Friday, March 30, 2007

Account not found during Integration - But its there?

Occasionally I get errors in SCRIBE transfers where the account can't be found. Even though the account is in both Dynamic GP and Dynamics CRM. Why? Unbeknownst to me the mapping for accounts is actually kept on the KEYCROSSREFERENCETWOWAY table in the Scribe Internal DB. Generally when this error occurs, the account has been merged in CRM and the GUID for the inactive account is referenced in the APP_B_KEY field in the KEYCROSSREFERENCETWOWAY table. We need to change this.

Check to see if the accounts have been merged. If they have been merged look at the GUIDs for both the Active and Inactive account. Copy The GUID for the active account including the "{}". The GUID is located in the address bar as seen here.



When accounts can't be found but they are in CRM and GP. Verify the GUID Scribe is using in APP_B_KEY in the KEYCROSSREFERENCETWOWAY table in \\NTINTEGRATOR\SCRIBE SQL Server.

Select *
From KEYCROSSREFERENCETWOWAY
Where APP_A_KEY = '%ACCOUNTNUMBER%'

The results should look like:

If the APP_B_KEY field doesn't equal the GUID of the active Account make it so.

This will fix any of those errors.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Microsoft One Note

This only slightly relates to MS CRM, but I have been using One Note 07 for a couple of months now. And I am very impressed with it. I can create activities in it that relate automatically to Outlook then select the regarding and therefore relate them to CRM.

I'm hoping to eventually be able to apply contacts from CRM to it, but I have not looked that far into it yet.

There a free downloads available for OneNote07 and I would recomend trying it out if you are looking for a way to get better organized.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

DST on WS2000

If your like me you have a coule legacy systems hangng around that you haven't bumped up to Windows Server 2003. Out comes the new Daylight Savings Plan, and your stuck with a painful manual update for WS2000 machines.

Or are you?

Nope the guys from Intelliadmin.com have put out a nice little utility for this. Worked like a charm. I scaned it for virii and maleware, and none were found. None were found on my system after install. Go check it out.

http://www.intelliadmin.com/home.htm

Monday, March 05, 2007

Revisiting Scribe

Over a year ago, I gave a review of Scribe Software's Insight. A product I had very high hopes for, but was not panning out in my production environment. I gave them an "F" after using their product, or rather attempting to use their product, for several Months.

My problems with Insight stemmed from two issues. One we attempted to install a trial version of MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager) on that server, only to have the install fail the prerequisites. We rolled it back and thought we were done with it, however we were wrong. During the long arduous troubleshooting of Scribe Insight, we discovered that there was a MOM installation stuck in the registry and had to uninstall it. Luckily it was still in the Add and Remove Programs mmc.

The other issue was that when my VAR installed the SQL server instance that would be used for Scribe they failed to install SP 3a. Once MOM was uninstalled and the SQL server instance upgraded to SP 4. We were able to get Scribe Insight on line.

Scribe is a very powerful integration piece. And after many months of working with Scribe Support people - Bill, Brendan and Larry, I have been able to stabilize Insight and get pretty good results with it.

I can comfortably say that they did not deserve that "F". In fact I can give their Support team a Solid "B+". I hold back on giving them an "A" only because they seem to lose track of some Action Items. They could definitely use MS CRM at their location. If they are reading this ... Call me, I can give you a good price on an installation.

They have pretty good knowledge of their product, and have developers handy if they need more info. On a couple of occasions I had to follow up with them to see where things stood. But if they said they were going to call me at 3pm the next day they did.

I can give their product another "B". Man I would love to give it a higher grade, but it seems overly complicated, at times. Like so many programs the insight seems bent on pushing you to partners and paid support, when with just a little bit of effort the program can be supported by blokes like me right out of the box.

If you are looking for a powerful integration piece, and don't mind a long learning curve, don't shy away from Scribe. I don't think there is much it can't do. Be prepared to spend hours learning the system, and running a lot of tests to see how your results come out. Once you get the hang of it though, expect some dazzling results.

Editing the Quick Find View

I have spent months toying with workarounds for the fact that Microsoft CRM searchs Products by descriptions not the Part Number.


You can easily modify the fields the search is run against out of the box. I wish my VAR had mentioned this months ago.


Here's how to do it. This is for products, but is applicatble for all Quick Find views.


Settings > Customizations > Customize Entities

Select Products

Select Forms and Views

Select Quick Find All Products


Now on the right select the Add Find Columns

Here you are presented with a list of fields that you can search






Select the fields you wish to search on (you can use more than one).

Click OK

You can modify the rest of the view (the results columns and sort orders) just as you normally would with any other view.