end-user roles have. Testing with CRM Administrator permissions, for example, does not give you the complete picture
    • Concentrate on your SDK customizations, JavaScript, ISV add-ons – basically anything that’s not OOB functionality or customizations done from within the UI

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 packages are available for download via:

• The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 Microsoft Download Center page - released August 14th, 2017
• Note: Client packages installed manually by downloading the packages and running install will require local administrator privileges. If the client packages are installed via Microsoft Update or SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), they will not require local administrator privileges
• Consider using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or similar software distribution technologies to distribute Dynamics CRM Update Rollups internally. WSUS is a locally managed system that works with the public Microsoft Update website to give system administrators more control. By using Windows Server Update Services, administrators can manage the distribution of Microsoft hotfixes and updates released through Automatic Updates to computers in a corporate environment
• For help with installation please see the Installation Information section of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 "master" Microsoft Knowledge Base article
• Please review the PFE blog posting "CRM 2011: Silently Installing Update Rollups" which provides details on installing CRM Outlook client Updates "silently" in order to limit end-user interruption, which also applies to CRM 2013 and CRM 2015 Updates, Update Rollups, and Service Packs

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 Prerequisites:

• Essentially the prerequisites listed in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Implementation Guide TechNet content for the various CRM components serviced

Issues resolved via Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 contains fixes for issues reported by customers or discovered via internal testing:

• An "ISV code aborted the operation" error message occurs instead of an "InvalidPluginExecutionException"
• After refreshing a dynamic worksheet, the formatting will change for the "Currency" and "Date and Time" columns
• An error stating "Unable to get property 'get_dataTableBody'" occurs after creating a new Opportunity entity record from a sales dashboard
• Records with a custom N:1 Relationship to the Connections entity fail to merge
• The edit pane does not appear when selecting Edit next to a Product
• Additional white space appears when viewing the related contacts on an Account entity record
• When attempting to add another server to a CRM deployment, the error, "The product key is not compatible with the installed version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM" occurs
• After enabling Full Text Search, attribute metadata is unable to be modified in the Fulltext Index
• When writing an e-mail in CRM, the cursor will move when an autosave occurs
• The error "Bad Conversation Index" occurs when attempting to track an e-mail into CRM
• The error "The source data is not in the required format" occurs when importing a records with the date format that is different than the CRM organization
• ChangeCurrency function is not modifying the currency
• When attempting to move to the next stage of a business process flow, the error "You have to complete the required steps before you can advance" occurs after completing the required fields
• The error "EndGetResponse can only be called once for each asynchronous operation" occurs when performing Test and Enable as a bulk action
• A horizontal scroll bar in a large business process flow will not appear if the language is set to Arabic
• Campaign Responses are not appearing in the All Activities View on a Campaign
• Unable to delete an Opportunity entity record after adding a rollup field
• The error "The specified date format is invalid or the date is out of valid range" occurs when attempting to find available times for a schedule while using the Czech Republic format
• Unable to enter the Polish character set "S" into the “To:” field of an email created in CRM
• An error occurs when selecting the Help icon when mixed content is loaded
• The audience of a Yammer post is incorrect when making a post using CRM
• A Contact entity record created through server-side synchronization sets the last name to the e-mail address of the associated contact
• Reports do not display non-default organizations with internal ADFS URLs
• The error "Unexpected error. An error has occurred. Try this action again" occurs while maintaining the Sales Team in an Opportunity entity record
• Missing data from related records when exporting to Excel from Dynamics CRM for Outlook
• Opening a Product entity record from advanced find shows the Create Product window
• After saving a recurring appointment the error "Record Is Unavailable: The requested record was not found or you do not have sufficient permissions to view it" occurs
• Records are not created in the correct location of the SharePoint document library while using the SharePoint integration for the Opportunities and Quotes entities
• Special characters do not appear correctly after exporting to a dynamic pivot table in Excel
• Multiple windows are opened after selecting Advanced Find on a User record
• After updating an Opportunity entity record, it shows that it was modified by System instead of the user
• Exporting a dynamic worksheet of Marketing Members fails
• All addresses added under an Account entity record are not transferred to new master record after a merge occurs
• An error occurs opening Sales Literature if an attachment file is deleted
• An incorrect value is returned from "Xrm.Page.getAttribute("ownerid").getValue()" when using the Assign function
• The internet browser will experience a hang when attempting to delete a child entity with Behavior: Referential, Restrict Delete
• Additional servers are being discovered as CRM servers
• Under certain conditions, duplicate e-mails are sent from CRM when using server-side synchronization
• Column titles of custom views do not align to the view grid
• Data Import does not import all the associated fields into the corresponding entity records
• The deactivate dialog requires scrolling to choose status reasons when using non-default values
• E-mail Router fails to sync e-mails that are DKIM verified, and the error "Invalid mail. Expected header items not found - possibly draft item or other type of item forwarded to this mailbox " occurs
• Daylight savings time adjustment occurs on November 8th instead of October 25th for users in Turkey
• Duplicate attribute mask values within the same entry cause an error when opening Audit History
• Duplicate SLA item System Jobs are created when synchronous workflows are used
• Dynamic values appear disabled on Set Properties of a new workflow step
• The error message "Unable to get property 'handleEvent' of undefined or null reference" occurs when toggling between the saved views and the results buttons on an advanced find window
• The error "This field is mapped more than once. Remove any duplicate mappings, and then import this data map again" occurs when importing Subject entity data from Excel
• An error occurs when accessing the Associated Activities View in the Campaign Activity entity
• An error occurs in the Opportunity entity when using a custom view that contains the ampersand (&) character in the filter
• Exchange 2007 is listed in the E-mail Router when setting up the incoming profile even though Exchange 2007 is not supported
• The function GetSharedRecordIdsForFilteredView causes performance issues when generating a report
• The error "SYSTEM user account not found" occurs when attempting to track an e-mail into CRM using Dynamics CRM for Outlook
• Records do not appear in a custom sub-grid that is also using a custom N:N relationship
• Filtered views do not show the correct results while using a Russian time zone
• After placing multiple e-mail address separated with a semicolon in the “To:” line, the message "We found more than one match" occurs
• A solution import fails with the error "Processtrigger with id <GUID> does not exist"
• The error “Error. Action Failed" occurs when importing a Dynamics CRM 2013 organization database into a Dynamics CRM 2015 deployment
• An infinite update loop occurs when two users update the same Contact entity record at the same time when using server-side synchronization
• If a new Quick View form is created with a colon in the display name, it does not appear correctly in the forms list
• An invitee is unable to track an appointment from a user outside the CRM organization in Dynamics CRM for Outlook when using server-side synchronization
• IsEnabledForOutgoing, IsEnabledForIncoming, IsEnabledForACT do not reflect changes after being changed from server-side synchronization to another option
• The error "TimeTrackingCacheLoader Operation encountered some errors” occurs when saving a Case entity record if the regional settings are set to a non-english value
• The JAWS Screen Reader does not read grid names or column headers
• The lookup dialog shows all records despite being set to "Show Only My Records"
• Lookup shifts from focus while using the Hebrew user interface
• A manager cannot see the Order Product of users they are a manager of while using manager hierarchy
• Marketing Lists do not show members under certain conditions
• When saving an Opportunity entity record, the error "Missing prvReadConnection" occurs
• The Dynamics CRM for Mobile application does not adhere to role-based permissions in the RibbonDiffXML
• Clicking a Phone Number link opens a Quick Create form in the Dynamics CRM for Mobile application
• The “Month” labels on dashboards are incorrectly translated when using the French language pack
• Images on custom navigation links are not displayed in the navigation bar
• In Dynamics CRM for Outlook, the “New” button does not appear on a dashboard
• No user region is applied to the Bing map control in CRM
• Note records containing line breaks are changed every time the record is interacted with
• The error "If the Base and Extension tables are merged, this may exceed the architectural limits of Microsoft SQL Server, and the merge operation might fail” occurs during organization import
• Organization-level read access overrides hierarchy security settings
• Lookups do not work as intended after changing the OrgDBOrgSetting “SetRegardingLookupDefaultEntityType” from “Default” to “Contact”
• A SQL timeout error occurs when attempting to go offline using Dynamics CRM for Outlook
• p_CascadeCollect is recompiling for every call whenever a temp table in SQL is used
• The webpage does not render correctly if an e-mail with CSS in the body is included in the social pane
• Adding a new entry to the “To:” or “CC:” fields will remove previously added recipients
• Recipients in the “To:” or “CC:” fields will disappear when resolving an existing value
• Pipeline phase appears blank and the sales stage reverts to “Qualify” if an Opportunity entity record is reopened
• The process state is not updated when a managed solution is imported
• The arrangement of products changes after converting a Quote entity record to an Order entity record
• The alignment of the products sub-grid is incorrect on the Opportunity, Quote, and Invoice entity forms
• Duplicate detection rules do not trigger when qualifying a Lead entity record from an associated view
• A query builder error occurs in Advanced Find when using Related Entity Existing Product and the Name attribute
• Read-only lookup fields do not display all of the data if multiple rows are needed to display the values
• E-mails fail to synchronize to CRM due to the error "Bad Conversation Index"
• The error "The report cannot be displayed. (rsProcessingAborted)" occurs if a pre-filtered report runs for more than twenty seconds
• A script error stating "Unable to get property 'get_tagName' of undefined or null reference" occurs after exiting an IM Presence enabled view
• The “Sending Email” option for the Competitor entity does not remain checked after restoring or importing the database
• The service calendar is not updated when required attendees are removed from the Appointment entity record
• Using code with setVisible on a field causes a delay loading the associated forms
• If a solution contains a custom Activity entity record with a business process flow, the solution import will fail
• The “Stage” disappears on a business process flow under certain conditions
• Pressing the tab key does not move the cursor to the next field in the Article Template window
• Dashboard alignment does not appear the same as what was experienced in the preview window
• The application hangs after attempting to remove a member from a Marketing List that is locked
• The dashboard label provides the possibility to inject XSS vulnerabilities
• The Deletion Service does not delete subscriptions with a LastSyncStartedOn value of null
• The getDirection method in business process flows always returns “Next”
• The error "Record With Id = <GUID> does not exist" occurs after deleting multiple records in a row
• The OrgDBOrgSettings editor does not allow the parameter change for "DisableClientUpdateNotification"
• A script error occurs when attempting to add a marketing list to a Contact entity form sub-grid in Dynamics CRM for Outlook
• Unable to highlight or copy text from a form while using Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge
• Unable to filter a view on an OptionSet field if the field is also used in the definition of the view
• Errors generated from custom plugins are not formatted correctly
• Unable to navigate to an Activity entity record from a view by single clicking the record
• Unable to view notes fields after updating to Mozilla Firefox version 49.0.1
• Currency-calculated fields have a limit of five instead of ten when using the report wizard
• Selecting "E-mail Article" does not populate the article in the body of the e-mail in CRM
• When an e-mail address is removed from a Contact entity record in CRM and then synchronized using server-side synchronization, the change is not reflected in Exchange
• When e-mails are promoted in Dynamics CRM for Outlook the progress dialogs "Contacting CRM" and "Wrapping Up" appear
• Performing an Excel export on Activity entity records will return all active Activity records of the organization
• Stage navigation does not work on a business process flow after a plugin encounters the dialog "You cannot go back"
• Reports wizard fails when adding more than 21 columns
• Exported pivot tables to not honor regional replacements for the decimal character
• Synchronized appointments display a reminder regardless of reminder options set in Outlook
• MonitoringAgentService crashes when there are two organizations with the same SQLServerName but with different casing
• Height of iFrame windows are unaffected by the "Automatically expand to use available space" option
• Contacts with deleted e-mail addresses do not synchronize to CRM using server-side synchronization
• Asynchronous operations get stuck in a "In Progress" or "Cancelling" state
• SQL errors occur when pulling audit logs when the audit tables contain a significant amount of data
• Reports run slowly due to SQL choosing inefficient query plans
• Removing the command and navigation bars in CRM does not disable the buttons from being used
• Mailboxes fail to process and become locked using server-side synchronization
• Server-side synchronization disables the mailbox if the user record is inactive
• Connections fail during .NET webservice calls
• Sandbox copies fail if there is a calculated field in the Business Unit entity
• When setting Turkish as your current time zone, daylight savings time adjustments will apply even though it they are not observed
• Duplicate appointments, contacts and tasks occur when using server-side synchronization
• Editing filter criteria will uncheck previously selected options in "Add Find Columns"
• Service Level Agreements show the incorrect time remaining when daylight savings time adjustments occur
• The duplicate detection window does not display unless there is a scheduling conflict

Full Text indexing now provided for CRM On-premise customers with Update 0.1 and later!

By default, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 with Update 0.1 installed uses the same search functionality that was available in previous releases, which is based mostly on string matches. Now, with CRM 2015 Update 0.1 or later, CRM system administrators have the option to use full-text indexing for Quick Find.

We recommend that you consider enabling full-text indexing for Quick Find because it can provide a better search experience by improving query performance. Full-text search also uses more sophisticated indexing methods that includes support for linguistic-based searches and superior relevance ranking. While the previous search method (standard indexing) returns results based on literal matches, full-text indexing returns linguistic-based matches. For example, the term "service" can return similar words like servicing and serviced.

Note to CRM Administrators: When you enable full-text indexing for a database with a large number of columns, the size of the transaction log of the organization database may increase. So as always when configuring Quick Find, consider the implications by reviewing the full TechNet documentation for this feature addition: Configure Quick Find options for the organization

Support for new technologies provided by CRM 2015 Updates:

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated CRM Updates against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft releases enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.1 provides support for:

• Google Chrome v37 and later

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.2 provides support for:

• Windows 10
• Microsoft Edge Browser
• Android 5.0
• .NET Framework 4.6

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3 provides no new technologies support

Hotfixes and updates that you have to enable or configure manually

Occasionally, updates released via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates require manual configuration to enable them. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Updates are always cumulative; for example, Update 0.2 will contain all fixes previously released via Update 0.1 as well as fixes newly released via Update 0.2. So if you install Update 0.2 on a machine upon which you previously installed no Updates, you will need to manually enable any desired fixes for Update Rollups 0.1-0.2:

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.1: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.2: no updates requiring manual configuration
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update 0.3: no updates requiring manual configuration

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM compatibility with technology stack components: Internet Explorer, Windows Client and Server, Office, .NET Framework, and more

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Engineering team consistently tests Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Update Rollups against pre-release and release versions of technology stack components that Microsoft Dynamics interoperates with. When appropriate, Microsoft will release enhancements via future Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollups, Service Packs, or new major version releases to assure compatibility with future releases of these products. This compatibility matrix is updated via this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Compatibility List.

Greg Nichols
Dynamics CRM Senior Premier Field Engineer
Microsoft Corporation

Here are the tips that we shared as part of our interactive discussion at Ignite 2017 around Deploying and Managing Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales and Service.

We wanted to share them in a blog article to those who attended (to reduce the need for notes), for those who could not attend, and help reduce our own need for more PowerPoint slides. For those in attendance, feel free to ask any questions during the last 45-60 minutes of our session, or come find is in the hallways at Ignite. For those of you who couldn’t attend please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll do our best to reply in a timely manner.

1.       Review new features and functionality

·         Review what new features are available that you can leverage in the latest Dynamics 365 version and use this information to build a business case to migrate or update to the next version

·         What customizations can be retired in favor of out of the box configurations

                                                               i.      Example: Retiring certain JavaScript in favor of Business Rules

·         What’s New: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-customer-center/what-s-new.aspx

·         Important changes coming in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/get-started/whats-new/customer-engagement/important-changes-coming

·         CRM Roadmap: http://crmroadmap.dynamics.com

2.       Data Migration Strategy

·         What data and features actually needs to move to Dynamics 365

·         Data Loader for Microsoft Dynamics 365: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/lcs/2015/10/22/preview-feature-data-loader-for-microsoft-dynamics-crm-online                                                              

·         Other options include: Dedicated ETL tools (multiple platforms), SSIS adapters, and usage of .NET libraries such as the PFE Core Library or just the Dynamics 365 SDK assemblies

·         CRM on-premises to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement Migration Tool – Session on Friday morning at 9:00AM in OCCC W207 AB

3.       ISV Solutions

·         Review current requirements and if there is no Out Of The Box solution you can consider ISV solutions that may meet your needs.  Microsoft AppSource is your starting point for finding ISV solutions.  Contact the specific ISV’s to confirm their solution works with the latest Dynamics 365 version.

4.       Federation with Active Directory

·         A benefit of Dynamics 365 being part of Office 365 is the shared identity configuration, therefore Dynamics 365 can support capabilities in Azure AD such as: