There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't met yet.
- William Butler Yeats 

Figure 1: CRMUG Tampa – Count me in

Amazing. Awesome. Indcredible. Prodigious. Stunning. Fascinating. Marvelous. Surprising. Wonderful…

there are not enough words to describe how breathtaking this year’s CRMUG Summit 2016 in Tampa was.

These are only a few highlights:

• 1,500 Microsoft Dynamics CRM users and partners
• 150+ breakout sessions
• Great speakers, like Jujhar Singh and Takeshi Numoto​
• Stunning news, like the Dynamics 365 roadmap
• Partner Meetings
• Networking Lunches
• the great organization of the event
• and of course the picturesque landscape and side events made CRMUG a festival for CRM users!

Inspired by the great atmosphere at the event, we tried to give our best.
Not only did we introduce our addons to prospects & partners, but we also invited them to take our quiz and to win a Starbucks voucher at booth 1127!

Did YOU take the quiz? Did you enjoy it? We appreciate your feedback!

Please share your thoughts & experience by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.

Since CRMUG Summit in Tampa, we all know what has been suspected for a long time: Dynamics 365 is coming and nobody is going to stop it.

But what’s it all about? Do we really have to be so excited?

First, Dynamics 365 is purpose built (But is it really?)

The Enterprise Edition combines the applications that were known as Microsoft Dynamics until now under the patronage of one item: Dynamics 365. The components of Dynamics 365 can be seamlessly integrated one after another or all at once. (Our solutions apply to the underlined apps):

Sales
Field Service
Customer Service
Project Services Automation

Operations (Cross-plant cost accounting, Storage, Disposition, Production…)
Financial

So you see: it’s absolutely flexible, because you can use the component you need and do not have to buy it all at once.
Basically it’s a system that grows with your needs: the bigger your start-up grows, the more demands have to be met by your CRM. That’s exactly what Dynamics 365 does.

Second, Dynamics 365 is highly adaptable (Can you believe that?)

With MS PowerApps and MS Flow, Microsoft provides the foundation stone for applications that can access all Dynamics 365 data and additional data sources.
There are already a few PowerApps, but the creation of new PowerApps is more than easy.

But there’s even more:
Dynamics 365 is built on the Common Data Model – a mix between Dynamics 365 and Office 365.

Third, it is intelligent and thus, enhances productivity (Are you kidding me?!)

To be frank, if we wouldn’t have heard it at CRMUG Summit in Tampa, we wouldn’t believe it either, but Dynamics 365 bases on AI. Supported by Power BI and Cortana Intelligence, predictive business analytics and prescriptive business analytics are standard, while AzureIoT allows the integration of machine data.

This behavior supports the productivity of teams and business processes – no matter which device or platform you use.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE VALUABLE MSCRM-ADDONS?" (You might ask that in a shaky voice, hoping the best but expecting the worst)

Easy, man. 

Our addons are still the perfect expansion for the following components of Dynamics 365:
Sales, Field Service, Customer Service and Project Services Automation. Plus: they are still solutions of captivating simplicity.

Standing customers of our addons already know, that our solutions grow with our customers' needs and wishes. 
Next to our packages (from Extra small for Start-ups to our Enterprise solution), we offer full support (also for trial versions).

So thanks to Microsoft innovative ideas, everything gets way easier for us and our customers. That's why we are loving it!  

It is even way easier to install a trial or full version of our addons now”  

Below, you'll find an overview of our products with a short description and a link. Follow the link to receive your personal trial version of your favourite add-on. 
(Or try them all... it's absolutely FREE! PLUS: There is no obligation to buy our add-ons if you are not satisified! AND: We offer FULL support for all our products!) 

DocumentsCorePack - professional document generation and management in Dynamics 365
TelephoneIntegration - connect your phonesystem with Dynamics 365!
AttachmentExtractor - move attachments save & sound from Dynamics 365 to MS SharePoint and save money! 
GroupCalendar - advanced scheduling for teams & resources in Dynamics 365
ActivityTools - add some Outlook feelin' to Dynamics 365 and handle activities with style! 
PowerSearch - combine the benefits of Standard Search & Advanced Find! 
SmartBar - experience navigation between records on a new, fast level!​

​

All in all, we think it’s time to be excited and amazed about the new possibilities Dynamics 365 offers. Frankly, we cannot even seize them all at the moment, but we yet know that Dynamics 365 is more than a CRM application. It defines the future of customer service. Well done, Microsoft! 

Since version 6.16 and higher of GroupCalendar for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, our add-on provides its users with the possibility to configure unscheduled activities in the GANTT view. This article outlines how to customize unscheduled activities properly.
Please note that basic knowledge of FetchXML is required if you want to configure these GroupCalendars’ settings. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our support via support@mscrm-addons.com.

Basic information

First of all, you have to access GroupCalendar. To do so, please enter your CRM and click on Workplace > GroupCalendar. At the right side, you are provided with a drop-down menu that displays all/my unscheduled service activities or all/my unscheduled appointments (depending on which tab you use). Please note: In this example, we use the Service Activities-tab only, but the information applies as well to the Appointments-tab. 

Per default, users can select between

• All unscheduled service activities and
• My unscheduled service activities

But of course, there is a possibility to customize these settings. Users can – for example – add other users and/or user combinations to the default unscheduled service activities, for example:

• User A unscheduled service activities
• User B unscheduled service activities
• User C and D unscheduled service activities

Besides, also the search attributes can be defined.
For example: You could define unscheduled service activities as all service activities, that are marked yellow or blue.
Please note: This setting is a global one. But you could as well specify user-specific settings. In this case, you would first have to create the 

UnscheduledFetch_appointment_USERID

 
settingskey. For further information on how to create a settingskey, please click here. Once the settingskey has been created, you can proceed as below shown. 

So while user A would receive all yellow service activities, user B would receive all blue service activities as a result in GroupCalendar.

How to customize unscheduled fetches

Please note that basic knowledge of FetchXML is required if you want to configure these GroupCalendars’ settings. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our support via support@mscrm-addons.com.

Anyway, to customize unscheduled fetches, navigate to Settings > MSCRM-ADDONS.com Products and open the products with a double click.

Now you are provided with an overview of all products installed. Please click on GroupCalendar in order to open the settings.

Next, look for Unscheduled Fetch* in the search-field. Thanks to the placeholder *, you do not have to search for the two solutions.

However, basically both Unscheduled Fetch entries must be customized. Figure 5 shows how such a customization could look like.

Your work starts when it comes to the FetchXML –file. Please find an explanation of the fetch below.

If you want to add a new filter, simply create a new configuration node with a corresponding name and FetchXML. Then, customize the so added fetch and save it.

Please refresh your Browser before you continue to work with your new settings.

That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.

 (Blog still being reviewed)

Office Open XML has been invented to enable the creation of very complex templates that would normally require the use of macros. This article contains a step-by-step description about how to create such a template.

As for demonstration purpose, we decided to create a so called quote-with-grouping-template in this example, because it is most likely used by Microsoft Dynamics CRM users.

(Quote-with-grouping means that the quote-products are grouped by the value of a specific CRM-attribute, for example, subject.)

Step 1: Create a template layout by selecting an entity

First, we need to create the basic layout of the template. Clicking on the
[Insert MailMerge Fields]-menu button in the www.mscrm-addons.com command bar will open the DocumentsCorePack Template Designer.

Now, to create the basic layout for, e.g. a quote-with-grouping-template, we must select the type Quote in the Type-Selector-Dropdown Menu. Each template is based on a specific entity.

Step 2: Insert Fields

Now that we have selected an entity, we need to insert fields to our template. To do so, we set the cursor at the position where we would like to insert a certain field. Then, we double click the fieldname. You could as well insert it via the [Insert field]-button. For more information on the [Insert field]-button, have a look at this article.

Figure 2: Template Designer – Insert fields

Once you have inserted all the fields you would like to insert, your template could look like this:

Figure 3: Template with inserted fields 

Step 3: Add line-item relationship

The next step is to resolve the quote-quote product relationship. To do so, we need to click on the Additional-tab in the DocumentsCorePack Template Designer. The Additional section allows to resolve any relation/entity within CRM and brings up a list of all attributes from the related entities so that they can be used within the document too.

Here, we click on the [Add Relationship/Entity]-button in order to add a new relationship.

Figure 4: Template Designer – Additional tab

We use the Configure fields and data source – dialog to resolve the fields, tables and relationships we need for our document.

In our example we must select Quote -> Quote Product [quoteid]. As a result, the available fields of this relationship are displayed in the Attributes field of the Configure fields and data source dialog.

As soon as we click on the [OK]-button, all the selected fields will be related to the Quote Product table. Please note: Only the fields checked in the Attributes field will later be visible in the DocumentsCorePack Template Designer.

Step 4: Insert the table

The procedure of inserting a table of items is completely automated, so we just need to set the curser to the position where we want to add the table and double click on one of the fields that we have previously added to the table. As soon as we do so, a dialog (see Figure 8) appears.

Within this dialog, you can select between three possibilities how the fields should be inserted to the table.

In our example, we want to insert a new table with a header and a footer. So we select the corresponding options and click on the [OK]-button.

As a result, the table will be inserted at the determined position:

Step 5: Format the table

Once we have inserted the table, we can add fields like quantity, product-name or even a table header including column-names with the formatting options available in the www.mscrm-addons.com - tab.

 Figure 10: mscrm-addons.com-tab (Rows and Columns)

With a click on the Rows and Columns – Dropdown, you get the possibility to split or merge the columns, to insert a right or left column, to delete a row or a table and to add a header or a footer row.

Figure 11: Column customization

Please note: It is of upmost importance to insert the header, as well as the footer, exclusively via the www.mscrm-addons.com – tab in the command bar! Do not enter them via Microsoft Word!

Step 6: Get the result

After saving the document and selecting our CRM-data we can see the result with the replaced fields at the top, the line item table including the sum in the middle and the bank-details at the bottom.

Figure 12: DocumentsCorePack template – Result

That is how you create a DocumentsCorePack template!

That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.

The following information provides you with a technical description of the ordinals field functionality. For further information on the functionality itself, please have a look at this article. 

This is how the function looks like: 

The below table describes what happens behind the scenes. The left column contains a structure chart that visualizes the procedure. The two columns on the right contain examples that run parallel to the structure chart and intend to help to understand the algorithm. 

That's it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an e-Mail to support@mscrm-addons.com. 

This article contains links to the ActivityToolsPluginExtension solution for AttachmentExtractor. Please select which Microsoft Dynamics application you use and download the corresponding solution. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DOWNLOADED .ZIP FILES MUST BE EXTRACTED BEFORE YOU IMPORT THE FILES.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For Microsoft Dynamics 365: 
Please download the solution here.
Please do NOT import a solution if a higher version of it is already installed.

For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015/2016:
Please download this version. ​
The General solution version 2015.110 or higher is also required.
Please do NOT import a solution if a higher version of it is already installed.

​

For further information on the solution, please have a look at this article and have a look at this article if you would like to know more about the solutions' impact on AttachmentExtractor. 

 
That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.

This article contains links to the ActivityToolsPluginExtension solution for ActivityTools. Please select which Microsoft Dynamics application you use and download the corresponding solution. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DOWNLOADED .ZIP FILES MUST BE EXTRACTED BEFORE YOU IMPORT THE FILES.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For Microsoft Dynamics 365: 
Since there is an ActivityTools version for Microsoft Dynamics 365, the ActivityTools installer includes the ActivityToolsPluginExtension. ​

For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015/2016:
In this case, please download this version. ​
Please note, that the General solution version 2015.110, is also required. 

For further information on the solution, please have a look at this article. ​

 
That’s it! We appreciate your feedback! Please share your thoughts by sending an email to support@mscrm-addons.com.