This blog article is intended to guide you through the usage of the License Manager for Dynamics 365. The License Manager allows you to manage your existing licenses and is part of the MSCRM-ADDONS installation.

There are two ways to get the License information:

1) The Web License Manager
    The web license manager has been designed to facilitate the installation of license keys within Dynamics 365.

2) The Local License Manager
   The local license manager is accessible as a standalone application or from the main configuration tool of the
    addon. 

1. The Web License Manager

Open your Dynamics 365 Settings, navigate to MSCRM-ADDONS-section and click on the addon you want to manage the license for e. g. ActivityTools. 

 

The main configuration window provides you with a few tabs that allow you to configure your addon in general, in this example ActivityTools. Please navigate to the Licensing-tab (highlighted in yellow below). 

 

In the so opened ActivityTools Web License Manager, you are provided with all information regarding your license. 

 

❶ Product information 
Provides you with the current version number of your selected addon, in this case, ActivityTools. 

❷ Current system information
Summary of your current license state. The red background indicates an issue with your license. In this example, your license has expired. For more information to possible license state, have a look at the corresponding Licensing Guide documentation. 

❸ License status
Provides you with a deeper insight into your license status.  In this case, it is invalid because the license has expired. 

❹ General license information
Displays details about the expiration date, version and user count. 

❺ Install license
Please click the [Install license]-button to install a new license. 

 

How to install a license
By clicking the [Install license]-button, you are provided with the Install license dialog (Figure 4). Follow the instructions carefully and insert your license key, which can be found in the email you have received from our support team. 

 

There are two different kinds of licenses  - the paid license and the subscription license. Depending on which license you choose, please follow the instructions. More information about the different licenses can be found in the Licensing Guide documentation in the corresponding chapter.

 The Local License Manager 

 The local license manager is accessible as a standalone application or from the main configuration tool of the addon. There are two ways to open the License Manager: 

1) Search for "License Manager - Dynamics 365" in the start pane and press [Enter] to start the program. 

OR

2) Open the Organization overview, select an organization and click on License Manager (highlighted in yellow).

   

Anyway, after the starting process, the window (see screenshot below) pops up: 

❶ Installed products
This list provides you with an overview of all the MSCRM-ADDONS products you have installed. Select a product to get the license details on the right side. In this case for ActivityTools. A green check, next to an add-on icon, means that its license is valid. A cross symbolizes an invalid license. 

❷ Current system information
Summary of your current license state. The green background indicates a valid license. 

❸ General license information
Displays details about the expiration date, version and user count.  

❹ License status
Provides you with a deeper insight into your license status.  

❺ Select license file
On click, a file dialog will open which allows you selecting a license file. After selecting a file, the License Manager will analyze the license and show its information in a new dialog, like you can see below. To finish the installation, click on the [Install this]-button. 

 
Upgrading your license

To update or upgrade your license, you have two options:

1) Purchase a new license or an upgrade license directly in our online shop:
http://www.mscrm-addons.com/OnlineShop/tabid/80/language/de-DE/Default.aspx

OR

2) Contact our support 

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

 

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The following step-by-step instruction shows you how to enable the TeamMember licensing for our add-ons. This makes sense for Dynamics 365 Online organizations which use "Microsoft Dynamics 365 Team Member" licenses. 

 Please also have a look at the corresponding blog article Licensing Guide for Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

Open your Dynamics 365 Settings, navigate to MSCRM-ADDONS-section (highlighted in yellow) and select the add-on you want to activate the TeamMember Licensing for. This activation process has to be done for each add-on separately. Depending on which of our solutions you choose, the main configuration window will provide you with different tabs. 

 

For example, if you select DocumentsCorePack, the main configuration window looks like in the figure below. To activate the TeamMember Licensing for DCP, please navigate to the License Server-tab. 

❶  You have to click on the [Enable Team licensing]-button like you can see in the figure below. 

 

​❷ Next, this window pops up where you have to type in the username of a Dynamics 365 administrator like you can see below. Then hit the [Start]-button.

 

❸ A new window will open, where you have to sign in with an Office 365 admin account. Please note, that it could be possible that you first must disable your popup blocker for that. Then sign in and hit the [Next]-button. 

 

 

​❹ After login, you will be provided with the window below. Please click on the [Accept]-button to continue. 

 

❺ If the process was successful you will be linked to our website showing the information below. 

 

❻After enabling successfully the TeamMember licensing, please go back to the license dialog and click on the [Enable]-button to finish the process. 

 

 

❼ After activating, you will be provided with the window below, which shows you the license summary. 

 

​❶ The General license information shows you that your AAD TeamMember licensing is enabled.

❷ Licenses for TeamMembers shows the amount of Dynamics 365 TeamMember users and the Number of site licenses above shows you the amount of normal Dynamics  365 licenses reduced by the TeamMember users. 

❸ Here you can edit your TeamMember licensing. By clicking this you will be provided with the window below, where you are able to Renew or Disable your TeamMember licensing. 

 

For all other products, you can find the [Enable Team licensing]-button under the Licensing-tab like you can see below using ActivityTools as example. The process is the same as for DocumentsCorePack shown before. 

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

This short blog article describes how you can easily modify the style of a hyperlink.

 

Open MS Word and follow the steps below:  

1. Open styles
2. Click on "Manage styles"
3. Search for the Hyperlink Style and click on "Modify"
4. Change the Hyperlink Style to your linking in the "Modify Style" Settings of the Hyperlink Style 

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

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This blog article describes how you can activate debugging for the Licensing page plugin.

 The article is relevant if you get the following error message although this setting exists. The message below can appear on the licensing tab of the web configuration. 

 

First, you have to enable tracing for your organization: Open a browser and navigate to Dynamics 365 -> Settings -> Administration -> System Settings -> [Customization]-tab and select "All" from the drop-down menu of the Enable logging to plug-in trace log. 

 

Next, go to Dynamics 365 -> Settings -> Products and check if a record named "Plugin" already exists. If not create a new one by hitting the "NEW" button.
Name: Plugin
Product Type: server

In the subgrid in its body ensure that a Settings Key with the following information exists:
Name: debug
KeyValue: true

The result will look like in the figure below: 

 

Next, reload the licensing page to generate log files. 

Then access the log files: Dynamics 365 -> Settings -> Plug-In Trace Log and look for "PTM.Plugins.CheckLicense.CheckLicensePlugin". 

 

Figure 4: PTM.Plugins.CheckLicense.CheckLicensePlugin

 

Finally please send us the content of the "Message Block" field. 

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

Thank you for joining us at Summit EMEA in Dublin! It was a pleasure for us to be part of such a great experience! 

The atmosphere at Summit EMEA was perfect, which was not only due to the well-selected location but also to the excellent speakers and truly informative sessions. Amazing keynote speakers, small group sessions, gripping speeches and lots of networking opportunities converted this event into a Microsoft Dynamics 365 festival. 

Figure 1: Summit EMEA Dublin 2018

Summit EMEA was amazing and full of great people. From the very first moment, we knew that being a Silver Sponsor had been a great decision. All in all, the event was a complete success for partners and customers. Being part of this event was a great and really very special experience! We want to thank the organizers of that outstanding event for their commitment! 

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

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If you are a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online system administrator, you probably know that initial Dynamics 365 user setup is performed in the Office 365 portal and then configured within Dynamics 365. But you may not know that you can use the Security Groups feature in the Office 365 Portal to enable or disable Dynamics 365 access to custom groups of users you can create.

​This feature can be useful for different scenarios, including:

• Limiting access for development or testing in non-production Dynamics 365 Online instances
• Restricting access to the Dynamics 365 Online production environment to system administrators only when importing a new solution set or other system maintenance
• Creating special groups for sales, service, or other business groups for more organized users management​

There is actually a default security group that is pre-configured for Office 365 called System Administrators. This group includes all Office 365 users with global administrator rights.

Here’s how it works. You must have global administrator rights in the Office 365 Portal.  If you do, log in to the Office 365 Portal with your credentials to the home page. Once logged in, do the following:

1. On the home page, navigate to Admin Center and select the Groups link on the navigation menu on the left side of the page.
2. This will take you to the Groups list. Open the View drop-down menu and select Security, which will take you to the  Security Groups management pages. 
3. Left click on the [+ Add a group]-button to create a new group. This will open up a new window where you can enter your new security group name.

 

For this scenario, we will call our group Testing Users. This group will comprise of users that will have access to the Dynamics 365 environment for testing new solutions. To create the group, do the following:

1. On the entry page, enter the name of the group in the Name section.
2. Next, add the Description of this group.
3. After entering the name and description, select the [Add]-buttonin the bottom left corner to save your group.

In this blog article, you will learn how the DocumentsCorePack ServerBased functionality can be used to upload a SharePoint document to an email in a workflow. For more information on how to create a workflow, please read this article here. 

After creating your new process, you will be provided with the window where you can define the steps of your process. 

Step 1: Create Email 
First, you have to create an email by using the Create Record-step. Open the drop-down menu and select Email. By hitting the [Set properties]-button you can define the properties of this step. For more information on how to create an email, please read this blog article here. 

Step 2: Create MSCRM-ADDONS.com AutoMergeWorkingIntems
Next, we want to create a new MSCRM-ADDONS.com AutoMergeWorkingItem, which makes sure that the SharePoint document will be uploaded to the email properly. To do so, please add a new step. Again, click on the [Add Step]-button and select Create Record. Then, type in a step description and use the drop-down menu below to set the Create:-section to MSCRM-ADDONS.com AutoMergeWorkingItems. Next, click on the [Set Properties]-button. 

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

 

 

This article describes how you can create custom Dynamics 365 menu buttons with custom JavaScript functions to execute the DocumentsCorePack ExportToWord (aka “PrintInWord”) process. This article is only relevant if you use the DocumentsCorePack client (Template Designer) to generate documents.

 

This blog article applies only to Dynamics 365 - version 8.2 and higher. 

 

Basic JavaScript knowledge is required.

 

When can this be helpful?

For example, you want to define a specific template which should be used for the process.

Or you want to do any pre-operations like checking the status of the target record (e.g. invoice has to be paid).

 

Configure custom buttons

First, start the Configuration - DocumentsCorePack for Dynamics 365, connect to your organization and launch the Client & Server Based generation settings.

More information can be found in chapter “Organization Overview“ of the Install Guide. 

 

In the so opened window, hit on the [Advanced Button Configuration]-button, like you can see in the following figure.

 

Button Name
Gives you the possibility to define a custom name for your button.

JS Library
Cannot be changed. 

JS Functions
Select the JavaScript function that should be executed if you hit the generated button. 

The DocumentsCorePack Configuration Tool already includes predefined JavaScript template functions which can be used to get started (underneath you will find a description): 

• ptmDCPCustomExportToWordAction
• ptmDCPCustomExportToWordActionAccountWithTemplate
• ptmDCPCustomExportToWordActionSingleRecordCheck
• CustomPrintInWordActionAccount (deprecated)

With a click on the [Modify JavaScript]-button the JavaScript web resource (ptm_dcp_custombuttonsactions.js) is opened in a new Dynamics 365 window.

 

JavaScript functions 
The methods described below are part of this web resource. The latest version of the script can be download here.

The function ptmDCPCustomExportToWordAction (line 33 to 43) shows the simplest way to start the ExportToWord process. After executing, the DCP Client will show the template selection dialog. This example function is ready to use and works for different entities.

 

ptmDCPCBCustomButton.startExportToWord(selectedIds, typeCode, selectedItemCount, entityName);

This function starts the ExportToWord process, like you can see in the following figure.

  

The function ptmDCPCustomExportToWordActionAccountWithTemplate (line 46 to 58) shows how the ExportToWord process can be started with a specific template. After executing, the DCP Client will use the defined template (Account_Overview.docx) instead of showing the template selection dialog.

This example function works for accounts only because its template is designed for accounts.

 

//doSomething();

Can be replaced with any custom code. E.g. check the status.

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var nameOfDCPTemplate = "Account_Overview.docx";

Define the name of the DCP template. Any existing template of the entity account can be used.

 

ptmDCPCBCustomButton.startExportToWord(selectedIds, typeCode, selectedItemCount, entityName, nameOfDCPTemplate);

Starts the ExportToWord process and passes on the template.
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The function ptmDCPCustomExportToWordActionSingleRecordCheck (line 63 to 96) shows how the entity name and the ID of the reference-record can be accessed (first for a process started from GRID/SubGRID, second from a FORM).

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Finally, it starts the ExportToWord process.

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SharePoint paths limitations are hard coded. The maximum path length is 260 characters. If that limit is exceeded, you get the SharePoint error 414. This article outlines how to avoid this error. 

Minimum requirements: AttachmentExtractor v.124 or higher 

 mscrm-addons products offer several default ways to shorten SharePoint paths:

1) We provide you with a default shortening to a maximum of 30 characters + GUID for each folder name. 
2) We provide you with a default shortening to a maximum of 128 characters for each file name. 
3) ShortIDs: We create a 6-characters ID alternatively to the well-known 36 GUIDs of Microsoft Dynamics 365.  
4) Use an alternative field for the generation of paths (e.g. instead of account name we can use a unique account number field).

Please note: Even though the creation of short paths is a very valuable feature, existing paths cannot be shortened anymore, unless very specific criteria are met. Manual interaction is always required.

 

How to activate a ShortID for AttachmentExtractor

1) First, you must activate ShortID for AttachmentExtractor. To do so, please follow the below path in order to get to the ShortID settings. 

Please note:  You must replace [YourServiceName] with your individual service name: 
 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PTM EDV-Systeme\AttachmentExtractorserver\Configurations\[YourServiceName]

2) Next, set UseShortID to true.

 

3) To define the cutting, you will have to create a new settingskey. If you have not created a settingskey yet, please have a look at this article. 

Depending on which item you would like to customize, please enter the following settings: 

For the maximum SharePoint folder name length: 
SPMaxFolderLength: [number of characters that should remain]

 

For the maximum SharePoint file name length:
SPMaxFileLength: [number of characters that should remain]

 

For the minimum SharePoint file name length:

SPMinFileLength: [minimum number of characters that should remain]

Please note: The file extension is never cut! 

  

For the SharePoint folder name attribute:

SPFolderNameAttribute: enittyschemaname;attributename|

For further information on how to correct SharePoint paths exceeding the limitations, please have a look at this blog article. 

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

The eXtreme365 event in Dubrovnik, Croatia exceeded all our expectations. To begin with, we would like to thank you for giving us your precious time and attention! It was a great pleasure meeting you at our booth!

The atmosphere at eXtreme365 was perfect, which was not only due to the well-selected location but also to the excellent speakers and truly informative sessions. The event was amazing and full of great people. From the very first moment, we knew that being a Silver Sponsor for this event had been a great decision. There is no better town for an event like Dubrovnik - the vibrant city reflects the spirit of Microsoft Dynamics 365 like no other.

Figure 1: eXtreme365 Dubrovnik photo gallery

Also, we had the chance to present our solutions and ideas in front of a responsive audience. Michael Dohr outlined excellently how our solutions guarantee higher productivity in Dynamics 365 and why working with partners is the key to success. He highlighted the values and benefits of our partner network, as well as the main advantages of our solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

Figure 2: Live showcase on how simple solutions guarantee higher productivity in Dynamics 365

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​All in all, the event was a complete success for partners and customers. Being part of this event was a great and really very special experience! We want to thank the organizers of that outstanding event for their commitment!