Sam Jones CRM Corner

Sprint Dashboard

Like the Carling advert, this is probably the best dashboard in the world....

Ever wanted to know what the current world population is, or how many babies are being born this minute? This is the dashboard to end all dashboards. I love it.

Sprint Dashboard Here

Exam Retirement Alert

For all those people out there pursuing a certification path, you should be aware that Microsoft are retiring a whole bunch of core exams on the 31st March 2009. Specifically, the following :

•Exam 70-300: Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures

•Exam 70-301: Managing, Organizing, and Delivering IT Projects by Using Microsoft Solutions Framework 3.0

•Exam 70-305: Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

•Exam 70-306: Developing and Implementing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

•Exam 70-310: Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework

•Exam 70-315: Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

•Exam 70-316: Developing and Implementing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

•Exam 70-320: Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework

•Exam 70-330: Implementing Security for Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET

•Exam 70-340: Implementing Security for Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET

Microsoft SQL Server exams that retire on March 31, 2009

•Exam 70-228: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition

•Exam 70-229: Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition

This might present something of a problem for those of us who are going for Microsoft Certified Business Management Solutions Professional Developer for MSCRM qualifications as at least two of the retired exams are requirements of this qualification! As yet, there doesn't appear to be any alternatives to those exams which achieve the same result, so I suggest that we all get our skates on and sit the required exams before the 31st March 2009. 

Best of luck!

Using the DOM in Microsoft CRM 4.0

One of the beauties of CRM is the ability to use client side code, in particular, I am fond of attachEvent(). Here is a brief demonstration of how to change the colours of a field within crmForm using the DOM and attachEvent(). It should be noted that this particular little gem is from the department of 'Unsupported but fun to do anyway'.

Attach this to the Onload event of the Account Form (or any form you like, just change the references)...

function CompanyName_GlowField()
{
/* The Event's SrcElement will be the element that fired
the event in this case, it will be the Microsoft Dynamics
CRM form element */
event.srcElement.runtimeStyle.backgroundColor ="#ffdddd";
}
function CompanyName_RevertField()
{
/* Runtimestyle will automatically revert the style back to
what it was prior to our code changing it. */
event.srcElement.runtimeStyle.backgroundColor ="";
}
/* Hook up events to the Account Name field */
crmForm.all.name.attachEvent("onmouseover",
CompanyName_GlowField);
crmForm.all.name.attachEvent("onmouseout",
CompanyName_RevertField);

 

As you can see, this is quite a powerful little feature. You can add custom logic to this function to further enhance the effect, perhaps changing colours depending on the value, a range of values or a particular dependency.

Have fun.