https://alexanderdevelopment.net/tag/utilities/Recent content in utilities on Alexander DevelopmentHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usMon, 12 Mar 2018 15:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/12/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-2/Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/03/12/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows-2/I’ve released an updated version of my recurring workflow scheduler for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. This solution targets Dynamics 365 version 9, so it should work in all current Dynamics 365 online organizations. You can download version 1.3 of my solution from here: https://github.com/lucasalexander/AlexanderDevelopment.ProcessRunner/releases/tag/v1.3. For more information on the use of this tool, take a look at the original blog posts:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/16/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-4/Tue, 16 Jan 2018 23:12:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/16/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-4/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that was built with .Net 4.7 to address the new requirement to use TLS 1.2 (or better) for connections to Dynamics 365 online instances as described in this entry on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 team blog: https://blogs.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/08/using-proxy-connections-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/Mon, 08 Jan 2018 15:16:49 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2018/01/08/using-proxy-connections-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/I was recently asked to add a feature to my Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover to enable connections through a proxy server. Because the tool is a .Net application, proxy server connections can be configured directly in the AlexanderDevelopmentConfigDataMover.exe.config file. For example, if you want to use the default Internet Explorer proxy settings, just add the following values inside the element:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/12/28/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-3/Thu, 28 Dec 2017 17:53:33 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/12/28/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-3/Several months ago I discussed an approach for passing notifications from local applications to the Dynamics 365 web client through a message listener process that runs on an end user’s PC and shared some sample code for how to implement it. Recently I used this approach to establish communication between Dynamics 365 web resources and a fingerprint reader attached to a local PC.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/11/28/creating-many-to-many-associations-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/Tue, 28 Nov 2017 20:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/11/28/creating-many-to-many-associations-with-the-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the ability to create many-to-many associations in the target system. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files. To create a many-to-many job step in the GUI, select the new “many to many” step type and input a FetchXML query for the relationship entity (relationship entity name on the many-to-many relationship form) that includes the GUID fields for each entity.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/11/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-2/Mon, 11 Sep 2017 17:17:17 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/09/11/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-2/I’ve released an updated version of my popular Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the following features: Path to source and target JSON data files can now be absolute or relative to current working directory. This is particularly useful for running the CLI tool in an automated fashion. Location of job configuration file can be passed to CLI tool as absolution or relative path.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/08/09/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-azure-functions/Wed, 09 Aug 2017 19:13:58 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/08/09/running-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-jobs-in-azure-functions/My Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Mover utility allows you to run synchronization jobs from an interactive GUI tool or the command line, but the actual data synchronization logic is contained in a separate AlexanderDevelopment.ConfigDataMover.Lib.dll file that can be included in other applications. In today’s post I will show how you can set up an Azure Function to execute a Configuration Data Mover job file to sync data between two Dynamics 365 organizations.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/21/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-2/Fri, 21 Jul 2017 12:30:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/21/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-2/In part one of this series, I discussed an approach for passing notifications from local applications to the Dynamics 365 web client through a message listener process that runs on an end user’s PC. Today I will show the code I used to build the message listener and the code to consume notifications in Dynamics 365.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/19/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-1/Wed, 19 Jul 2017 23:16:41 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/19/a-dynamics-365-local-message-listener-for-web-client-notifications-part-1/One problem that comes up from time to time on Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement projects is how to receive notifications from an application running on a user’s local PC. Although the Unified Service Desk (USD) interface supports a variety of ways for Dynamics 365 to interact with local applications, the out-of-the-box web interface does not.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/12/updated-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-to-support-new-online-regions/Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:17:30 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/07/12/updated-dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-to-support-new-online-regions/About two weeks ago a commenter mentioned that my Configuration Data Mover wasn’t working with UK Dynamics 365 online organizations that had been created since the change to the orgname.crm11.dynamics.com URL structure. I’ve released a new version with an updated SDK reference that has resolved the issue. If you are using an older version of the data mover and you are working with online orgs in a new region, you may want to go ahead and upgrade to the latest version here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/22/updated-version-of-dynamics-365-crm-deployment-wizard/Wed, 22 Mar 2017 20:15:15 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/22/updated-version-of-dynamics-365-crm-deployment-wizard/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Deployment Wizard that supports Dynamics 365. The Deployment Wizard is designed to automate your solution deployments much like the SDK’s Dynamics CRM Package Deployer, but while the SDK tool requires you to build a deployment package using Visual Studio, my Deployment Wizard tool only requires you to create a simple JSON manifest file.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/17/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-1/Fri, 17 Mar 2017 21:33:47 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/03/17/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-1/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility that includes the following features: Steps can now be set as create-only, update-only or create+update. You can browse to data files using a standard file open dialog window. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/27/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v2-0-1-2/Mon, 27 Feb 2017 22:35:20 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/27/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v2-0-1-2/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility that fixes a small annoyance in the previous version where you could open multiple instances of the set connection, about and check for upgrade windows. This upgrade is fully compatible with existing job files. ####Getting the Dynamics 365 Configuration Data Moverhttps://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/05/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-0/Sun, 05 Feb 2017 04:31:37 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2017/02/05/dynamics-365-configuration-data-mover-v2-0/I’ve released an updated version of my popular CRM Configuration Data Mover utility. This version now supports Dynamics 365 and has an updated GUI built with Windows Presentation Foundation that replaces the previous Windows Forms GUI. Jobs that were created with earlier versions of the tool will work with this version, but you will have to update your CRM connection parameters to specify the authorization type - Active Directory, IFD or Office 365.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/10/06/easy-dependent-picklists-for-dynamics-crm/Thu, 06 Oct 2016 22:25:11 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/10/06/easy-dependent-picklists-for-dynamics-crm/I’ve created a new solution for creating dependent picklists on Dynamics CRM forms that requires no coding to implement. You can download it from my Crm-Sample-Code GitHub repository here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lucasalexander/Crm-Sample-Code/master/misc-code-samples/easydependentpicklists.js Assume you have three picklists with related options like in the list below: lpa_level1picklist 1 2 lpa_level2picklist 1a 1b 2a 2b lpa_level3picklist 1a1 1a2 1b1 2a1 You can represent a tree of possible options like this: 1 -> 1a -> 1a1 1 -> 1a -> 1a2 1 -> 1b -> 1b1 2 -> 2a -> 2a1 2 -> 2a -> 1a1 2 -> 2bhttps://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/09/19/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows/Mon, 19 Sep 2016 21:07:07 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/09/19/updated-solution-for-scheduling-recurring-dynamics-crm-workflows/About three years ago I released an open source Dynamics CRM solution for scheduling and executing recurring workflows. My solution would execute a FetchXML query to return a set of records and then start a workflow for each of those records without requiring any external processes or tools. This is a generalized approach to solving a class of problems that includes the following scenarios:https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/06/29/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-11/Wed, 29 Jun 2016 22:08:03 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/06/29/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-11/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover tool that includes the following enhancements: Validation for FetchXML queries against the Dynamics CRM 2016 FetchXML XSD when jobs are saved through the GUI client and at the start of a job before any data is processed Better error reporting in the GUI client GUID mapping for the root business unit’s default team when the option to map the root business unit is selected ####Getting the Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover The source code is available in my GitHub repository here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/05/06/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-10/Fri, 06 May 2016 22:31:12 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/05/06/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-10/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover tool that adds the ability to synchronize entityimage attributes stored in flat-file extracts. Previous versions of the tool already allowed for entityimage synchronization when running a job directly between source and target CRM systems. ####Getting the Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover The source code is available in my GitHub repository here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/05/05/introducing-the-dynamics-crm-deployment-wizard/Thu, 05 May 2016 19:37:33 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/05/05/introducing-the-dynamics-crm-deployment-wizard/Over the course of my career, I have seen too many Dynamics CRM solution deployments fail because of poorly executed deployment processes. To make deployments easier, I have built a new tool called the Dynamics CRM Deployment Wizard. The CRM Deployment Wizard executes deployment (solution or reference data import) steps listed in a JSON manifest file, so all you have to do is organize your files, create the manifest and run the deployment job.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/04/25/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-9/Mon, 25 Apr 2016 02:41:15 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/04/25/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-9/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover tool that includes the following enhancements: Setting statecode and statuscode values on create or update is now supported. The tool will not set statuscode unless statecode is also specified. Record ownership can now be changed on updates. ####Getting the Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover The source code is available in my GitHub repository here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/03/04/moving-dynamics-crm-calendar-records-with-the-configuration-data-mover/Fri, 04 Mar 2016 14:54:24 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/03/04/moving-dynamics-crm-calendar-records-with-the-configuration-data-mover/Last month a colleague of mine asked if it would be possible to synchronize Dynamics CRM service calendars and holiday calendars using my Configuration Data Mover tool. At first it looked like it would be complicated, but after trying a few different approaches, it turned out to be incredibly simple. Before getting to the solution, let’s look at how Dynamics CRM stores calendar data.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/12/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-7/Fri, 12 Feb 2016 03:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/12/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-7/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover tool that includes the following GUI enhancements: Password masking in connection form (saved passwords are still stored as plain text) Improved record error logging to show reason for import failure Improved connection error handling for import jobs Thanks to GitHub user btull89 for suggesting the first two items and submitting some code for them.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/09/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-6/Tue, 09 Feb 2016 21:01:25 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/09/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-6/I’ve released an updated version of my Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover tool that includes the following GUI enhancements: A reorganized toolbar A separate form to enter and validate connection details Validation that the XML in a job step can be parsed as XML (does not actually validate the FetchXML query) Check for latest version functionality ####Getting the Dynamics CRM Configuration Data Mover The source code is available in my GitHub repository here.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/01/moving-access-team-templates-with-the-configuration-data-mover/Mon, 01 Feb 2016 16:16:48 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/02/01/moving-access-team-templates-with-the-configuration-data-mover/Dynamics CRM access team templates are stored as regular CRM records, just like teams or queues. Although Dynamics CRM does not allow users to query team template records with an advanced find, it is possible to query them with FetchXML, which means they can be synchronized between organizations using my Configuration Data Mover utility.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/01/29/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-5/Fri, 29 Jan 2016 14:00:00 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2016/01/29/dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover-v1-5/Back in November I released my Alexander Development Dynamics Configuration Data Mover tool, and I received a tremendous amount of positive feedback. Since then I’ve been asked several times why someone would want to use my tool instead of the Configuration Migration tool that is included in the CRM SDK, and so I’ve decided to summarize the four main advantages my tool has over the SDK tool.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2015/11/11/introducing-the-dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover/Wed, 11 Nov 2015 21:28:22 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2015/11/11/introducing-the-dynamics-crm-configuration-data-mover/A frequent challenge when working with Dynamics CRM is making sure that configuration data like teams and queues have the same record GUIDs in all of a project’s different environments for development, testing and production. Without identical GUIDs, any processes, scripts or other customizations that reference a record’s id will have to be changed between environments, and this is risky because it means you’re running a solution in production that’s different than what was actually tested in a lower environment.https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2015/10/20/xrmtoolbox-plugin-for-moving-access-team-templates/Tue, 20 Oct 2015 22:04:35 +0000https://alexanderdevelopment.net/post/2015/10/20/xrmtoolbox-plugin-for-moving-access-team-templates/Late last year I created a console application for moving access team templates between Dynamics CRM organizations, and I described it in this blog post. Following up on that, I’ve created an XrmToolBox plugin to make it even easier to move access team templates (with GUIDs) between CRM organizations. I’ve also added functionality to automatically enable access teams on the relevant entities in the target organization if desired.