MS CRM 4.0: Publish workflow not working after updating to Rollup 7

After updating my CRM 4.0 software to Rollup 7, the publishing of workflows failed.

Apparently, this is a known issue. Found the solution in this forum: https://community.dynamics.com/forums/t/18135.aspx

MS CRM: Insufficient permissions Assign Case

When you get a "Insufficient permissions" message when you assign a case, check that your current user's permission roles has Read permissions on Queue.

When you get a message about user permissions, you can find out what permissions are needed for the action you want to do by doing the steps described on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953962

MS CRM 4.0 development: useful links

Here are some links that helped me with developing MS CRM 4.0 solutions the last couple of weeks.

Checkbox style Multi-Select Picklist
http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/03/31/crm-4-0-checkbox-style-multi-select-picklist.aspx

Using the Advanced Find for FetchXML builder
http://ronaldlemmen.blogspot.com/2006/11/using-advanced-find-for-fetchxml.html

ReadOnly and Disabled Fields
http://customerfx.com/pages/crmdeveloper/2006/03/06/17312.aspx

Hiding the left navigation panel on a CRM entity
http://marcoamoedo.com/blog/hiding-the-left-navigation-panel-on-a-crm-entity/

Creating Master Detail views in Dynamics CRM
http://marcoamoedo.com/blog/creating-master-detail-views-in-dynamics-crm/

Collapsable Form Sections – a bit of the future in CRM 4
http://marcoamoedo.com/blog/collapsable-form-sections-ndash-a-bit-of-the-future-in-crm-4/

Minimum Dynamics CRM Permissions
http://www.orbitone.com/en/blog/archive/2009/10/06/minimum-dynamics-crm-permissions.aspx

Problem with Sharepoint Datasheet View after installing an Office 2007 component when Office 2003 is already installed

When we installed Project 2007 on a machine with Office 2003 already installed, the Datasheet view didn't work anymore: "The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet view for one or more of the following reasons: A datasheet component compatible with Windows SharePoint Services is not installed, your browser does not support ActiveX controls, or support for ActiveX controls is disabled".

Apparently, the Datasheet view component does not work when Office 2003 and Office 2007 components both are installed on the client machine.

This is the solution:

1. Install Office 2003, include the Windows SharePoint Services Support

2. Install the Office 2007 component(s) (in my case, this was Project 2007), without Windows SharePoint Services Support!

3. Now re-run the Office 2003 installation. Choose Repair and then select the Reinstall option.

MS CRM 4.0 Custom Workflow Activity assembly update not executing the new code

When you are developing a custom workflow activity for MS CRM 4.0, you have to register this activity with the Plugin Registration Tool provided by MS CRM 4.0 SDK.

When I changed the code of my workflow activity, and tried the Update action in de Plugin Registration Tool, the new code did not execute, it executed the cached version of the previous code. To get your new code to run, perform an IISRESET and restart the Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service after updating your assembly in the Plugin Registration Tool. It took me a while to find this out, but it’s actually quite logical.

MS CRM 4.0 VPC - remove the 'crm' host header

On the CRM Demo VPC 2009, there is a host header 'crm' defined to redirect to the crm-srv-01:5555 website (the CRM application). When you want to change this, you'll need to do this steps:

- Change the host header in the Internet Information Services window. Select Properties on the CRM Web site, go to the Web Site tab and click Advanced. Hit Edit... and remove the 'crm' host header value

Because you removed your host header, the workflows won't work anymore, because the configured webservice url still points to the host header value. Perform these steps to change this:

- Change this Registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM: ServerUrl to http://localhost:5555/MSCRMServices; LocalSdkHost to localhost; LocalSdkPort to 5555

- Go to the SQL Server Management Studio, and execute this queries on the MSCRM_CONFIG database (This is not supported! Please take a backup of this database before executing the queries):

USE MSCRM_CONFIG

Update DeploymentProperties SET NVarCharColumn = 'localhost:5555' WHERE ColumnName = 'AsyncSdkRootDomain'

Update DeploymentProperties SET NvarCharColumn = 'localhost:5555' WHERE ColumnName = 'ADSdkRootDomain'

Update DeploymentProperties SET NvarCharColumn = 'localhost:5555' WHERE ColumnName = 'ADWebApplicationRootDomain'

(queries found on http://www.sadev.co.za/content/workflow-doesnt-work-imports-never-happen-emails-dont-flow-and-outlook-clients-cannot-connec)

- Perform an IISRESET and Restart the Microsoft CRM Asynchronous Processing Service.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - enable tracing / logging

To enable logging on your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 server, you can follow this instructions: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907490/en-us. A handy tool is written to do this instead of changing the registry keys yourselve: http://blogs.msdn.com/benlec/archive/2008/03/04/crmdiagtool4-for-microsoft-crm-4-0-has-been-released.aspx.

However, the tool configures your server to log all the stuff it's processing. This is because the registry value of TraceCategories is set to "*:Verbose". Set the registry value to "*:Error" if you only want the errors to be logged. If you want to log errors and warnings, set the value to "*:Error;*:Warnings".

The default location is set to [drive]:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server\Trace. To change this, change the value of the TraceDirectory registry setting.