CRM "V3C" Outlook Client Released For Vista and Office 2007 Compatibility

Microsoft today released an updated Outlook client for CRM 3. This new client, which requires no changes on the server, delivers CRM integration to the 2007 version of Office Outlook as well as Vista compatibility. It also includes several significant upgrades. According to MS: "Nearly every aspect of the CRM Outlook Client has been touched and updated…

• Integration with the Office 2007 “Ribbon”
• Custom MAPI Store (no more PST file!)
• SQL Express Edition 2005 SP1
• Inclusion of all existing client hotfixes
• Windows Vista Support
  o User Access Control
  o GPO deployments
  o Internet Explorer 7

"In addition, we now also support…

• Clean installation of V3C
• Upgrade from CRM V3 Outlook Client to V3C
• Support for hotfixes and patching using MSP technology

The update can be downloaded here.

OnChange script to validate Social Security numbers

This is fairly well documented in the SDK and on the newsgroups, but since it is such a frequently used kind of script I thought I'd throw it up on the blog. Place this script in the onChange event of a field that you use to store Social Security numbers and the script will format it properly (NNN-NN-NNNN) if the user enters 9 numbers, and alert them if they enter an incorrect amount of numbers.

var oField = event.srcElement;
if (typeof(oField) != "undefined" && oField != null)
{
var sTmp = oField.DataValue.replace(/[^0-9]/g, "");
switch (sTmp.length)
{
case 9:
oField.DataValue = sTmp.substr(0, 3) + "-" + sTmp.substr(3, 2) + "-" + sTmp.substr(5, 4);
break;

default:
alert('SSN must contain 9 numbers.');
break;
}
}

Hope you find this helpful. If you do, give the ads a click! Thanks!

Update Rollup 1 For Microsoft CRM 3.0 Is Now Available

The Microsoft CRM Sustained Engineering team has released Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Update Rollup 1 for Server and Sales for Outlook.

This Update Rollup is significant in that it is the first publicly-available hotfix/update rollup for CRM 3.0. It makes it very easy for customers to update their Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 systems to the latest set of hotfixes, and to maintain parity between the client and server components of Microsoft CRM 3.0.

• Microsoft Download Center: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=08BADB01-4984-458E-96E6-4F08622CFE63&displaylang=en
• Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922815

Please note:

• CRM 3.0 Update Rollup 1 does not provide compatibility with CRM 3.0 Sales for Outlook compatibility with Windows Vista and Office 2007. Stay tuned to communications regarding availability of a CRM 3.0 Sales for Outlook compatible with Windows Vista and Office 2007.
• Chinese and Japanese versions of CRM 3.0 Update Rollup 1 are not available, but are under consideration
• When customizations were exported from a Microsoft CRM 3.0 server running Update Rollup 1, importing the customizations to a Microsoft CRM 3.0 server that does not have Update Rollup 1 installed is not supported. Such an attempt will produce an error message such as “The selected schema file does not conform with the requested format. There has been an error with the schema validation in line 37977, position 16.” When attempting to import customizations to your CRM Server that were exported from a CRM Server running Update Rollup 1, make sure the CRM Server to which you are importing the customizations also has Update Rollup 1 installed.
• Update Rollup 1 contains hotfixes and updates that you have to manually enable or configure. To enable or configure these hotfixes on the server that is running Microsoft CRM 3.0, consult the "Hotfixes and updates that you have to manually enable or configure" section of Microsoft Knowledge Base article 922815.

Sneak Peek At CRM 3.0 For Office Outlook 2007

Mike Snyder at Sonoma Partners posted a low-res screenshot on his blog last month of a preview of the CRM Outlook client for 3.0 that is being updated for Office 2007 compatibility. For those of you not yet familiar with Office 2007, it will deliver a radically different interface from current versions of Office. One of the most distinctive changes is what Microsoft is calling the "ribbon," the new and very slick toolbar/palette menu that reorganizes functionality in the Office products.

The CRM update for Office Outlook 2007 is supposed to be released within a couple of weeks of the official release of Office 2007 and will be available to download. The updated Outlook client for laptops will use the newer SQL 2005 Express database instead of the MSDE, allowing for 4GB of data instead of just 2GB. Here's the screenshot:

Microsoft Announces Update To CRM 3.0 For Vista

Mary Jo Foley posted the following on her "All About Microsoft" blog today:

Microsoft puts the final touches on a new, Vista-optimized CRM

Even though Microsoft officials have been touting the thousands of new applications in the pipeline that will be optimized for Windows Vista (and Office 2007). so far there've been details on almost none of them.

On November 6, however, Microsoft broke the cone of silence by announcing that it will roll out a new version of its Dyanmics CRM product "at the same time as the 2007 Office release" (and ultimately in 18 differnt languages). This is a previously unannounced release that will precede Dynamics CRM 4.0, also known as "CRM Live" and code-named "Titan," which is due to ship in the first half of 2007.
(Guess it would have been poor form for Microsoft to allow other CRM rivals to beat its own CRM unit to the punch in support of its own operating system and desktop suite.)

Microsoft is describing this as a refresh of the existing 3.0 release. The update, which Microsoft is calling "Microsoft CRM 3.0 for Office 2007/Vista," will be available "approximately two weeks or so after the release of those products." I guess that means January/February 2007.

New features and functionality in the new Microsoft CRM product will include:

• Use of the Office 2007-style ribbon user interface
• Use of richer data visualization and business intelligence that are baked into Excel 2007
• Support for Vista gadgets, so that Dynamics CRM activities and alerts can be placed directly onto a Vista desktop or home page
• Integration with Exchange Server 2007, a member of the Office 2007 extended family, so that the new Microsoft CRM will allow users to store voice mail messages and track them automatically
• Support for BitLocker drive encryption.

Microsoft also is broadening the licensing options under which it will sell the new CRM release, officials said. Users get a choice of concurrent ("Business Ready") or modular licensing, officials said.